A pirate's life for me (March Madness Day 24)

24 What is the most broken game that you tried and loved to play, warts and all?

Have I been lucky? Or am I just not so much of a discriminate gamer? Of all the professionally published games I've played, I can't think of one that was seriously broken. Sure, some play-test stuff, or some indie games I found unplayable, but even stuff that's full of possibly useless bloat, like some Palladium games I still find playable and enjoyable. All, that is, except for F.A.T.A.L., as I mentioned last post. So the only game I can think of that I consider “broken” is the one where we made characters for a lark, and took a brief look at the rules and laughed at how byzantine and unplayable they looked.

Oh, now that I think about it, there was that d12 based pirates game that Paul had. We played it a few times. I can't say it was broken, but it was clunky. It used the d12 only, which is a nice touch. The poor d12 needs more love. And it was pirate themed, which is always fun!

Hey, look at that. I've still got the rules in pdf on my hard drive. Pirates by Matt DeMille, published by New Dimension Games. Once I either finish my Ph.D or give up in disgust, maybe I should brush this one off and give it another try.

Disney, hmm?

Just cogitating on some things in the news besides Obama's victory (qualified yea!) [That's about as political as I'm gonna get here, don't worry.]

Disney bought up Marvel a while back, but pretty much have left Marvel to do their own thing. 

Disney repurchased Pixar, but pretty much leave them to do their own thing.

Disney has just purchased ILM, including Star Wars.  After thinking about this, I say good!  At worst, anything they turn out won't be any worse than something Lucas might have done were he inclined to do so.  And thinking about the general quality of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (first and fourth were good, middle two were decent enough) and the John Carter movie (movie was fine, Disney just stuffed it up on marketing and accounting), they'll likely do a good job with any future Star Wars movies.

And getting things away from the Skywalker story would be a good thing, IMO.  We don't need movies about Leia and Han's kids or old Jedi Master Luke, there are novels that already cover those if you care to read them.  Give us some awesome new stories in awesome new parts of the Star Wars Galaxy, please!

Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning as Conan!  King Conan of Aquilonia!  Awesome!  Looking forward to this, even if they don't use one of Howard's original tales (although the Scarlet Citadel or Hour of the Dragon would both make good movies, IMO).  I'm cool with letting original Conan be Original Conan, the comics Conan and the movie Conan being alternate universe things, like how the comic book, old Fox cartoon, and movie X-Men are similar but not the same.

And now Disney is thinking of picking up Hasbro, and WotC.  Well, at least I guess we know who will be making any future Star Wars CCGs and RPGs if this goes through.  Again, if Disney takes a fairly lax hand with WotC the way they have with Marvel and Pixar, this could be good.  If the Mouse House tries to micromanage the gaming business, well, at least we've got the OSR.

Plus, a Bargle movie, or something in the Star Frontiers or Gamma World universes would be cool.  You know Disney will be in charge of future D&D movies, maybe we'll get one that doesn't suck!

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides

Yesterday, my wife and I went to see the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides.  It's based on a pirate novel of the same name, just with the main characters mostly switched to the PotC characters, from what I gather.  I haven't read the novel, but I hear it's good.  Probably something I'll try to pick up soon.

The movie was really pretty good.  The previous sequel in two parts, Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, were overall disappointing.  I enjoyed watching them, but they were quite a letdown.  Trying to stretch the Davey Jones plot over two films, and trying to wrap up the Will Turner/Elizabeth Swan thing (since they'd signed on for three films) during that overall story made it too loose, especially when they were hoping to make each also work as a standalone story. 

In On Stranger Tides, Disney/Bruckheimer did what they should have done, which is just make each sequel its own self-contained story involving the same characters.  There are references to the earlier events, but without the plot-logic hoop jumping of trying to tie in the Davey Jones stuff into the otherwise self contained plot of Curse of the Black Pearl. 

So we've got a true sequel here, rather than an attempt to turn a stand-alone movie into a self contained trilogy, and that's a good thing.

The tone of the movie is quite different.  It's still full of swashbuckling fun, but it's not quite as humorous as the previous PotC films.  Since a lot of the humor came from playing off Jack with Will and Elizabeth (and without Pintel and Rageti), they ended up with a really more subtle humor in the film.  That didn't bother me, but if you're planning to take the kids, there's not as much silliness for them to enjoy. 

The story was pretty good.  It seems a lot like a D&D adventure in a lot of ways.  The characters are in a race to find the Fountain of Youth.  There are the Spanish, Barbossa (who's now a privateer for King George), and Blackbeard.  They have to find it, but also figure out the ritual to make it work. 

I liked it.  It was similar enough to the earlier films, but was still its own beast.  I really wish Hollywood would make more sequels like this with various properties, rather than the quest to mimic George Lucas in everything.  Anyway, don't want to spoil things, but the ending sets up another sequel, which I'd expect in a few years.

[Saw it in 2D, if anyone's wondering.  And again, I can't say the experience was lesser not having seen it in 3D, but there weren't any scenes I could think of where seeing it in 3D would have made it more spectacular.]

Shinobi Sunday vs. Pirates

The pirates are beating out the ninja this weekend, for me at least.

Last night, we (being the Board Game Group core of myself, Alex, Josh, Steve, and Pat) got together to try out one of Steve's new games, Lords of the Spanish Main.

It was an interesting game, but the night was a bit of a bust.  One player couldn't keep his personal baggage from affecting his emotions so took too many things in game personally.  One player was insisting that we stick to the rules (especially regarding turn order) at all times while a few others were treating this as a learning experience and willing to allow mulligans.  One was really upset that the heavy negotiation the game requires was devolving into petty bickering at several points.  One was unhappy that two players were basically playing along with the Spanish "controller" player, giving advantages to that player in return for keeping near him in points, while the other two felt they needed to disrupt the "controller" to keep the game from being a runaway.

Not naming any names this time, as I usually do, because this game rubbed some of us the wrong way and I know at least one of the guys reads the blog regularly and I've sent the link to all of them to read.  (Josh, if you want to chime in, I'd appreciate if you also try to keep it impersonal).  I'm no saint.  I was one of the support the Spanish Controller until I felt I could take over (and if we hadn't stopped the game when we did, I had a good chance to take the lead for doing that--no guarantee I'd have made it or not, I may have acted prematurely there).  I also fall on the side of using the game as a learning exercise.  We played two games that we cut off quickly, but the long game still felt like getting to know the game to me, especially as for some reason I wasn't able to get the rules online.  I kept getting an error page trying to visit the game maker's homepage.

Anyway, I don't hold anything personal against the guys, but while I would like to play that game again, Steve did make a valid point that he doesn't want to play this game again with this group. 

In other pirates vs. ninja news, our plan is to go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie this afternoon or evening.  So it's a very pirate weekend.

Inspiration on my DVD Shelf

Having recently posted an alternate 'Appendix N' based on one of the shelves on my book case, here's another based on some of the DVDs on another shelf of the next bookcase over.

Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
Kagemusha (Kurosawa, 1980)
Musa (Korean period action movie, 2001)
Sakuya (Japanese manga-based live action fantasy, 2000)
Hero (Jet Li, 2002)
Red Shadow (Japanese ninja live action, 2001)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
Enter the Dragon (Bruce Lee, 1973)
Owl's Castle (Japanese ninja live action, 1999)
Vagabond Trilogy (Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi, 1951, 1955, 1956)
Azumi (Japanese manga-based live action, 2003)
The Seven Swords (Chinese wuxia, 2005)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (pirate fantasy, 2003)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (pirate fantasy, 2006)
Willow (George Lucas, 1988)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn, 1938)
Arabian Nights (Hall/Sabu, 1942)
Red Sonja (Nielsen/Schwarzenegger, 1985)
Conan the Barbarian (Schwarzenegger, 1982)
Conan the Destroyer (Schwarzenegger, 1984)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Disney, 2005)
The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987)
Dragonslayer (MacNichol, 1981)
Legend (Cruise/Curry, 1985)
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Hall, 1944)
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Harryhausen, 1958)
Samson and Delilah (DeMille, 1949)
The Vikings (Douglas/Curtis, 1958)
Excalibur (Boorman, 1981)
The Scorpion King (The Rock, 2002)
Brahm Stoker's Dracula (Oldman, 1992)
Dracula (Lugosi, 1931)
Van Helsing (Jackman, 2004)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Cleese/Idle/Jones/Chapman/Gilliam/Palin, 1975)
Ben Hur (1925)
The Wizard of Oz (Garland, 1939)
The Three Musketeers (Kelly, 1948)

Not all of them are good movies, but they've likely all got at least a little something that could inspire adventures (or at least interesting encounters or NPCs) in a game.

[By the way, I have the Lord of the Rings movies on DVD, and the TV mini-series Shogun as well, but being boxed sets, they're on another shelf.]

Goonies Never Say Die

The Goonies was the first movie I ever saw more than once in the theater. I actually saw it three times in the theaters in the summer of '85. And we were heavy into playing D&D at the time, as I'd gotten my Mentzer Basic Set as a birthday present in December of '84.

Somehow, though, it took me until at least '87 or '88, when I had the Companion Set, to finally draw up One Eyed Willy's caves as a dungeon. Don't know what took me so long. Anyway, here are a couple scans of the dungeon. I don't know where the Fratelli family's stats are. I made Ma a Magic-User and the brothers Thieves, but other than that I don't remember.

The adventure notes are keyed on the maps, but they're in pencil and 20+ years old, so sorry if they're a bit hard to read. Fans of the movie should enjoy them, though!

Ocean Encounters

If I'm gonna run an campaign set at sea, I'm gonna need better ocean/sea encounter tables than the list in the Expert Set. So I made my own. For encounters on islands or coasts, I'll use the normal terrain type tables from the book. But at sea, I need a bit more. So I made these.

Hopefully the formatting won't get too messed up when I copy/paste this:

Maritime Encounter Tables

Encounter Chances (d6)
Coastal 5-6 (5 on land, by terrain type only)
Deep Sea 6 (5 hexes away from any land)

Encounter Type (d8)
Coastal Deep Sea
1 Ship 1 Ship
2 Ship 2 Ship
3 Ship 3 Swimmer
4 Swimmer 4 Swimmer
5 Swimmer 5 Swimmer
6 Dragon 6 Dragon
7 Unusual 7 Unusual
8 Flier 8 Unusual

Ship Encounters (d12)
Coastal Deep Sea
1 Adventurers 1 Adventurers
2 Barbarians 2 Berserkers
3 Warship 3 Warship
4 Natives 4 Pirates
5 Pirates 5 Pirates
6 Pirates 6 Pirates
7 Traders 7 Traders
8 Traders 8 Traders
9 Humanoids 9 Traders
10 Humanoids 10 Humanoids
11 Ghost Ship 11 Ghost Ship
12 Personality 12 Personality

Swimmer Encounters (d12)
Coastal Deep Sea
1 Giant Octopus 1 Giant Squid
2 Giant Crab 2 Elemental, Water
3 Spiny Rockfish 3 Giant Sturgeon
4 Insect Swarm 4 Storm Giant
5 Giant Leech 5 Sea Hydra
6 Mermen 6 Mermen
7 Nixie 7 Plesiosaurus
8 Rats (shipboard) 8 Rats (shipboard)
9 Shark (any) 9 Sea Serpents
10 Sea Snake 10 Shark (any)
11 Water Termites 11 Water Termites
12 Whale (any) 12 Whale (any)

Dragon Encounters (d12)
1 Chimera
2 White Dragon
3 Black Dragon
4 Copper Dragon
5 Green Dragon
6 Blue Dragon
7 Silver Dragon
8 Red Dragon
9 Gold Dragon
10 Hydra (sea or flying)
11 Wyvern
12 nearest lair

Unusual Encounters (d12)
Coastal
1 Djinni
2 Efreeti
3 Imp
4 Devil
5 Demon
6 Gelatinous Cube
7 Gray Ooze
8 Ochre Jelly
9 Shadow
10 Event
11 Event
12 Event

Fliers (d12)
1 Cockatrice
2 Elemental (Air)
3 Fairy/Pixie/Sprite
4 Gargoyle
5 Griffon
6 Harpy
7 Hippogriff
8 Manticore
9 Pegasus
10 Robber Fly
11 Roc (any)
12 Stirges

Humanoids (Ship Crew) (d12)
1 Bugbears
2 Dwarves
3 Elves
4 Gnolls
5 Gnomes
6 Goblins
7 Hobgoblins
8 Halflings
9 Kobolds
10 Lycanthropes (any)
11 Orcs
12 Serpent Men

Ghost Ships (d10)
1 Derelict
2 Skeletons
3 Skeletons, Wight captain
4 Zombies
5 Zombies, Wraith captain
6 Ghouls
7 Ghouls, Spectre captian
8 Derelict, Vampire
9 Ghost crew
10 Ghost vessel

Personality Encounters (d12)
1 Captain Hook
2 Solomon Kane
3 Jack Sparrow
4 Flying Dutchman
5 Blackbeard
6 Long John Silver
8 Sindbad
9 Captain Ahab
10 Captain Nemo
11 Horatio Hornblower
12 Belit

Character Creation for the Maritime Campaign

I've decided that the characters will start out around level 4 for this game. I'll likely just have the players roll stats down the line (switching one pair as they like) as usual, then give everyone a set amount of XP (10,000 seems good) and they can level up to whatever that makes them.

Each character will get to roll d4+2 for starting potions and scrolls (I'll have a short-list of what they can choose from). Then they consult this chart:

Character Creation Customization.
Choose or roll 1d10:
1. magic weapon (type chosen by player, bonus by DM)
2. magic armor (type chosen by player, bonus by DM)
3. magic wand (type chosen by player, charges by DM)
4. miscellaneous magic item (chosen by DM)
5. extra 1d4+1 potions and/or scrolls (chosen by player, up to L3 spell scroll)
6. captain (small sailing ship, small galley, or longship)
7. 1d6+2 followers (0-level NPC men-at-arms)
8. henchman/cohort/sidekick (2nd level NPC, class chosen by player)
9. special mount (up to 6HD creature)
10. aristocrat (have land holdings and titles on mainland, +1d4 x1000gp)

I'm also considering the possibility of making any PC with an 18 in any ability to be considered a 'demi-god' of the mythic Greek variety, with an immortal patron and immortal trying to hinder the hero's progress. Then again, the players want a more Victorian pirates type thing than the Greek mythology thing, so I might drop this.

Interest in the Maritime Campaign

At the Board Game Group last night, we played Wizkids' Pirates again. Actually, except for me, no one who played before showed up, so I had to explain it all again (and play a simple, cut down version) for Pat, Josh, Lucy, Vlada, and another of Lucy's friends whose name I've of course forgotten.

Josh, who's into tabletop minis wargames (he playes 40K) really enjoyed it. He and Pat were lamenting the loss of the Saturday RPG sessions, and I mentioned that Alex had expressed an interest in my Maritime Campaign idea. Josh and Pat also seemed interested.

Josh, though, I should admit, was most interested in the fact that I called it a "campaign." I think we have slightly different ideas about what a campaign entails. For me, it's a series of adventures which may or may not have a connection plot-wise, but involve the same characters in the same world(s). For him, I get the idea from his 3E game, it's a railroad plot for the characters to play out. He's stated a firm dislike of sandbox play in the past.

Anyway, I plan to pitch the game play as sorta like the X-Files. There will be an overriding quest that they'll have, but not every encounter, island, pirate ship, cannibal tribe or lost ruin will involve that quest. They'll encounter a lot of other stuff as they search for clues to the quest, and that other stuff will be just that--stuff.

Of course, this is assuming I have the time to prepare the campaign, and the time to run it. Josh and Pat were again talking about Pat running a 4E game since he's got the rules, and we're all interested in giving it a go to see how it plays. So who knows?

Still thinking about that Maritime Campaign

Still thinking about that Maritime Campaign.

Question 1 for myself--do I want to allow firearms? I've been imagining more of a standard D&D type game, but with classical pirates and Captain Nemo & the Nautilus as potential parts of the campaign, as well as a potential Chinese/Asian realm, black powder weapons may be appropriate in some respects, and completely inappropriate in others.

While there are some simple black powder personal firearm rulse out there (GW4 and d20 Past immediately spring to mind, and I know there are others), I don't know if I'd want to have to invent rules for ship-mounted cannon. Seems like a hassle. I'll probably just stick to normal D&D weapons and Captain Jack Sparrow will just have to carry around a crossbow with one bolt in it that he's saving for Barbossa.

Question 2--do I want to have a mystical secondary realm? Something that can only be entered through maelstroms, whirlpools, enchanted fog banks, etc? Add a bit of planar travel, even if it's only to an 'alternate prime' of sorts? I'm thinking yes on this one. It'd be a place where I can really throw out the stops on the weirdness levels.

Question 3--do I want to make up a bunch of new fantasy realms for the mainland coastal areas on my maps that are basically just pastiches of real world historical nations but with different and funny names, or do I just want to say screw it and go with real world names for the areas? Having the Greece analog be Achaea, the Norse analog Thule or Midgard, the Chinese analog Cathay, etc. may be easier in the long run.

More musings on a Maritime Campaign

The basic setup would be to make a big old map with lots of rugged coasts, peninsulas, straights, fjords, etc. along the borders, then several archipelago throughout the middle. I imagine using 4 or 6 sheets of hex paper for the sea maps, including a few Bosporus/Dardanelles/Pillars of Hercules type narrow straights dividing some sea areas from others.

For archipelagos, I plan to just transpose the layouts of some real world ones--the Caribbean islands, the Aegean, parts of Indonesia or the Philippines.

The mainland coastal areas will have Greco-Roman, Norse/Celtic, Middle-Eastern/East African, Meso-American, and maybe Chinese/SE Asian and Sub-Saharan African type regions. Various islands may have similar cultures, or may be totally bizarre or unique.

I plan to mine any sort of nautical source material--Jason and the Argonauts, the Odyssey, the Vinland Sagas, Sindbad the Sailor, any sort of pirate stories, Captain Nemo, etc. Whether it be literature or film, I'll likely steal it. So Nemo, Jack Sparrow, Jason, and Sindbad will likely all be running around and encounterable.

I'm thinking now, start all characters at around 8000 XP, so Fighters are at Hero level, and making each player role up 4 or 5 characters at the beginning, who are all on a 'hero ship' similar to the Argo, and give them a macguffin quest that will lead them to explore the seas until they find whatever they're after, sail home, and take out the king who sent them on the quest in the first place to get rid of them. This way, everyone's got a few extra characters on the ship if someone dies. And they can pick up more replacements if they land in ports.

Musings on a Maritime Campaign

Initial thoughts on running a campaign where the PCs are all sailors on a ship of some sort--

Lots of useful modules out there. Isle of Dread, Drums on Fire Mountain, War Rafts of Kron, not to mention being able to stick land-based modules on some island somewhere.

Just give the players lots of rumors, and let them sail around the sea until they find something interesting. Could be really easy, and really fun.

A New Hope

Last night, I brought my Wizkids Pirates of the "X" game to the Board Game Group. It was the first time I'd brought it, and the first time to play for everyone else. During the game, Alex was busy thinking of ways to modify the game, and I showed him some of the alternate ideas my old group in Japan and I had come up with.

I also mentioned that the little cardboard ships would be great for a maritime D&D campaign. Alex mentioned that there aren't rules for that (he played lots of 2E, and I think they all ended up in one of the numerous splatbooks for that edition). I said that Classic actually has some fairly decent rules for sea-faring, and he got interested.

If I shift my sandbox to a mysterious Aegean/Caribbean type setting, I think I could get him to play...