Rules are generated out of necessity.
A few sessions ago, my players ran out of food and tried to eat their own crew for the second time. The crew has been entirely wiped out and re-hired three times now.
I need some mutiny rules.
I played around with modifying the Injury and Death / Ship Damage rules for simplicity and consistency, but I'm thinking of trying a Dice Pool instead for that ol' gambling feel.
MUTINY RULES
When PCs give their crew a reason to be dissatisfied, Add Dice to the Mutiny Pool, then roll all the dice in the pool.
Minor Grievance (+1d6)
- Crew is inconvenienced or treated poorly
- Crew is forbidden from doing something
they want to do
- Crew members are placed in danger
Significant Grievance (+2d6)
- Crew members are killed in the normal course of events
- Crew members are placed in reckless danger
- Crew is promised pay, and they are not paid
Severe Grievance (+4d6)
- Half the crew is killed
- Each week at sea with no food
- Crew is actively sacrificed for the PC's benefit, and the Crew finds out
If any dice show a 1, roll 1d8 on the MUTINY TABLE and add the number of dice in the Mutiny Pool (MP).
MUTINY TABLE
1-2: MP +1D. No other effect
3-4: MP + 2D. No other effect
5-6: MP + 1D Crew is demoralised. Impaired Damage to enemies of the PCs until the next Port Rest
7-8: Crew demands additional pay now (Does not count as Port Rest, not paying is a Grievance)
9-10: MP +2D. Crew is fractious. They refuse to fight at all until the next Port Rest.
11-12: MP +3D. Crew is openly rebellious. They refuse to take any orders without incentives
13+: Mutiny! The crew attacks the PCs and tries to seize the ship
PORT REST
To reset the Mutiny Pool, PCs must let the crew rest in town for a week and pay them their regular wages. This replaces the old system of paying wages regularly: now wages are a way to reset the Mutiny Pool.
The idea of wages isn't very piratical, but I don't like the math that comes with calculating loot shares.
Cool, makes me think of Mutiny on the Bounty! And potentially useful as a framework for any situation where PCs find themselves in charge of (or part of) a larger group of people.
ReplyDeletePerhaps one could add a table with Mutiny Agendas as well? Like, the crew decides to leave the ship and join a settlement, create a settlement, get rid of the PCs, imprison the PCs, merely choose a new captain etc.
That's not a bad idea: you could probably replace the last category with a generic 'MUTINY' and improvise the motivations of the crew based on, say, a Reaction Roll.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that might be the cleanest and most open-ended solution.
DeleteI like these rules and I like a means of resetting the mutiny pool, but as is you get your whole crew for free and only have to pay them when you want to reset the mutiny pool, which I very much dislike.
ReplyDeleteCould you assign a percentage of loot as being for the crew and just have “and 25% to the crew, so 100 for them and 300 to split among the players” instead of going through fully calculating shares?
I'm a bit uncertain about that too: it's an experiment right now. That said, PCs do have to pay an upfront cost when hiring crew: they don't get them for free.
DeleteMy problem is that I usually forget to subtract regular payments, whether those are fixed numbers or loot-share percentages. This is possibly a problem that is particular to me as a GM, and I've been idly trying to figure out a baked-in mechanism to get PCs to pay their crew without me having to remember it for the. I'd probably opt for the loot-share percentage solution if book-keeping wasn't a weak area for me.
Anyhoo, if using these mutiny rules as a replacement for 'wages' isn't your thing, 'Port Rest' could just be triggered by a week's rest in town. That way the main cost is getting back to town.
DeleteThat’s fair.
DeleteDo you pre roll treasure or roll at the table? I guess either way, “I’m rolling to see what’s in the treasure chest so let me roll d20 x 500 SP, and we’ll cut that down to a d12 to make sure the crew get there share.”
Then you still end up with just one amount, no actual math, and it still costs them an ongoing amount to keep a crew, with - admittedly still some - less book keeping.