Quote from: flyingmice;909390I'm a very cynical person. It's why I am so very cheerful all the time.

-clash

There certainly is some consolation in being right and if you truly expect the worst from people you will often be pleasantly surprised by the reality. Small wonder you are cheerful.

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.

(The odd fellow in the back row tentatively raises his hand.)

Does schooner racing off Cape Cod count for ships' wheels?

Fascinating discussion! If I may add a historical footnote, Prof. Barker had two rather epic voyages in his campaign, both with the redoubtable Capt. Harchar in command - the ship was run by Dave Arneson, with the help of his three NPC mates and the NPC Purser. each voyage lasted a year or two of real time, and about the same in game time elapsed. We had chartered the ship and crew for each trip, and we used her as the base for quite a lot of memorable adventures, both on-board and ashore. We had quite a lot of fun, even when Dire peril didn't impend.

Here are two samples of our adventures afloat:

http://blackmoor.mystara.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8005
http://blackmoor.mystara.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7964&p=28118&

Quote from: chirine ba kal;909418(The odd fellow in the back row tentatively raises his hand.)

Does schooner racing off Cape Cod count for ships' wheels?

I'd expect that schooners do have a wheel. But if it's a schooner[1] than it's not a medieval ship. Though it might be a large beer served in Lawrence, KS[2] in a rounded glass with a short stem. But then it wouldn't be very likely to have a wheel.

[1] If that was a joke Chirine, it went over my head like a...well like something bigger than a hat, 'cuz I have a large noggin.

[2] Yes, I can read Wikipedia too, but the only place I've ever heard a beer glass called a schooner was in Lawrence.

Quote from: Madprofessor;909375Well, 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.

The problem is that even the experts on the subject know very little about medieval ships. There are very few surviving examples, and modern replicas are few and far between. On top of that, very few have been tested under hazardous conditions (understandably, since it's not worth risking one's life to sail a mock-up of a medieval ship into a storm). So the best people can do is take the replicas under good conditions and/or use information from more modern ships, and extrapolate from there. Even then, for game purposes it's probably more useful to have a quick and dirty system where ships fall into a few categories based on ship type and size (e.g. small freighter, large warship). It will never satisfy tedious know-it-alls, but nothing pleases tedious know-it-alls, so fuck 'em.

Quote from: daniel_ream;909351I'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.

I had a similar issue when I DMed for my nephews and their friends, who wanted to do a sea adventure the next week, but weren't familiar with the genre. I simply popped in a DVD of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and they were hooked -and not just because of Caroline Munro.


I let my nephews borrow my copies of The Vikings, Jason and the Argonauts and Captain Blood. They watched the movies with their friends during the week and were totally on board for seafaring adventure the following session.

So, if nothing else, I have learned a few things about ships from this thread and what to expect and how to fix them.  I will be incorporating these things in my next Pirates of the Spanish Main campaign for flavour at the very least.

I honestly thank you all.

Quote from: flyingmice;909390I'm a very cynical person. It's why I am so very cheerful all the time.

-clash

I used to be a cynic but I got tired of being right all the time.

Quote from: cranebump;908951Because the sea is dangerous, and no one likes to drown.:-)

That has always been my main issue with naval adventures. What is a rickety wooden ship and a bunch of sailors with crossbows (at best) going to do to a sea serpent or kraken? Naval stuff in a fantasy RPG just seems like suicide.

In Fantasy ships are primarily transportation.  Defending them from sea serpents is  hero's work.

Crimson Cutlass and Mazes & Minotaurs are among my favorite RPGs so I have done lots of maritime and naval gaming. My OD&D has always been inspired by my playing of the early Ultima CRPGs where it was awesome to find a ship, sail along the coast, risk the open sea, blast some sea monsters and visit places only accessible by ship.

Most of the people I have played with were uninterested in a game where characters are part of a defined hierarchy.  It's the same for Star Trek even though Starfleet is military-lite at most.

Quote from: yosemitemike;909461Most of the people I have played with were uninterested in a game where characters are part of a defined hierarchy.  It's the same for Star Trek even though Starfleet is military-lite at most.

Not every naval game need be military. There are plenty of civilian options that don't require a chain of command (beyond "owner" and "captain").

Quote from: Kiero;909463Not every naval game need be military. There are plenty of civilian options that don't require a chain of command (beyond "owner" and "captain").

No ship of any size operates without some sort of hierarchy.  Any way you slice it, someone is in charge whether you call that person the owner or the captain.  Even on a 25 foot sailboat, people have assigned roles and someone is in charge.  The players I have known just don't like the idea.

Depends on your players (but most things do...)

I played in a few games of Privateers and Gentlemen, set in the Napoleonic Wars with the PCs being British Royal Navy officers. We had fun. While the chain of command could be a problem for some, we approached it by assuming that as we were all living in close quarters on a small brig (later a frigate), we had to get along as well as just obey orders. Soon we developed into the roles as friendly work colleagues who also socialised together while ashore - i.e. it was a 'happy' ship. Star Trek may have been an influence.

However, I think a traders or pirates game would work for those who can't work in chain of command (although they will not have the satisfaction of foiling Napoleon's invasion of India by burning his invasion fleet transports anchored in the Persian Gulf).

Vikings can be traders one minute and pirates the next, and often were. (So were other people at other times, particularly in the Med). Pirates in the Caribbean seems a popular choice, but you might suffer from an excess of Johnny Depp jokes instead of Monty Python jokes - but with the wrong sort of players you always will. (Only a problem if you are trying to run something serious, of course). If you must have magic and monsters in your games, this setting gives you plenty of options.

Of course pirates were not nice people in real life - but that's never stopped us before, has it?

Personally I'd go for a location like the Med of the Caribbean - lots of places to go and not long distances between points of interest, so the game doesn't have too many days at sea with little happening. I'd use Heroes of Hellas for sword and sorcery ancient Greek games a la Clash of the Titans, or some version of BRP for a more crunchy/historical game. Some mash-up of BoL and H+I for a swashbuckling Caribbean game, for me. But Savage Worlds have done all the work for you if you don't like BoL.

And if you really hate pirates, you can hunt the buggers down and hang 'em high. But then you'd be back in the navy.

A game built on long voyages probably have less appeal to many gamers, so go archipelago!

Quote from: yosemitemike;909464No ship of any size operates without some sort of hierarchy.  Any way you slice it, someone is in charge whether you call that person the owner or the captain.  Even on a 25 foot sailboat, people have assigned roles and someone is in charge.  The players I have known just don't like the idea.

Not necessarily. If the PCs are the owners, then the captain is actually subordinate to them, even if they're the one directing the crew.

We had exactly that sort of setup in our Mass Effect game. The five PCs were jointly the owners of the ship and the mercenary company, the Executive Officer who actually commanded the ship was their employee and took his orders from them. However, in matters of running the ship, they left him to it, not least because they were the "away party" who left the ship a lot to deal with things.

But if you have players allergic to even the suggestion of a command structure, even that might be too much.