So would you say the conflict any given Sky Pirate is faced with is “can I be brave enough to carry out these dangerous duties” or “can I be honorable enough to not abuse my authority”?
(I’m not trying to offer up a false dichotomy here, but these are the only two axes I’ve sussed out reading your stuff.)
ANOTHER EDIT: Yup, okay, I’m more up to speed now. So it seems that the main tension in this young adult series is fairly traditional: can the character be brave enough to do heroic stuff? I think this moves you very much into Mouse Guard territory, with verbs that facilitate self-preservation and high “not-a-pirate” Nature prompting the characters to be normal, conservative, cowardly folk.
The latter leans more towards what I had in mind. The bravery of these pirates is not really where the struggle is in this game. I might word it like this:
Can I be honorable enough to to make the world a better place for me crew and the other honest folk trying to survive on the edge? Can I be honorable enough to stand against the corruption of the leagues-men. Or will I merely live to satisfy my evil pirate desires.
Feel free to tweak that. I’m open to anything. I’m only trying to express what I had in mind and be true to the book series at the same time. A better place to find info is the Edge wikia. It is different than wikipedia.
Have you read through Per Fischer’s thread on hacking nature for his cop procedural? I proposed the core tension in that game is fighting against how easy it is to be corrupted when you’re a cop and can abuse your authority for your own ends. This hack sounds like it could, possibly, be n the same vein. Go read that thread and lmk what you think.
In the canon, do sky pirates have authority granted to them? Or do people just tend to want to get rich and powerful once they’re on a crew?
Sky Pirates have no authority other than their captain. They are a very independent people. The league tries to declare authority, but the sky pirates have never cooperated with the leagues authority. Many of them get greedy when in a crew. Some get desperate for money to keep their boat afloat. (It’s a bit like a business. Boats cost money to run and they provide goods and services.) Some are very noble and concerned with fighting against the leagues-men both physically and politically. Read this wikia page for the low down. I think it will be helpfull.
And here is an updated document I made showing the different kinds of people I want to be able to play. Some of them are dressed in pirate garb to give you an idea.
Oh, and that document I made is still incomplete. I want to add more information about the different creatures. And I am trying to use special traits to differentiate the creatures. If you have any more advice or questions, let me know. Thanks a lot.
I think that without reading a book or two in the series, I can’t really get on the same page. I’m not really getting what internal conflicts these characters have, where their duty-versus-self tension is. Without that tension, the Nature mechanic has nothing to do. It might be that that’s just not the heart of the Edge Chronicles! It might be much more driven by setting and plot than by character stuff, and even if it is character-driven, if there’s no tension between one’s internal being and external expectations, Nature’s not a good match.
It may in fact be much better suited to Burning Wheel, where there’s a lot more space to explore other kinds of tensions and conflicts.
I understand. You’re a lot more experienced with this stuff than me. I haven’t played burning wheel though. Maybe one day I’ll get into it and use its mechanics. But for now all I have is Mouse Guard. The people I play with aren’t used to RPG games and they refuse to evan think about playing Burning wheel with me because they say it is too complicated. They understand how Mouse Guard works, but they say anything more complex would be too much for them. So I was hoping to use Mouse Guard to make a Sky Pirates hack. We are playing Mouse Guard weekly now, but they are very interested in a future Sky Pirate hack because they’ve read the books.
Regarding internal being v. external expectations: The sky pirates struggle with and internal tendency towards cheating and revenge and such pirate elements. Meanwhile, the external expectations are to be noble, fight against corruption, help the poorly treated townspeople, ect.
Anyhow, I would still like to try a hack. With what you understand so far, do you think that my initial ideas (pilfering, murdering, lying, and backstabbing) would work better or the newer suggestions (mutinying, wantoning, shirking) or a mixture of both? Like maybe mutinying, backstabbing, and shirking?
I understand if you are out of ideas, but I just want to be open to any advice.
Again, thanks…
Oh, and the thread you sent me to did help a little.
Well…at first blush I’m not specifically feeling any of those, truth be told. I think that’s because in the setting, the “pirates” aren’t actually pirates but heroes who are called “pirates.” It’s confusing as heck if you haven’t read the books. So I keep looking at that list of stuff and I’m like “no no NO dang it, your Nature can’t be in line with your duty grumble grumble.” But that’s because I think Sky Pirates are pirates, and I … guess they’re not? Like, they’re only bad-guy pirates when they’ve gone bad.
Maybe the core conflict is a setting assumption that everyone’s tempted to become a villain when given the chance. Maybe what you have is Nature (Villain). That might actually work pretty well. So then your second list of verbs might work okay, although tbh they feel squishy and abuseable. “Shirking”? Not especially villainous, it’s just being lazy. Mutinying is wow, broad, and it’s not like it’s going to come up a lot. I mean, once you’ve done it successfully, bam, you’ve got your ship. Wantoning? I like the verb and the vibe. Maybe also “wenching.” It’d be interesting to see it put to use.
So if you were going with Nature (Villain) you’d have to think a bit about the 0-7 scale. At 0 you’re … I don’t know, maybe just “soft”. Like, you just don’t have the edge it takes to compete. Obviously at 7 you’ve succumbed to your villainy. That’s easy enough. It also means that as your Nature goes up, all the things associated with being a villain improve. And that means your initial ideas (pilfering, murdering, lying, backstabbing) are good.
Backstabbing stands out as squishy. You’d have to play it and see what players do with it. It feels redundant with “lying”. Can’t tell just by reading it. I’d consider swapping “backstabbing” and “wantoning/wenching” for the lulz, see what the players do with it.
I think you are starting to understand, and I think the villain type nature is good. The way you described it in your first paragraph really matches what the books are like. I have already thought about what it means to have a nature of 1 or of 7 and have listed the penalties in one of my original posts at the top of the thread. Basically, if the person maxes out on nature, he gets kicked of the ship by his angry crew. And if he goes down to one, he becomes too noble and won’t associate with sky pirates anymore.
Backstabbing was basically a cooler word for cheating. Maybe I should just say cheating. Mutinying would be an open rebellion against the order of the ship. You are very right though, I don’t see it being used much. How often can you mutiny on a pirate ship? And how can you mutiny when the captains giving orders in the GMs turn. (the GM plays the captain.)
Maybe I should remove lying though. Why should lying be one if you can just use Deceiver? That is something I was wondering about. Wantoning is not supposed to be related to anything sexual. That wouldn’t really match the theme of the books. Wantoning is more about unnecessary violence. I still like shirking because it is pirate-like and it would conflict with their duties.
How does this sound?
Pilfering - rolling for acts in which you are ignobly stealing property.
Backstabbing - rolling for acts of betrayal and cheating.
Wantoning - rolling for acts that are inhumane, merciless, unruly, cruel, or wrongfully malicious.
Shirking - rolling for acts that cause a player to avoid his work or duty.
It’s not perfect, but I think we’re getting closer. I think murder can be included in Wantoning.
lol Yeah, I did. I thought I was being specific, but maybe I need to narrow it down more. I’m not really sure how to narrow these down though. Is unprovoked violence (aka wantoning) too broad? Are all of them too broad? Maybe it should be stealing and cheating as simpler verbs. Maybe shirking just doesn’t work. It’s not really any kind of a skill or ability you would use.
Shirking is the weakest of the bunch and in no way “villainous”. Kind of waters down the whole thing. Try something different.
The problem with “unprovoked violence” is that it’s open to interpretation and, therefore, not easily played. I know most players will be all “I wasn’t provoked! Now give me my fat die pool.”
Hm, I see what you’re saying. Maybe it should just be pilfering, betraying (or cheating), and murder. Though I could see many players trying to get extra dice whenever there is fighting going on. I guess that’s fine as long as a success means death. I dunno, maybe I’ll give it a rest until a third person swings by the thread and gives some ideas.