Just idle curiosity here, but have your PC pirates taken specific positions in your pirate crew?
One PC gets to be the captain, right? What about the rest? Is one of them the 1st officer or in charge of the siege equipment, or are they just general layabouts on the ship waiting for caves to explore or monsters to slay?
general
The characters are settling into their onboard roles...
Our Witch will stay on as cook (and funnily enough as part-time Healer) , Tiefling Fighter/Rogue will go for captain, Rosie (ex-NPC) will become First Mate, Oracle of Lore will go for Sailing Master/Navigator and was always planned that way. Bad times for Kroop.
New char coming in at Rickety (with a backstory of trust to the other chars) , who will, if no other special qualifications turn up, be settled in as Quartermaster. Otherwise that job will fall to the Witch. We may need another Boatswains Mate (replacing Scourge) or Carpenter though
We abolished the "Master Gunner" (a highly useless position).
And after the Island, the crew is hard-pressed forcing the "officers" to actually work still on the ropes themselves, and given the very low population at Rickety's, it will be a tough choice to even get to anything like a full complement. Hence, no time for loafers
My group has taken the idea of officers positions and mixed them with party roles.
Captain: Bard, the one with the plan, party face
First Office/Boatswain: Rogue, keeps track of crew compliment, secondary face
Quartermaster/Master Gunner: Magus, keeps inventory (including PC loot, selling prices, etc), and keeps up to date on siege weapons
Master At Arms: Barbarian, keeps crew in line, entertainment
Sailing Master/Carpenter: Druid, sails and keeps the ship healthy
Any tips on how to make those roles come alive?
I'd read some ideas a while back about Kingmaker and steps one GM took to make sure each player got to do something based on their role in the government (like the general getting to raise and move armies or the less-exciting sounding treasurer who got to dole out build points to everyone).
Aside from the piloting checks and siege engine attacks in combat, any thoughts on how you keep a carpenter engaged?
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I'd read some ideas a while back about Kingmaker and steps one GM took to make sure each player got to do something based on their role in the government (like the general getting to raise and move armies or the less-exciting sounding treasurer who got to dole out build points to everyone).
I hadn't spotted this- link please?
I hadn't spotted this- link please?
I did a quick search to see if I could dig it up again, but it's not showing. It wasn't its own thread, just a reply someone made to a Kingmaker-related post over at ENWorld.
It was only a few lines about what his players were doing (so not ideas for each potential posting), but I really liked the concept and it seemed to work.
I thought maybe some experiences might've popped up for doing something similar for S&S.
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i only made notes so far - I really don't think random rolls for "random encounters" make a story more exciting.
Captain : picking targets, battle command (setup - tactics and strategy) general command, including settling unrest among the crew. Being the "frontman", haggling with fences... ahh, and being heroic ! Yes, the later part is important if your crew is going to look to you to solve their problems^^
Quartermaster : keeping ship in stocks + having the foodstuff actually kept in the proper place and available (yes heavy retrimming of the ship is necessary from time to time), appraising and sharing out treasure. The "ship shop" from AP-1 ? I guess everyone wants to get rid of that inanity. If the royal Navy could hand out sailcloth to the crew, I guess so can pirates
Therefore handing out and receiving back special equipment, clothes for the crew, sets of disguises.. the works. Will probably also include keeping the ship in shape (paintwork, rot, ropage in working condition, sailcloth ) if no carpenter is found. He may also have fun jobs when going on land (purchasing stuff the heroic captain cannotor would be too well-known for to buy) and possibly be the alternate for haggling over treasure
Sailing Master : navigation (lot's of it), cartography, keeeping the ship in optimum sailing shape, training master mates capable of handling basic navigation (so he/she can sleep), logging, depth-sounding, steering the boat in difficult situations (or having a mate for that )
First Mate : supervising crew, keeping them both inline and motivated. Setting out work rotation, supervising punishments, being the "tough guy" nobody cares to mess with before the captain even notices. Having the decks swabbed, the head kept clean, hammocks stored orderly and in a shipwise fashion, starting loafers to get back to work. Usually being better than the swabs at their tasks.
Cook/healer: Food provisioning, cooking and afterwork, plus for us healing the sick and wounded (list of interesting seaboard diseases for that ). Will interlink heavily with quartermaster
we won't use a Gunner's Mate who would nominally maintain any siege engines (resetting of ropes, removal of rust and repolishing, keeping a reliable supply of bolts in orderly shape, chisseling stones - normally he would be responsible for filling and sewing cartridges, overseeing the maintenance of the guns and maintaining gun discipline (which as written does not happen ).
we took positions to run the ship, our antipaladin is our captain. the monk is the first mate, the goblin (me :) ) is the cabin girl
i cannot remember all the characters (we have a party of 8, plus alts on the night watch)
Just idle curiosity here, but have your PC pirates taken specific positions in your pirate crew?
One PC gets to be the captain, right? What about the rest? Is one of them the 1st officer or in charge of the siege equipment, or are they just general layabouts on the ship waiting for caves to explore or monsters to slay?
Our ship's Captain is the party's Bard. She has the highest charisma, serves as our 'face' in negotiations of all sorts and the ship is named after her - with the 'legends' we've been spreading around about her she has become almost a cult figure lately, and the 'Maiden's Promise' lives up to its reputation.
Our ship's Pilot is the Master Summoner - among other things his aquatic elven girl of an eidolon can fly, swim and breathe underwater, serving as the perfect look-out able to communicate telepathically back to him. She even goes on 'search' missions to find us likely prey.
Our ship's Boatswain and Master-at-Arms is a fauchard-wielding Lore-Warden (with a Charisma of 7). He leads boarding parties and landing parties as well.
Our ship's Master Gunner is a half-orc Draconic Sorcerer who's working towards Dragon Disciple, specializing in fire spells - he serves is in charge of coordinating ranged attacks be they against ship or sea monster.
NPC's handle the remaining jobs, including:
A far more sober Seaguts Kroop as ship's Cook.
Sandara Quinn serves as Quartermaster and ship's Surgeon as well as being in charge of crew morale.
Mardus Siggs (youth from Tidewater Rock) serves as ship's Cabin boy.
Apart from that we have more or less nameless NPC's as swabs, riggers and whatnot. The GM keeps a list of a dozen or so names and personalities, crossing them off and adding to them after each battle, but that's pretty much it.
Rosie Cuswell has been given the Thresher after it was taken to captain for herself and sails under the flag of the 'Maiden' in return for 1/8th her plunder held at a warehouse in Port Peril until she has paid out twice the ship's value, after which she'll own the ship outright.
Generally whenever we leave the ship to go adventuring, its the four mains and the Sandara who make up our 'away team'. Kroop is left in charge in those instances as well as instances when we are in port, preferring to remain on ship. We're admittedly vulnerable to mutiny, but we are very generous with our crew and they adore the captain, in part because of the 'maiden's promise' that saves them from combat occaisionally. Its both safer and more profitable to be a member of our pirate crew than pretty much any other in the Shackles.
I told the players they could run the ship anyway they want, with whatever positions they felt like assigning. Clearly someone had to pilot the ship, but beyond that everything was flexible.
The result is we have a Captain, Vice Captain, Cook, and a Sergeant at Arms...
Do the birds have jobs? ....
