Interest Check: Burning Wheel Gold: Pirates

OK, I am ready to take the plunge and offer myself as GM for a Burning Wheel Gold game. Mainly, this is because I like the idea of a pirates/island game thrown out as an idea in the other BW thread.

At this point, I am basically picturing Sid Meier's Pirates with the serial numbers filed off. Outposts of major powers perched on islands. Ships filled with loot, pirate raiders, pretty damsels to romance, evil nobles with a grudge against you, hidden treasures, lost jungle citites and maybe we add just a pinch of D&D's Island of Dread and throw in some orcs and monsters for good measure.

Any takers?

I would totally be a part of this!

Yup!

I'd love to play!

I would be very interested in this!

Well then, that's enough interest to get this going. A couple of questions and comments to focus things to see if this works for everyone.

1) Character creation: I am thinking four life path characters, human stock preferred. The other races aren't unknown on the islands but generally speaking they don't get on boats and explore the world. The two most probable exceptions would be an Orcish raider or a Roden sailor but if you have a good enough story, I'll consider it.

2) So my initial pitch above is more "high adventures on the sea" as opposed to "rum, sodomy and the lash". Is that the desired grittiness level for you guys?

3) To make things simpler for me I would like all of you to be on the same ship. So what kind of ship are you thinking of? Pirate? Privateer? Merchants? Do you guys want to be the officers, the crew, some poor schlub press ganged onto the ship for your special skills?

That will do for a start. Let me know what you are thinking.

1.) Im fine with the limited Stock choices. 4LPs are fine too, but 5 might be more interesting for PBP, just cuz play/progression is slow anyway.

2.) Im fine with gritty but I've never gotten much out of rping depravity, so yea, high seas adventure is good with me.

3.) Part of this depends on GM choice; i.e. if it's our ship does someone have to actually purchase it with RP? Cuz them things is expensive. And the other part of this depends on the Big Picture. What is our campaign about? What are our central Beliefs?

My conception of a campaign like this would be that the ship is what brings us all together, in a physical sense. Maybe someone is the captain (if they can get the RP) or other high ranking crew, maybe some are just "normal" crew, maybe some are mercenaries, maybe some are mysterious passengers. People just make the character they want, and then figure out why they're on the ship.

The most important things are:

1.) What are our Beliefs that tie us to the Story?
- Maybe there's an island that we're all going to for some reason? Is it a treasure map for one guy, to find a reclusive Mentor for another, a rare plant-cure for yet another?

2.) What are our Beliefs that tie us to each other? Are we all a mutinous crew, waiting for the moment to get rid of our psycho-captain? What reasons do we have to work with AND/OR against each other?

Answering these things first should tell us what the boat situation is.

"People just make the character they want, and then figure out why they're on the ship."

That is actually what I am trying to avoid by setting down some information about the ship and voyage first. I would like to get a one sentence description of the initial voyage along the lines of, "Pirate ship chasing down the Lost Treasures of the Inca before the Spanish get there first!" then set you loose on character creation. That way there is still wide scope to make a character but with a focus so we aren't too all over the map.

As for the ship, if someone wants to be the Captain of the ship, then you either need to A: buy the ship outright with Resources or B: take relationship with a Patron. Someone is bankrolling you and they will expect results.

I don't think we're that far apart in what we're envisioning needing to take place.

I guess my point is/was, everyone doesn't/shouldn't have to be a crew member, and/or everyone doesn't/shouldn't have to be working toward the exact same goal.

We need a common place (the Ship), and we need common objects (people, places, things) in our Beliefs. But BWG is at its best when PCs have slightly different angles for why they are "coming at" those "Belief objects".

Example: We're on a ship, heading to a fairly newly discovered chain of islands.

PC 1, a Pirate, Belief: I must travel to This Island and find the Native People's Temple, because they are said to have solid gold monkey statues there! I will take them for my own.

PC 2, a Sorcerer, Belief: I must travel to This Island and find the Native People's Temple, because they are said to practice an ancient and long lost Blood Magic! I must learn it for myself.

PC 3, a Holy Man, Belief: I must travel to This Island and find the Native People's Temple, and conduct a miracle there to convert them to the True Religion, and bring them peacefully into civilization.

All Beliefs have common Objects (the ship, the Island, the Temple) that keep us together, but each want very different things from those objects, which necessitate different approaches to the Objects, and may elicit very different reactions if/when any given one is achieved, from each other and NPCs. It certainly doesn't have to be as complex as above, but if we're all pirates on the same crew trying to achieve the same thing, it turns BWG into a much more traditional rpg IMO. Which maybe that's what we want? I don't know.

I think it's critically important though that each player is interested in and excited by their PC and their PCs Beliefs/goals, to give the campaign legs. So that's why I was suggesting "people build what they want, and figure out why they're on a ship".

I agree with everything you said. It is just that in my experience, starting from "people build what they want" doesn't lead to such tightly focused beliefs as you just posted. That's why I wanted to start with, "the ship is travelling to This Island to find the Native's People's Temple" or whatever we as a group come up with so that developing three beliefs like what you posted is far more likely.

1. 4 LPs & human sounds good. Although, I would be interested in trying a Roden.
2. High Adventure is more preferable for me.
3. I think we should all be on the same ship. I'd prefer to play a deckhand, someone who's just good at his job and driven to be so. Maybe he has ambitions of being first mate, someday.

1) 4LPs and human are fine with me.
2) I’m with the others, high adventure is what I would prefer.
3) I like the idea of the island, but emsquared’s idea of a mutinous crew stood out to me when I read it, that sounds really fun. I’d like to play a pirate, but if we as a group decide on something else, I’ll go with whatever works best.

I think the mutiny thing has the potential to make a great BWG scenario (immediate, obvious conflict, very open ended for a continuing story).

My only concern is it's a very narrow focus, which is good from a campagin/play perspective - easy to hit the ground running, but it probably constrains character concepts to pretty much: crew, with limited variation on the central common Belief(s) - for or against?

Is that (being a crew member with some angle on mutiny) something everyone could get excited about? I mean there's a wide range of potential types of crew members on any kind of voyage for sure - especially if it's set in the "low fantasy" territory BW is naturally made for. But I've found that players don't get as excited about the campaign/story, so much as they do their PC. So how are people feeling about that?

Sounds like Waffles is down with mutiny.

And as mentioned I definitely think the mutiny thing could be interesting... but I've never had the opportunity to play out much with a Gifted or Faithful PC, so I was leaning towards one of those types, so long as that's allowed by the setting?

Shark's character concept seems to fit easily in that realm if he's interested in the mutiny plot point? Shark?

And thatguy, what about you? Thoughts on mutiny or another campagin concept?

As you say, Mutiny could make a good short term goal for an opening. You could tie that into other beliefs if we decide a recent decision by the Captain was the last straw for the crew.

As for being Gifted or Faithful, I am fine with either. Both are rare but not unheard of.

Mutiny is cool. The great thing about that is, it's not usually the end, but the means to an end. We all come together for the mutiny and after that, our goals may diverge. That'll create some interesting drama.

Hey Verrain, just wanted to check in, have you heard from thatguy?

I'm pretty stoked for this game and, as I love burning up characters for BW, already have 2 or 3 different variations on a Gifted PC for the mutiny plot - if that's what we go with - depending on what everyone else burns up :P

No, I have heard nothing from thatguy. However, three players would be enough for me to run something so I'll set something up in the near future.

Exciting!