Questions for Pirates of Drinax campaign

[DickNervous]

You don't want to, no. But present-day Drinax isn't a viable civilisation. It's the twitching head of a decapitated little pocket empire.

I love that description. I'll have to remember it to share with my players at some point.

 

[Mytholder]

With the Sun and Shadow how did it work for you, with the palyers playing the pirates and the hunters?

I haven't actually run that one, but I've used the same trick in other games. The trick is to make sure it's a change of pace - don't let the usual group dynamics take hold. If one player is always the leader in the regular Pirate group, then ensure someone else outranks him in the naval interludes. If your players are deadly serious during the pirate games, then play the naval stuff a bit more for laughs - portray the Imperium as something closer to blundering buffoons (with enough firepower to roast a planet). If your pirate group is loose and casual, then try to run the naval section as a more serious drama. Look for ways to contrast the two parallel stories.

 

[Dagrill]

I haven't actually run that one, but I've used the same trick in other games. The trick is to make sure it's a change of pace - don't let the usual group dynamics take hold. If one player is always the leader in the regular Pirate group, then ensure someone else outranks him in the naval interludes. If your players are deadly serious during the pirate games, then play the naval stuff a bit more for laughs - portray the Imperium as something closer to blundering buffoons (with enough firepower to roast a planet). If your pirate group is loose and casual, then try to run the naval section as a more serious drama. Look for ways to contrast the two parallel stories.

Thanks for the suggestions, whilst I've given my players 2 characters before, it's usually on the same ship. I think I might make one a Lieutenant-Commander and the others Lieutenants. Also I think I'll use an older Atlantic class cruiser as Eurisko, rather than a shiny new Planet.

Probably start the new campaign around the May bank holiday.

Regards

David

 

[Murphy]

We're going at it again.

We poked fingers at the map randomly to pick a planet for raiding and ended up at Inurin.

Apparently that's a whole planet ruled by a religious cult and they grow sacred hallucinogenic fungi. We raided the planet, brutalized the priests and took their secret to resell it to Brain Dimming. I could not keep this serious.

Their Imperial standing is like -20 now. They are infamous for capturing the Broadsword of a notorious pirate hunter. It was renamed Dire Wolf and is now being repaired to become our new flagship.

Finally got around to running "Honor among thieves" too.

One player wants to roll a new char, so he made his old one split away from the group, taking a ship, several crewmen and a larger part of the accumulated treasure. I'm more than happy to oblige since this will fight the Monte-Haul effect and create a new NPC rival.

The preceding split in the party also directly led to failing the quest because Miria Silverhand kicked one character's ass in space whereas a fleet would've caught her. Although she did have to flee Theev without completing her negotiations, so there's still chance.

 

[PsiTraveller]

My characters are using their merchant character to make a lot of money. They are very happy with the way their shares are gaining value. The King is happy as well, he gets 10% off the top.

They group has finished the Honour among Thieves, did a chase away Aslan claim jumping miners off a moon in the Paal system. I thought they would fight and would gain ships to use or give away, but they let the Aslan go.

So they headed to Tech world to upgrade their ship, and get mining bots to mine the site the Aslan had been working. While on Tech World they will get the start of the Nano adventure going, plus a couple of other hooks I have made up.

 

[Dagrill]

A world can have a peacetime military budget of 10% of GWP.

The military budget is divided between the army and the navy in whatever proportion seems good to to the government.

A world can maintain 10 times its naval budget in ships and orbital fortresses.[/indent]

The big joker is the floating city, or rather the floating platform (known as a laputa) on which the city is built. IMO the maintenance of that would have to come out of the military budget. That is to say, the money spent on maintaining it would reduce the money available for the military budget. I have no idea how big and how expensive that platform is.

Hans

The main problem is GWP doesn't really apply, it's a scavenger society. A bit like someone living in a stately home and selling off the picture collection to live on.

Kind Regards

David