I came across this game recently (it's on Amazon as a POD title)
and I am fascinated with it, even though it is severely limited
in what it actually can and wants to do. The game is a bit murky
on release dates, but the version I have seems to be a rerelease
of a 1983 2nd ed. boxed set. Like really old DnD this is a
wargame (in this case a naval wargame called Heart of Oak)
combined with a roleplaying system. The RGP section gives you
the choice between playing a British naval officer... and an
American naval officer. Also technically privateers of any
nation, and one could easily hack the navy of another nation in
there, but that's not what this was intended for.
The rules are supposed to emulate a time period between 1750 and
1820 and only concern themselves with whatever would be
connected to the career of a naval officer. There is barely
anything about what one could do outside of port (one option is
to buy a borough and become a Lord), and even the encounters in
port are geared towards whatever a Navy officer would be
interested in (potential marriage candidates for a good match
for example). There is lots about the organisation of the navies
of the time, including a lot of technical information. What is
missing is everything around it though.
I find games like this fascinating because they give the rules,
but they do not even given a hint of an idea how this game is
supposed to be played. There are no proper scenarios in there,
there is no hint as to what you are supposed to do, you are just
supposed to... start playing a naval officer. I guess reading
Hornblower before helps (or the novels by the game's author).
There are a few scenarios available on drivethrurpg, but in the
rulebook itself there's nothing.
I assume this game was intended to spread via word of mouth, or
after playing on conventions, but I am not really sure this ever
could have taken off. Considering I only ever came across this
when I found a reissue on Amazon, I don't think this ever was
really successful.
Anyone have experience with this?
I've never played it (and never would, these days, because I don't
have the attention span to figure out rules that complicated any
more), but it's typical of the rather crunchy games Fantasy Games
Unlimited (who are, amazingly, still around) published in the late
70s/early 80s. I do own a copy (in PDF), but haven't done more than
skim the rules in decades. I have a vague memory of there being
rules for determing how (not if) drunk your ship's doctor is if
your character is injured (and having read a few contemporary
sources on what shipboard life was like at the time, I know where
that comes from).
It was never a particularly popular game, though Heart of Oak
(which is a miinatures game, not a boardgame) had its fans back in
the day.
On 29/11/2022 16:45, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
I've never played it (and never would, these days, because I
don't have the attention span to figure out rules that
complicated any more), but it's typical of the rather crunchy
games Fantasy Games Unlimited (who are, amazingly, still
around) published in the late 70s/early 80s. I do own a copy
(in PDF), but haven't done more than skim the rules in decades.
I have a vague memory of there being rules for determing how
(not if) drunk your ship's doctor is if your character is
injured (and having read a few contemporary sources on what
shipboard life was like at the time, I know where that comes
from).
It was never a particularly popular game, though Heart of Oak
(which is a miinatures game, not a boardgame) had its fans back
in the day.
It's my understanding that they started out with Heart of Oak
and then branched it out into a roleplaying game, similar to how
Chainmail and Dungeons and Dragons interrelated (disregarding
the fact that people mistook DnD for a standalone game).
I actually do wonder if I could get a game up, but I don't know
if it's really worth it. As fascinated I am with the game, it's
neither my favorite genre of fiction, nor does the system seem
really that great. But it would be an interesting little detour,
and I haven't played much lately.
There are actually a lot of of small, but tiny companies that
somehow survive even nowadays. I think they all got a boost with
the interest in older games, and the possibility of just
publishing pdfs on drivethru, or just throwing them as POD
titles on Amazon and Lulu. I assume this is what happened with
this title as well.
The game itself is definitely one of those where someone was
really more interested in the genre/history of the topic than
they were about making a usable game. I've encountered a lot of
those over the years. One of my favorite examples is the Macross
II RPG, where only three sourcebooks in they finally tried to
solve the question what you even were supposed to do outside of
having giant robot fights. Clearly the whole core book and first
supplement were written only because someone really wanted to
stat out those robots from the OVA series (which never took off
and was being ignored by everyone else immediately).
This game seems like the work of someone who really got into the
subject matter and wanted to show it somewhere. Well, the author
also did publish a few novels set in "the Age of Fighting Sail".
When I looked at the Amazon link, I was surprised that it was offerd
by the author, rather than FGU. I suspect that if you asked both
Williams and Scot Bizar at FGU who owns the rights to the game, you'd
get different answers. But Bizar used fairly standard *book*
publishing contracts, rather than the most extensive contracts other
gaming companies used, and the termination clause in it apparently
gets very fuzzy. When he unambiguously lost the rights to Chivalry &
Sorcery (Wilf Backus was an attorney, and knew *exactly* what he was
doing), Bizard rushed to get everything he could up for sale
*somehoe* to preserve his rights. Even though he had effectively been
out of business for years, with old stock gathering dust in his
garage. But we're in a renaissance of "old school revival" games now,
so FGU might well be a viable business again.
On 30/11/2022 21:25, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
When I looked at the Amazon link, I was surprised that it was
offerd by the author, rather than FGU. I suspect that if you
asked both Williams and Scot Bizar at FGU who owns the rights
to the game, you'd get different answers. But Bizar used fairly
standard *book* publishing contracts, rather than the most
extensive contracts other gaming companies used, and the
termination clause in it apparently gets very fuzzy. When he
unambiguously lost the rights to Chivalry & Sorcery (Wilf
Backus was an attorney, and knew *exactly* what he was doing),
Bizard rushed to get everything he could up for sale *somehoe*
to preserve his rights. Even though he had effectively been
out of business for years, with old stock gathering dust in his
garage. But we're in a renaissance of "old school revival"
games now, so FGU might well be a viable business again.
Oh, but then the question actually is if FGU even can publish
this stuff electronically.
The whole ebook publishing rights
discussion gets incredibly murky at times.
It might be that one
of them does indeed not have the rights to publish it, but I bet
nothing is ever going to come of that, because even with the old
school revival, Privateers and Gentlemen is not a title that
will sell more than a handful of copies. Not enough for either
side to afford the legal costs, unless they are really, really
mean it.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 297 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 12:14:13 |
| Calls: | 6,666 |
| Files: | 12,214 |
| Messages: | 5,336,445 |