Naval Combat

(previously: Simple Seafaring)

Handling ocean travel like an overland pointcrawl is all well and good for most use cases. When you're just going from island A to island B, you can ignore the gritty details and boil the experience down to 1) do we get to where we're headed? 2) how long does it take? 3) do we have to fight any monsters?

What's a pirate-themed game, though, without the occasional high-seas battle? Not much point to having all these warships lying around if we never have them blast each other to splinters with ranks of cannon fire. 

With that in mind:

HERE ARE SOME NAVAL COMBAT RULES

Game in progress using this system

Thoughts

This ruleset is intended for use with Kevin Crawford's Godbound; terms such as "straight" damage and "mobs" are drawn from that book.

The eagle-eyed may notice that there are no rules for wind and weather, changing speed from round to round, or any number of other subtleties to which veteran naval warfare gamers may have become accustomed. That's by design; this isn't a wargame. It's a framework to be interpreted by a GM, hopefully with the best interests of the whole table at heart. 

My goal here was to balance simplicity with depth (isn't that always the goal?). A classic tactic like "crossing the T" works as expected if you know your naval history, without becoming a distraction from the Role-Playing part of the RPG experience. 

If you're tempted to think these rules are TOO simple, be aware that a playtest battle with only one PC ship tool almost three hours. On the other hand, if that's really your cup of tea, feel free to tack on more complexity! 

-V

The Adventurer as Insect

I recently got my hands on the Quickstart edition of the upcoming Beetle Knight RPG. The mechanics seem interesting enough at first glance, but what captivated me was the high concept: the adventurer as insect.

The idea of casting the PCs as a small animal to emphasize their vulnerable place in a dangerous world is not new, of course (Mausritter being perhaps the most prominent example of the technique). Insects, however, are different from small mammals in one important way: they're far more powerful for their size.

It bears repeating: proportionally, insects are Marvel superheroes. They can fall from great heights or be struck with enormous force, then get up and casually lift many times their body weight. In other words, they have all the qualities of adventurers.

Some in the TTRPG scene are wont to lament how far modern pinnacles of the genre (see 5e) have strayed from the gritty and lethal days of yore. Gone are the editions where a single blow from a goblin's rusty blade could fell the hardy fighter. At today's gaming table, you're more likely to see that fighter hurled through a wall by a dragon's wing buffet, bear the full brunt of its breath weapon, and charge right back into the fray. After a few levels, heroes handle like tanks.

Or, you know, like insects. I think this comparison is worth more than a cursory glance. Consider the difference between the things an ant can shrug off (falls, flicks) and those it can't (glue, sustained crushing force). What if we let that inform our design? Rather than just becoming increasingly impervious to their environment, our adventurers wax invulnerable along some axes while remaining very much mortal along others.

The Beetle Knight Kickstarter is coming soon, and I'll be interested to see whether they play up this aspect of insectoid nature. Either way, it's a treasure trove of ideas for us all.

-V