Ol' Gadda's Pirate Game

 

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.

Brace yourself for whatever This is
- Sonic Prime, available on Netflix

Until next time,

    Farmer Gadda

Sherbet Forest Clearing

(An Adventure Site for your Fantasy Elfgame of Choice)

"Forestmen’s Hideout 6054", TLG 1988

This Adventure Site was written as a thank you for a generous monetary donation that arrived during a moment of need!  Thank you so much for your support, Anonymous Farmhand!

    Deep within the dark woods of Sherbet Forest lives the jolly gang of misfits known as The Forestmen. Beloved by the peasantry and begrudgingly tolerated by royalty, these free spirits spend their days carousing in search of food and song. But one should never forget that the Forestmen's autonomy was hard won through their talents with sword and bow. They are a genial folk, but only as long as your respect their freedom.

 Slip-Wreck Rock 

(An Island Adventure Site for your elfgame of choice.)

"Island of Dragons Bones" by Zhang Li

     A simple jut of stone and sand, upon which the fossilized bones of some great beast lay. The water surrounding it feels oily and smells revolting. A small pit-stop of a village has been built here, with little to offer but cheap grog and the barest of supplies.

This Adventure Site was written as a thank you for a generous monetary donation that arrived during a moment of need!
Thank you so much for your support, Nebulabash!

Camping! A Save System and Repopulation Procedure for Heroes of Cerulea

"Pokemon Base Camp" - Pokemon Legends Arceus, Game Freak

Howdy, Farmhands!

    Heroes of Cerulea by Blackfisk Publishing comes with 3 separate campaign styles printed in it's rules. The first, Dungeon Campaign, allows Players to skip all overworld travel, teleporting them from entrance to entrance of the main campaign's 3 Dungeons in whatever order they like. In the second style, Overland Campaign, the map is placed before the players with the Dungeon's locations clearly marked, with overland travel being used to fill in the space between them. The final, and most expansive style, Screen Crawl Campaign, is the focus of today's post.

    My current game is run in Screen Crawl style. The map is entirely whited out, with the contents of a square only being made known to my players as they choose to enter it. NPCs will mention the names and general direction of landmarks, but until the players choose to head in that direction, they know nothing about it. Sure, both of my players have access to the PDF with the full map included, but ostensibly, they're traveling blind. Rules as written states that "completed" squares can be ignored for fast travel purposes once the obstacle within it is solved, be it a puzzle or a fight with Monsters. I've decided this is too easy, and have seasoned the game to taste with the following homebrew.

Disability in Elfgames - Some Guy's Opinion

 

"The Combat Wheelchair" for dnd 5e by Mark Thompson
The homebrew that launched a thousand piss-baby's tantrums

 

Howdy, Farmhands-

    Twitter is dead. Long live... well, preferably Not-Twitter. 

    The following is what was once a tweet-thread, collated here for better archival and perusal. It is sadly devoid of the interesting input received upon it's posting from other people in disabled spaces, but despite those conversations happening, I still think the content reflects where I am at personally with this topic. As always, my opinions are my own and reflect my life experiences and biases, so please do not take anything here as some sort of attempt at being authoritative on the matter. 

    Until Next Time,

        -Farmer Gadda

"Limitless Heroics" by Wyrmworks Publishing

    A mutual approached me with the request that I write an opinion piece on portraying permanent negative effects for pcs in elfgames. My kneejerk reaction was "This isn't my lane", forgetting my wife is permanently disabled, and I use corrective devices for my personal medical issues. So actually, maybe, hey, I AM in a place to have opinions on Some of this topic.

    The tl;dr is that Fifth Edition, especially with it's Conditions as written, is made with the internal assumption that all PCs are able-bodied, with any change to that status quo being a net loss to playability. Mathematically, you're worse than your peers at actions you're expected to be capable of. -if not completely barred from subsections of equipment. A blind individual, if going by 5e's definition of Blinded, is incapable of casting many spells from the outset. This is not a moral judgement or anything, just a statement that RAW, this is how the system is set up to work. I've read a bunch of "fixes" for this. Guidelines for DMs to band-aid over or ignore wording of specific rules, mechanical Feats and Magic Items to "Nuh-uh" those uncomfortable rules away for the one player who wants to play a disabled pc; but none of it addressed (or could address) the core issue.

    5e, and honestly, most elfgames that primarily function as a combat engine, are games about causing violence and physical harm to an opponent, while mitigating physical harm to the party. Any state that isn't able-bodied is mathematically meant to be avoided lest it lead directly to a fail state. From a Game Design perspective, being disabled or negatively affected by any physical or mental ailment is undesirable, with a decent chunk of the game mechanics explaining how to Un-Do or preemptively avoid certain kinds of ailments. Stripped down to it's core, that Is The Game.

    But saying "Play other games" is not actionable here. The individual WANTS to play an Elfgame, and WANTS to not be shitty about disabled rep in said Elfgames, so what does Gadda suggest trying to meld those two desires into an enjoyable game night with the boys?

    As a -baseline-, everyone at the table needs to be aware of the game's biases. They need to understand that the assumptions made while writing the thing were ableist and racist, and that those decisions are unfortunately inherent to the game they've chosen. There are no quick fixes to be had here. And frankly, anyone who claims you CAN fix those issues with the right amount of homebrew is either drinking the Kool-Aid or trying to sell you something. Sorry, not sorry. Being aware of the assumptions the Game makes will make it easier for both players and GM to be able to recognize when the rules are pushing the fiction into uncomfortable territory, and that awareness will then facilitate discussion in the moment of what the table is willing to do to mitigate that

    "Hey, GM, the mechanics say that my disabled character should not be able to do this, but that feels bad and like I'm not as useful as the rest of the party." or "Hey guys, this game clearly would reward us for taking this uncomfortable action, but this reeks of [insert social issue here]." No table will be able to solve the game for everyone, but no table should be worried about that. The focus should be on the comfort of the people At That Table, In That Moment.

    How would -I- go about it, as a GM? I would assume that, mathematically, a disabled character's "Normal" is on par with an able-bodied character. Conditions that connect to a disability on a flavor level would not be substituted for that disability. If a player wishes to ROLE-PLAY that their disability would negatively affect the NARRATIVE in a scene, I wouldn't hold them back from doing so, but at no point would I attribute a negative roll modifier or bar them from a mechanic for doing so. For Players who intend to role-play the story of an individual OVERCOMING a physical or mental disability, I might offer a small de-buff, but ONLY for that Player, and ONLY if everyone else at the table is comfortable with it. Then I'd dangle an obvious quest with a Feat at the end that "Nuh-uh"s it.

    But also, I just wouldn't use 5e or an associated Elfgame to tell those kinds of stories in the first place, but what can ya do.