Pirates

Perhaps the inspiration for the changes mentioned in my last post is how much fun I'm having running the "Mezzovian Main" game. Maybe its because for that game I whipped up a CD-R of mp3 soundtracks including all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, all three Indiana Jones movies, both Mummy movies and Van Helsing (I realise a fourth Indy sountrack is now available—in fact I already have it—and that a third Mummy will be out before summer's over, but I made this CD-R at least six months ago) and I've been listening to it frequently while reading or otherwise puttering about the house. This in turn has prompted me to reread my systemless Pirates' Guide to Freeport book by Green Ronin which is an absolutely fantastic book, and very cleverly done. It also removes some of the campiness of the original d20 Freeport book for the 3e rules. A number of companion books have also been released providing rules support, further mechanical options, and in every way simply more detail period for d20 (D&D 3.5), True20 and Savage Worlds, with a Castles & Crusades companion on the way and a blog post by Chris "Famous Pramas" for adapting it into Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. Despite all these mechanical options, it's obvious where the settings roots lie: it's traditional D&D with a heavy flavor overlay of the "Golden Age" of Caribbean piracy and with roots digging deeply into Lovecraftiana. It's somewhat campy, melodramatic and fun, but not too campy or melodramatic meaning that it can be played pretty straight. I literally just finished rereading it last night and have immediately plowed into Five Fingers: Port of Deceit, and interesting comparison to the Freeport line because it uses very similar themes and imagery but it does so in a more serious fashion and despite the fact that its not systemless (being in fact a D&D book via that d20 license), the setting feels much less D&D-like than Freeport does. D&D and I have an interesting love-hate relationship; although I often scoff at obvious D&Disms and profess to eschew them, I find myself drawn back to many of them time and time again (hence the on again off again orcs in Dark•Heritage, although orcs are bigger than D&D certainly.) Right now, the fickle vagaries of my taste are much more tolerant of the D&Disms which leads to a slight favoring of Freeport over Five Fingers (previously I've said the opposite although it's always a photo finish between them.) I even kinda like the occasional campiness, something Five Fingers doesn't bother with. Five Fingers is like Charles Dickens—but without the plucky, curiously virtuous protagonists who always manage to rise above the dark, sooty nastiness that surrounds them; Five Fingers oozes dark sooty nastiness. In any case, I've always thought of Dark•Heritage as more of a setting for fiction than for gaming, although the various fiction attempts I'vemade have been short and abortive, while the gaming iterations have gone through a few successful versions now. Luckily, this change will not require me to make any changes to my novel outline, although I will have to go back and rework everything currently written to accomodate the changed details. Le sigh.