Let's talk about ships! Specifically, minigame design, the Seafarer's Manual (my naval rules) and why I felt the world needed another set of seafaring rules. #dnd #dnd5e #spellboundsea 1/7 - ThreadSky

somanyrobots.com • 1 day ago

Let's talk about ships! Specifically, minigame design, the Seafarer's Manual (my naval rules) and why I felt the world needed another set of seafaring rules.

#dnd #dnd5e #spellboundsea
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somanyrobots.com•1 day ago

First: seafaring rules aren't *essential*, but they are important. It's lame when your game has long-distance travel that you just handwave past. If it happens 1 or 2 times, that's fine, but any game in an oceanic setting, or involving PC pirates or sailors, really needs them.
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somanyrobots.com•1 day ago

WotC released their own rules in Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and they're...pretty bad, tbh. They're the sort of thing that clearly was tossed off quickly and not really playtested. Math that doesn't make sense, an almost-useless Surgeon officer role, anti-integration with the magic system.
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somanyrobots.com•1 day ago

WotC's rules are very hard to use effectively, but they're a good starting point. And that's where the Seafarer's Manual started! Years ago, when Saltmarsh first came out, my rules started as an expansion/refinement of WotC's. Revisiting them in 2024, though, I trimmed and polished *heavily*.
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somanyrobots.com•1 day ago

I wanted to stick to basically-similar rules - ships behave like creatures, with actions and movement. I wanted to avoid overcomplexity - too much tracking is bad. And I wanted to give players meaningful stuff to do. Existing seafaring rulesets, IMO, all have 1 or more of those issues.
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somanyrobots.com•1 day ago

The idea I'm proudest of is the simplest one: voyage legs. Instead of tracking voyages and rolling encounters day-by-day, you only care about when interesting stuff happens. So you get an actual system for handwaving the boring time.
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somanyrobots.com•1 day ago

The rules have been playtested *heavily* and refined a lot - I haven't had to mess with the bones too much, but lots and lots of tweaking. I think they're in a great spot! (Obviously). If you like big boats and you cannot lie, this is for you!

https://spellbound-sea.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
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