At Peril Of Your Life

The two Jasons both like Patrick O'Brian and want to make an RPG like that. We have no IP license and have no intention to provide rules specifically for stuff that happens in the book. We want to have general rules for playing naval officers, or people who hang around naval officers, and who do battle with the enemy, the elements, and the heinous all-encompassing conspiracy that was Victorian society.

Characters are presumed to be promising naval officers worthy of independent command, or close associates of same. This is going to make it hard to keep PCs all together. Table that for now.

I see four main stats we need to track:

• Crew morale / efficiency (how well trained the crew is, how loyal to the captain)
• Service reputation (all factors likely to lead to better future appointments, promotions)
• Social reputation (being invited to dine with wealthy families or persons of rank, influence outside the chain of command)

Aside from stats, PCs also have Daring Points, reflecting their drive to challenge the status quo. We don't know how you get them or spend them, but we know they're totally awesome and everyone wants to be Daring.

Every character must also have several Ambitions. I'm not sure how to track these yet, but it seems obvious that Jack is a creature of ambition, and that the game needs some way to model those. Obtaining an ambition ought to generate some sort of systemic reward; failing to make progress toward an ambition over time ought to create a penalty. Preliminary thoughts:

• Every character must have at least two ambitions
• Every ambition must be tied to a particular stat
• Every ambition must include a concrete next step toward obtaining that ambition. We may need special rules for using the same next step for multiple ambitions.

When a PC achieves an ambition, society notices. There will be some sort of Backlash roll. Backlash will mean that you either lose the thing you just gained (easy come, easy go, right?) or keep it but lose something else important to the same stat. Either way, it costs you a point of the stat tied to that ambition, but you gain a Daring Point.

Finally, we need some way of tracking the quality of the ship and letting the player try to improve it.

I see the resolution system being based on some sort of wagering system. Set a conflict and wager a point of one stat to gain a point of a different stat. If you risk multiple points for a larger gain, they can come from multiple stats. Examples:

• I want to take a merchant prize, gaining one point of crew morale. I have to risk a point of something else, either service reputation (hah hah what an idiot he couldn't take a simple merchant prize) or social reputation (Captain Hooey's latest cruise was not so profitable as one would expect, you know).

• I want to take on a larger enemy warship, for two points of service reputation. I have to risk two points. For my first point I choose crew morale - the crew will not appreciate me picking a fight I can't win. For my second point, I'm free to choose anything, so I choose service reputation - the Admiralty will doubt my competence for having risked my ship so casually.

• The mechanics, yet unwritten, need to use these rules and Daring Points together to make the decisions interesting.

Random encounters would be based on rolls of a single stat - perhaps every time you go ashore, roll service reputation to see how you're treated at the yard, social reputation to see what your off-duty activity is, and crew morale to see how much trouble your crew gets up to. Those rolls should include automatic system effects, but also the possibility of starting new conflicts to change those consequences.