Firebird01

Here it is, the much awaited part the tenth of our fabled adventure, never trust a statue the may be standing still but it doesn't mean they're not plotting something (this also applies to sheep, nothing that lives can actually be as stupid as that).

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 10.pdf

Thanks for that will check them out.

I am using Safehaven as a base for my characters (see Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy thread) as this gives good rationale for having a variety of different nationalities and factions being in the same place. Historically even if some nations are nominally at war trading and contact could take place at Freeports and in neutral territories to ensure that life's necessities continued to reach those who could afford it.

Haven't actually gone to the bother of fleshing out the port or drawing any maps for it as yet because I tend to run a loose style of campaign with a framework plot with some set pieces but where a lot is made up on the spur of the moment (mainly by the players - I just nick their ideas). I just tend to have a load of NPC ideas with a name, profession/faction, reason for being in the Dragon Isles and picture (I use a lot of 17th/18th century portraits etc. to provide a period feel (see example attached), then develop full stats etc. as needed.

I have also found that Heroic Maps on DriveThru have a good selection of pirate/sea/coast/ship themed battle maps etc.

As background reading into the whole pirate thing (I like using historical references as they provide period flavour and detail but also give me some ideas for settings etc. real life can be weirder than anything I can make up) the following I found quite good -

Pirate Nation (Elizabeth I and her Royal Sea Rovers) by David Childs - Earlier period but does give a good insight into the development of pirates and buccaneers along with clue to their tactics and explains why the English Navy was so rubbish until the 18th century.

Spanish Gold by David Cordingly - Gives a good history of the Golden Age of Piracy and its major players.

The Pirate Hunter by Richard Zacks - Though the writing is a bit hit and miss gives an insight into the life and times of Captain Kidd and shows how fine the line is between pirate and privateer and how this line moves according to politics and profit margins.

Dramatis Personae Richport.pdf

What will they find buried in the lava on your Island? Nothing pleasant so far from the session this week, Crimson Jack asleep on the beach and being eaten by a giant lizard for starters!

Next instalment in full soon

Here we are again me hearties, with a chest full of treasure, a bottle of rum and another piece of the map - part 9 is ready for perusal

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 9.pdf

Now presented the eight part of this saga in which our heroes leran of many needful things.....possibly

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 8.pdf

Just make sure you have one iron horse crash through a barn and come out covered in chickens and straw, it's compulsory!

I used variously 1d12 to 3d12 depending on relative speed at the time of collision, this gave the characters a chance! Thought about using a base damage of 6 plus 1 to 3 d10 again depending on speed, of course the driver would be injured as well as seat belts weren't compulsory in 1646, went for 2d6.

Yes a bit of Robinson Crusoe and a Bit of Benn Gunn mixed in.

They are still missing the top three pieces of the map, nine ancestors on the Dragons Scourge so nine map fragments six recovered so far. One major(ish) NPC in the Dragon Shaman known as The Homeless One, user of Blood Magic.

Next instalment fairly soon.

Now for your perusal the 7th instalment of this saga, along with a few things the players have been given.

NB No prizes up for grabs but if you recognize the text of 'The King Of Esbania Speaks' then lots of kudos for having good musical taste!

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 7.pdf Treasure map.pdf The King of Esbania Speaks.pdf

4 hours ago, André Roy said:

The joy of investigative work.

Well at least they seem to have a couple possible leads, 2 on the island, so they are moving forward.

For the NPC, do you plan to do a bit of foreshadowing or Will it be a either a random NPC or someone from their past? 

The NPC will be loosely based on one of the basic ideas I had when developing the background for the campaign but where they are headed now feels the right time for this one to crop up.

I have basically got a load of pictures that I printed off of applicable historical people from paintings etc. and give them a name, when they come up in play they sometimes don't even get stats, they are just somebody the characters have met, I flesh them out as and when needed with as much detail as the plot requires. This means that a major NPC (either benign or malevolent) can develop from a random beginning and also then grow in the same way as a PC does.

8 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

very nice work and good preparation!

as a side comment, even if I prepared as much and as well as you did, I wouldn't do a log for the players. On the contrary I would be interested in the player's own version of events... Only (very) rarely reminding them of something.

I mean it's also the player's story and I like to roll with it. Plus it's very fun to go along when they get it all wrong!  

The log for the players actually started off as an aide de memoire for myself (getting on in years a bit now with the old memory fogging up on occasion) which helped me keep track of things as the notes I make during play tend to be a bit cryptic if I come back to them a bit later than I intended and note taking during play can interrupt the flow a bit so I only do it where necessary. I just jazzed it up a bit and added the pictures and the players, once they saw it, liked it so have kept it going.

The log itself is run and informed by the players decisions and actions (I have set up the basic plot but how they deal with it is totally up to them and have had to do plenty of gaming on the fly when they go off in an unexpected direction as a results of attaching importance to a throw away comment I have made during play)) so it is very much their story and if they recall something in the journal differently they will let me know and I will edit accordingly. It is also done in very general terms and there are lots of things going on specific to individual characters which it would not be right to put in the journal as the other characters don't necessarily know about such things.

It just fits my GM style at the moment, but each to their own, that's why all on these forums enjoy RPGs so much, not for us the limited choices of the latest computer or console game as (at least as I feel) they cannot hope to compete with our imaginations. Which computer game could let you have a discussion on the best way to compress a toad?

Ahoy there,

Part the sixth now uploaded. In which there was much talking and discussing at confused cross purposes until someone finally asked the right question of the right persons and some enlightenment was achieved. After all that investigation I think they need a good fight and a serious NPC to come up against.

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 6.pdf Dr. Lysetts translation.pdf

Interesting, hadn't looked at it that way but makes good sense. Thinking about it some more I probably do that generally anyway as Players develop their characters best if left to their own devices and the GM only has to intervene or apply rules if something comes up which looks or feels like it is completely outside the characters history or development in game.

Ran K & C, all four printed volumes over a period of about two and a half years (we alternate GMs and games so it broke up nicely into manageable chunks which kept it fresh and interest up). Character creation was fairly open and I did not limit it to just Renaissance set professions but let people mould their characters into something they had investment and interest in.

We ended up with a Cavalier Fop and Bon-vivant, a Scottish Presbyterian Alchemist, a Highwaywoman who ended up turning into a good(ish) Witch as well and an Alchemist Samurai exiled form Shogunate Japan as the core team joined by, at various times, a Paracelsan Healer toting a blunderbuss and an eccentric independent clockwork engineer.

I used the printed adventures as a framework for the adventure and as the campaign wore on, more and more off script events took over.

I tried to run a story based adventure with less strict appliance of the rules than some and as far as factions/righteousness points etc. went tended to use this when players started to push the limits of their characters outline a bit too much or when they insisted their character would act in such and such a way because of their religion or background and it was needed to focus their minds.

The campaign seemed to go down well (it lasted a good length of time and we have now moved onto more Cakebread and Walton stuff with Pirates and Dragons - which campaign will be entirely of my own devising this time)

As far as hints, tips and problems goes here are a few off the top of my head -

1. I used lots of visual props and handouts such as copies of woodcuts, old paintings and wonderful clockwork monsters (there is a wealth of 17th century stuff out there for you to use) and used old fashioned fonts for handouts to players, which really helped to set the scene and give the sessions a flavour of the period (attached a couple of examples).

2. Also ran a written log (with spellings and phrasing in mock 17th century style) which the players liked and I could also slip in items of info. I had forgotten to give them in the heat of play to see if they noticed.

3. Spell use - lots of the spells, particularly the witchcraft ones and those that stack can get a bit powerful at times if the caster puts a lot of MAG into them so encounters have to be tailored carefully.

4. On reflection I think I was too generous with improvement points and hero points which tended to mean that characters got quite good quite quickly and the risk of character death was remote.

5. The K&C books are written with a fair bit of humour and that I carried on into the campaign as I was running it which seemed to go down well and fitted a swash buckling, heroic style of campaign.

If I think of anything else will let you know

Jacks hanging.docx Cross Dressing.docx Witchfynder Procalmation.docx

No issues as yet the character is being played as a fairly pious man who has yet to become fully immersed in a world of dragons and magic, he is pursuing his brief of investigating the Dragon Isles for potential sources of supply and power bases for the Suebian Empire and now has the new Suebian Ambassador in Safehaven to report to (and no doubt to give him some less than pleasant or not very moral tasks in the future).

The fifth instalment now uploaded, fighting mummies, blue pygmies and stone sarcophagi.

Enjoy me hearties, no sleep 'til Tortuga!

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 5.pdf

Will have to see what happens next session, shame they're a bit short on Doubloons after the sea battle! There's a nice dynamic between the characters and I haven't even introduced any major villains in person yet.

Pat the fourth now up and ready for your perusal.

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 4.pdf

Whilst running my recent P&D campaign have found that due to the size of the party and the high POW of a couple of characters (notably a Shaman) there are a lot of doubloons about which are tending to put skill use and development in the shade a bit, particularly if the black spot comes out early as there is no penalty for use left.

Will be discussing this with the players next session to see what they think but it looks like we may go down some house rules to balance things out. e.g. bring in rolled crits and lower the number of Doubloons available (say Pow/4 instead of Pow/2) or limit stacking possibly.

Any suggestions, as I want to keep them, but as a precious resource rather than things to spend without thought to blow the enemy ship out of the water in a couple of rounds.

Glad you are enjoying it so far. Just been setting the scene for the players so far, should start to get really interesting (for me at least) soon given the drunken babblings of one of the party, will be posting the next one soon which seas them fighting in sea battles and crawling through jungle ruins.

PS I did a bit of research into my French Nobility titles and found that in the 16th and 17th century French had not completely settled into masculine and feminine nouns so that Comte could be used for a Comtesse interchangeably just changing the gender of the pronoun. This is always assuming the internet has got it right of course.

Blessings of the Spirits be upon you.

Here be attached part 3 of the story, slightly later than planned so it comprises two playing sessions in its coverage.

Enjoy.

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 3.pdf

Better issue a blanket apology for those speakers of other languages out there, if I make any errors it is simply my bad as I was always a typical English man and useless at learning other languages. I won't let it get in the way of a good story though!

A'Ha Me Hearties and other piratical expressions etc.

Here be attached part two of the saga, along with the aforementioned treasure map fragments and the letter the characters have received for their ancestors written 45 years before the events unfolding.

We are still very much in the plot set up stages here but hopefully the story will start to unfold a bit from now on as everybody seems to be settling into character, especially 'Crimson' Jack who wilfully misinterprets the spoken word at every opportunity.

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1 part 2.docx Pirate Pact.docx Treasure map obverse.pdf Treasure map.pdf

Just starting a new campaign using Pirates and Dragons as a base system, and as I already do a log for the players so that they can more easily remember my carefully designed plot hooks and not wilfully misinterpret information given out in the sessions (some hope) thought I might as well post it on here to see if anyone else enjoys it, I will try to keep it easy to follow and fairly regular if I can but it will contain some group in-jokes and such like so sorry about that in advance.

NB the treasure map was drawn on real papyrus I got in an art supplies shop. GMs top tip here, when you spend time an effort to design a treasure map and then carefully divide into nine intriguing parts make sure you scan or copy it before cutting! More time spent piecing it back together so it can be copied.

Pirates and Dragons Ye Legacy season 1.docx