kyonshi/Grenzland-Zine
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Issue 6 off to the printer!

Browse Source
This commit is contained in:
Laurens Kils-Hütten
2025-08-29 20:15:45 +02:00
parent 8cfd3c7883
commit 3a4acc7073
18 changed files with 2508 additions and 69 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

188
issue06/shipcrawl
View File

@@ -1,45 +1,191 @@
.H1
Draft notes on
a ShipCrawl game
Notes on a ShipCrawl Game
.ce 10
.ps 10
.vs 11
.sp
.I
originally published by Roger Thorm on his blog
https://www.antherwyck.com Mar 4, 2025
.ce 0
.PP
.I
Since, at the moment, I’m kind of just waiting to see how the Kickstarter is going to turn out, I’m spending my attention on another pass at The Shipping Forecast, and explaining why I felt the need to make this set of rules and how they might be used.
.PP
This article adapted and expanded from the previously posted "Draft
notes on a ShipCrawl game" from the RThorm blog on antherwyck.com
[https://www.antherwyck.com/2025/03/04/draft-notes-on-a-shipcrawl-game/]
.R
.2C
.PP
The idea of a Ship Crawl (like a hex crawl, but for a sailing ship) has
been something I've been slowly working at for a number of years. The
hex crawl is the more well known example of exploration and adventure,
but trying to directly map that onto ocean adventure is generally
unsatisfying. This attempts to address that, and to provide a set of
rules as an independent framework of rules for those specific elements.
.PP
The premise that I have been working towards with this is to have a
system that provides the backbone to deal with the procedures for
sailing, trading, exploring, and so forth in a ship-based game. The
model of the free trader starship in Traveller is the point I have
started from, but with sailing ships (or maybe oared galleys, if that's
your preference) going from port to port across the seas.
.H2
Lonely Fun
.PP
There’s a kind of gaming that my friend Thor refers to as “lonely fun.” He might not have coined the term, but he first used it when talking with me in reference to making Traveller characters. Even in those early days, going through the lifepath and the choices and options to create a character. You were using the game, you were probably telling a story as you went along, building up the character’s backstory, perhaps getting ideas about some elements in their career, but all on your own.
There’s a kind of gaming that my friend Thor refers to as “lonely fun.”
He might not have coined the term, but he first used it when talking
with me in reference to making Traveller characters. Even in those early
days, going through the lifepath and the choices and options to create a
character. You were using the game, you were probably telling a story as
you went along, building up the character’s backstory, perhaps getting
ideas about some elements in their career, but all on your own.
.PP
I had a couple sessions where I took a character (but the stats and anything about the character was entirely irrelevant) who headed out into unexplored wilderness to begin setting up a new barony. Using the charts and tables in the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Ref_Sheets) I went through a hex crawl kind of exercise, with an empty hex grid map, plotting out the locations of streams, noted ruins, woods, and a few hexes of apple trees, among other things. Once my character moved in and built their stronghold, they’d be able to go back out and explore the interesting parts and bring in some peasants to tend and harvest the natural resources in the land. Going through the tables, making exploration checks, finding what was in the next hex (or block of hexes) and charting it all out kept me engrossed and entertained for a good amount of time.
I had a couple sessions where I took a character (but the stats and
anything about the character was entirely irrelevant) who headed out
into unexplored wilderness to begin setting up a new barony. Using the
charts and tables in the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Ref_Sheets) I went through a hex
crawl kind of exercise, with an empty hex grid map, plotting out the
locations of streams, noted ruins, woods, and a few hexes of apple
trees, among other things. Once my character moved in and built their
stronghold, they’d be able to go back out and explore the interesting
parts and bring in some peasants to tend and harvest the natural
resources in the land. Going through the tables, making exploration
checks, finding what was in the next hex (or block of hexes) and
charting it all out kept me engrossed and entertained for a good amount
of time.
.PP
I think that solo RPGs offer a similar kind of guided activity that helps to generate enough feedback to lead to the development of an emergent story. (I haven’t played more than a couple solo RPGs, and I’m sure the field is much broader than just that, but that’s a core facet of many of them, I feel)
I think that solo RPGs offer a similar kind of guided activity that
helps to generate enough feedback to lead to the development of an
emergent story. (I haven’t played more than a couple solo RPGs, and I’m
sure the field is much broader than just that, but that’s a core facet
of many of them, I feel)
.H2
Sandbox/West Marches-style Games
Merchant Ship as a Small Domain
.PP
I’m more familiar with this particular style of game from reading articles and discussion, rather than from actually experiencing a game like this firsthand. I’ve long been intrigued by games that deal with engagement with the environment. Dungeons, as a setting, are places that have meaning and purpose, and exploring and understanding that has long been an interesting part of TTRPGs, for me.
Fundamentally, ship travel is boring in most ttrpgs because there is
very little to do if you are just a passenger. If you treat it like
getting on a bus or a plane, there's not much to do until you reach your
destination, unless something rare and fairly catastrophic occurs (but
that's not especially good for games). The pointcrawl model is perhaps
better for that kind of setting, where the ports and islands are
interesting, but the time in between is not interesting, but that tends
to gloss over any of the sailing and ship operation, and focus more just
on activities in port or on land.
.PP
Yochai Gal wrote a recent article about Pointcrawls & Emergent Play (https://newschoolrevolution.com/pointcrawls-emergent-play/) that spells out his approach to exploration-type games. This isn’t a design inspiration (especially since I’ve been flailing at this game concept for a couple years, and that article was only posted last month). But, if this gets re-worked and revised to be part of the content for a later version of The Shipping Forecast, it could be useful to come back and revisit that.
.H2
World-Building Games
However, if you are the free trader captain, or a group of shareholders
together operating the ship, then there are active questions about what
you do during the travel that can become more engaging.
.PP
Another kind of game that buttresses another aspect of this is a story-building game like The Quiet Year (https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year) or Microscope (https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/) or the Lexicon Game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon_(game)). All of these have a framework structure for advancing the action (for some fairly broad definitions of what “action” might be construed to be), but in all cases, much of the story comes from what the player(s) develop as they are working through those steps of the game.
The ship itself is a complex system that must be operated by a team. It
is a small domain unto itself, not unlike a castle or stronghold or even
like a village. There are many functions that need to be attended to,
and there is also guiding leadership in making strategic decisions about
operations, as well as the more immediate responses to obstacles and
crisis situations. The numerous points of engagement and complexity of
the system should provide for a dynamic setting that serves as a
framework for interesting games.
.PP
Deciding what cargo to buy in Port X to take to Port Y (or considering
heading to Port Z instead) can be ship-level activities. There can be
choices about sailing in storms, and whether to try to make good time
getting to the next destination, or trying to be more careful and
avoiding damage to the ship. Even matters of how to manage crew and how
to work with the stress of sea travel on the ship are relevant matters.
What tasks of operation or repair the crew takes on (and whether the
crew are fundamentally cooperative or not, let alone whether they are
competent or not) all sets up a lot of material to engage with.
.H2
The Shipping Forecast
.PP
The original idea for the Shipping Forecast was to have some regular rules for an exploration game. Like the Ready Ref Sheets, the Shipping Forecast provides a set of tables and procedures to use for resolving the travels of a sailing ship. Weather events, shipboard incidents, and activities in port are the key elements the system should provide. The initial premise for the Shipping Forecast was to have a regular armature for this information that could be used in a campaign.
The working title for this set of rules, "The Shipping Forecast"
references the BBC's long running maritime program of weather
forecasting information for ship travel. Up to this point, I have been
working towards a set of weather rules that are dynamic enough to be
interesting to track and log, and where the course of weather depends to
some extent on previous information, rather than being solely the next
random result from the same table. This sets the basis for the turn
(currently each turn is a 3 day period) and the map (hexes are 100 miles
across, which is a reasonable scale for ocean-scale distances and
travel, and corresponds with an average day's travel rate for sea-going
ships).
.PP
My formulating idea was that I wanted to have a trade-oriented (buying and selling spec cargoes as the ship travels from island to island) campaign for a ship in an archipelago, or a nautically-oriented setting where ships are the principal mode for travel and trade. There would be landfall adventures, intrigues and plots and dungeon crawls, at the various ports of call. But I also wanted a set of rules to regularize the time and travel going from one island to another.
The original idea for the Shipping Forecast was to have some regular
rules for an exploration game. Like the Ready Ref Sheets, the Shipping
Forecast provides a set of tables and procedures to use for resolving
the travels of a sailing ship. Weather events, shipboard incidents, and
activities in port are the key elements the system should provide. The
initial premise for the Shipping Forecast was to have a regular armature
for this information that could be used in a campaign.
.PP
So the initial idea was that this would be used as a framework around which a campaign can be run, and the player characters in the game are the crew of the ship (presumably the officers). There might be some points where translation of character skill might come into play, but the sailing of the ship is largely its own thing.
The intent with the weather system is not to build a meteorological
model, but rather to have enough complexity to be interesting, to have a
feeling of different systems interacting to create the weather effects,
and to have a system where there is not a simulation of captaining a
sailing ship, but where some sense of verisimilitude is created by
maintaining a ship's log to track the weather and the events that occur
with the ship. Sailing ships in history kept logs with hour-by-hour
entries about the conditions and their speed and direction. This was
vital for navigation, and for understanding where you were, where you
were going (if it was a known destination), and how to get back.
.PP
But, the other thing that came to mind as I have been working on this, is that it could be very well suited to be a solo game. The idea of tracking the winds and weather, making for a captain’s log that records the progress of the ship from port to port, and a similar system for dealing with the markets in individual ports, and the commodities available for trade; all of this could make for a system that produces a set of data that is game content, worked out through tables and dice. But the story that is told around that could be larger and more fleshed out, as much as the player may like.
Likewise, the trading system is not intended to be a functional model of
a world economy, but presents a system where trade and commerce present
opportunities and challenges that make the process interesting and help
drive a story forward. Maintaining the ship's log can allow the
information to be built up in the narrative over time. If Port X has
paid a premium for commodity A when the ship has tried to sell it there
in the past, then perhaps there is a regular demand for that commodity
there, and that becomes part of the story of that ship's world.
.PP
This is a rough first draft at this; maybe it will get re-worked and eventually incorporated in some fashion, into an eventual release version of the game. If you’ve read this and have feedback or thoughts about it, let me know.
(The game is unconcerned with tactical sailing; but if that's what you
are looking for, there is a set of rules for that [Salt'n'Tar] in
Grenzland #3)
.PP
So the intent was to have a framework around which a campaign can be
run, and the player characters in the game are the crew of the ship
(presumably the officers). There might be some points where translation
of character skill might come into play, but the sailing of the ship is
largely its own thing.
.PP
The ship itself is also a means to other adventures. The trope of the
travel adventure is as old as Odysseus, at least. Encounters ashore can
punctuate the journey, much like thousands of Traveller campaigns have done.
.H2
The Pilot's Logbook
.PP
My formulating idea was that I wanted to have a trade-oriented (buying
and selling spec cargoes as the ship travels from island to island)
campaign for a ship in an archipelago, or a nautically-oriented setting
where ships are the principal mode for travel and trade. There would be
landfall adventures, intrigues and plots and dungeon crawls, at the
various ports of call. But I also wanted a set of rules to regularize
the time and travel going from one island to another. Travel between
ports should be meaningful, rather than featureless interstitial space
between ports. Having things to do, and thinking about the operation of
the ship as an ongoing process that requires constant attention, makes
it more meaningful and an actual set of systems to be played, rather
than just the time spent between destinations.
.PP
But, the other thing that came to mind as I have been working on this,
is that it could be very well suited to be a solo game. The idea of
tracking the winds and weather, making for a captain’s log that records
the progress of the ship from port to port, and a similar system for
dealing with the markets in individual ports, and the commodities
available for trade; all of this could make for a system that produces a
set of data that is game content, worked out through tables and dice.
But the story that is told around that could be larger and more fleshed
out, as much as the player may like.
.PP
Keeping the journal builds a narrative over time. The random
information in the weather tracking, and the course of the ship lays out
the prompts to build a story around. Events that have to be responded
to make the travel something more engaging and interesting than just
being a passenger. It also provides an activity that is reminiscent of
the tracking done by sailors, but at a more manageable scale (one entry
every 3 days, rather than an hourly log). The log also tracks the ship's
accounts, and the cargoes bought at one location, and the markets and
prices paid for those goods at another place. Even as a solo journaling
game, the operation of a ship, tracked with a logbook to record weather,
conditions, activities, and cargoes and accounts can be played. That
ongoing sequence is a story that can be interesting on its own.
.Au RThorm
.PSPIC img/FreeAds_64x60.eps
.PSPIC img/hh-werbung.eps