I grew up in Newport, RI, the home of a lot of sailing history — the White Horse Tavern down the street from my house was a Revolutionary hangout run by pirates and Captain Cook’s Endeavour lies at the floor of the harbor (as well as lots of other interesting ships of varying origins), and the frigate Rose, which played the part of the HMS Surprise in Master and Commander was a frequenter of our harbor when I was a kid. I’ve always thought that sailing stuff is interesting, but I don’t know how to sail, myself (which isn’t to say that I haven’t done what I’ve been told on friends’ boats and felt very important for doing it). I have little bits and pieces, and I love watching yacht races like the America’s Cup, but I only barely understand what’s going on and how it works.
But I aim to change that. I’ve wanted a game of Tall Ship pursuit for a long time and I’m just starting to formulate one.
Certain things are known to me right now:
- The ships are made of Lego and are simple enough to cost a couple of dollars, tops. You probably have the pieces to make them if you’ve got any Legos at all.
- It’s all about the wind direction, choice of sails, and plotting a strategic advantage, probably gambling about the wind.
- It should probably take place in shallow water. Imagine a pirate ship trying to get out of Cape Cod Harbor, where there’s one British patrol and one Dutch privateer. Lots of reefs and sand bars on which to wreck, spits of land to hide behind, stuff like that.
- It will basically use a modified vector movement system, modified by the sail choices, current, and wind.
- I suspect that current and local wind direction will play a part.
- It is a strategy game, not a tactical game; that is, even though there are only two ships, each ship is an entire “side”, like one side in a game of chess. The pieces are the resources of the ship.
- Positions are relative: each turn, we check the wind, the current, our courses, and subtract the differences between the vectors. Then you move whatever land you’ve got around the ships. You never run out of table. (This is precisely the kind of thing that you work out in the first turn of the first playtest.)
- It uses technologies somewhere between the 16th and 18th centuries. No steam, no oars, no submarines or aircraft carriers. The precise time period chosen will depend on what time period offers the most interesting strategic options.
- Ship design is important, but simple. You make determinations that decide the speed of the ship, for instance, or its maneuverability up front and in secret, to be revealed at the start of play. It could be abstract (“I have speed +1 so the victory value of the Van Heugens goes up by 1 ” or whatever) or specific (“I’ve got four masts, which makes my speed +4”).
- There are a couple of resources to manage.
- Sailors — They can rig the ship or they can fight. They can’t do both at once.
- Marines — They can fight better than sailors, but they can’t rig the ship. If you’re out of sailors but have lots of Marines, you’re probably fucked — you can’t turn the ship around.
- Sails — These affect what direction the ship can operate in. If you’ve lost your foresails, for instance, you can’t move in particular directions relative to the wind (I’m not going to say which direction that is and sound stupid). If you don’t have the sailors left to change the rigging on a sail, it stays put for better or worse.
- Cannon — I’m not sure if you lose cannon to damage, or if they’re only subject to the number of Sailors/Marines can man them and their position.
- Ammunition — This is a pacing mechanic. If the pursuer runs out of ammo and they can’t board on the next round, the fleeing player has won.
So, I have to learn about how Tall Ships function and I have to learn how sailing ship tactics work. This will be a game that only people who care about those things will care about.
Inspirations are:
- Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- Pirates of the Spanish Main
- Pirates!
- Games Workshop’s Man O’War
- Yacht racing
References:
- Wikipedia, duh.
- This awesome page of shippy words.
- I don’t know what else! I need to know, specifically, how the sails work and what could done to them to change the ship’s performance. What I really want out of the game is the strategic within the tactical, the plotting where the battles is a days long dance for position and then a climactic explosion of smoke and blood.
I love tall-ships too and would love to see more games based on them (rp and non-rp). Did you ever play GW’s Man O’ War? It was excellent, but very underrated. And using lego ships is a cool idea.
That sounds like fun!
What about fishing vessels and whaling ships? There’s a great book about the whaling ship Essex called In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. I’d lend it to you but my boss’ partner borrowed it and never returned it.
Well, Julia, the point is the challenge of the pursuit. A whaling vessel certainly wouldn’t have Marines, though I bet with the value of their cargo they’d have to deal with pirates and privateers fair oft, so they’d certainly be ready to fight. I can also see one whaler trying to chase away another with a deck gun or two.
That brings up a good point: the close combat can’t be a boring dice game. It has to be either fast enough that the option of disengagement can be chosen right away or rife with choices. I suspect maybe something like, you choose between Crew on the offense (on the other ship), whom you automatically lose if you disengage, but who can take down enemy cannon and defense (on your ship) whom you keep if you disengage to prevent the enemy ship from boarding you.
I’m also thinking about a Rochambeau-style card game to determine who’s the winner of a round. Like, Defend beats Attack, Attack beats Raid, Raid beat Defend. You get one card for each Marine unit you’ve got, drawn randomly. The player with the most Marines places those cards face down and the player with the least decides which to react to. Attack vs. Attack yields blood in the sea, Defend vs. Defend yields nothing, Attack vs. Defend yields Attacker losses. Attack vs. Raid yields Raider losses and raided goods, Defend vs. Raider yields Raider losses. I’m thinking that Marines may adjust those results in favor of the Marines.
Andrew, Yeah, I did play Man O’War. It fell into the trap that most GW games do: its’ 90% good rules, 10% bad rules, and then it gets ditched before the bad rules are fixed. Mighty Empires went the same way (Every turn, you have a 1/12 chance of losing! Oops!)
Man O’War did very simple things with wind. In reality, the relationship of the wind to the ship is quite complex and I want that to be the core of this game.
Let’s call it Osprey for the time being.
(Just edited the post to add Man O’War. Thanks for reminding me, Andrew.)
Not to mention supplement creep. I always like to take GW games and just play them out of the box, without it getting bogged down with griffins and balloons and all the other stuff that inevitably gets added on as the game line develops.
It’s been a long time, but iirc wind was very basic. The game could get quite fiddly with you having to have a ship sheet for each ship but the ability to target the masts or the hull, or to set fire to ships was cool.
Yeah. I have to see how much actual targeting took place historically. I can’t imagine that a rocking ship is going to be too conducive to precise aiming. Still, there should be interesting decisions when shooting. Shooting at crew, masts, or hull could make a big difference.
Certainly, on a strategic level, the wind gage will determine the amount of damage that can be done; I think that the leeward side in a tack gets fewer guns because it’s facing down into the ocean, so cannonballs won’t ever get to their targets. Plus, of course, the broadside of guns can only come to bear when you can swing the ship into position.
Since my goal is to make the game play in a half hour to an hour, there will be sacrifices in which of these elements matter.