Subject:
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Pirate Game Postmortem (Was: Re: Brickfest)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.gaming
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Date:
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Tue, 13 Jun 2000 03:14:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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1345 times
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Hi!
Shiri Dori wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Frank Filz writes:
> > If you feel comfortable, even if you have already discussed things in
> > private with me, please respond in public also (or at least send an e-mail
> > to me to remind me of the issues you saw).
>
> Personally, the least-fun thing was the pace. Once we started to really get
> going, attacking and all, we had to wait a long time until you (as the only
> GM) rolled the dice, etc. That made the game very slow, and a bit boring while
> you were waiting.
This is probably why Steve has many "assistants." When a game is that large, is
it possible to allow people unconnected to that particular battle to mediate? I
have a feeling that a 5- or 6- person Pirate Game might feasibly be run by one
person in stretches of three or four hours. I did indeed encounter the same
idleness issue once skeleton-slaying and alligator-whacking got underway, so my
response was to see if there was any way I could aid in resolution of other
pending battles. The GM is certainly never idle!
> Also, I was really frustrated with that merchant ship, 'coz I followed it
> diligently, yet every time I caught up on her, you moved it further away.
> Perhaps having it move a constant distance each turn (wind-related, of
> course), and actually measuring the distance (instead of arbitrarily moving
> the ship) might've been a better idea, then I could predict where it'd end up
> and board her.
My success in the game is largely traceable to a merchant vessel. I'm glad that
the initiative system allows smaller ships to plot movement after large ones, but
it seems that a randomizer with regard to initiative might be in order--a skilful
merchant captain being better than an unlucky pirate. But both my positioning and
the appearance of the merchant were quite fortuitous (however the appearance of
the Imperial ship was a nice balance--had the pirate base not been there, I would
have lost my prize and likely my captain as well). Of course, when you get above
initiative level 2, you have to start splitting movement into two phases--but even
so I wonder if perhaps without a randomized element, initiative becomes a snowball
factor.
However, if a ship starts out ahead of you, and the wind is constant, you're not
likely to catch them unless you've got a trolling motor or you damage their
rigging with shot, so as frustrating as the Fruitless Merchant Chase can be, it's
very faithful to the reality. But didn't merchant vessels being pursued sometimes
dump cargo overboard to pull away or make themselves more manoeuverable? That
would imply that a laden merchant ship would be a mite slower than a warship of
the same class.
But the frustration of pursuit is covered in the rules, to wit:
http://www.io.com/~sj/PirateGame1.html
under "Pursuit Speed." Did we make use of this clause?
A few other thoughts, really quickly:
-Should hull hits have an adverse effect on ship speed? Drag is definitely
changed.
-I was going to ask about turning radius, but Steve already has a clause: that a
ship can only turn as many compass points (ordinals and cardinals, or 45-degree
marks) as it has initiative points. I'd amend that to exclude initiative points
derived from non-ship sources, or limited to one extra point, because there's only
so much even the best captain can do with an unresponsive ship.
-What do you (plural) think about the -6 grapeshot penalty? It would seem that
grape would have a *higher* chance to hit at exceptionally close range; could the
-6 flat modifier be changed to a range-based modifier, or perhaps the penalty
reduced and the range limited?
-What do we think of odd weapons, such as murderers (the swivel-guns on 16/17c
ship railings) and mortars (monstrous examples of which I brought)? The former
might be simply subsumed into "muskets," and the latter would be rare because
they're military siege weapons. But as Frank stated in an earlier message, a
mortar would help to even the score between installations and pirates--and they
would have great strengths and equally nasty weaknesses that would pretty much
require a serious investment and probably also piratical cooperation (Arrr! Ye
spake the forbidden word!). Thoughts for siege mortar stats (in random order)
follow in the next message.
best
Lindsay
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Pirate Game Postmortem (Was: Re: Brickfest)
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| Well, I guess I'm going to do some piecemeal responses... I will craft a final report in a week or so though. Some quick comments before addressing some of Lindsay's comments: After looking at some of the pictures, I'm glad I forgot tape measures (...) (24 years ago, 13-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Brickfest
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| (...) All right, if anyone feels uncomfortable about posting their thoughts, LMKWYT and I'll post them w/names omitted. (...) Personally, the least-fun thing was the pace. Once we started to really get going, attacking and all, we had to wait a long (...) (24 years ago, 13-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
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