After selling off the last remaining boxed sets and offering a pdf of Privateers & Gentlemen, Fantasy Games Unlimited has decided to reprint its seminal Napoleonic Naval RPG as a single volume, offering it for just $18.

This is an outstanding value. I've been playing in a P&G game since January or so, and it's easily one of the best games I've played. The rules are quite simple for the 'role-playing' part, yet with great attention paid to one's notoriety, birth, politics, glorious actions, etc, in advancement, all of which are true to the period, as are the skills and the rudimentary 'life-paths' (i.e., advancing from midshipmen to lieutenant, etc.) The ship combat, on the other hand, has the painful detail necessary to convey the source material correctly: drift, weather changes, wind direction, alteration of the sail-plan, crew competency, not to mention subsystems for boarding action, ramming, etc. Counter or minis and a ruler are a must.

I love this game and would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the Fighting Age of Sail. Only caveat: It's a child of the 80s (tables galore and all six die type get a work-out.)

There were a few FGU games I think are really great. Privateers & Gentlemen is one of them. (The others are Flashing Blades, Villains & Vigilantes and Bushido).

I still remember buying my P&G box at the Virgin megastore in London in the early 80s. The cover image blew me away. Plus, there are some awesome adventures by the Keiths.

Speaking of blowing, though, IIRC it's rather easy for a PC to die of wounds/infections of same, and that didn't sit well with me.

I literally did not understand P&G's naval combat/movement because I had never played, or seen, a hex-less wargame. Besides, it seemed like a disruption of the roleplaying. Which is nonsense--it's no a disruption but an extension. Nowadays, I'd be totally into it.

P&G is one of my favorite games from the 80s, and I am glad to see it back in onevolume!  To be honest, though, I never really used the RPG portion itself for much beyond background info.  The times that we did age of sail campaigns back in college (and an abortive attempt to put one together about a year and a half ago), we used GURPS as the basic engine.  It does provide some great information for any historical campaign.

Now, as for Heart of Oak, the miniatures rules that came with the game, we played the shit out of it!  It is hands down my favorite rules for Age of Sail ship combat. The movement system, in particular, shines as a very realistic depiction of the interaction between wind and sail.  One of my screwball friends devised a 32-point compass to replace the standard game's 16-point compass for that extra bit of distinction between broad reaching and quarter reaching.  My only complaint about the game (and it can be fairly leveled at the RPG portion, as well) is that is is a product of its times and needs a good reorganization and index.


TGA

Finally! The ONLY REASON I wrote the original In Harm's Way was because I couldn't get my hands on a copy of P&G, and I wanted to play in that world. I'll have to get a copy now!

-clash

Awsome!  I dig me some of those old FGU games, and this was one of them.

I'm totally on board! (Pun intended.)