First of all, the played Characters are generally young but some Players may prefer a more experienced Character; also the Non-Player Characters may be aged, for instance an Old Seadog at a come-back, a Governor, an skilled craftman, etc. Whatsoever, age can only have positive consequences on the Skills of a Character, if however he remains active.

On the other hand, ageing means sooner or later a decrease of the Characteristics and even some Skills may come to diminish in extreme cases (It is actually quite rare because of a rather short life expectancy in the Known World…), like senility or some « old fossil » illnesses like this strange shaking which overtakes the body and never quit…

Though it is not « Experience » in the true sense of the word, a section deals with this specific question in this chapter.

Acquisition of Experience through Action

The acquisition of experience through action is a two-step process.

In a first step, in the course of a Scenario, when a Character succeeds in an Action on a Roll of d20, one verifies if the obtained score with the d20, without the possible modificators, is less than or equal to the corresponding Skill Level without the combined Characteristic. If this is the case, the Player of the Character circles the Skull located in front of the name of the concerned Skill.

If, on the other hand, the result for the Action is a Critical Failure, a corresponding Speciality in the Section « Better-Off Ridiculed than Hanged » may be created at the occasion or, if it already exists, one can circle the Skull located in front…

Example : Berthomeu has got a 9 in Got a Nerve! and a 4 in Rumours and Mess-About. He tries to spread a rumour about the probable death of Tortuga's Governor at the sea, in the main harbour of Tortuga Island. His Roll of d20 results in a 3, which is not only inferior to 13 (it is a Success) but is also inferior to his raw Skill Level in Rumours and Mess-About. The Player of Berthomeu can thus circle the Skull located i front of the said Skill.

The second step is processed a the end of a Game or of a Scenario if the Game Master decides that the Game covered too short a time to justify that the Characters could have gained Experience.

In function of the taken actions and their Success in the course of the Scenario, but also in function of the quality of the role-play by the Players, the Game Master distributes Experience Points to the Players, which they can spend immediately or cumulate. Those points, or their overquantity after Experience acquisition, are recorded in the Experience section of the Pirate's Sheet.

The Game Master will take care to give the Experience Points at the end of a Game respecting justice between the Players and the following principles:

  • Grant to all the Players of the Crew an equal number of Experience Points, between 0 and 5, for the general success of the Scenario and team spirit.
  • Grant to each a number of Experience Points between 0 and 5 for the individual performances of his or her Character during the Game or Scenario. Each Character can receive a different number of points for that section.
  • At last, grant to each a number of Experience Points between 0 and 5 for the quality of the role-play of each Player in the course of the Game or Scenario. The Players may also here receive a different number of points for that section.

The number of Experience Points acquired during the Game or Scenario is equal to that total of distributed points. For their utilisation, see the section regarding the Validation of Gain.

The Game Master should take care not to give the maximum of points to easily, thus reflecting in the best possible way the difficulty of any learning process. He should conversely also take care not to be too strict, we are here to have fun and each one of us dream to play super-heroes, be they ridicule heroes!

Acquisition of Experience through Learning

To acquire Experience by learning, one must, according to the Skill to be developped, find a master or books about the topic. Thus, according to the type of Skill to be acquired, one must gather various means. Furthermore, the learning process requires time and, probably, money.

Those items must all be taken into account by the Game Master, in function of the Skill one wishes to improve. For some Skills, notably Sabres and Other Blades, the training may be hard but progress rapid. Furthermore, finding a sword master is rather easy. On the other hand, some Skills are less common or indeed they are occult and finding a master or a book on the topic can prove long, dangerous and even merit to be played in the course of a Scenario…

Once the pre-requisites gathered, the training can start. It lasts a determined time and costs a given amount – not only the cost of the training but also the daily living costs and other nonsense.

For each given basic period of time, this period remaining the same from one time to the other, the trained Character receives one point equivalent to an Experience Point. He or she can pursue the training until having enough points to increase his or her Skill Lavel y one point. For that, follow the procedure of section regarding the Validation of Gain, as for the Experience acquired through Action.

The Game Master will note that the points acquired through a training are not usual Experience Points. They are equivalent only for the chosen Skill and they cannot be used for another one. Hence, if the Validation of Gain fails, the points cannot be fully preserved:

  • If the Character decides and has the possibility to restart a training immediately after, he or she loses one of those points. At the end of the new Learning period, that point is recovered and a new Validation of Gain can be attempted quite quickly. One can repeat that while one has time and money, of course!
  • If the Character decides to postpone, he or she loses immediately one of that acquired « Experience Points » and record the possible rest somewhere at the back of the Pirate's Sheet, specifying the associated Skill. If the Character waits during his or her (Power) weeks, another one point gets lost, and so on. After some time, even a long training ends up forgotten if the learned items have not been validated for good…
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