Making a character with affinity to the sea

[ajwsavage]

Hi -

One of my players in keen to make a character who sails on a smuggling ship. He wants him to be a 'master of sails' type. I am keen for this, but when we creating the character, we got stuck on what ability would be used for sailing a ship.

Knowledge? Awareness?

In fact, there seems to be little on playing at sea in the rules...

Any ideas or could someone point me towards a thread that already deals with this?

[Mat]

Actually i don't remember where but in the forum there is a discussion on this topic!

If i recall well someone suggested to use KNOWLEDGE + ORIENTATION (bonus speciality) or SURVIVAL + EDUCATION (bonus speciality).

Of course the Difficulty of the roll depends on the knowledge of the area (let's say the sea/shores), the weather (cloudy,stars ecc...), if they have map and stuff like that!

[BrianD]

Take a page out of Ser Davos Seaworth's playbook and grab Trade (Smuggler) with a nice Cunning rank. A few specialty dice in Swim and Orientation and you're good to go. Blood of the Ironborn can't hurt if it fits the concept.

[Kajani]

Polyglott may also a good benefit for such a char, and perhaps even knowledge (which stands about how good you know about the world in which you live, perhaps even with a knowledge focus?). Persuasion and Awareness are of course also important.

[ajwsavage]

Thank you everyone - that gives me a good start. Sorry for my terrible prose in the first post I made in this thread. I was typing one-handed with a preschooler hanging off my neck...

[Pytorb]

In fact, there seems to be little on playing at sea in the rules...

That is very true. There's little on merchants as well, but that's easier to riff within the current ruleset.

Any ideas or could someone point me towards a thread that already deals with this?

There's this thread from a while ago:

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7596

Which I used as inspiration to make my own Boat Handling Ability:

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=9959&hilit=+boat+handling#p97744

I know that to official Green Ronin view is that Boat Handling isn't needed and should be covered by other abilities. But then I think you could probably say much the same about Animal Handling as well and I feel that Boat Handling is too important an ability to leave out.

[ajwsavage]

I agree that boat handling is too important to keep out. Especially as many parts of the novels deal with the sea. For a character like Asha, Victarion or Euron, boat handling or something to do with affinity to the sea would be essential. Thanks for the threads. I will definitely look at ways to incorporate boat handling.

[Aran MacFiona]

How do you define "boat handling" ? Because from my experience with sailing IRL that's not a single ability but many very different abilities.

[Kival]

How do you define "boat handling" ? Because from my experience with sailing IRL that's not a single ability but many very different abilities.

That's true for nearly every ability. Boat Handling is the knowledge and experience of managing boats.

[Carriker]

That's true for nearly every ability. Boat Handling is the knowledge and experience of managing boats.

Except that there are lots of things that can be summed up pretty well with a single skill. There's so many aspects to handing a ship or boat, it's hard to justify the creation of a single skill to somehow govern all of it as anything but mechanics hand-waving.

[Kival]

That's true for nearly every ability. Boat Handling is the knowledge and experience of managing boats.

Except that there are lots of things that can be summed up pretty well with a single skill. There's so many aspects to handing a ship or boat, it's hard to justify the creation of a single skill to somehow govern all of it as anything but mechanics hand-waving.

Aye, but for example in pytorbs version of boat handling not EVERYTHING is included. There are additional benefits to cover things and e.g. navigating is not made via boat handling. The reason I agree with an extra ability is actually that a good athlete and agile character should not be good on handling a boat if he's never been on one.

Just as an example: In reality a good rider ist not necessarily able to handle other kind of animals in any special way. Also a very strong person (as the mountain) isnot necessarily good in climbing or running. To handle it this way is a design decision of SIFRP I can accept but would not use in my own system to be honest.

[BrianD]

Maybe I'm more willing to hand-wave than some, but as Narrator, I can't think of a time I'd ever really make a character test Boat Handling. Ships are mostly there for four things:

• As warfare units, in which case Warfare tests do the trick;
• Interesting terrain for character-scale combat, in which case Agility (Balance) and Athletics (Climb or Swim) tests become important to maneuver effectively;
• A means for characters to get from one place to another, which could call for Survival (Orientation) tests or Knowledge tests in the fields of astronomy, geography, or nature if the characters are the ones handling the navigation of the vessel;
• Making a living on the sea, which the Trade benefit and a decent Cunning rank handles that equally as well as it does any land-based profession.

[ajwsavage]

Thanks Brian D. for those ideas on how you see boats. I have a good handle on my options now.