I am in the planning stages of a pirate themed campaign currently and I've decided that I am going to give my players extra wealth so that they can deal with various extraneous expenses like ship maintenance, crew salary, and other pirate like purchases. I have absolutely no idea where to start with this though I am leaning towards the opinion that a little too much is better than too little. How much extra wealth should I give my players?
None, you should hand wave it as part of the game. alternatively try out the john brazer kingdom building book and try to hash out a build point (booty point?) system of wealth out of that where you give them extra treasure in booty (captured ship, rare silks etc) and have them use that to manage their pirate empire. It works well for kingmaker and the book is actually very good for a pirate game as well (mass combat, exploration, empire building, abstract item generation and abstract currency to pay for your empire with).
The problem with giving players extra wealth is that they will most likely spend it on themselves unless you have a very conciencious gaming group. Hand waving is the easiest method, using a BP system in which the money they use for piracy is different to their actual gold pile is a simple method of seperation.
If your going to give out extra cash be prepared to become an accountant to keep track of your players wealth and power, you may find that if you get your balance out of whack your players will end up over or underpowered for their APL depending on what you give out and what they spend on their crew vs them selves. Be prepared to adjust CR's accordingly.
For an easier option look towards the new skulls and shackles adventure path for inspiration?
None, you should hand wave it as part of the game. alternatively try out the john brazer kingdom building book and try to hash out a build point (booty point?) system of wealth out of that where you give them extra treasure in booty (captured ship, rare silks etc) and have them use that to manage their pirate empire. It works well for kingmaker and the book is actually very good for a pirate game as well (mass combat, exploration, empire building, abstract item generation and abstract currency to pay for your empire with).
The problem with giving players extra wealth is that they will most likely spend it on themselves unless you have a very conciencious gaming group. Hand waving is the easiest method, using a BP system in which the money they use for piracy is different to their actual gold pile is a simple method of seperation.
This separation of wealth seems like a good start, I'll run it by my players and see what they think. They have been looking forward to making money decisions, but your right about the accountant part. I'd prefer to avoid AP's if possible.
1. Ship Maintenance - this comes out of loot. Now go get some, or you're gonna be on the drift!
2. Crew Salary - are you office drones or pirates? The crew gets paid when the loot is hauled aboard! Now go get you some!
3. Pirate Like Purchases - I'm assuming you mean women and drink. See the above points, my man. You're a bunch of no-good, robbing, murdering, pirates, so act like it! You don't pay for anything that you can take by force.
Basically, your crew doesn't need anything extra. You need to set sail and get to proper pirating.
|
Pipedreamsam, I think the suggestion isn't to run the AP but to lift the wealth subsystem that we anticipate will be created. From your players perspective they are still dealing with wealth, just on a much more macroscopic level. Less tedious penny counting, and more raiding treasure, drinking and wenching.
You will have to speak to your players preference and play styles, within our group, we found micromanaging our kingdom to be to similar to our day jobs (tedious meetings, politicking, and paperwork) and failed to meet our escapist quotient that we all came to the gaming table to fulfill. Different folks love that level of detail. It is the difference between Sim City 1, and Sim City 4.
One other simpler way i just thought of is to set up a "pirate lifestyle" and charge the players for that, either as a group or individually. say 500gp a month for a basic pirate lifestyle (a small ship, 10 crew, staying in cheap taverns with ugly wenches), 10000gp a month (a flotilla of ships, hundreds of crew, the best taverns with private rooms for your officers and wholly taking over cheap taverns for your crew when you come to port, the finest wenches for you and a downward wench grading for officers and crew) and some additional spaces in between.
Ioaba while they are pirates a lot of them are breaking from the typical pirate cliche and at lest one of them is playing an Andoren privateer or more specifically basically an anti-slaver.
Galnorag Thanks for the clarification and the advice, I'll try to avoid the tedious copper counting, Egoish had a good idea for dealing with that just making it one flat number.
Egoish I will try that, it seems like a pretty simple way to handle all of this, but I still am not sure how much extra wealth to give my players. Waiting for the book to come out seems like the smartest idea, but my players are getting antsy and if I make them wait over a month they might just shank me.
Maybe I'll just play it by ear since they will be low level for a while until the book comes out.
I'd take a look at the way they want to live and then try to give them that much as a "reward" for sucess. like if they decide they want to live like pirate kings (10000gp per month in my above example) and they do something particularly well then have them find/rob/earn 10000gp for that adventure, if they fail then they have to either support their own lifestyle for an adventure or they have to suck it up and live like captain jack sparrow.
when you write adventures have a key theme and then write in a few things that piratey types can take advantage off, like expensive candle sticks that can go missing or randoming a counts daughter back to him etc, if they miss out on all the clues or don't act piratey enough then they will be sat around on a desert island asking "what do you means theres no rum?".