Naval Battles and Chasing Ships
Principles
Actually, the principles are the same or are very close from what you'll find or already found, dear Friend Game Master, in the section about Boardings: most of the necessary details and tables are there! (Fluctuat Nec Mergitur Levels for Boats, Damages inflicted by Broadside or Chase Cannons, etc.)
More precisely regarding Naval Battles, they clearly are Strategic Actions, as already described in the Gaming System and just above regarding Boardings. Hence nothing really new, except the action parameters with either a great number of opponents - an equivalent of the generalised Street Fight with Boats - or an important distance between Ships.
It is thus time to describe two other Attributes - beyond Architecture, Fluctuat Nec Mergitur and Weaponry, already seen – which will be necessary to manage a Ship in the framework of Zebra Island RPG, hence its Manoeuvrability and its Speed.
Speed of Ships
The maximum Speed of Ships is measured in kots, that is in nautical miles per hour. That Speed - with Ship's Load and Armour reduced to the strict minimum - is the topic of the present section. It is understood for all Sail Ships, given a sustained breeze coming from the rear and no particular sea current. For others, such as Triremes or Steam Ships (What do we mean exactly by that?!), still the currents play a role but winds much less…
Environmental parameters being fixed, the maximum Speed of a Ship depends strongly on several parameters which are specific to her: her Tonnage and Draught, her Set of Sails (or rows of oars or its steam power…), her profile and the shape of her Hull (flat bottom, Keel, Ballast, etc.).
That value can easily reach around twelve to fifteen Knots for many a Ship, yet even reach extreme values up to twenty-five Knots for exceptional Sail Ships. Other parameters play a role upon that and bring to other actual values, such as the Ship's Load or, in the event of, Damages suffered by the Sails or other important parts for the movement, without forgetting the influence of external factors as already mentioned.
We leave you the care, friend Game Master, to manage the influence of such parameters, knowing that the understanding of the differential Speed of two Ships generally suffices to manage a Chase at Sea, except if each Ship navigates under different conditions, which is rather rare at deep sea if both Ships are in sight of each other but maybe less if closer to a coast…
Manoeuvrability
It is actually a bit artificial to come to the Manoeuvrability of a Ship only now and the critic reader could well tell us that a little paragraph dedicated to all Attributes of Ships before starting the great moves would have been welcome. That said, we are already embarked in those stories so the best to do is go on and finish the work!
Manoeuvrability is simply managed through a scale, between -5 and +5, with a specific value for each Ship, not necessarily in relationship to Speed. However, as for Speed, both external and internal factors have an influence on that Attribute.
How is used Manoeuvrability in the Game? Very simply by using that Attribute as a Modificator (Bonus or Malus) for all actions linked to the Piloting of the Ship (change of Armament, of broadside, approach of another Ship, entry in a harbour, etc.).
Noting down Ships' and Boats' Attributes
The author of Zebra Island RPG being himself a scurvy Land Lubber… Well, we didn't say that even if we maybe could have gone a bit too far here… What if he be the Great Z. himself? Anyway, it is too late to unsay anything so it doesn't matter… Whatever, each Player has to take care him- or herself of the Attributes of his or her Ship on the own personal Pirate's Sheet, on the back of it. There is no special section on the Sheet for Ships nor Boats.
Ships' Attributes can be summarised as follows:
- Type of Ship
- Weaponry and Hull's Armour
- Architecture (Levels of Fluctuat Nec Mergitur)
- Speed
- Manoeuvrability
Which should not be a problem to be written down somewhere on the Pirate's Sheet.
Action !
There you are thus, dear Friend Game Master, equipped to manage any sort of actions between Ships in the deep of the oceans or along the coasts of all the seas of the Known World! Let us however come back to the case of the Chase to conclude.
During the Chase, the opposing parties consist most of the Pilots of the Ships, with the support (or not!) of their Captain and the executing Crew, as well as by the quality of the Ship, as we just saw. Those parameters apply and modify more or less the Rolls of Dices in Opposition, usually rolled versus « Perception + Navigation » – It is here an indirect Opposition, as in the example of a swimming race given when explaining the management of Actions in Opposition.
As soon as one of the two Pilots succeeds better than the other in that competition, it means that she found the best wind and that her Ship comes closer to the opponent one (or on the contrary escapes it). Critical results in the Rolls show simply more tremendous results of either the skilled use of winds or that the Ship knows an incident or could not exploit the wind at all. In the Critical case, one single Roll suffices to come close to the prey (ou respectively to get out of sight of the chasing Ship).
When both Ships have closen enough, refer to the section dealing with Boardings. As long as this is not the case, the Ship having Chasing Cannons can start firing at the other. Of course, some Ships also have such weaponry at the rear and are able to retaliate when under such an attack. Those guns are comparable to the usual Chase Cannons in terms of performances.
Naval Battles involving more or less numerous Ships are to be managed with the system of Strategic Actions but nothing speaks against using some wargame additional equipment or even shifting to a real Naval Battle game and replace all that for the occasion! « C2, hit'n'sunken » ! In the first case, the ain is to achieve a realistic simulation; in the other one, it is the search for fun which leads to not bother so much with complicated rules, plus a bit of irony by including games in the game… Take care however not to go so far as to provoke the fury of the Great Z… Lwa!
Well all in all, that should be enough to manage everything with a bit of imagination… So, may you have the winds good and be careful for wreckages!