Quote from: Madprofessor;909162In reference to your rant, while it's not exactly historical, The Pilot's Almanac for Harn is a pretty believable RPG treatment of medieval seafaring.  The best I have seen.

I agree, it not quite as straightforward as running a merchant campaign in Traveller but out of all the different ruleset for fantasy sailing ships the Pilot Almanac comes very close to the simplicity and utility of Classic Traveller.

The only major issue I have is that the Harn product line need an equivalent for the Pilot Almanac rules for land based trading. Most of the information is there but scattered among a dozen products.

Quote from: Bren;909271An excessively lazy one?

Too lazy to even read some Wikipedia articles on the fundamental lynchpin around which the game turns?

Quote from: Ravenswing;909276C'mon.  Most of them, and you know it.  The standard "research" done by most GMs is comprised of a mashup of their RPG collection, their favorite fictional novels, and the relevant TV shows/movies they've seen.  Heck, let's make it pertinent to this thread: how many of the participants in this thread (a) have done treatments of medieval-tech seafaring, and (b) included ship's wheels on their craft?  Almost certainly the majority: I have never seen a GM other than myself who didn't.

I don't play games set in a medieval milieu, personally. However, I have read quite a lot of what's available on how oared galleys in antiquity worked, and have a basic grasp of ships from the Age of Sail.

Quote from: Kiero;909288Too lazy to even read some Wikipedia articles on the fundamental lynchpin around which the game turns?

That would be par for the course for most of the GMs I know, yes.

That's not the huge problem people are making it out to be.  There's only so much effort anyone wants to put into this hobby, and expectation/subject matter expertise clash is one of the oldest problems in gaming.  There may well be groups out there where the GM says "Hey, I want to run a fairly realistic campaign focused on medieval sailing; it's going to be a lot of research and we're all going to have to work to keep it authentic, but we'll learn a lot and it will be incredibly immersive! Who's in?" and the players say "That sounds awesome! When do we start?  And we're totally not lying about what we want from an RPG experience!" but I've never seen one in the wild.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;909216Actually, the problem with some 'partial' damage to a boat can be catastrophic.  Break the rudder and you're not likely to ever hit land, or get sucked into a storm, or worse, because you're at the mercy of the currents.  Break a mast, and you could literally be dead in the water, especially if it's got no oars.  Crack the keel, and the ship is done, time to swim, cuz it will sink.

A ship is much more fragile than we are often led to believe.  But it's also a pretty sturdy vehicle at the same time.

You have several options for replacing a rudder. You can use an oar as a steering oar. This will work, though not ideal by a long shot. A better option is a "danube rudder" which is a drag - a bucket or cloth - served out on two lines, one from either side of the vessel. Shortening the starboard line will cause the starboard side to drag more, turning the vessel in that direction, and vice versa. You can also repair rudders, or make emergency rudders, with a bit more time. Any flat surface mounted on gudgeon pins will act as a rudder, the larger, the better.

(Apologies, just read all the posts between the one I quoted and my own! Sorry!)

Quote from: daniel_ream;909289That would be par for the course for most of the GMs I know, yes.

That's not the huge problem people are making it out to be.  There's only so much effort anyone wants to put into this hobby, and expectation/subject matter expertise clash is one of the oldest problems in gaming.  There may well be groups out there where the GM says "Hey, I want to run a fairly realistic campaign focused on medieval sailing; it's going to be a lot of research and we're all going to have to work to keep it authentic, but we'll learn a lot and it will be incredibly immersive! Who's in?" and the players say "That sounds awesome! When do we start?  And we're totally not lying about what we want from an RPG experience!" but I've never seen one in the wild.

I absoutely agree. Most GMs are lazy ass mofos. They want more of the same stuff they have always done - easy, predictable, and safe. The vast majority of GM stuff from publishers is "Here's more of what you wanted before, with slight variations to catch your players off guard, but not different enough to challenge you." So, the answer to "Why isn't there more maritime adventuring going on?" is "Because it would require me to actually do something I never did and make my players do something they never did, and I can't be arsed."

Quote from: Ravenswing;909276I think we can agree that when it comes to the premise that RPGs Seldom Get Medieval Exactly Right, Harn is almost always the great outlier.

Who cares?

QuoteC'mon.  Most of them, and you know it.  The standard "research" done by most GMs is comprised of a mashup of their RPG collection, their favorite fictional novels, and the relevant TV shows/movies they've seen.  Heck, let's make it pertinent to this thread: how many of the participants in this thread (a) have done treatments of medieval-tech seafaring, and (b) included ship's wheels on their craft?  Almost certainly the majority: I have never seen a GM other than myself who didn't.

Well, that's really all the GM needs, now isn't it? A few episodes of Hornblower, a few Sinbad movies, a few viking movies* and generous helpings of Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power movies, topped off with Jason and the Argonauts and The Odyssey are really all the "research" you need to run or play a seafaring adventure. Fuck it, throw in some Robert Louis Stevenson and a little Star Trek too while you're at it.

*The Long Ships, which mixes the hokiest bits of viking movies with those from your typical Sheikhs & Shiksas movies is a twofer:

Quote from: Elfdart;909330Well, that's really all the GM needs, now isn't it? A few episodes of Hornblower, a few Sinbad movies, a few viking movies* and generous helpings of Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power movies, topped off with Jason and the Argonauts and The Odyssey are really all the "research" you need to run or play a seafaring adventure.

If that's what your group is into, go for it. Most of the games we are thinking of were inspired by pulp novels, right? Who are we to be judgy?

Quote from: Kiero;909288I don't play games set in a medieval milieu, personally. However, I have read quite a lot of what's available on how oared galleys in antiquity worked, and have a basic grasp of ships from the Age of Sail.

And that's pretty much the standard.  Certainly a good many GMs have some basic knowledge of the Age of Sail ...

... which, properly, really started with the 17th century.

And that's the point: that the vast majority of gamers who think they're doing "medieval" seafaring wind up looking a lot like Horatio Hornblower and Peter Blood.

Quote from: Elfdart;909330Who cares?

Certainly a lot of assholes and trolls don't, I'll grant you.

QuoteA few episodes of Hornblower, a few Sinbad movies, a few viking movies* and generous helpings of Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power movies, topped off with Jason and the Argonauts and The Odyssey are really all the "research" you need to run or play a seafaring adventure.

I'll concede perhaps the gamers in my area are atypical, but I think I could find an honest politician and an ethical lawyer long before I could find players who had either seen those media or were willing to.  I have, but then I'm atypical.

Quote from: Ravenswing;909346And that's the point: that the vast majority of gamers who think they're doing "medieval" seafaring wind up looking a lot like Horatio Hornblower and Peter Blood.

Well, to be fair, a real medieval sailing campaign would probably be "horror" and not "fantasy."

Quote from: Ravenswing;909276Heck, let's make it pertinent to this thread: how many of the participants in this thread (a) have done treatments of medieval-tech seafaring, and (b) included ship's wheels on their craft?  Almost certainly the majority: I have never seen a GM other than myself who didn't.

Its been decades, but as I recall, we had a steering oar on the long ship and I think the cog had a tiller and rudder, but I might be wrong on the cog. Personally, I am/was a lot more familiar with ancient sea faring. No wheels there. So having wheels on the medieval ships wasn't too hard to avoid. To illustrate my point that not everyone uses a ship's wheel, I had to reread your sentence to even realize you meant a steering wheel. On first reading I was thinking to myself, wheels for transporting the ships overland? WTF is Ravenswing on about?

Quote from: flyingmice;909302So, the answer to "Why isn't there more maritime adventuring going on?" is "Because it would require me to actually do something I never did and make my players do something they never did, and I can't be arsed."

That is a very cynical thing to say. I don't say you are wrong, but you are cynical.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;909353Well, to be fair, a real medieval sailing campaign would probably be "horror" and not "fantasy."

Well, that's certainly true.

Quote from: Elfdart;909330Who cares?



Well, that's really all the GM needs, now isn't it? A few episodes of Hornblower, a few Sinbad movies, a few viking movies* and generous helpings of Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power movies, topped off with Jason and the Argonauts and The Odyssey are really all the "research" you need to run or play a seafaring adventure. Fuck it, throw in some Robert Louis Stevenson and a little Star Trek too while you're at it.

Well, yeah, I get this.  A lot of anal historical prattling can sink a game faster than a broken keel and a steering oar manufactured by Bren - if it's not what you're going for.  I like SW Slipstream and the only "sources" I need for it is the 1978 Flash Gordon cartoon and a 12 pack of beer.  I'm not trying to simulate real rocket cycles in outer space - that's retarded.  Going after your genre or whatever you want to call it may or may not have anything to do with reality.

I am a medievalist, however, and I like ships. I like gritty realistic games, and a lot of my players (many of them are historians too) come to me for that experience. So most of what I have said is only valuable if you like that kind of thing, and is pretty worthless if you're running DCC  vs chaos dinosaurs (which also might be cool).

...still, something nags at the back of my head that says a good foundation in history and reality, though not a requirement of fun, is not a bad starting point for any game.

Quote from: Bren;909360That is a very cynical thing to say. I don't say you are wrong, but you are cynical.

I'm a very cynical person. It's why I am so very cheerful all the time.

-clash