How do pirate captains manage the health of their crew, particularly in the areas of nutrition and disease?
On a more granular level:
What are the staple, easily-stored foods, and how are they supplemented with fresh foods?
[Are we talking ship’s biscuit and salt beef with regular landfalls to get fruit and vegetables? Is there magical cold storage so they can have frozen whatever? Do they take vitamin supplements? Do none of these things happen, so long voyages always result in nutritional deficiencies, including scurvy?]
What level of medical knowledge and expertise are available in your world in general, and on ships in particular?
[Are they even at the level where they know and acknowledge that scurvy is caused by poor diet? Is healing all magic and four-humors pseudo-medicine? Is it difficult to get a competent physician to join a pirate crew, leading to bullet wounds being treated by barbers or dentists?]
How do pirate captains deal with contagious diseases, and what are the most common shipboard epidemics?
[Is quarantine a thing? …in a confined space? Do they have the germ theory of disease at all, or is the focus on “bad air” and ventilation, or demons, or divine disfavor…? Are they looking at flu, plague, body lice, intestinal parasites, syphilis, all of the above…? Do crew members generally comply with the orders of the captain and/or surgeon, or are you likely to have half the crew sick, and the other half mutinying?]
How are battle wounds dealt with?
[Related to 2, but you’ll want specific protocols for different kinds of injuries, removal of bullets, shrapnel, or arrows as relevant, suturing techniques or lack thereof, bandage material, disinfectant or lack thereof, pain management—other than liquor—if any, ways of dealing with infection, if you want to go there, and, of course, prosthetics, because, IMO, you can’t have a pirate setting without the option of peg legs and hook hands, and anything else bad you think might happen to characters in battle].
How much value do captains place on keeping a crew alive, vs just replacing crew members when they die from injuries or disease?
[Fun fact: the British navy—and other Western navies—used to deliberately overcrowd ships at the start of the voyage because they knew a large portion of the crew would die, and they wanted to retain enough sailors to make it home. Quite possibly the death rate would have been lower without the initial overcrowding, and it definitely would have been lower if they had invested in medical care rather than extra recruits. I suspect pirates were, historically, as bad or worse in this respect. The extent to which captains in your world see crew members as replaceable vs repairable will be demonstrated by your answers to the preceding questions, or, if you’d rather go the other way, might help you decide on the answers].
…all of which probably makes it sound like I hate maritime dramas, which is totally false, lol, I love them, I just have a really morbid imagination.
We’re talking ship’s biscuit/hard tack and salted meat for the most part. If they want to up morale they might buy spices or other dried ingredients. And yes, savvy quartermaster would also buy fresh fruit/veg regularly to supplement this. You’ve made me realise that the party hasn’t done this yet, so unless they stock up on fruit at the next port, they’ll start getting scurvy amongst the crew. Magical refrigeration would be possible, but expensive and rare.
Yes it would be tricky to find a competent ship’s doctor who was willing to join a pirate crew. Magical healing may be more realistic, most would not help with scurvy. Experienced sailors would know about the need for regular fruit/veg.
Contagious disease is definitely a thing that could happen, and the cause could be natural infections or germs, or just as easily a curse, demons, divine intervention. I don’t think there would he much knowledge of germ theory per se, but even during the plague people know to quarantine the sick. It would be hard aboard a ship and the crew may resist it though, yes.
Battle wounds could be treated either wit mh magic or the use of surgery or regular medicine. Infections are a problem and they are most likely to simply lop off the offending limb, resulting in wooden legs and hooks for hands, etc. Because I agree those are absolutely necessary.
Interesting question. I’d say it largely depends on tge Captain. Generally conditions aboard a pirate ship are much better than sailing in a navy, or for the Southern Islands Company (and i think this is largely historically accurate). They are better paid and more highly valued. And they have a say in how the ship is run. There had to be some incentive to join tgenoirates rather than the navy). That said, there are some more ruthless pirate captains who treat their crews worse and see them as more expendable. Its up to the party how they run their ship, but if they mistreat the crew too badly, they may have to deal with a mutiny.
Very thorough! I like your framework of needing to provide an incentive to join the pirates rather than the navy. That’s exactly the kind of organizing principle I find useful with world building.
Fresh vegetables have vitamin C, too, so you could give them credit for that. If the actual party gets scurvy, and you want to make it a plot point, I recommend you make their most recent battle wounds reopen. That’s a real potential symptom of scurvy, and is likely to confuse them. Technically, it wouldn’t be the first symptom, iirc, but it’s easy to communicate in the context of a campaign, and scarier than bleeding gums, though I think the root cause is the same. (Something about connective tissue breaking down).
I mean, depending how vicious you want to be, lol, I am the kind of person who weaponizes realism in fiction or games. I think a little unexpected horror helps people focus on the story.
How do pirates force other ships to stop? I always struggle with ship-to-ship combat in DnD. Obviously, we don't want to give them easy access to cannons as that would lead to the question: Why aren't cannons used elsewhere? But at the same time, the ancient form of naval warfare of ramming, arrows, and boarding has its own challenges. Mostly that it doesn't translate well to the game mechanics.
First, the actual interesting part would be the outmaneuvering and positioning of ships. Something that just doesn't work with DnD rules so it has to be simplified or even handwaved. But also that ship crews are rather big. So every fight has a ton of low-level fighters involved and would just take forever without being interesting.
With merchant ships, you can kinda solve it by having a few higher-level fighters, and the rest surrender once they are dead. So you just have a regular DnD experience but with warships, you would have a crew that easily could go into the hundreds.
So the question is:
Are mages on ships just way more common and do they take over the role of cannons?
Do ships just have lower crew requirements than real-life ships would have?
I have cannons in the setting, just cos I wanted the players to be able to use them, cos fun! I’ve developed a way of doing ship-to-ship combat that has been working quite well.
I balance the encounter with a manageable number of enemies to match the party, and maybe one or two named NPCs. They battle it out while the two crews fight around them. The crews go in with a set strength rating that translates to a modifier. At the start if each round, both crews roll a d20 and the loser takes one away from their modifier. I determines the starting mod for the players by assessing morale if the crew, how well fed and we’ll armed they are, etc. I use the results to add flavour to the battle. So it’s like the party are fighting some of the crew, but I’m simulating a larger battle around them. If their crew is losing, the PC cam use their actions to affect the larger battle and swing it back in their favour.
Each turn, each ship can move its movement speed and fire cannons/ballet’s on either side. The players can use their actions to do these things or, if they have enough crew left, they can give orders to have them do it.
Makes are still very useful aboard ships cos they can do stuff like create a gust of wind for a burst of speed, or create a fog cloud for visual cover. Also fireballs!
If you can, it might be worth looking into the old games workshop game “Battlefleet Gothic”. While it’s spaceships in space, a lot of the rules and ideas could easily be remapped onto sea battles. Some of the rules would actually make MORE sense for a sea navy rather than a space navy. It could help for things like getting caught in a multi fleet battle, without getting bogged down too much.
well, since its in the Forgotten Realms settings, access to cannons are rare and limited - and really expensive - where a small island of a weird gnome sect in the far south west of the continent hold the monopoly to guns and cannons. Mostly, mages and other magical users would be employed to either power the sails and/or defend from attacks.
as for the maneuvering part, one can roleplay a ship chase, running mages dry, and then the more powerful ship has the chance to get away or attack the remaining fighting crew as one would. And since a ship will fight for its very existence, unless the opponent are slavers, every man will fight, which shouldn’t be fought out unless you group all combatants into one “group” and roll for them to see how they are doing.
More ideas:
Slavers are a topic in such games. One could think about the wealth distribution among the crew, among certain factions, regions, and flesh out the region accordingly.
Check the campaign guide for trades countries would ship overseas, what items could they want to smuggle?
What kind of taboos exist on land, which your crew might flee from and become Privateers?
How are Pirates supplied?
Where is their landing port, safe haven? How is it defended when the main part of the fleet is gone? Access to repairs? How do they recruit additional crew?
What enemies are there? What “Kingpins” of the Underworld (can also be intelligent Monsters) exist, what foes? (how a about a beholder “kraken”?)
How are the landlubbers acting towards the crew, what kind of people are there? Do you have primitives, voodoo shamans and a carribbean setting or do you prefer the privateer British setting, with more refinements and fortified towns - or something in between?
Source: FR Campaign Guide & Drizzt Books
notable mentions to check out:
(TSR/2nd ED): Pirates of the Fallen Stars
(D20): Corsair the definitive Guide to Ships / Gareth-Michael Skarka
There are tales of buried treasure, maps with a marked ‘X’, etc. But currently there is a greater prize which some of the crews and functions are frantically searching for. One particularly viscous and evil pirate captains, a sharkman necromancer named Blackfin who, along with the Southern Islands Company itself, is one of the BBEGs of the campaign. He is in the employ of the demon Lord Orcus.
You see, a great hero stole the Wand of Orcus, and then was lost while passing through the Isles. Blackfin has been promised great power if he retrieves it for his master, so he is raising an undead army to find it. He’s also made an alliance with the sahuagin, a local population of aquatic arseholes.
Signature dru k would of course be rum! Particularly spiced run, sometimes mixed with ginger beer and lime (which is a real cocktail called a Dark & Stormy)
Sade havens… there’s the idland of Oresk, on which is the hidden treetop hideout of thw pirate queen Anne Bonny. She’s beautiful and ferocious, and most of her crew are in love with her. There’s also Tortuga, a town built onto the back of a great Zaratan (giant turtle). The zaratan makes them powerful, so the SIC have not been able to bully them into economic submissions like other places. The players managed to convince the council that runs Tortuga to ally with the pirates when it comes time to topple The Company.
Exports are exotic food and spices, and gold from a mine on one if the islands. But the placement of the Southern Isles makes them a hub for trade. It is by far the quickest route for many neighbouring nations, it takes a long time to sail around them. So many still take their chances with the pirates.
People come to the isles to disappear, or in the hopes of adventure and fortune on the high seas.
Sounds like fun. I’ll have a go at some questions.
How do they get the profit? If the local population are starved and downtrodden, the stolen pirate goods have to go somewhere else. Is there some black market organisation they’re linked to which gives them the funding to run the place like their personal kingdom?
Is it oppressed in the sense that collaborators are treated well while the rest just try to survive? Or like a population of slaves and a couple slave drivers to keep them in line? How does the local community run? What are they able to do to make a living and what are they there to do? There has to be something there to be exploited in the first place.
Is the government an actual pirate crew that owns the joint or just a group that lets piratss come in and do business? What sort of security do they use? Personal army? Mercenaries?
The Southern Islands Company (SIC) is basically a stand in for the East India Company. They wear red coats and speak with posh English accents, and are basically a private army, owned by a merchant company, who in turn operate with the blessing of their home government. They are a human colonial force. There are developed towns with a merchant class, who do quite well, and an underclass made up of pirates, other races and the indigenous people of each island. The Company takes a cut of all the food that, is grown, and have recently begun increasing their cut to the point that the underclass are going hungry (and getting angry). The indigenous people are treated the worst, some sold into slavery others just worked like slaves.
The local pirates stand in opposition to them and its mostly SIC affiliated merchants who get raided. The SIC do their best to hunt down the pirates, but they are spread quite thin, particularly in the Western parts of the Isles.
There is a black market run by the pirates to sell their booty, and a lot of the goods end up back in the hands of the company, either trough seizure or through the more corruptible Company men.
If the enemies are so far below my players that, if not for a 1 being an automatic failure, they could even roll a 1 and still succeed, I don’t even have them roll. Like if a player wanted to stab a random villager, they can just go ahead and do that; non-adventurers usually aren’t even level 1.
The one time I had a big swarm of weak kobolds in a cave was with an epic level campaign where everyone started at level 20 and my wizard decided to cast max level fireball into the middle of the room, which collapsed the cave and killed everything.
Of course that player got mad at me, despite the other 3 players begging him not to cast the spell and all 4 of them, including the wizard, passed their rolls to see the cave wasn’t stable. Everyone knew what would happen except the dumbdumb playing the wizard. 🤦♂️
The links use the Lemmy format /c/dnd... because Lemmy uses "communities." Kbin has "magazines" and therefore uses /m/anything. Just replace the 'c' with an 'm' and the links will take you to the right places.
I have been running a pirate campaign for quite awhile and some that I would add are:
Be careful how evil you let the players get. Too much evil is difficult to run especially in civilized port cities.
I have allowed my players to learn new tool or skill proficiencies using downtime on the boat, there’s a lot of traveling and this helps give them incentive to use the boat more.
Don’t take away their boat more than once or twice during the campaign for narrative reasons, it gets old and they invest a lot of money and resources into it. If they mess up and lose or sink their boat, that’s on them.
Make sure there’s enough quests that need a boat, otherwise they might revert to old habits of traveling across land.
How do you manage this? Isn’t pirating kind of inherently evil? Do you need to set up an evil empire with the party playing Robin Hood on the high seas?
My system starts similar, but I prefer categorising by type of resource over publisher, when I have a lot of files. The publisher doesn’t hold much value to me and simply dumping everything into a single folder, even under system can become messy quickly. I sort by system, rules, adventures and sometimes by supplements or additional material like cheat sheets, when there are too many. For some things I also keep a table (or plan to create one some day, haha), because adventures and random tables might work for different systems and I’d like to remember them.
I find GPT is very good at saying obvious things, but not so good at throwing the curveballs that you want from a DM. Did anything in the adventure surprise you in particular?
Nothing in it leads me to believe it could fully replace a human DM in its current state, but if it was trained specifically on every dnd module, rulebook, fan content, fantasy books and movie scripts, then possibly.
In my opinion that’s what we do. Every homebrew adventure is the product of our combined knowledge of the system and the genre. We use some things designed by others (if you use a creature from a monster manual for example, or run a module), we create our own things. But the things we create still depend on things we have learned. We’re just organic AIs with a slower and less reliable training process lol
I used it to run an impromptu one-shot for some friends. It created the outline, the story hook, NPCs, encounters, traps, treasures and the big boss at the end. I had to tweak stuff and all the combat rolls were made with real dice, but overall it was fun and I said I co-DM’d that night.
It also creates and runs interactive fiction stories. I told it I wanted to play a game like zork with it lol and it wasn’t exactly zork, but it was actually more fun and flexible than zork could have been.
Yeah. It’s not going to replace a human who can read the room and respond to how the players act and feel any time soon, but I’ve used it to help flesh out some NPCs, because I’m pretty weak on that point.
I totally agree. But I know I had a folder of bookmarks with all sorts of tools for making NPCs, locations, enemies, names for stuff, treasures, and so on. Now ChatGPT does all that for me. I found ChatGPT is a great tool to inspire personal creativity, too. When I tell it to invent puzzles, they are kinda meh by themselves but inspires me to put something more cohesive together.
Eventually, sooner than you might think, I can see an AI with cameras around the room, so it can see the players’ faces. It will be able to identify common emotional faces and can improvise accordingly. Honestly, I predict there will be live streams of a bunch of humans sitting around a table that is being run by the AI dungeon master.
The tabletop is one of those big digital screen ones, and the the fights are animated as they play. I would totally watch that haha. Maybe at some point it can generate movies based on the game session. I know we’ve all had some epic game moments that would be awesome movie scenes.
It will be hard to convince me to let an AI run a game for me by reading my facial expressions, but I will allow that A) they’d probably do fine as supplementary players, and B) if AI is eventually able to generate short movies based on session recordings, that would be outstanding.
My favorite npc I ever ran was in a homebrew spelljammer campaign a few years ago, the foible for the party was a beholder pirate captain named eye-beard who would constantly one-up or outmaneuver the party. Also let me talk like a pirate. After they killed him he later came back as a death tyrant
In my campaign I made a bard nemesis for the party’s bard to be in competition with. He’s a one-man-band Tortle named Shelldon who is incredibly haughty and superior sounding. The first time they met, Sheldon was performing and one of the party put a silver piece in his collection hat. He looked at it and gave them a judgey look, so the party bard said “fuck this guy” and they had a Dueling Banjoes style battle. The party bard won and Shelldon got butthurt and accused him of bad musicianship. Some cutting remarks fron the party had Shelldon running away crying. I’ve had him pop up again throughout the campaign trying to one-up them.
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