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| y'know what, sure, why the fuck not? |
Howdy, Farmhands.
As of the time of writing, it is the release day for Dicegoblin's "Block, Dodge, Parry" (and thus, "Cairn") supplement, "Sail, Swab, Scurvy." The document is available on itch for half off during release weekend, and is apparently only 5 dollars full price once the promotion is over. BDP is one of many Cairn hacks that I return to for inspiration while collating my own personal preferred ruleset, and while I don't yet own it in physical, it's near the top of my To Buy list for a good reason.
But I'm not actually here to talk about BDP or it's new supplement. Because as it turns out, I've been running my OWN odd-like pirate game for the past 6 months, using it as a testing ground for whatever nonsense I decide to try and put into the Sanic Hack. The first iteration was made of me doing copious amounts of googling to see what other people who wanted to sail the seven seas in an OSR-y fashion had done before me; cobbling together their concepts and roll tables until I had something CLOSE to the vibe I expected. Every change since then has been seasoning to the taste of my actual players. So color me surprised when, at the very end of SSS, there's a short list of credits and references Dicegoblin used while writing the thing.
- Enthusiastic Skeleton Boys by Sam C.
- Lilliputian: Adventure on the Open Seas by Manadawn Tabletop Games
- This series of blogposts on Wavecrawls and Pirates by Skerples
This is list is, I shit you not, the exact same 3 sources I used to cobble together the first few iterations of my ruleset. Not for a lack of Other, equally impressive sources, mind you. They were simply some of the most immediately obvious results to read from, and so I did.
I found this happenstance very funny, but it also made me wonder. If two completely separate people could approach a similar project, around the same time, using the same core texts as inspiration, and come out with two different systems, then there's got to be other people who will inevitably try as well. So here's the point of today's post. I could let what I've got fester in the word document I keep it in, polishing it off and on over the next 10 years until it's PERFECT and ready for public consumption. I could dripfeed individal rulings and concepts out as some sort of retroactive design documentary, for you to piece together. Or. I could slap what I've got down here, in the hopes that it becomes useful to the next person wanting to craft their own bespoke Pirate OSR NSR POSR D&DIY Elfgame Mark of the Odd Odd-like Wavecrawl Sailing TTRPG experience. At the very least, I've linked like, 6 different games they might not have found in their search yet. To those future people I say welcome.
Quick disclaimer: This is only the player facing rules my table needs to reference; character creation item data, and monster statblocks use standard Cairn notation. We also play in a Shounen Furry Waterworld with Sanics and rubber people and stuff. I hope this helps you, despite this, lmao.
Until next time,
Brace yourself for whatever This is
- Sonic Prime, available on Netflix
Farmer Gadda
