Captain Skills - Recruiting Last update 22nd May 2001

All captains start with a base rank of 1. At first I found it hard to imagine a need for naval captains to have a recruiting skill as I would assume sailors would be provided by the nation as they are required, or how to recruit from captured vessels or foreign towns. Then again, I have made this skill, in relation with morale, to also impact on desertion. I don't claim it's historical, but here's how the rules handle recruiting new sailors for your crew. Obviously, this skill is a campaign aimed skill. The results are also dependant on your reputation score. Land lubbers may not be impressed to help at sea. While it's true all sailors were once land lubbers, for these rules it is not allowable.

Pirate & Privateer Recruiting

Pirates may recruit from any port or captured vessel they so choose. They also have the option to forcibly recruit from captured ships. This means that they may compel captured sailors to turn pirate. Many pirate trials mention evidence from sailors captured by pirates and compelled to sign the pirates articles and turn pirate. These men were usually acquitted. I also expect these men would generally have a low morale and therefore be more mutinous or prone to desertion. Many simply jumped ship in friendly ports, or some crews did in fact over throw their pirate leaders. It is interesting that many prominent pirates were once normal sailors who were captured and introduced to the pirate life. I assume this was part of their initial demeanour and not a 'religious' revelation once indoctrinated to the ways of piracy. Privateers may impress captured sailors depending on how close to pirate they intend to become.

Pirates did some strange things concerning impressment. To be honest, I find it hard to simulate in a set of rules exactly what they were doing.

Merchant Recruiting

Merchants may recruit from any port they visit. If they are involved in a fight and win, they may not recruit from the captured vessel. I don't recall reading alot about what happened after a merchant was successful against a pirate, except that the pirate was bought to justice. What the merchant did with the pirates ship & crew is not really made all that clear, but I am assuming the pirate crew were not recruited to the merchant crew. I would assume probably that some crew could have been recruited, but for the rules, I assume this does not happen until the merchant reaches port.

Naval Recruiting

Naval captains may only recruit at ports of their nation. I hope this also ties them to areas around their nations ports unless undertaking major expeditions. It was historically recorded liberated sailors or former pirates joined the navy, but for the purpose of these rules I assume they join the navy after they are returned to port. Therefore naval captains may not recruit from captured vessels. Historically, crews of naval vessels suffered alot of sickness, and crews were often short. I have not tried hard to simulate this crew reduction in the game. In these cases, the vessel did not take to sea to chase pirates, or they stopped at every friendly port on the way and picked up a handful of soldiers at each. It is upto the referee to decide in their campaign how many such men may be available in each town for a naval captain to "borrow" from the militia.

Reputation Impacts

How your reputation affects your recruiting results

Low Crew Numbers - All Captains

There may be circumstances when a successful ship has insufficient crew left after an engagement to sail. Cranky players may argue any captain low on crew would impress any sailor prisoners whoever they may be. I would tend to agree, so for simplicity sake, if there are enough prisoners who could theoretically be impressed, they will help sail the ship directly to the nearest friendly port

Recruiting Skill Table

Merchants and pirates recruiting in ports not of their nation treat the rolls as though they were recruiting from a small ship instead. The referee may also decide villages should be rolled on the small ship column, or not at all if the population is small. Recruiting single people from ships reduces the crew number for the recruiting attempt in general. i.e. you capture a ship of 16 men, one of whom is a carpenter. You decide to specifically attempt to recruit him, therefore your general recruiting from the ship is for 15 crew, irregardless of how your attempt with the carpenter goes. If you attempt individual recruiting from a ship, and the remaining crew number pushes you into the small ship category guideline, you must use that category. Those you fail to recruit individually cannot be recruited via the general recruiting result. The rules do not force you to individually recruit if you do not wish. You may wish instead to recruit from a ship in general and hope (or not even care) that you recruit the carpenter, or surgeon etc. Afte rplaytesting I may decide to change this to individually recruit all ships officers, such as botswain, master gunner, etc so that they can't be recruited as part of a job lot. You may only individually recruit ships officers, and therefore not normal sailors or soldiers. They must be recruited via the other applicable columns.

Special Places to Recruit for Pirates

From time to time, pirate tales speak of them taking on board marooned sailors. Two examples are Stede Bonnet and John Phillips. Stede Bonnet admittedly rescued sailors marooned far at sea on a sand bar by Edward Teach. These men were already known by Bonnet from previous adventure, but his coming across them was purely accidental. Phillips knew some men were marooned on a certain island and set off to find them to boost his small crew. When he got there, he found only one of the marooned negros, who did join him. However, also remember some marooned men stayed in hiding when ships showed up because they thought they were either going to be captured by the law, or mistreated by those who had marooned them in the first place.

Therefore, I see no reason not to include such circumstances in campaigns. It will be upto the referee to decide how many of them there are, if these marooned people automatically join the rescuers or they have a bonus on the recruiting roll, and what morale and skills they may have if they join.