My players are almost to the end of the spy ring, so the Free Captain's Regatta is ahead.
I've looked it over, and I'm not fond of how it goes. In particular, I don't like the fact that it automatically comes down to final bit of race between the players and Harrigan, and that even if the players lose, they still "win" because of the plot.
So I'm looking to redo this a bit. A couple of guiding principles:
The storylines converge. The PCs at this point have a number of allies, rivals, friends, and enemies. I want several, if not all, of the captains from those ships (including a ghoul pirate who has a beef with the PCs) to be opponents in the Regatta.
The players must work to win. I don't want them to loose the Captain's Regatta. But at the same time, they should have to work for their victory -- make skill rolls work together with their crew, etc.
There must be a chance for the players to lose. I don't like the ending where the players get handed the victory even if they lose the Race. I want there to be a genuine chance the players will lose the race, and thus lose out on their opportunity to get the Isle of Empty Eyes. The reason for this is that if there's no chance the players will lose, then I don't really feel like they've earned their ending.
Those are the metagame/design aspects of this for me.
