Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!) (with update)

H

Heaven's Thunder Hammer

Member
Note: Cody Marbach, please stop reading here.


Ok, so I've offered to run a pirate/naval solar/lunar game for my group. I've got some ideas on the boiler plate, and mainly was curious... As I've never done a sea game before and need new information.


The main idea presented by the players (not me!) is them getting a functioning first age boat of some kind (I'm thinking the 4 dot one) and starting out with the challenges of operating and maintaining the boat. The big challenge I forsee is how can they use the thing without getting it stolen somehow? Realistically, every big player will be interested in capturing an unaligned first age vessel.


Other themes of interest are exploration of the world of exalted and seeing many different parts of the world.


I also was curious about other poeple's experiences or ideas on these questions:


If you have run a naval/pirate game before what kind of challenges did you have as a story teller? What were your best moments?


Did some of your adventures go horribly wrong? If so, what happened?


thanks! :) HTH
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


Simple... just remember to have them invest a dot or two in followers or allies. This will allow them to man the ship with a full crew and be able to leave the ship while at port... if you get my meaning.


See... the fact that EVERYONE wants the ship is a plot hook right there. Kind of like the Black Pearl in the Pirates' movie.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


Regarding the everyone-wants-this-ship issue, you can either take Haku's suggestion, or have the characters keep the FA ship disguised as a modern-day one...and a ratty one at that. When they're close to or in port, large wood hull pieces would be covering all the shiny goodness. For that matter, the ship may have the power to disguise itself, though that's the easy way out. Having the PCs and their flunkies trying to camouflaging their ship every time land appears on the horizon can be rather entertaining for a good bit.


I've reread 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' recently, and that may just provide some inspiration of odd and bizarre lands to visit on a ship.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


This definitely sounds like a "Battle of the Five Armies" scenario, where the Players have got a treasure that anyone who finds out about it is going to want.


I'd start with a list of potential antagonists, myself, and work backwards. Of the assembled cast of villains, which are the most likely to use force? which would use trickery? Is one a strong force, with good organization and immediately available backing, or are they a small scouting vessel, stumbling on the characters (or the First Age cache) by accident, far from home?


Do they see the PCs first, and follow them to the First Age Ship, or do they get there first, and suffer the PCs stealing it out from under their noses?


If two (or more) antagonists show up at the same time, would they ally together to take out the heroes, or fight each other?


Lastly, what group of 'villains' might *NOT* want the boat? And why? (Perhaps they've already got one, izza very nice.) How can the PCs potentially turn this to their advantage?


Mix-and match a few of these, put on some Benny Hill music, and watch the chaos commence.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)

The big challenge I forsee is how can they use the thing without getting it stolen somehow? Realistically' date=' every big player will be interested in capturing an unaligned first age vessel.[/quote']
Realistically, every big player will know better than to try. The Realm is the only force with enough Exalted to make a play for a FA ship crewed by Anathema. And a crew of Anathema pirates on a leaky raft will attract Realm attention fast enough anyway. Everyone else isn't going to risk their vessels in a fight unless they have no choice or are certain of victory.


The problem is more the little players. People with nothing to lose and willing to gamble on boarding and taking the ship. Safe havens for pirates are few, havens for pirates with such a prize are nonexistent. You might want to consider the privateer route to ensure at least one friendly port.
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Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll use what you've said along with my own ideas to give the players an array of options to choose from on how they play it out.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


The thing i'm really thinking on now is how potent the ship is. My main concept is for to have extra features, but ones that were not completely finished, therefore the PC's have the incentive to sail around and go on adventures looking for the right parts (amongst other things.) Since they wish to go a-pirating, I'm thinking of:


1.) standard 4 dot 1st age light cruiser


2.) beefed up 5 dot version of 1st age cruiser (make it a bit longer, a couple more guns)


3.) something like at the n/a heavy cruiser, but without the crazy wyld shaped trimarian hull crap, which I think looks stupid and is hard to picture in the first place.


My main thing is to not start them out with an invincible toy... Something that is potent yes, but doesn't give them a god complex and provide an easy way out. I want to make interesting stories and make sure they earn what they get.


Any thoughts?
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


I like the idea of having certain vital features being obviously there, but non-functional ("Don't worry! Lando promised me the Hyperdrive was fixed!!") or sporadic in nature.


Guns, especially, spring to mind. But perhaps also simpler amenities, such as water purifiers, hearthstone settings, essence batteries, hydroponics, artificing workshops, warning systems, sorcerous wards, stuff like that.


Things that need fixing (or wierd ingredients, or a constant supply of expensive material, or the blessing of a certain spirit in order to resume function) make excellent plot hooks. Make the Wyld storm hiding the Fae Host drift closer and closer as your players frantically try to get the Wyld-Shaping Engine that protects the ship working. Let the artificer of the group try to convince the others that being able to craft Artifacts on-ship is *worth* pissing off Excessively Righteous Blossom by sneaking into the Lap to steal a left-handed-Essence-hexawinder (and a few seven-inch soulsteel hex bolts, of course - surely he won't miss those). For that matter, where can you get enough refined Orichalcum to replace 400 yards of high-grade essence-gathering circuit wire? And who can you ask about it, without tipping off what, exactly, you're repairing? And so forth.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


There is only 1 ship listed in the game that I cant defeat with 10 terrestrials, and that’s the 5 mettle shrike.


Read very carefully the cooperative effects of elemental bolt, take 5 terrestrials, one with stamina 5, each with an elemental lens, baring perfect defenses (that are hard to get for ships) there are precious few things that can stand up to even one of these 100 damage strikes.


With 2 of these elemental lance teems moving separately you should be able to severely damage there ship.


I have pulled this trick on my players, and they all lived, although I did manage to severely inger my iron twilight (he didn’t have a perfect defense, but the elemental lance teams where under strength (only 4 each teem) and only one lived long enough to take even one attack.


Naturally the realm and lookshy are the only institutions in creation that can whield this kind of fire power. And they rarly do but the look on a players face when you tell him he took 5 points of damage after armor, roll and twilight anima banner, as well as loosing a couple of ticks of initiative, being knocked prone and taking a penalty to his next attack is priceless.


Incase your interested it was house nelans members working with a wild hunt that I had using the trick, showing that DBs of negligible breeding and low essence willing to work together make a more powerful force than the rarer more puissant DBs


Edward
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)

My main thing is to not start them out with an invincible toy... Something that is potent yes' date=' but doesn't give them a god complex and provide an easy way out. I want to make interesting stories and make sure they [i']earn[/i] what they get.
Any thoughts?
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Magical Material hulls put you dangerously close to that threshold as it is. An Implosion Bow puts them at a decisive advantage over anyone in a mundane ship. If it moves under its own engines, your crew can safely outrun almost every naval threat in the books.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)

Magical Material hulls put you dangerously close to that threshold as it is.
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Also true in a mundane ship with hull preserving tequnike (sail charm)

An Implosion Bow puts them at a decisive advantage over anyone in a mundane ship.
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Also true if they take sorcery, or any of a half dozen hard hitting damage charms or artifacts

If it moves under its own engines, your crew can safely outrun almost every naval threat in the books.
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A couple of sail charms will again make this true of solars on a mundane vessel, or a couple of archery charms and a willingness to unrig the enemy ship at extreme range.


Ships are fragile things, with access to a bow, fog crotch arrows and supernatural accuracy a mundane ship can be crippled at a range that would make captains of the Dutch East India company weep (in joy or despair depending on who’s side they are on). And the rules for exalted actually let this work. Regadless of the ship your party has I would not expect mundane ships in small numbers to be a serious issue, the PCs will usually be able to set the circumstances of the engagement. Unless the enemy can outmaneuver them around islands or in obscuring weather (of cause I would have awareness charms to mitigate this risk)


So what can threaten my PCs you ask.


Well everything you where afraid of giving them. First age hulls, essence drive craft and ships captained or crewed by essence wielders with sail charms. Submarines are especially good as they can sneak up far better than any surface ship.


I would start your party out on a mundane ship but expect that they will romp all over the opposition until you send a first age hull after them, then they will take it for there own, personally I would use one of the realms dawning sun indomitable class ships. They have been so poorly maintained that it will be years in game before the PCs can get it up to full strength again. Or a dolphin undersea courier, while tactically brilliant they don’t provide living space.


My predictions do assume a certain tactical skill on your players parts, less than optimal power selection, or lack of apretiation of the vilnerabilitys of ships (and this is pointed out in scroll of kings) and you could


Edward
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)

An Implosion Bow puts them at a decisive advantage over anyone in a mundane ship.
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Also true if they take sorcery, or any of a half dozen hard hitting damage charms or artifacts


The issue is not damage but range. A light implosion bow is very accurate, very damaging, and has a range that can be expressed as a significant fraction of a mile. It is also extremely efficient compared to most charms that could enhance weapons to similar effect, meaning the war of attrition is little threat.


And at the same time, we're talking about an expense of a halfdozen or so background dots and some ancillary abilities, not purchasing up charms and spells. Meaning you don't need a character with more than a cursory interest in sailing and you have one of the most fearsome pirates in the sea, plus all the other abilities the character has bought up.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


I once played a pirate Solar (Captain Pan) who had an artifact ship in 1st Ed. I used the broken Artifact merit to make it more balanced for the starting level game and I worked out a pretty good deal with the storyteller.


Basically when the ship had been plundered by the Realm navy from the LAST anathema to own it (my last incarnation) the Admiral partially dismantled it and ruined some of the magic. The biggest limitation was that we had a normal wooden mast. The admiral had taken it home and it now served as the center beam of his island mansion's roof (the game died before i could get anywhere near assaulting it). The only fancy part of the ships my character had been able to figure out before he exalted were the cookstoves and the steerage, both of which were just high tech versions of the same amenities on normal ships. Convenient but not very impressive.


The ship also had spots for several hearthstones and only one seemed to do anything that we could figure out, and that was to make the boat go faster. Having a super-hard boat that can go twice the speed as normal was enough for us to have a lot of fun.


We did get a second hearthstone in the course of play and eventually (no Twilights, just a Follower Scavenger Lord) found out how to activate a weapon. I can't remember what it was but I think it couldn't be aimed very well since the only controls we understood were the ones next to the hearthstone in the belly of the ship.


Also, for those who say that a boat made of magical materials would be super obvious, don't be so sure. In the sea faring supplement for 1st ed (Savage Seas? I just know it wasn't blood and Salt) they mention that EVERY ship is coated in layers of paint to keep the wood from rotting. We just used a little more paint and tar than most ships. When we ran a ground or were rammed by a jade prow instead of patching the hull we dispatched a a couple guys with buckets of paint and hammers to bang the scratches smooth and then paint it back up.


As far as storyteller advice, one of the thing that you can do to keep the players on their toes is enforce rations and other supplies. Sure Lunars and Solars have ways around such limitations but make the characters spend XP and use them rather than just hand waving it. Logistics are even more important when you can't just "walk to a nearby village".


This also echoes what people said earlier when it comes to manpower. Pay close attention to the crew minimums and use the usual difficulties of keeping a group of people (PCs and NPCs) together in a small space for long periods of time.


--The problem that my ST had was that I was the ship's captain and the other's were along for the ride even though they were solars of equal power. Only once did any of them object to my plans, let alone ask to do something on their own. It was a problem with the party dynamic mostly but you need to be careful that the game doesn't just sail in one direction.


--The ST of a naval always has one ace up his sleeve when planning an encounter. Placing the plot point in land. Puting a manse or fortress a half day's march or further inland takes the characters away from a lot of the powerful equipment and charms that can make them kings of the sea. Your players might smell a rat if you don't get them off the ship very often so make sure that the ports and islands they visit often have something of interest further inland to at least one or two characters. That will make it less obvious when you do launch your attack. Then again, if the party gets a FLYING ship the strategy doesn't really work, just ask MY current ST. :twisted:


I'm eager to see what other sort of advice people offer because there's been a clamour for an Abyssal pirates game in my group for about a year and I might end up running that. It would give me a chance to run Captain Pan as an enemy NPC. :D
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


I've been running a game for a while now in which one of the early adventures involved salvaging a first-age ship (custom 5 dot yacht with cool features but no weapons). The salvage process was a great story and they even had a run-in with Moray Darktide. After they got it floating they pursued they process of restoring it to it's full function. They had to find their way to Luthe and make friends there to use first-age tools and equipment and they didn't manage to perfect it's best feature (sailing on dragon lines) until they cleared out and reclaimed the city of Speremin and dragged the thing there for repairs.


After all of it, the ship itself is now about on par with the power level of the group, just like it was when they were newbies and it was a leaky hunk of magic trash with a jury rig and no rudder. The point I'm circling is that the item itself can be an ongoing sup-plot that adds a lot to the story. It becomes their home, pet project, and transportation. Also, there are quite a few artifact ships out there and the big players own them. One leaky orichalcum raft isn't worth risking a legion over and once it gets truly noticable, the group is strong enough to hold onto it.


Hope it helps!
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


Whale spirits. That's all ye need for an interesting encounter. :P That and running from Siakas.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)

Whale spirits. That's all ye need for an interesting encounter.
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Or the hungry ghosts of clubbed baby seals when they go to shore with a landing party.
Depends on how you play but you could always be the bane of another group of pirates that they leak where you are to the Immaculate Order and eventually you'll have the crew of their ship boarding yours in an old fashioned ship-to-ship fight.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)

I don't think animals have souls... But still' date=' neat idea. Maybe clubbed baby seal-[i']people[/i]. Yeah that'll work out well. :)
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They kind of do. Marukan horses almost always leave ghosts when they die and animals sacrificed as burial offerings show up as plasmic versions of themselves in the underworld.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)

Or the hungry ghosts of clubbed baby seals when they go to shore with a landing party.
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One of the more interesting story arcs I had with a group of Sidereals was an excursion into the Labyrinth to find the remains of the Constellation of the Mask. The ST had a field day with all the bizarre nephwracks and spectres the Circle encountered; some of the more memorable encounters involved clubbed-baby-seal nephwracks and a hekatonshire resembling a large tyrant lizard, with traces of an oddly purple fur/fuzz on what was left of its body.
 
Re: Ocean Going Games? (aka Pirates!)


I've been running an Exalted game set in the West for some time. The game features a "circle" of mixed Exalted types, one of whom owns a First Age ship (the four-point one).


The first major storyline I threw at them involved a powerful Exalted nemesis capturing The Unseen Slicer of Waves. (In this case, an Infernal with considerable Lintha support to call upon.) This plotline not only gave the Exalted a reason to work together, but it presented a worthy foe.


The Unseen Slicer of Waves is mentioned briefly in the Sidereals book (pg 80).


--Kkat
 
Note: Cody Marbach, please stop reading here.


Well... Interesting adventure upon adventure... This post contains piles of spoilers for The terrestrial direction book: the west, so be warned. Note: I didn't follow what was in that book canonically, so don't freak about out that please.


The PC's ended up in one of the Silver Prince's factory manses where most of his navy was stashed. I didn't read that part where the bit of the Silver Prince's Neverborn master was in a different place, so they PC's stumbled upon a sacred alter with a single piece of black granular sand... Or so it seemed. It was the piece of the neverborn that the silver prince uses to communie with his master. One of the PC's (the twilight) grabbed it and proceeded to have a battle of wills via mental telapathy/whatever with the neverborn. I've given him some dots in whispers, and am tempted to make at least 2-3 of them permenant. (the fool grabbed it again after dropping it.) That seem reasonable?


Also: The Zenith used his caste power to destroy the piece of neverborn. Since they were in the factory manse, they took the time to totally trash the place and make sure it would go nuclear. Which it did, blowing up about 50-75 ships of the Silver Prince's first age fleet.


Also, I'm trying to think of the Silver Prince's reaction to all this. Any thoughts?


My main thought is how he's going to kill them pretty damn quick, but want tomake sure the story is consistent, epic and awesome. Consistency unfortunately falls by the wayside in the face of epic awesomeness though. I see it as making the best out of a bad situation:


1.) Deploy remaining fleet and take out coral and wavecrest. (12 first age boats on each should be enough to destroy their fleets.) However, that's not enough to take out the realm fleet.


2.) Put a bounty on the solars (except he doesn't know who they are, their boat can turn invisible.)


3.)Come out in person and killthem


etc.


Also:


Their boat was boarded by a couple abyssals. I need to make them more powerful, as I didn't kill even one of hte players. Dang. Anyways. The necromancer got stunned, and botch her roll to resist stun, so she fainted, and the PC's have decided to question her via social combat. (Next session.) any thoughts on this?


thanks!


HTH!
 
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