As for episodes - I truly do not know. Search for Pirates Of Dark Water around the net - I am sure some site hosts the complete series. I got them from a torrent long time ago.reverenddak wrote:Where do I find episodes? I totally want to see it! I might turn my campaign into a pirate-themed one (I almost did that after watching the Pirates of the Caribbean series.)Zdanman wrote:What is funny is that the Appendix N characters and stories were not really that inclined towards mortality and death. Oh sure it happened around them but not to them. That is not to say that the party will get off scot free.
It's one of the ironies of D&D, and more so for DCC. How do you tell these stories like Conan or Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser with ensemble casts without it turning into the Avengers (i.e. Super-Hero Teams.) People have to die, I guess.
Which is interesting actually. My longest running D&D campaign was for 3.5 and it really became a story of one character. I'm notorious for TPKs in my gaming groups because I can't help but ignore Challenge Ratings and other encounter balancing rules. Let's say kill lots of characters. So one character in that campaign survived the whole time we played it. His player kind of hated the character and tried to kill him several times, but it made for some really interesting events, curses, etc. He somehow never died. I hated that character at first, because he was a hyper optimized 3.5 character. I hate that, so I had to nerf him several times to his player's hatred (which is why he ended up hating and trying to kill him.) Over time, because he somehow managed to survive several suicidal actions, I grew to like him. His character's goals (being an only survivor and loaded with plot-seeds) became focus of the all the adventures. He was very much Elric, Conan or Cugel. The only people he trusted would be constantly dying around him, everyone else were either out to get him, or send him on wild and stupid missions for... who knows what? It's everyone's intent to be that (anti)hero. So only luck and time will tell.
This game just really makes you earn and tell that story. This is probably the biggest difference between DCC and vanilla D&D. Later editions of D&D really catered to those that wanted to be Conan the King at 1st level, instead of Conan the slave-boy/orphan whatever he was. This DCC really makes create your character's story by surviving to tell it.
As for the stories - this is all fine and I actually agree with your approach. That said the prevailent OSR vibe that people have to die to make the game meaningful and challenging is something that does not gel well with Appendix N storytelling. Oh sure you might die eventually but Appendix N tells of heroes. Not many of them were scrubs even at the start of their adventures. Grey Mouser and Fafhrd were described as competent and even powerful from the get go. Elric and Corum were beyond the scope of what even high-level PC's can do. Conan was always described as a mighty person. John Carter is a veteran soldier at the outset of his adventures. Solomon Kane is mightier and more iron-willed than anything he encounters. That to me is essentially Appendix N storytelling.
While I love the vibe of DCC and I totally want to play it and understand the need to earn the stripes of Conan or Grey Mouser I do not intent the heroes to be lowly scrubs that barely can do anything. Rather those are the people that CAN battle the devils from the Nine Hells and beat them! They do not need to be high fantasy heroes but heroes anyhow. But that is my take on the issue. That is why in my campaign I allow for such things as 4d6 drop lowest etc. I allow for max hp at first level. Why? Because the world is cruel and deadly and the characters are the Rambos, John McLains etc of the world.
. The first couple of episodes are pure puply fun as you described. There is some character development in later episodes but the focus mostly remains on tight, action-packed fun. Plus the cadre of character is really colorful - from Ren to Bloth each one of them is memorable. Ioz is my particular favourite. There was Pirates Of Dark Water RPG released in 1994 but I have yet to play it or even see it. I would love to run a short campaign of it though.
