So, my brain started generating ideas again, as it does. The initial ideas was, I’m not sure. It may have started with more thoughts on the Musketeers game that refuses to leave my head (The latest ideas was alignment as a personal code, rather than a D&D esque Lawful, Chaotic etc), but it started to grow.

Part of it stems from no LARP going on at the moment (AFAIK), and part of it stems from my own issues with what’s running in my area. There’s a battle game, which made me realize they aren’t my style and a LARP that has/had torture in it’s rule set and that’s a giant deal breaker for me. I’d started thinking again about a pirate LARP idea I’d done some writing for a while back and then I thought… bigger. Ideas are never my problem, as long term readers of the blog will note.

Cast your minds towards a once landlocked continent, but now sea travel is all the rage. How and why? I dunno, maybe some magic shit happened and storms calmed the fuck down, a portal opened or people just wanted to go on holiday and everywhere landlocked was shut. Or, you know, we add more capatilism and they’ve trashed the continent they live on and need a new one to dump the garbage. Either way, a bunch of the nations of the world are sending ships out onto the big blue wet thing and they’re gonna find stuff. Well, they’re going to try to.

The idea is swashbuckling hijinks, with some trading, possibly being a bit of a dick to the lands you’ve just discovered and making a pile of cash. The early description I had for this is NAUTICAL FANTASY ROGUE TRADER and while it’s unwieldy, that’s not a bad summation. Ideally each nation/ship would have a goal, ranging from ‘Make us rich’ to ‘Find something new and weird’ for example.

Races would likely be the standard fantasy ones – Humans, Elves, Orcs etc, but without the usual cliches. Look, I love cliches (My con games are powered by them), but I’m feeling the need for something different for this. Just because Tolkien did something one way doesn’t mean we have to continue doing it! Is this whole thing possibly an excuse for me to use that swashbuckling Orc idea I’ve had for a while? Quite possibly. AND I REGRET NOTHING ABOUT IT. At some point I’m going to find a LARP where I can play that idea even if I have to write the damn thing.

The two races I have ideas for are:
Elves: They have an industrial, magic punk feel to them. Not evil, but capitalist jerks.

Orcs: Possibly formerly from a landlocked area or just nomadic by nature, they have a a roving foot and can’t bear to be in anyone place for too long.

THE BIG QUESTION; So, what do PC’s actually do each game? Are they ordering ships about, or ar they on deck commanding them? This brings into the further question of where in the game world will the game be set? Obviously, we’d want a central location where everyone can get to each game, as there’s no point saying “Oh, we’re in X next session, but you’ve sailed to Y, so you can’t be there.” That’s bullshit. So, that’s another problem we’d need to solve. I mean, people could crew instead of playing as well, so that’s an option. So long as we warn people in advance, it could work?

Inspirations so far are the board game Seafall, pirate movies and the TV show Black Sails, along with the UK LARP Empire, for it’s trading and national perspective on things and the NZ LARP Teonn(?), for it’s focus on exploration. The latter game started with the nations making landfall on a new island, and IIRC one nation fucked up first contact with the natives so badly they felt the effects for about half the 3 year campaign.

There’s likely to be more thoughts on this (As well as editing of this post), but I really need to go to bed.

Be seeing you…