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D&D Ideas — We All Live On A Boat

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is the we all live on a boat, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of life on a boat we’re inviting you all aboard for our second Kickstarter! Mage Forge is a Deluxe Box Set of 250 Tarot Sized Magic Item Cards for the world’s greatest roleplaying game! You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Never get on the boat is sage advice for an adventurer. But what if your D&D campaign starts on a boat? This topic came about because our D&D home games had come to an end. Nerdarchist Ted and I are trading places behind the DM screen for our groups.

He came up with three elaborate pitches each described in a paragraph. The last pitch was simply the sentence, “We all live on a boat.” Of course the one Nerdarchist Ted put the least amount of work into is the one the group chose.

The confined space of a ship creates unique opportunities for NPC development. Especially if the important roles of the ship are executed by NPCs instead of the player’s characters. This offers up several opportunities, the most important of which is characters interacting during the campaign.

Captains, first mates, helmspersons, sailors, navigators, bosuns, cooks, doctors and more create a cast of characters for the players to get to know and care about.

A ship can have a mess hall that becomes like a tavern traveling along with an adventuring party. (Hopefully they don’t burn this one down.)

Let us not forget this is a fantasy ship. The boat itself could be a living creature and can become another NPC for the players to interact with. Ship and Pilot from the Farscape show is a good model for this.

Some different ways I can think of using this type of campaign in a D&D game.

• On the Run. The characters are running from something or someone. Being on the boat gives them the opportunity to outrun pursuit. Only one or all of the player’s characters may be sought after. Alternatively the characters are in possession of something the enemy wants or the ship itself is coveted and the characters strive to protect the vessel.
• In Hot Pursuit. The object of the campaign is the opposite of On the Run. The adventurers are the pursuers. A weapon, villain, prisoner or whatever keeps the characters on the trail.
• Scavenger Hunt. The characters need to collect a list of objects. The easiest way to get to the places these objects are located is by boat. Perhaps they aren’t the only ones after this list of objects…
• Legacy. One or more of the characters inherits the ship from someone important to them. Perhaps their benefactor had an unfinished quest the party takes over or the ship has a dark secret they didn’t know about that sets off new adventures. The ship itself has become a vessel containing the spirit of it’s previous owner. Maybe willing, maybe not. They are needed to free the trapped spirit.
• Yar, We Be Pirates! Simple enough. The party crews a pirate ship for fun and profit.
• Yar, There Be Pirates! Opposite side of the same coin. Instead of being pirates the adventurers crew a ship where they hunt pirates.
• Salvagers. The characters are part of a ship’s crew sailing the seas looking for wrecks to salvage and plunder. They might even have to compete with other wreck salvagers.

From Ted’s Head

As the guys talked about during the live chat this idea came up since this is 90% likely to be the next 5E D&D campaign I am about to start. I gave the group three pitches. Two of the ideas were highly thought out. Beautiful settings and backdrops with clear ideas as to the life of what the story was going to be. Categorically they all said, “Ohh what is this one liner? WE ALL LIVE ON A BOAT! I want that one.”

Over the next month or so I have to begin my homework. Pirates of the Caribbean, Water World, Master and Commander, Pirates of Dark Water and anything else I can find that might offer some extra inspiration. The ideas have already begin to flow and truth be told there are loads of great ideas in the chat by the fans watching Dave and Doug talk about the topic. Ghost Ships, Mimic Boats and other things all came out of the chat and I was not watching the whole thing. I am gonna have to go back and capture everything I can.

When I look at the idea, even if it was a half formed idea, there’s already certain things I think will be great. Using the natural elements such as weather and the typical denizens not seen on land allows me to play a style of game I have not run in a long time, since deep in the third edition D&D era and this was only a short voyage.

A game like living on a boat can be very much a linear game allowing a story to unfold as the group decides to tell it but it can easily allow chaos in if you decide to play with random rolls. The largest enemy of living on a boat has to be the weather. Freezing winds can lock the boat up, high winds can destroy sails and even the boat itself. I have watched more than enough episodes of Deadliest Catch to know if those mighty vessels can be sunk with little warning a fantasy vessel might not stand a chance.

Once I look at this I create elements just as if the water were land. What unnatural phenomena exist? Does our world have the equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle? Are they in any area controlled by a Dragon Turtle, Kraken, Sea Serpent mating grounds? The list can easily go on and on.

Boats are great. As Dave said during the chat you have the combination of new by exploring new areas while staying on the boat which is familiar. Having the boat allows for more things to happen as well as to acquire too. After all having a boat is basically unlimited carry capacity without magic, but at the same time you are traveling with your home. If your house breaks you might just die out there.

We are gonna do a session zero and I will be prepping a bunch of questions to figure out what exactly the players want out of their life on a boat. They will certainly not have full control but campaign length and how much randomness is involved will be the biggest component. With another week’s vacation coming before session zero I have my work cut out for me in watching all on my list. If you know of anything else please me us up on social media with #weallliveonaboat

From the Nerditor’s Desk

Adventures and entire 5E D&D campaigns where we all live on a boat is something of a go-to scenario for me. The longest campaign I’ve ever run in my life largely relied on this concept. Sort of anyway. The Nerdarchy community is quite familiar with my Spelljammer campaign. Many other adventures and one shots feature shipboard life in some capacity too.

Something Dave touched on and I’ve enjoyed immensely throughout those adventures is how the ship becomes an NPC in it’s own right. A vessel of any kind functions as a vehicle, a home and a hub of commerce among many other things. Players and their characters alike take great pride in their ship and those aboard. In the same way a ship carries people forth into the wide world it can be a tremendous vehicle for moving stories forward also.

For one thing a ship provides an ever-present way to add flavor to whatever else is going on. My favorite 5E D&D hack called Hyperlanes deals with science fiction but one of the components is useful for ships that sail the seas as much as the stars. This is the idea of ship quirks, which is a table of problems stemming from the ship itself. I highly recommend incorporating something like this into your own games with shipboard life. You can make a roll on your table at the start of every session and this creates a B plot for the party to deal with or even drive them forward as their main motivation.

A ship also provides a fantastic way for characters to spend their treasure. Repairing and improving the ship is one aspect of this. Ghosts of Saltmarsh includes terrific material for this sort of stuff. There’s mundane upgrades alongside magical things like Vigilant Watch:

“A row of crystal orbs, each filled with viscous liquid and a beholder’s eyeball, is mounted along this ship’s hull. Invisible creatures are visible while on the ship or within 120 feet of it.”

Presumably a ship has a crew too, which means those NPCs likely want to get paid. The ship’s crew can also become wonderful ways to insert plot hooks whether it’s goals they want to accomplish or outside forces targeting them. Incidentally a ship’s crew can create opportunities for side quests where players can take on the roles of their crew for special circumstances. And of course the crew can always be imperiled to give adventurers something to do.

Of all the different kinds of campaigns out there I’ve got to admit we all live on a boat is one of my favorite concepts. There’s so many awesome situations related to this kind of campaign I’ve found especially engaging for players. In some ways it’s similar to the idea of putting the party in possession of a powerful magic item around which a campaign is structured, like our ideas about the Deck of Many Things. With a ship a party can do things none of them would otherwise be able to do and also changes the dynamic of typical adventures.

If you’re curious about this sort of campaign or seeking a different kind of experience for your next 5E D&D game then give this one a try!

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