"Games for the 2014 SYWcon" Topic

It's been three years since I ran a small ship scenario at the SYWAcon since I have recently been more fascinated with large fleet actions. I couldn't make up my mind which to do at this year's convention so I'll be running one of each. All of my spare time this past week has been spent getting some new ships ready for the small ship scenario (using my "Away, Boarders!" rules), which will feature three small Royal Navy vessels in the English Channel in 1759 rooting out a group of French corsairs. I'm really looking forward to running this one, since it will incorporate a little bit of role-playing along with the ship-to-ship action. The British will have a slight advantage in number and weight of guns, but the corsairs will have a slight advantage in speed and maneuverability due to the fact that they are mainly fore-and-aft rigs. Should be interesting.

The British squadron:
Sloop "Vigilant", 16 guns
Brig "Grampus", 14 guns
Cutter "Weasle", 10 guns

The French corsairs:
Brigantine "Meduse", 14 guns (a Dunquerker)
Schooner "L'Epee", 12 guns (from St. Malo)
Sloop "Faucon", 8 guns (out of Granville)

and their two prizes with which they hope to escape, a merchant schooner and a lugger:

The convention website:
sywconvention.com

Pictures of games from previous SYWAcons:
link

Looks great, hope the stars align that I can make it again this year.

Looks great.still can not believe it's paper seeyou there.

Sorry I'll miss these games again Jeff

Sorry to be so late to the post, but I was traveling for work for a month and am just getting back to the board!

Jeff I was wondering what sorts of roleplaying elements your game was going to include. Is it an aspect built in to your rules, or something extra you're adding for the occasion?

I've thought very vaguely in the past about how to spice up games with a bit of a character dimension, but didn't come up with any wonderful ideas….

Beautiful ships by the way – as always!

- James

James,

The roleplaying elements are in the scenario design. The "Away Boarders" rules readily lend themselves to that kind of treatment, since it's one ship per player. I simply wrote a couple paragraph backstory for each ship commander in the scenario, which served to give context to the different (and sometimes conflicting) victory conditions for each player.

For example, the British officer in command of the Grampus is an underappreciated junior lieutenant who thinks he should have been given command of the expedition, and who resents being placed under the command of the fire-eating, soon-to-be-promoted-Post-Captain of the Vigilant and wouldn't mind seeing him fail in his mission. At the same time, the Midshipman in command of the Weazle is the younger brother of his beautiful and wealthy betrothed, who will likely never speak to him again if anything happens to her darling younger sibling while he is around to prevent it. Ideal outcome for the British Lieutenant: the French privateers escape, the Captain of the Vigilant is disgraced, and the Lieutenant saves the Weazle from a desperate plight and comes out of the mess looking like a hero, getting the glory and the girl (and, possibly, the promotion).

On the other side, the commander of the Meduse holds an actual commission in the French navy and looks down on his two civilian compatriots. Since he has the largest, most well manned ship, the prize crews on both of their joint prize vessels come mostly from the Meduse, and he wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice both of the smaller privateers if it means getting away with both the prizes for himself. Ideal outcome for the French Lieutenant: both L'Epee and Faucon captured, and he escapes with at least one prize intact.

By the way; I must report, sadly, that a tragic event in our family has distracted me from my preparations for the convention and will continue to do so for a couple weeks at least. I will therefore unfortunately not be able to attend the SYWAcon as I had planned . . . the first one I have missed in over a decade! I will probably, however, have everything ready for the Twin Cities' Recon in June and for Milwaukee's NavCon in October, plus I'll be back at the SYWAcon next year.

Jeff

Jeff, I'm sorry to hear your family has suffered a tragic event. You have my condolences, for what they are worth.

Your scenario sounds like a really neat one. Is there just one player per side then? Or the other players have more standard goals, and members of a "team" don't necessarily win together?

I thank you for your condolences, James.

There will be one player per ship (except for the prizes, which I will run unless and until they are boarded by another player's crew), so three players per side, and each one has his own convoluted and not-necessarily-compatible set of motivations. Some of the players may meet some of their victory conditions even if their "side" is roundly beaten.

The situation is complicated and not a little ambiguous, and it will likely be a matter of opinion as to how well each player fulfilled their victory conditions. I expect it will provoke some fairly lively post-game analysis.