Zornhau Forums

Further to a post in the Settings and Stories board asking about settings we'd like to play in, wherein I said I'd actually quite like to run an age of sail piracy game, here are a few ideas I had as regards how naval combat might work.

First thing that comes to mind would be something inspired by Assassins' Creed 4: Black Flag crossed with TRoS. It's something along the lines of the pilot of each ship deciding whether they're trying to get into a good position to shoot, or trying to avoid the enemy ship's guns. Each pilot then rolls a sailing check - each success on an attacking ship is one gun that can fire at the other ship; each success on a defending ship is one fewer gun that can fire on it (if one ship is attacking and one is defending, it's essentially an opposed roll; if both are attacking, they may well broadside each other).

After that, the cannons open fire using the skill roll of the chief gunner on any given attacking ship as they try to hit each other in sensitive spots like where the gun powder is stored and along the water line to let in water. Another option would be grape shot, which would be directly targeted at the crew of the target ship, or chain shot to try and immobilise the target ship. As to how the damage would be sorted - I have no idea.

Naval combat is definitely something I want to explore, but most likely it's going to be an expansion. I have some ideas on how I'd like this to work, but I've purposely put it off not to distract me at this point. Not to put you off or anything, but that's just how it is.

If you are interested in such stuff, I heartily recommend the Horatio Hornblower novels to get you going.

P.S.
Also, if you should ever stumble upon a reasonably priced copy of Seamanship in the Age of Sail: An Account of the Shiphandling of the Sailing Man-of-War 1600-1860, Based on Contemporary Sources, then that is an outstanding book as well.

A naval supplement would be fantastic.

But, please, remember to consider galleys (and their ilk), some of us are looking to the Med for setting inspiration

It would be great to have a ships supplement sometime in future. Ships feature pretty heavily (currently at the background) on my setting, too and it would be great to shift from the city to sea at some point.

I can safely say that naval combat is something we're all salivating over. Henri and I have wasted way too much time over the years tossing ideas back and forth over this, and we have tons of research material we've squirreled away for it. Once we've got the beta out, this is definitely on our to-do list. Our default setting even significantly features piracy as part of its background.

I can guarantee no one wants to play Pirate Bastards more than I do.

But Higgins has the right of it - we aren't allowed to play with boats until you guys have rules in hand. I will try my best not to be grumpy about this.

Good to hear! I don't know why but I have a feeling that pirate theme is on the rise in popular media (really, no idea where that came from) so that would complement the rules greatly.

Agamemnon wrote:But Higgins has the right of it - we aren't allowed to play with boats until you guys have rules in hand. I will try my best not to be grumpy about this.

A permutation of the following conversation takes place about once per month:

Higgins: "I need the next assignment!"
Agamemnon: "Well, you could take a shot at the naval rules. We'll need them eventually."
Higgins: "Nein! Nein-nein-nein! We need beta out first! Give me a beta-related task."
Agamemnon: *grumbles, gives a beta-related task*

Yes, please, concentrate on the beta first even though naval rules would be cool addition.