Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Zardnaar May 06, 2015 6:15:07	One of the more enduring types of games I have played in D&D has been a exploration based game that may or may not have a heavy pirate presence in the game. This goes back to 2E and a 27 hour session of D&D with a 3 hour set piece battle near a colonial fort which involved the PCs more or less being similar to Sir Francis Drake and raiding Elven (think imperialistic elves) colonies and setting up things like ship yards and their own colonies. We even had space pirates in Spellammer where the PCs raided ships via random encounters in space.     My other addiction is games like Europa Universalis 4 or Crusader Kings 2 which are grand strategy games. They are sandbox type games where you can control a tiny one province minor nation through to taking control of the Habsburgs dynasty, France, England, or the Ottomans etc. I have been incorporating elements of thse games into D&D as well and with the release of the latest Unearthed Arcana article I thought I would have a brief look at pirates and naval stuff that happened IRL.    In D&D my recommendation is not to go to overboard on ship to ship combat. D&D rules have never really done naval combat that well and ranged PCs often like sitting back as far as they can and lob fireballs or arrows at opposing forces, melee PCs get bored. PCs lacking the right skills often get bored as well. Naval combat was more like land combat before 1588 which was where cannons started getting used to sink ships vs the Spanish Armada. There were a few exception such as Byzantine Greek fire but for the most part naval battles tended to be boarding actions and this suits D&D well.    Piracy in the Caribbean has also been very over rated and the stereo typical pirate a’la Pirates of the Caribbean is more or less a fabrication thanks to Treasure Island. Buried treasure is another fallacy as pirates spent money as a general rule rather than burying it. Gold was also rare as pirates would be interested in hostages /slaves (Julius Caesar, Barbary Pirates) or in goods they could not get such as medicine. Cargo was sold in ports outside the jurisdiction of the pirated ship.  Even a ships cat was expensive in a pirates world as think how hard it is to find a cat off the coast of Africa. In a D&D campaign for a pirate themed game I would have several factions or nations that the PCs could interact with. IRL that was England and the 13 colonies, Spain, France, the Dutch and Portugal which were the main powers in or near the Caribbean.    Piracy of course also happened in the east where spices were a popular commodity to steal. In addition to gold, gems etc things like sugar, medicine, salt,silk, slaves, spices, metals, manufactured goods and porcelain were all popular pirate cargos. Mass transit of bulk food stuffs was kind of rare mostly limited to grains and salted fish. A D&D campaign could have trade companies such as the East India Company and the Dutch equivalent. Those companies were richer than a few nations and had their own fleets and armies. So far most of the stuff I have mentioned is towards the tail end of what a D&D campaign would have as it is usually 17th and 18th century where things like that start happening.    The Isle of Dread could make an interesting pirate base or a colony and that idea was used in the Savage Tide Adventure path and there is even a gold mine there! Also consider handing out large amounts of silver it is not as valuable as gold of course but South America had very valuable silver mines in addition to Incan and Aztec gold. One could easily add Krynn type Minotaurs to a fantasy Carribean or the Yuan Ti could haunt ruins in a fantasy Amazon. Perhaps the Aztecs in a D&D game are a enslaved race serving up human sacrifice to Beholders, Illithids etc.    A typical ye olde medieval D&D type world is often heavily modelled on merry old England or France with magic. Kings tend to be autocrats in a neo fantasy version of a medieval fair. Other government types did exist however and some of them were regional powers in their own right. Eastern Europe had the Byzantine Empire, central Europe had the Holy Roman Empire which was an elective monarchy in the early days and the Poland/Lithuania Commonwealth also had an elective monarchy known as the Sejm. Republics also existed however where the rule was a Doge (Duke) or a council of merchants. The most famous one of these is probably Serene Republic of Venice which was where Marco Polo was from. Venice participated in the crusades and fought the Turks as well culminating in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. They also sacked Constantinople in 1204 which was a death blow to the Byzantine Empire. Braavos in Game of Thrones evokes Venice and the Minrothad Guilds and Darokar existed in the Known World/Mystara for BECMI and 2E. Genoa was Venices rival and both went into decline once the Turks captured Constantinople and trade routes diverted around Africa and new ones were made to the Americas.    In Northern Europe the Hanseatic League were nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE). They dealt in trade in the Baltics and bought grain in Poland and exported salted fish. The Dutch Republic became independent from Spain and settled New Amsterdam (New York), South Africa and Indonesia. Ragusa (Dubrovnik modern Croatia) was similar to Venice and has been used in the Game of Thrones TV show to model Kings Landing. Ragusa became rich as it was nominally under the control of the Ottoman Empire but was Christian and able to trade with the west where Turkish traders could not go at times.    D&D is not an economic simulator but in world building for a marine type game a little effort can go a long way. It can be very basic such as gold is mined here, sugar is here, silk comes from here type thing.  Just tweaking the fluff or alignment of the races can also make a massive difference. Krynnish Minotaurs are kind of like Spartans of the sea. Perhaps elves can reproduce at a similar rate to humans and they are a fantasy version of England with a big navy. Eberron Dwarves are involved in banking so they could run a merchant republic perhaps with iron clad monitors on a fantasy Baltic Sea. Fantasy Venice or Ragusa could be run by half elves and large expansionistic land based empires could be Hobgoblins while the last humans are holed up on an Island. Why use Mayans when one can use Eberron Drow?    Change a few details around on a map and the PCs may never know that a major naval battle in the campaign was heavily based on a historical battle. If one gets adventurous one can even go as far as having different currencies for individual nations as a recent DM tried for our group as he used Hawkmouth pounds and Altmark marks and thalers. That got confusing though when the campaign had 3 different currencies with random fluctuations in value. Placing a D&D game against a back drop of competing powers and/or conflicting religions can make things interesting if done well. Wikipedia can be an excellent source of inspiration for D&D as well.
#2 arnwolf666 May 07, 2015 0:38:43	Zardnaar wrote:
#3 Zardnaar May 07, 2015 12:29:34	3.0 FRCS also has a map of goods. Its not overly complicated.
#4 BRJN May 08, 2015 16:03:05	Zardnaar wrote:
#5 Zardnaar May 08, 2015 17:04:20	BRJN wrote: