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