Sunday, July 19, 2020

Corsairs: Setting up the next session

The players are probably going to meet some of the main NPCs for this adventure, so I've printed them out, and will see about getting my notebook better organized for play. It is one of those smaller 3-ring notebooks, but for some reason I have a pretty old-school hole punch that allows me to adjust the hole punches. So cutting a landscape paper in half, these fit perfectly. Good do know! Both are the equivalent of a steady wind, which does mean that all interactions against them are cursed: exploding 1's for failure!  

I've also named the other ship, a size 3 ship, that is being used to run the black market repellium: the Dancing Crester. Yes, using an animal from yet another Kickstarter as mentioned in another post. This ship only has 1 gun deck, the 2nd is now being used as a cargo bay for the illicit cargo. 

So, what are the plans for the game tomorrow? They are currently in Brawicke and at least know of Captain Horn and the Lady Gysby. I need to come up with some additional rumors, such as
  • there are job postings for sailors willing to go for extended voyages
  • a large ship that looks like a large corvette, passes through every 4 weeks or so.
  • Captain George Horn was a well known Alderil Empire Navy Captain back at the height of the war
  • Lady Gsyby has a strong Roche Empire accent and has been known to peruse weapon shops about town
  • it has been a while since the ship was last seen so it would not be surprising to show up in the next few days, heading west. 
  • my cousin in Coastone heard that miners are being hired but they have not yet returned home
  • sky whales have been sighted much further south this year than ever before
  • there are Alderil spies on Teboa
  • there are traitors in the Council
  • Joycie Gelnne (local council member) has sold out Teboa
  • Joycie Gelnne is one of the few honest Council members other than Sir 
While I do like me some good deck plans, playing via Skype means the combat is all theater of the mind. Combat between the ship crews is really abstracted out via die rolls, though the characters can get in to help with an extra die I believe. I need to re-read the ship combat as I did miss a step last time. And if there is a combat, they are going against a larger ship. One with a steady wind as her captain...

If we go into personal combat, there could well be a dual. Sadly the player playing Harmony-Rose is unable to make tonight's game, and it would have been fun to have the two women in a dual should it come to that. And I may see if we can make it come to that. Duels are a thing in the world of Teboa. And if I am reading the rules correctly, the players can do all the rolls: they roll their attacks as well as the difficulty dice of their opponent; then when the opponent attacks, they roll their opponents attack as well as their own difficulty dice. At least that is how I am going to try & play it. I think it gives the players a lot more interest in the combat versus waiting for me to roll. And as with a lot of groups, this groups rolls pretty badly at times. Which is often a lot more fun!

And re-read part of the rules and yes, the player does all the dice rolls. As noted by one of my players, some of us are not fans of dice pools. Yet this particular mechanic is actually a lot of fun and we are both enjoying it a great deal. Plus it means I need to buy more dice as one can never have enough dice!
If a character is being shot at by an enemy with a pistol, the player will roll their Grit Skill Dice, and roll the opponents Crackshot Skill Dice as the Difficulty Dice.
My expectations are that there could be a number of possible encounters, both within the town of Brawicke and aboard air ships. We'll see how much skullduggery the players do. And since we're all learning to play this, I'll need to let them know that they can make these rolls for gathering rumors, and I allow charmed if they role-play it.  Perhaps I can expand out the list of rumors, and they get as many as their draft...

Some more interesting view of Brawicke. The first is a more upscale residential area, the 2nd towards the ports.



And the docks. The docks for the sky ships are all well above ground. The ships nose into the U-shaped docks with crew hauling ropes to bring the ships into the dock. Open on all sides, but with a gang plank and overhead cranes for loading and unloading cargo. Brawicke boats 6 docks at the western side of town. Prevailing winds are usually to the west, allowing for easier sailing away from the town. 

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