"Piracy! -1713" is a set of publicly available rules I've been working on for years to play skirmishes, raids, battles, or naval conflicts in a 'fanciful' Pirate era roughly equating to the early 1700's (1713) and centering around the Caribbean. My main focus for some time has been transcribing the background material, as there is very little available on line at this point in time. The rules skeleton isn't expanded enough for use, but you should at least get some good ideas for scenarios and game mods for your own system.
I originally wrote this game because of some female pirates I bought in 25mm, but I could find no sets of rules of much consequence I wished to play with. Most of my examples are of female characters. I make no distinction in these rules between the abilities of male or female pirates, they are just as rascally either way. I make no claims of strict historical accuracy in any way either in weapon effects, sailing abilities or piratical flavour. I have tried to provide as much historical background information as possible for gamers to really understand the true way things were. However, This game also includes some voodoo magic and jinxes and afew hollwood-isms for fun. I have tried to introduce some complexity into the rules to try and cater for special skills, unusual circumstances, and some form of long term playability and variation.
Most rules available, including these, are targetted at being a privateer or pirate, as I'm sure most people want to pretend to be a rascally sea farer happy to plunder the evil Spanish while generally trying to enhance the glory of the English in the Caribbean by capturing towns and pirates. I hope the campaign comments will allow players to use & enhance their ships & crews over a period of time to glorify whichever nation they choose to sail for. Remember that real pirates usually enjoyed short and unrewarding careers and I hope to try and write the rules to reflect their short lifespans. The pirates who retired alive, and with any money at all, were the exceptional ones.
These rules are written such that one person controls one ship & crew and functions basically as the captain. That does not necessarily mean your crew will automatically do what you tell them, especially if you're a pirate. The rules are intended for at least 3 players, one of whom is the umpire. Two trusting players can, however, play the game without an umpire.
You will note as you read the rules they are loaded with sarcasm, double meaning, social commentary and abit of brevity. As the general background of piracy is moderately well known, you can freely discard those parts of the rules as you please.
Any comments or alterations to these rules are most welcome.
I hope you enjoy these rules and background info.
Chronofus