Before I forget, here’s my memory of our Pois’ned session.

1. We fought over who should kill Tom Reed and who would be captain. That was fun.
2. Simon, as captain, decided we should chase a merchant ship. We did. It was a bit tedious, with lots of rolling.
3. We wanted to do some scenes on shore, but couldn’t, because we didn’t think we had enough Leisure for shore leave. (We were wrong, actually).
4. We wondered what to do next. We didn’t want to raid another ship, because it had been a bit tedious, so we decided to raid a fortress.
5. We saw the Profile score for a fortress and decided it was suicide. Instead, we did a “stealthy approach”, which, we decided, avoided the high Profile, and led us straight to the company. This seemed a bit like cheating, but we went with it. We fought them.

The roleplaying bits were fun: the dice rolling was sometimes tedious.

Note that the tedious rolling, in point 2, might have been because we got the rules on escalation a bit wrong. If we’d escalated both sides, I think it would have been resolved sooner (by us wrecking our ship, probably).

Similarly, we got the Leisure rules wrong, and could have gone on shore leave. That might have made things better.

There was pressure to look for rolls to build up Xs. This was hard. Often, I wanted to fight, but needed to stop myself: wait, I can’t fight yet, I need Xs. Let’s…um…do something stealthy.

Often, I had to redraft my conflicts to fit in with my scores. I want to hit that helpless victim! Wait, I don’t stand a chance. I’ll…er…convince him I’m someone else, then hit him. That way, I get to use Ambition instead of Brutality. This “mental redrafting” felt rather unintuitive.

Because many rolls were Attribute vs Attribute, my rolls broke down like this:

• Brutality rolls: I didn’t stand a chance.
• Ambition rolls: I’d win about 75% of the time.
• Soul rolls: 50/50 chance of success, approximately.
• Devil rolls: 50/50 chance of success, approximately.

So, I avoided Brutality rolls (attacks on helpless victims), and did lots of Ambition rolls (stealthy stuff). It felt a bit too constraining.

I’d have liked more chance to succeed on my weaker skills. Would it be possible to roll, say, Attribute-you’re-using-plus-one vs. Attribute? Or, perhaps, to use a more Sorceror-style resolution method, with the highest die winning, rather than counting successes (I think this increases the probability of winning with less dice).

Also, Soul was a weird attribute. With all the other attributes, it seemed possible to make a choice to use them: “I do this stealthy thing”, “I attack that helpless guy”. With Soul, you needed to frame yourself into a desperate situation to use it: “So…my pirate’s in desperate circumstances…and then I do this thing”. I avoided having a high Soul, because I thought I’d need to crowbar it in to use it.

Oh! And one thing I really, really wanted was a map, right in the centre of the table. When we were unsure what to do next, I wanted to look at it and say: “Oh, we’re near the merchant shipping lanes, let’s go rob something” or “We’re near Jamaica, let’s go ashore”.

Also, pirates need hit points and armor class.

There you go. That’s rather rambling, but I hope that’s of some use. I’m looking forward to playing Poisson’d again tomorrow.

Graham

No, we didn't. Alex made good his initial bargain, by backing Simon for ship's captain.

I must admit that I'm a little confused: how do bargains work in play? I say "I want you to back me for ship's Captain" and you say "Make it a bargain and I will"? No, that wouldn't work, there's no condition on the bargain. I say "I want you to back me for ship's Captain" and you say "Only if you promise to protect me for murder" and I say "OK, deal". Like that?

By the way, I meant to edit that post above to use nicer language, but you read it first. So if you could imagine words like "tedious" toned down a couple of levels, I'd appreciate it. (I liked the game a lot, in case that wasn't clear)

Graham

I'd be quite happy to draw a map, or even bring along several of the maps of the Carribean I own (Rolemaster Pirates, GURPS Swashbucklers), but I didn't read your comments until this morning so no dice.

Someone could print one of these out:
map 1
map 2

I will also add these links:
Port Royale Game Map PDF - It's from a semi historical simulation computer game (yes, even though you start as the trader with a small merchant boat, you do have the option to become a pirate and there are ship battles) that I have (sad, I know). It shows general economic goods that each port/town produces (which gives you an idea of what sort of goods you will get if you intercept merchant ships leaving those ports) as well as which towns had proper governors (who had the authority to hang pirates) between 1570 and 1660.
Port Royal Town Map - Shawn Brown's execllent map of Port Royal, made for an issue of Dragon magazine.
Regards,
WK.

Steve sez:
"Someone could print one of these out:

map1 "

(Http address:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/Sources/Pirates!/Images/Pirates_map_large.jpg )


I think I recognise #1. Is it not from that old computer game, 'Pirates'. I used to get a lot of enjoyment out of blowing merchantmen to hell with my guns:)

That is an extraordinarily powerful rule, which only the GM can use effectively. (It's not quite clear from the text that it only benefits the GM, but it seems to work that way in play).

It could work if spending the Xs froze the player's dice, so they couldn't do any more with them, rather than removing the dice.

I absolutely loved that game last night.

Graham

A quick recap of yesterday's events for those who weren't there.

Everyone had enough plunder for a visit to Santo Domingo but whilst the captain was out of the room he was voted out of office. Counting Robert Cob was the new captain and after some dithering renamed the ship the Evil Farquhar.

Bloody George and Henry Hall took a room together to discuss the issue of the new captain. George spoke of his desire for Hall and they agreed that if he supported Hall for captain, he could bugger him. This was overheard by Filthy Vincent Baker who was loitering outside. Whilst George and Hall were having their way with the serving woman, Baker confronted them back was chased away by the serving wench who stabbed him in the buttocks.

Everyone decided to go to a social engagement. Catherine Bryson, daughter of Lord Bryson, was having her coming out Party. George set her a poem and some flowers. Everyone got nice clothes for the event except for Filthy Vincent Baker. he decided to sneak in and ended up as one of the masked players providing entertainment for the evening. his guise was that of a donkey carrying a young girl on his back. His masked covered up his identity but not his smell.

Cob, the new captain, managed to get a letter of marque from Lord Bryson, to attack La Pinta, a Spanish treasure ship out of Venezuela. Cob tried to get another captain to help him but ended up having his letter stolen from him.

Hall, previously an office on the Reliant, introduced himself to its captain, Harkness, who didn't recognise him. They seemed to be getting on famously.

In the meantime Hall and George met Lady Catherine who was charmed by George's advances, agreeing to meet him later in the Orangerie. Cpt Harkness of the Reliant who had been chasing our pirates took umbrage at the advances made to a woman he considered far beyond the means of George. He challenged him to a duel and named Hall as his second. George chose Manuel as his second.

As she slipped out to her assignation, Catherine was attacked and raped by Filthy Vincent Baker, still wearing his donkey mask. He left her unconcious body in the garden where it was discovered by Manuel. He took this opportunity to divest her of her jewels including a precious locket given to her by her mother on the occasion of her coming out.

There was an outcry, obviously, and Lord Bryson put a bounty of £1,000 on the head of El Burro, the Spanish bandit who had committed the crimes against his daughter.

In the morning, at the duel, Hall turned up with his favourite weapon, a swivel gun, and whilst the duellist faced up, he shot Harkness in the back and killed him.

At the ship, Cob, having heard of the bounty on El Burro, gave Filthy Vincent Baker over to the authorities. He used the bounty to pay of the malcontent crew. Filthy Vincent Baker was hanged and his spirit turned vengeful and haunted the ship.

A new pirate joined the crew.

Cob also realised that his letter of marque had been stolen but he managed to forge a new one. Some of the crew went over to the Fair Wind, Bryson's flag ship and managed to persuade him to have his ship join the hunt for La Pinta, because it was escorted by a Spanish ship of the line. They also poisoned the Admiral at dinner and he died shortly after going ashore.

The ship set sail for the Spaniard, as they approached, the peeled out from behind the Fair Wind as it engaged the Spanish escort, and engaged La Pinta. Bloody George was made Captain for the fight being better suited than Cob for command (and having a big stack of Xs). The deal was that he would get a quarter of the treasure.

It was a close run thing but they triumphed and pillaged La Pinta. The Fair Wind also won its fight but had been badly damaged. As it approached the pirates for its share of the booty, the opened fire and managed to sink it, just (on the last roll of the last die). A new vote was held and Hall was elected captain, even though Cob expected to get it back. George was given a quarter of the booty by Hall and had his way with him in his cabin.

The ship was badly damaged and they put into port. The new pirate decided to spit in the face of god, this he accomplished by disguising tar barrels as wine and sending them to the Cathedral where they were put in the cellar. He lobbed in a grenade a blew the place up. Whilst this was going on, God offered Hall a deal. He would lift the curse on the ship if the whole of the next bounty was given to the church. Hall agreed.

Cob found a woman he loved and seduced her with a view to marrying her. Some other stuff happened that I can't quite recall but it resulted in Bloody George being judged and avoiding Hell. Someone else was judged and went to Hell.

True.

Oh, and I wanted to add this additional point on Bargains, but it took me over the character limit for posts. So here we go.

5. We made lots of Bargains, but they felt unintuitive. Usually, we'd agree the Bargain verbally: "I'll give you the captaincy for this battle, if you promise to give it back"; "I'll support you as captain, if you let me bugger you afterwards".

But, then, we had to translate it into Bargains on character sheets: "OK, so you write down 'George promised to support me as Captain' and I write down 'Harry promised to let me bugger him'". This wasn't intuitive: mainly because Bargains were usually two-way, but we had to convert them to one-way; partly because the wrong person seemed to write down the Bargain (when I promised to support Harry for Captain, it was Harry's player who wrote that down).

Ideally, I'd prefer Bargains to be a two-way mechanism (between two players), represented by cards on the table.

(Our card would have said "Harry will let George bugger him if George supports him as captain". Or, even better, I'd have written "I promise to support Harry for Captain", and Simon would have written "I promise to let George bugger me", and we'd both have signed it and left it on the table. That'd have been good).

Then, in some way, either player could withhold Soul dice from the other while the card was on the table (which would remove the card).

Graham

Non combat skills are extremely powerful but more risky than fights. You can always decide you've had enough in a fight a drop out to lick your wounds. But if you're good at sneaking you can poison loads of people.

It wasn't very clear about spending 3 Xs to kill NPCs but I think what this means is that it's not an option. If you want to kill NPCs out of combat, you're going to need those Xs, so no poisoning the crew of the Fair Wind all in one go, but no problem poisoning the Admiral.

On the other hand it seems that you can persuade people very easily. I did make you jump through hoops to get the navy escort requiring you to obtain the letter of marque first. But there's nothing mechanical to prevent you marching up to the admiral and obtaining his daughter's hand in marriage. Should there be a veto system? GM or players can veto actions that seem too powerful or out of character.

As Simon points out, non-combat contests between pirates allow for no comeback from the defender. They don't get a roll nor can they spend Xs. It's deprotagonisation at it's worst! (ok, not as bad as in Tbilisi or Harry Potter where it's a mechanic).

I really enjoyed the game too and it seemed that Ambition did a very good job of driving character behaviour but it's possibly too easy to rack up Ambition if you really want to.

Thank you all! I'm glad you had a good time.

What if in success rolls the GM always rolled, say, 3 dice, instead of your opposed stat? Let me think about that and about whether the stat vs stat thing is super important to me. Maybe half your opposed stat. Maybe stat vs stat but the GM drops one success because the devil looks after his own - I kind of like that actually.

Anyway I have thoughts and questions. Here are some:

The GM should be actively calling for success rolls too, not just the players. Things like "I swim over and sneak on board, so that's a stealth roll" or whatever, it's perfectly reasonable for the GM to call for a going into danger roll first, because of the sharks, or enduring duress to represent the effort of swimming fully laden. When I GM I aim for half the rolls being my call, give or take.

Bargains are the social resolution rules. If you walk up to the admiral and demand his daughter's hand, he'll just say no, unless you make it worth his while.

I haven't figured out how to explain bringing fights as GM. You always can when someone loses a success roll. When they don't ... you still use the fighting rules whenever a fight breaks out. If you walk up to the admiral and don't make it worth his while, and he draws his saber and attacks you with it, you're either fighting or enduring (bad) duress, right?

You can go on land and do things without leisure. I know a GM who writes all the cruel fortunes on cards and flips through them whenever he's not certain what to do next, but my advice would be to write these on cards first: fight, bargain, go into danger, attack someone helpless, use stealth or great care, endure duress. Those work on sea, on land, they're the thing. So a player can make a stealth roll to get his pirate into the party, having threatened (threats are bargains, of course) the tailor into giving him party clothes, go into danger to approach the captain's fiance with the captain standing there, and if he loses a roll it's the governor's guards bringing the fight. Spending money is the easy way, but you can do it the hard way.

I want to talk about non-combat conflicts between PCs. Tell me one that happened in your game, and who it was between, what they did, and how you handled it?

Oh and for flashbacks - some flashbacks I can take or leave, but I've never been unhappy with a flashback that included Captain Brimstone in it. I couldn't bear to part with those.

Posted By: SimonWe had one conflict were a PC dobbed us into the authorities, which he won. Next thing you know, we are all in jail.

Actually I kind of like that. The one pirate's like, "hey, authorities, you know those guys?" and the GM is like, "bam, here's 'arrest' in play." That's kind of fun. You could also play it out, of course: the one pirate fingers you, so the GM brings the constabulary into play and you roll some success rolls and then have a fight, and maybe you come under their power and maybe you don't. Skipping over that and going straight to arrested is legit but aggressive.

The Reliant rolling in through the fog: Sure! Very much so.

Declining to enter the fighting rules by enduring duress: Very much so, also. However, if that looks like it's going to become suck, cut in and demand that they make a bargain. "It's clear that you're going to keep attacking, and you're going to keep enduring, and we're going to get bored of it. Fuck that. Bargain, right now, both of you."

If one PC uses stealth to poison another, here's what you do. First, you CAN have the victim make an enduring duress roll to determine whether the poison's sufficient. There aren't any rules for whose call this is; it's not automatic, the victim's player doesn't necessarily get to demand it outright, the GM sort of does but not absolutely - just, sometimes it'll be obviously the thing to do, so do it; sometimes it'll be obviously wrong, so don't do it; sometimes it'll be non-obvious, so somebody decide. It's good for the GM to have it in mind, though, so you don't miss it when it's a good idea.

Either way, if the victim loses the enduring duress roll or if there wasn't one, being poisoned counts as a deadly wound. Flip to where it says "if your pirate suffers a deadly wound" and go from there.

'Graham' sez:
"Did we? When?"

Paulo turned my character, "Filthy Vincent Baker", in for the reward on his alter ego: El Burro and fluffed his roll. So you all got thrown in jail.

We used a Get Out Of Jail Free card.

Graham