Tips on Running a Pirate Campaign

I think you've pretty much explained my current attitude to that problem, locarno.

Stealth will be a matter of disguise. A ship that externally looks innocuous, has a bona fide registry, but conceals weaponry and perhaps armour. Engineers can tweak the drive to produce a different signature during attacks to conceal the ship's true 'civillian' drive signature. Military sensors give the drop on civillian merchants. But it looks like a merchant.

The Core Book skips the detection phase, and I'm happy to do the same.

It isn't like 'no stealth' reduces the fun, the tension and the danger.

If a ship enters the area of a gas giant, the ref can tell the PCs that there are 4 sensor returns on the scope. One accellerating toward the main world, one silent in orbit, one decelerating from outsystem and another maneuvering close to the Trojan Point asteroids.

Are any a danger? All of them?
 
Well, either the characters are genuine pirates, desperate for any mobile source of income going, or they're privateers embroiled in the cold war between the two rival worlds who are all over Sector 268 like a bad rash.

Trexalon is a good choice for hiring privateers.

The difference between pirates and privateers is that privateers have the authorisation of one side, usually something like a letter of marque, that outlines the ships they can hit, and those they can't; and if they do hit some ships, which cargoes they are allowed to take, and which ones not.

For example, the letter might state categorically no kidnapping of passengers and selling them off to slavers whatsoever. The letter might also stipulate no holding those same kidnapped passengers for ransom, either. Whatever the players are happy with.

With a letter of marque, a privateer ship can at least enjoy some measure of relative peace in the systems owned by the side they are fighting for.

Of course nothing stops them from having a letter of marque from the other side as well, and not telling either side that they are playing both sides against the middle ... :)
 
Mithras said:
The boys are 12 and 15, and have played a summer season of Traveller before. They definately prefer the faster-paced, action-orientated type of game, so the fencing of goods and dodgy dealings will be a side thing, and planning will also be second to getting on with exciting space combats and boarding actions of one type or another.

They can be sneaky and clever, and I'd like them to run with that.

I have found that with younger or inexperienced players it is better to keep the game moving at an 'action pace' then be bogged down by rules.

To do this, I use character sheets that have the weapon stats built in and print out any charts etc that I may need beforehand.

My general rule is that if I can not find a specific rule for something within 1 minute, then I simply make up a reasonable rule based on my knowledge of the game.

Another aide that I use is to find pictures or portraits on the Internet to represent each NPC and print them out with their names on each portrait. Whenever that person is speaking I hold up that portrait and speak in that persons voice.

If the players own a ship, then I have the 15mm scale deckplans printed blown up, printed and laminated. The same goes for a basic planetary hex map, a general blank graph paper map, and any ships that they may be boarding. You can then use dry erase markers on them to create whatever you need at the moment. I have even used Axis and Allies figures as miniatures. I have found a simple 2' x 3' laminated graph grid with colored dry markers invaluable in my campaigns.

Since the players will most likely be dealing with some criminal elements, then I would have a few "lowdown-doubledealing-backstabbing-larcenist-perverted-worms" to deal with. (Let me know if you get the referance)

Since we are dealing with kids as the player characters, I would strongly suggest that their pirating activities be tied to some altruistic value, such as joining a cause to liberate a planet from oppression or fighting against a mega corp that wants to exploite the sector for it's resources.

Even if they don't start out this way, they could be contacted or recruited by say a young female noblewoman who tries to recruit them for the cause. And who will of course need to be rescued at some later date.

Personally, I think that since your kids are playing what is really an adult game, that you may be best off by using it as a lesson on fighting/standing up for a just cause or personal values. You can enforce this, by having things go terribly wrong when they make bad/evil decisions and things go somewhat right when they make good decisions. With the proper GM, all kids could learn from Traveller!
 
This is definately the way I will go. But since Trexalon can't be SEEN to be sponsoring antiImperial piracy, there is a letter of marque, but this privateering is done secretly.

I'm looking at an analogy I made in another thread comparing District 268 to the Middle East. Perhaps this relationship is like a modern state like Libya or Iran sponsoring terrorism against foes, supplying cash, weapons and even training. But the whole thing is pretty much deniable. Not a perfect analogy, cos these privateers aren't terrorists, but it stands as a method of waging a secret and deniable war ...

alex_greene said:
Trexalon is a good choice for hiring privateers.

The difference between pirates and privateers is that privateers have the authorisation of one side, usually something like a letter of marque, that outlines the ships they can hit...
 
Solomani666 said:
I have found that with younger or inexperienced players it is better to keep the game moving at an 'action pace' then be bogged down by rules.

Sol 666 thanks for the advice, its all very good. I guess you've refereed alot of games with children? I have also! I've run lots of school RPG clubs in the past. But playing RPGs with my sons has always (nearly always) been a joy. We've graduated to Traveller from Fighting Fantasy, homebrews, more homebrews and OD&D.

Games are short, typically 2 hours on a Monday night, 6:30 to 8:30, and I always supply great things to eat as an 'incentive' to play! Interesting that you mention photographs. I've tried using a laptop, but gave that up, tried flipping through pictures on the widescreen TV (using the X-box's USB port), but I'm going to try using my iPod this summer. Simply holding it out with the relevant photo on. The web has everything media-wise, from stunning planetary landscape art, vehicles, Traveller spacecraft, objects, people ... its an awesome resource I intend to use, but not depend on .... :)
 
Mithras said:
Games are short, typically 2 hours on a Monday night, 6:30 to 8:30, and I always supply great things to eat as an 'incentive' to play!
Very cool. My kids are 9 and 7, and I have yet to introduce them to the world of gaming. So I'm looking forward to that day.
 
Mithras said:
I've tried using a laptop, but gave that up, tried flipping through pictures on the widescreen TV (using the X-box's USB port), but I'm going to try using my iPod this summer. Simply holding it out with the relevant photo on. The web has everything media-wise, from stunning planetary landscape art, vehicles, Traveller spacecraft, objects, people ... its an awesome resource I intend to use, but not depend on .... :)
There is a fine line between supporting the players' imagination and sup-
pressing it with pictures, and pictures which are different from or contra-
dict the players' imagination can disrupt the players' immersion in the fic-
tional game universe quite badly. There is of course nothing wrong with
using pictures, but there is always a risk to overdo it and to define more
of the game universe in a specific way than necessary. In my view pictu-
res are ideal as answers to questions of the "what does it look like ?" ty-
pe, but not so good when no such question was asked and the player ob-
viously has already designed his own picture in his mind.
 
you may want to try and find LETTER OF MARQUE (Rogues in space) vol 1 by J.andrew Keith published by Cargonaut press which deals in the carrer of the privateer and plundering of starships etc
 
rust said:
There is a fine line between supporting the players' imagination and suppressing it with pictures, and pictures which are different from or contradict the players' imagination can disrupt the players' immersion in the fictional game universe quite badly.
Actually based on my years of experience your thinking is more on the fringe that accurate.

I love having pictures to help set the stage for players. Not a picture for every little scene but just the major scenes, sets etc. The one significant GM's mental picture of the player's character an interrupt the GM's immersion into the fictional universe.

The kind of things I'm talking about are, you're approaching a crowd standing in front of a building, on a stage is someone in stocks the crowd gathering rotten vegetables. Now I can try to describe the scene, maybe draw a map out on the table. Ok they get an idea of where everyone is but not visuallizing the scene. I get questions, confused looks.

So I hold up a single simple drawing. Not bad but shows people the poor guy on the stocks the building, the looks on some faces, little kid tugging on mommies skirt... Now watch their minds click in, their eyes open wide with understanding. Put the picture away and press on now they all have the same starting image in their head and can fill the details.

Yes, some players ONLY want what they imagine, anything nterferring with that takes away their ability to assume, be 'under the impression of...' etc. My experience? Eventually this player is going to end up crashing into the realities of the situation when the what he imagines become too different to reconcile in his head.

Again, SPARING use of pictures.. portrait of an NPC, Of a major or significant location, Just to establish a common point... and then put them away.
 
As for a ship, the old tried and true Type P Corsair is hard to beat, decent speed and weapons, 100 ton cargo bay to absconed with your ill gotten booty, been used as a Picket Ship, Patrol vessel, Privateer, Armed Merchantman and Pirate ship for thousands of years. They are built all over both inside and outside the Imperium.
 
TC said:
As for a ship, the old tried and true Type P Corsair is hard to beat, decent speed and weapons, 100 ton cargo bay to absconed with your ill gotten booty, been used as a Picket Ship, Patrol vessel, Privateer, Armed Merchantman and Pirate ship for thousands of years. They are built all over both inside and outside the Imperium.
Actually, as I found out when running those particularly crappy adventures at cons, if you plan on putting the characters up against a corsair you best give them a fairly hefty ship themselves.
 
As for a ship, the old tried and true Type P Corsair is hard to beat, decent speed and weapons, 100 ton cargo bay to absconed with your ill gotten booty, been used as a Picket Ship, Patrol vessel, Privateer, Armed Merchantman and Pirate ship for thousands of years. They are built all over both inside and outside the Imperium.

Good call. The Type P is a perfect little ship for this sort of work.

There have been a few "boarding shuttle" type small craft in recent issues of Signs & Portents, as well - I'd make sure they have at least one on board....

Realized you asked for mission ideas a while back and we've been ignoring that...
Ten Ideas for piracy type missions:

1. High Guard Ambush - Jump someone refuelling at a gas giant; track them in from the upper layers of the atmosphere or low orbit of a moon then position yourself to intercept as they come back up from a scooping run.

2. Surprise! - Slip in amongst merchant traffic at the edge of the 100D limit, match velocity with an incoming ship (i.e. one with dry tanks) and then run out the guns. Smash and grab and then jump out as fast as possible. You WILL need some sort of distraction to keep any SDBs busy for long enough to pull this off - a distress call from somewhere else in the system and sufficient time for the SDB responding to build up a credible velocity in the opposite direction.

3. Sabotage - Sneak someone on board, either as a passenger, temporary hand, or concealed in cargo ('fast' drug?). Said person or persons obviously need to be either technically competent (disable the ship) or very dangerous (take the ship from the inside). For that matter, the effect could be best achieved with some suitable software - if your patron hands over some TL14+ agent software, then you can probably have the ship's computer eating out of your hand and the crew don't get much of a say in the matter.

4. Where the hell are we? - needs an ally in port; most commercial ships use standard jump data for common routes. If the information in the file were to be...somewhat innacurate?...and drop the ship out of jumpspace near an outer planet, where the players are waiting....well, that's their problem. Yes, they might notice the doped data if they check it but if they were going to thoroughly check astrogation data they wouldn't be buying standard jump files, would they?

5. Stand down and prepare to be boarded - Depends on your ship (a corsair or leopard is good). If you can pull off a convincing impression of a navy patrol vessel (system or subsector fleet) with the right to perform stop and search, you can get them to do the hard work for you. Impersonating a naval ship to another naval ship is next to impossible without access to secure encryption codes but then that isn't necessary here. Expect this to put you at the top of the most wanted list fast, though.

6. Steal from the thieves - finding smuggler jump points and cargo exchanges are going to be worth your while as such people will make a point of being in out-of-the-way, hard to spot places until they're ready to mingle with the regular traffic. Equally, they're less likely to call in the SDBs or report their losses, for obvious reasons.

7. There's a bomb on the bus - given the size of the suicide drone's warhead in Traders & Gunboats, one can potentially conceal a nuke in some of the ship's cargo. There are no specific rules for a nuke going off inside a ship's hull (Solomani 666 asked this not that long ago, as I recall), but (a) even if you use the basic rules for a torpedo warhead, on a >300 dTon merchant ship that's still not very nice at all and (b) the rules are slightly irrelevant because the moment you come within...say 1 light-second?...and inform them they have a nuke aboard they're going to heave over.


8. Play dead - Just that; provided you can be confident it won't be an SDB you meet first, of course. Few struggling merchant captains can resist the possibility of a salvagable starship.


9. Play Patron yourself - Meet with someone. Offer some work. Be slightly mysterious and let them know there's a semi-legitimate job going that involves meeting up with a cargo transport in orbit of the system's ice giant. Station corsair in low orbit of ice giant. Wait for muppets to turn up then rob them blind. Sounds stupidly obvious but variations on it work depressingly often with player groups I know...

10. Just stack it over here, Sir - No-one says that piracy has to involve ships. If you can half-inch some utility pods or hack the highport registry and just re-direct cargo to the wrong warehouse you can pick it up yourself whilst the owner is trying to figure out what went wrong. The bigger and more confused local orbit the better, for this one. Think Rotterdam harbour; if a cargo container's registry number was to be changed or lost you would never, ever find it.

Anyone got any other ideas.
 
I know this thread is about pirates and not privateers (which are sooo different..yeah, right) but if anyone is interested in designing their own Letters of Marque, here's a website with a plethora of links to historical versions.

http://www.constitution.org/mil/lmr/lmr.htm

There's also a few interesting tidbits of history behind Letters of Marque.
 
I'm going to throw this out there, what is the difference between a pirate and privateer and how would you define either one? :oops:
 
A privateer has a letter of marque from the government that allows them to essentially practice piracy against the merchant shipping of an enemy force.
A pirate doesn't.

Essentially, one government recognises the pirates activities as legal. The other government wont of course. It's a confusing situation :P
 
Or to put it another way, a pirate loots a ship for himself and gets hanged by his own government. A privateer loots a ship for his government and get rewarded.

It really depends on which thugs are ultimately in charge. :wink:
 
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