Your ideas for my upcoming Evil Steve's Pirate Game!

[Cherno]

Finally, the time has come for my first session of Evil Steve's Pirate Game.

In my previous threads, you were able to see some of the stuff i built so far:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=47266

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=49275

Here's a quick rundown of the sets and MOCs that will be available for the game:

• Lots of ships of various sizes
  
• Lots of boats (sails and/or oars)
  
• A mountain of pirate minifigs: Pirates, merchants/traders, harbor personell, sailors, soldiers (bluecoats) with officers, marines (redcoats) with officers, skeletons, skeleton pirates, islanders.
  
• various sea and land animals: Sharks (including two white ones), manta ray, octopi, sawfish, Kraken/giant squid, monkeys, alligators.
  
• one free trading post, two pirate ports, eldorado fortress, enchanted Island, plus more small and medium sized sets (broadsides brig, imperial outpost and so on)
  
• Enough small and medium sized islands to fill my little carpet-caribbean
  
• Marooned pirates to rescue
  
• Treasure chests, barrels, various other cargo items
  
• Cold coins
  

So with all that stuff in storage, practically every scenario imaginable is possible.

Now the question: What do you think would make for an interesting, appropriate introductory scenario?

The two other players have no ESPG experience, but regularly play complex boardgames like Axis&Allies, (Advanced) Heroquest, etc., so rules complexity shouldn't be a problem.

Please consider the following aspects when stating your ideas:

• Three players, including me
  
• One ship per player, with the option of upgrading it in the game through raiding of other ships or buying a better one in a port
  
• Playing time not too long (3 hours would be cool, including some rules explanations in the beginning)
  
• No big sea battles which "would be cool" but are inappropriate for new players
  
• Player interaction of some sort: Wether it be straight combat, trading, or a mix of both; It should be one game with three players instead of three games with one player each ;)
  
• "Coop-mode" against me as a GM would also be a possibility
  
• No player elemination, i. e. if a player's ship gets sunk, he shouldn't be out of the game, likewise he shouldn't be too disadvantaged to make it impossible and pointless for him to try to play and longer
  
• Action-oriented: Less role-playing, more sail-and-shoot
  
• Too many NPCs (if present at all) slow the game down tremendously and have to behave without needing a game master
  
• A way to keep score of some sort; The game should ideally have a goal and/or a clear winner in the end
  
• Not too many things to do/explore/experience at once = gameplay shouldn't be too overwhelming
  
• KISS: Keep it simple, stupid! ;)
  

Phew. As you can see, there are quite a few things to consider for a simple scenario. Anyway, please feel free to post whatever floats your mind. Every idea can be elaborated on!

As a big THANK YOU for your input, i promise to write a detailed after-action-report with pictures.

Edited December 21, 2010 by Cherno

[Capn Frank]

I would try a quick initial game with the two newbies so that way they get used to the rules.

Then, you can see if both of them teamed up would be able to take you on.

If additional games were to be played, I am sure the new players would have an idea as to what they would like to do.

[Francis Dampierre]

One thing that players have often complained about is wind direction and strength. For a first game, I would either have the wind blowing at normal speed in one direction throughout the entire game or (if you want wind changes) plan them ahead of time and refrain from changing wind speeds. Maybe once your two players have more experience you can start experimenting with light or strong winds and more random changes.

Also, to avoid confusion, I've seen players that dedicate a small island to the turn number. This seems like a pretty effective method of keeping track of the game. Of course, this involves making numbered decals for the tiles.

[Capt.JohnPaul]

Well, if it's just one person sail & shoot game against 2 newbies, I don't think you'll need THAT many different ships and different sizes. Should players be allowed to use their own custom ship? Because I wouldn't think it would be fair if Joey Lock walked into the room with his Unicorn...

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/narutokan/100_0975.jpg (Don't want to fill up the post with the large pic)

Well... maybe not as you said "No cool sea battles that are not good for newbies."

Or would it have to be custom ships of a reasonable size?

Next, could it be that a player is control of sea animals, and can control krakens and sharks to attack ships? Then you could roll a dice or something to decide if ye gets eaten! (example: Cherno gets attacked by the kraken, roll a 4 or higher to escape.)

[Cherno]

Ok, time to revive this thread

The basic outline of my planned game is taking shape, it will basically come down to a random assortment of places the players can visit with their ships, buying cargo in ports, hiring crew members, doing quests for NPCs.

Now, I need some cool ideas for quests, divided into general tasks that could be done anywhere and for everyone (like "Kill 10 Sharks" or "bring me 5 Prisoners i can use as slaves", "use these poisoned bananas and this catapult to bombard the monkey-infested island over there") and also some missions for the "special" places:

Soldiers:

Broadside's Brig

Sabre Island

Imperial Outpost

Eldorado Fortress

Islanders:

Crocodile Cage

King Kahuka's Throne

Forbidden Cove

Enchanted Island

Neutral:

Imperial Trading Post

Pirates:

Smuggler's Shanty

Rock Island Refuge

Shipwreck Island

Forbidden Island

Voodoo Lady's Swamp Shack

Please feel free do post any ideas you might have; perhaps someone has seen a lot of pirate movies or read pirate books and post some inspiring ideas from these sources

Edited March 17, 2011 by Cherno

[Francis Dampierre]

You could have your players get magic ingredients for the voodoo lady. If you're allowing your players to raid ports, you could have them steal a key or map from the governor's office. Or just a classic "rescue the governor's daughter" scenario. More general ideas:

- Bring muskets and cannons to a port to reinforce it

- Deliver a message within "x" turns to someone

- Escort a cargo ship

- Bring rum to the Pirate King

Also, when a player docks at a neutral trading post you could offer to let them buy some cargo to deliver a hostile port. Make it worth more if they take it to a friendly pirate port, but if they successfully deliver it to the soldier outpost (or whatever) they can treat the hostile port as neutral too.

[lt.Gonville brickhead]

A simple way to do wind speed would be roll a dice.(6 being high 1 being low.)

[Cherno]

You could have your players get magic ingredients for the voodoo lady. If you're allowing your players to raid ports, you could have them steal a key or map from the governor's office. Or just a classic "rescue the governor's daughter" scenario. More general ideas:

- Bring muskets and cannons to a port to reinforce it

- Deliver a message within "x" turns to someone

- Escort a cargo ship

- Bring rum to the Pirate King

Also, when a player docks at a neutral trading post you could offer to let them buy some cargo to deliver a hostile port. Make it worth more if they take it to a friendly pirate port, but if they successfully deliver it to the soldier outpost (or whatever) they can treat the hostile port as neutral too.

Great quest ideas! I especially like the Escort and "Rum Raid" missions. Good stuff, thank you very much.

[Dread_Privateer_Roberts]

I know I've mentioned my game in other posts... I tried to post a file, but it doesn't fit... If you're interested I've got all of my stuff in Spreadsheets and PDF files, PM me...