Admittedly, I'm an inactive gamer right now, haven't done anything since the birth of my third child and most of my creative energies are being channeled into coding Europa Barbarorum II. But every now and then I do something that tickles that unscratched itch.

Right now that's reading, my guilty pleasures are the "boys' own" tales of GA Henty (avoid the ones about Africa and you sidestep most of his casual racism). One I just finished was about the Greek War of Independence, but rather than a standard military tale, the protagonist is part of the crew of a privateer. Privately-owned craft seizing prizes and trying to do some good by resettling refugees. The details are all irrelevant for the most part, but the central premise: take a small ship and its crew, make their activities the centre of the thing, is a good one.

For the most part I've tended to avoid anything nautical/naval - mostly because of both the issues many gamers have with anything military (and thus having a chain of command and ranks) and I too often struggled with what they'd do. But that's due to not being imaginative enough; a good naval game isn't about travel across large distances (which you can elide away with downtime anyway) but coasting and island-hopping, visiting lots of different places and getting into trouble in them. Plus bonus ship-to-ship combat.

My group had great success with this in a different genre entirely - sci-fi with our Mass Effect game, but the principle can apply to any historical era or fantasy or sci-fi.

Am I imagining that this is largely overlooked as a medium of a game? You have a mode of transport which creates it's own issues; keeping the ship sea-/space-worthy, maintaining the crew, staying out of trouble with port authorities and foreign powers, and more. Decide as a group how big it is (thus how much personnel hassles you have, but also scope for raiding or fighting) who owns the ship (do they have owners to satisfy with a minimum profit?) and how it's run (are the PCs officers or just crew?). Perhaps decide on an initial goal, and you're done. Set it somewhere appropriately fractious and you've got all the ingredients for a great game.

Through the early part of gaming history, there was the issue of having a whole crew to deal with. I remember playing in a ship-to-ship boarding action in Stormbringer back in the mid-80s. It took forever to deal with all the characters on both sides. It was enough to put us off on nautical adventuring for a long time.

I did run 50 Fathoms for Savage Worlds. The mook rules made the boarding actions a lot more manageable.

I think this is part of the reason that sci-fi games like Traveller filled this niche in gaming. A PC group can easily cover all the crew roles without having a bunch of NPCs around to slow down the action.

Well, pure naval games are probably generally unpopular for the same reason that pure naval films are - whatever the reason, people aren't as swept up in the majesty of sea travel these days.  Sure, Pirates of the Caribbean was pretty popular for a while, but that was more about Jack Sparrow jumping around and being interesting than the ships themselves.

When you turn it around to space, well, that's basically the idea for Traveller and Star Trek, isn't it?  As Baulderstone pointed out, in a Traveller game everyone's got their ship in common that they're steering from star to star, dealing with problems from earning enough to pay for the fuel to dealing with boarding actions from space pirates.

Quote from: Baulderstone;908931Through the early part of gaming history, there was the issue of having a whole crew to deal with. I remember playing in a ship-to-ship boarding action in Stormbringer back in the mid-80s. It took forever to deal with all the characters on both sides. It was enough to put us off on nautical adventuring for a long time.

I did run 50 Fathoms for Savage Worlds. The mook rules made the boarding actions a lot more manageable.

I think this is part of the reason that sci-fi games like Traveller filled this niche in gaming. A PC group can easily cover all the crew roles without having a bunch of NPCs around to slow down the action.

Yeah, I think having mook rules and something simpler than regular combat for skirmish/mass combat helps. Not just for boarding actions, but also for things like surprise attacks on coastal fortifications, or simple raiding.

Quote from: jcfiala;908932Well, pure naval games are probably generally unpopular for the same reason that pure naval films are - whatever the reason, people aren't as swept up in the majesty of sea travel these days.  Sure, Pirates of the Caribbean was pretty popular for a while, but that was more about Jack Sparrow jumping around and being interesting than the ships themselves.

When you turn it around to space, well, that's basically the idea for Traveller and Star Trek, isn't it?  As Baulderstone pointed out, in a Traveller game everyone's got their ship in common that they're steering from star to star, dealing with problems from earning enough to pay for the fuel to dealing with boarding actions from space pirates.

I guess there's some of that, too. One of my favourite shows of the moment, Dark Matter, manages a big, frigate-sized ship with seven people. That's because one of the crew is an android who is linked into the ship's systems and can run them remotely, sparing the humans a lot of the boring stuff.

I think the travel bit is overlooking the fun, though - that comes from the destinations, not the means of getting there. Star Trek and the like do this with a different world every week, but it's no different to featuring a different island every session.

This is an interesting question, but I think the reason why is the same reason that fantasy RPG are more widely played than sci-fi ones. It is simply easier to run a game where the players are walking around slowly than one where they can travel great distances quickly. Once the player get out to sea, there are dozens of places they can go, which means that the GM needs dozens of adventures to be prepped depending on what they decide. Either that, or the game has to be railroaded where the players don't really have complete freedom to travel where they want which takes away much of the appeal of being on board a sailing ship.

Maybe it's because the designers tend to be all at sea? That would make rather a wash of the setting.  I'll get my coat.

I think part of it may be that naval fiction is not as widely popular as it once was and so most players and GMs do not feel as comfortable with nautical themes.

Because the sea is dangerous, and no one likes to drown.:-)

I think what's popular and what's fun & interesting, and what's challenging to GM or play for different GM's & players, are all different things. Nautical & naval subjects are full of interesting aspects, and full of challenges and things many people don't know about and aren't used to, and that may crimp the style of many players or cause conflicts between players. Even real-world couples I know who own boats, seem to have a high rate of conflict around who's in charge of the boat. A military or pirate/adventure ship without a captain clearly in command is liable to have issues. Then there's the whole aspect of the importance of what happens to the whole ship, which again is largely the business & decisions of the captain. The players may often have little to do while the ship's movements largely determine the fate of everyone. In a military setting, even the captain is liable to be under someone in the chain of command, his decisions more about details than free choice. And then there's the bit about many people not knowing much about sailing and historical naval warfare, or if they do, wanting it to be included in the game. There are some very interesting game systems for gaming out naval combat (e.g. Wooden Ships & Iron Men, Ramspeed), but they involve wind, multi-turn maneuvers, and single ships being single units, and passengers are not very significant. But it can work out and be fun, if you manage not to get bogged down and/or don't have players who want the usual control & attention of typical RPGs, and/or you just have the slow/complex aspects of the ships' affairs be mostly NPC/GM handled.

Oh, and by the way, one of the most interesting games I've found for Android (not saying much but still) is Pirates & Traders, which is this genre but single-player with you as captain.

Quote from: jcfiala;908932Well, pure naval games are probably generally unpopular for the same reason that pure naval films are...

Master and Commander was a brilliant film, and an RPG emulating the Napoleonic era is simple enough if you just make the PCs the officers.

I suppose the deeper issue is that unless you're playing in a fantasy or alternate-history world, there will be no female PCs--something a good portion of the internet won't tolerate.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;908954Master and Commander was a brilliant film, and an RPG emulating the Napoleonic era is simple enough if you just make the PCs the officers.

That movie sent me straight out to look for a naval wargame... I didn't inspire much interest in playing a character on a stuffy Napoleonic warship.
Pirate games or games set amongst a bunch of islands seem like more fun to me, Traveller with small merchant ship in an archipelago.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;908954Master and Commander was a brilliant film, and an RPG emulating the Napoleonic era is simple enough if you just make the PCs the officers.

I've heard that Dave Arneson was more interested in Napoleonics than fantasy. Makes me wonder what would have happened if he created RPGs set in 1800s France instead of Blackmoor.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;908944This is an interesting question, but I think the reason why is the same reason that fantasy RPG are more widely played than sci-fi ones. It is simply easier to run a game where the players are walking around slowly than one where they can travel great distances quickly. Once the player get out to sea, there are dozens of places they can go, which means that the GM needs dozens of adventures to be prepped depending on what they decide. Either that, or the game has to be railroaded where the players don't really have complete freedom to travel where they want which takes away much of the appeal of being on board a sailing ship.

Good point. In science-fiction games, you often have about two adjacent systems you can travel to. Once there, you need to refuel, make some money and probably get entangled in an adventure. The buys the GM enough time to stay at least one step ahead of the party. It is still a tricky kind of sandbox for many GMs, but it is manageable.

In a nautical campaign, there are whole coastlines dotted with cities and towns that you can pick a destination from.

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

True. The ship sinking and everyone dying is crappy way to end a campaign. It's one place where nautical campaigns can have an edge on most science-fiction settings, as boarding actions are more likely, letting the PCs fight on their own terms.

I remember talking to one of the designers of Fading Suns at Gen Con when that was new. He told me one of the conceits of that game was that as spaceships were usually rare treasures of an earlier age, almost all space battles were boarding actions as nobody wanted to risk a ship being lost. It was an interesting way of bringing the edge nautical games have into science-fiction.

You can always give the PCs a MacGuffin that your campaigns villains absolutely need. Then they will never want to sink their ship and risk putting the MacGuffin on the bottom of the ocean.

QuoteYou can always give the PCs a MacGuffin that your campaigns villains absolutely need.

Name the PC ship the "Heart of Gold" and everyone will avoid shooting at them (except the Vogons).

Issues with nautical campaigns people have pretty much stated, here is my list:
GM Issues
1.Lots of good ship combat rules, but not many meant to be integrated with PC skills thus allowing character mechanics to be reflected.
2.Possibility of mass melee combat during any boarding action, again, good games for this, but again, not that well integrated with RPG systems.
3. Any port in a storm.  The PCs may decide to get involved in a fishing/trade war between the towns on the north and south side of the Bay of Dragons or they may decide to sail to the New World or find the best whore on the Razor Coast, or all three and more as they circumnavigate the globe.

PC Issues
1.PCs get in trouble, trouble makes ships sink, PCs can't breathe water.
2. Managing a ship: weather, supplies, mutiny, trade, etc. It's not all rum and wenches.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;908944This is an interesting question, but I think the reason why is the same reason that fantasy RPG are more widely played than sci-fi ones. It is simply easier to run a game where the players are walking around slowly than one where they can travel great distances quickly. Once the player get out to sea, there are dozens of places they can go, which means that the GM needs dozens of adventures to be prepped depending on what they decide. Either that, or the game has to be railroaded where the players don't really have complete freedom to travel where they want which takes away much of the appeal of being on board a sailing ship.

Or the GM can use other principles to run games, such as situational and improv techniques.