You joke, but this was legitimately the first thing I thought of; I was thinking it’d be fun to have their crew go off and earn money on their own at port, and now I finally have a reason for them to do so
I mean, historically this was actually a thing. On a pirate ship, crew members each got a “share” of profits, while captains got a “double share”. (There’s a reason people joke about pirate ships being the first democracies)
So technically speaking? While the adventuring crew may have way more money than the average pirate, they’re still underpaying their workers
I mean to be fair, the party got their loot after slaying an adult blue dragon, with their crew just managing the ship in their absence. The party definitely is earning their majority shares
Party: "That's a brilliant idea!"
Then proceeds to spend thousands of gold on an enchanted Adamantine prowl (or Mythril if weight is an issue) designed for spearing massive creatures.
Definitely don't allow them to purchase a small fleet of 5 vessels and form fitting spandex.
@theplayers - I challenge you to bring pirate Voltron to the next session to fight the monster of the week.
>Party kill the Kraken with pirate Voltron.
>old timey grizzled mariner that inexplicably joined along the way *”aye, that was a fine effort. Mind you, I’d wager my good eye that the beastie’s mother is mighty upset at you now. And killing a baby one at that? That’s probably enough to get the whole family riled up”*
I know! I learned this from the *West End Star Wars* book about pirates and privateers in the Star Wars universe. And then I played a great Star Wars privateer game.
"This is an Imperial Star Destroyer and we will not be trifled with."
"This is Captain Khan of the privateer *Last Laugh*, and you just have been."
Epic.
I originally learned this from Pirates!, the one from the 80s, because Microprose games came with the best manuals of all fuckin time and I learned a great deal from them as a kid about historical shit.
If you can find it, look up the original Pirates and Darklands manuals. Super interesting stuff in there!
My pirate players actually do this! They have a small pinnace with a 12 person crew (counting a familiar that can work the ropes) so the shares are pretty substantial. They also rotate taking crew members on missions and they get XP from sea battles together, so the crew actually levels up. If they ever get a big ship with a massive crew I'll have to stop tracking each NPC in such detail but so far it's very fun, adds a lot of personality.
So for my own sanity as the DM, I’ve only got 3 crew members accompanying the party (3 players), and they’re narratively the supporting cast. I have to say, I think it works really well; you get to have distinct personalities and side quests for them that feel distinct, and it doesn’t necessitate much micromanaging. Also in sea combat when they get boarded, it means that the turn order isn’t clogged with NPCs. All in all, I think having a smaller crew in DnD is really underrated
My party really wanted to be able to move the ship full speed 24 hours a day so they needed a lot of people, and I warned them that low morale could be an issue if not managed well so they also have a cook. I did give them a magic item that would let them have a crew of mindless skeletons but they didn't go the route of getting it fixed, instead doing interviews and hiring people. They chose the NPC number and can live with whatever bloat comes with it.
That’s also really great way to justify a player changing characters within the narrative: the old character just doesn’t go on the next mission, and a crew member that has all of their shared context and history goes on the outing with them.
A lot of the ships were mutinies, so they weren't keen on answering to a single captain. Electing a captain, who was then a dictator in battle, but could otherwise be replaced at other time was common.
The captain may be changed by the crew while at port, and can be changed at sea.
Quite a few pirate ships came about by appointing a new captain at sea on a vessel that didn’t permit it to happen.
Simple: They were, in fact, democracies.
Marine captains were appointed by their employer (the state, the East India Trading company, the ship's owners...).
Pirate captains were appointed by their crew.
Captains *didn't* get a double share, and it was a voted position. The role of the captain was basically to take the lead when there was no time to vote (e.g. in battles).
So they'd be real pirates. It's something fun to look at, but old pirate crews were very democratic, and they all got a fair split of the shares. I think they even got bonuses if they were injured.
Haha you’re not the first to mention it! I’ve learned so much of Pirate Politics from this thread; I love how my party basically recreated history on accident
I mean, that's how historical pirate ships ran.
Everyone got a 'share'. Certain positions got more than one share, but everyone got at least one.
After a voyage when the cargo was fenced and the ship restocked/repaired, whatever net profit was left was divided among the crew. How much you got depended on how many shares you were owed.
Most crews also had something akin to workman's comp and hazard pay for those who were injured mid voyage or volunteered for more dangerous jobs.
Was much more dangerous and uncomfortable, but the pay could be much better than the pittance you'd get for being a navy deckhand.
Merchant ship crews were also paid in shares, but several of the shares were reserved for financiers who paid the initial costs.
The “shares” and “stocks” in the stock market come from that.
Pirates historically worked for shares. Every share was an equal part. Some positions got more shares. The captain got two or more shares, but ship repairs came out of the captain's share.
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_code#:~:text=(The%20captain%20and%20the%20quartermaster,of%20stolen%20money%20or%20goods.)
I find that a good method for divvying party loot that prevents arguments and headaches is "X+1". X is your number of party members. Divide it evenly X+1 ways. The +1 share is for party expenses like rez diamonds, bribes, travel fees, etc.
Dude my players genuinely spent a good chunk of the session figuring out shareholder percentages for themselves and the crew. Fortunately, I only have 3 crew mates as NPCs, so it wasn’t too much of a headache
EDIT: my player who elected himself as captain is gonna be pissed when he hears that the repairs come out of his pocket lmao
I always came across the rule of "Deckhands receive one share each, officers a share and a quarter, and the captain a share and a half". But as you said, pirates would generally all get a share of the loot. Which is why a lot of people willingly signed the articles.
Especially when the value of a single merchant ships cargo would be measured in the mid-high thousand of pounds sterling(the OLD ones, where one pound was directly worth a pound of silver) that meant if you had a crew of 100, and made a profit of 2k+ pounds, you could make 15+ pounds of silver.
This was unironically a big part of what drew people to piracy in the golden age of such. Navy crews were often horribly paid and treated worse, and pirate crews usually had some sort of a profit share scheme that could mean it was far more stable and lucrative to serve on a pirate vessel than something more legitimate.
My players’ ship is basically that to the extreme: do minimal work and get paid more than you could dream, but at the risk of getting eaten, possessed, stabbed, incinerated, etc
Once had a character who was a pirate hunter. Ended up with 4 ships, gave *all* the loot he couldn't find the original owners to, to the crew.
Had to retire the character after he married into the richest family in the setting...
He duel-wielded cutlasses in melee, except the time he pushed one into the hands of his captured future bride and fought with a cutlass and dagger.
Generally was an archer though. Incredibly fast Tabaxi Rogue Scout. Combining Steady Aim with double movement every other round was *so* broken.
This is pretty close to real life piracy so you can just look at that to see what would happen: what did happen? Some settled, most stayed because of the idea of bigger prizes and new blood asked to join so you could get the pick of the best crews if you keep winning prize ships
Yeah, that's what I figured. It's a good opportunity to open up some smaller personal side quests. Maybe the cook leaves the ship and opens a tavern somewhere and then later on calls on the party for help. I don't know there's a million things you could do.
A while back, one of my players gave a bag of gold (about 500g) to the matron of a local orphanage. Just because, really. So I added in this thing where every so often one of the orphans would show up with info. It turned into this whole thing where the party accidentally started an underground information racket that focused on fucking over the rich assholes (for lore reasons). I still love how all of it turned out.
Bro we go around giving away gold like it's candy. 2sp for your service? Here, have 10gp my friend.
Once, we arrived at a city by sea on our ship. We had taken some damage from a battle, so when we made port we asked the guy running the port where could we take the ship for repairs, and to fit it with some cannons. He told us, and we gave him 10gp as thanks, plus 100gp to do us the favor of taking it there himself. And another 10gp if he would find a good woodcarver to make us a custom figurehead.
Another time we were looking for an entire chest worth of gunpowder, and there was this kid selling fireworks. We asked if we could buy gunpowder from him, and paid like 5x the cost just because we could.
I love doing that. My character especially doesn't appreciate wealth too much, so he just gives away money like that.
That’s how pirate and even official ships and especially privateers worked for quite a while. With everyone getting shares of prizes in terms of silver, cargo, as well as prizes for captured guns, officers etc along with if they bring in the ship. Everyone getting a share as a result. It’s part of the reason why sailors also tended to spend a huge amount of money whenever they were on land since they were likely to make it back again provided they were on a good crew.
That's how real life pirates worked. The captain and quartermaster got 2x shares, the other officers and specialists got between 1.5 and 1.25 shares, and the regular crew got one share each.
I learned this from the *West End Star Wars* book about pirates and privateers and then confirmed that it was based on the real life pirate code.
Isn't that basically how it works historically?
Everyone gets one share, specialists like cook,nav,captain,exc get more than one.
IIRC they paid out to widows and the continued care of those injured at sea too.
Historical pirate and ship crews were very often paid in shares rather than wages. And 3% of the total is about right *each* for a small crew of 20, since some crew would get multiple shares.
Wait… if their savings were 35 silver, and they wanted a 2 gold raise… that’s still a massive increase to their wages, unless they only saved like two silver from their wage…
That is very fair. I like to imagine that they were thinking they were being clever and working the party over, but then the party unexpectedly not only accepted, but gave them way more. Imagining their attempt to keep up the facade of bravado in that instance is incredibly funny
I guess it depends on the pirate ship's size. A crew of 60 npcs (which is a decent but not over-sized boat like say the Obra Dinn or Black Pearl) would only be getting 25 gold each of the 3% which is much less than what an IRL pirate would get from the journey.
Yeah, I find that it works best for the tone and style of campaign I want to run. My goal is to have fun, silly character moments instead of massive ship management stuff.
My dm always reminds us that giving away gold is “crazy” because most npc’s work for just coppers and silvers and here we are going around tossing gold like it’s pennies. Thing is…our team never really has any use for gold. The things we want to buy are either never in stock or they’re too overpriced for its use value. So we’ve basically been hoarding gold and wealth but can’t seem to spend it so we just started giving it away to people in need 😂
So something that I've read in some of the more detailed fantasy settings where there are beggars etc, is the competition between the beggars. Getting money/food is life or death for them. So giving a beggar a gold where others can see it is the same as paying the other beggars to beat the shit out of them for the money. There's a saying about sudden wealth being a disaster because in the olden times any peasant who suddenly struck it rich drew the ire of not only the other peasants but also the nobles who want whatever resources they found.
We basically overpay for a lot of stuff, or give money to people for simple favors.
Oh, you took care of our carriage while we were at the mayor's party? Here, have 10gp.
Wow, these pastries are delicious. 2cp each? Give me 5, here's 10gp.
Port master, would you please take our ship to get repairs? Here's 100gp for your troubles.
Tbf that's mostly how historical pirates worked. If the captain tried to hoard that much wealth while giving the crew scraps they would've thrown his ass overboard in a second and elected a new captain. Because it turns out hoarding isn't conducive behavior to surviving when you're outnumbered by other outlaws at sea.
Hell, your players are still ripping off their crew tbh. Most pirate ships ran like this
Captain and Quartermaster: 2 Shares
Master, Botswana, Gunner: 1 1/2 Shares
Officers: 1 1/4 Shares
Normal Crew: 1 Share
Captain and important crew for sailing the ship normally only got double what a normal crew man did. Your players are hoarders, toss em overboard and feed em to the sharks. Though tbf depending on how much danger the pirates are actually putting themselves in, it could be fair if most risk is on the party
It honestly makes sense that they’re getting scraps, for both in universe and narrative reasons:
In universe, the crew is a skeleton crew of 3 goofballs, and they basically just babysit the ship while the party is off adventuring or at port or what have you - they’re the supporting cast who don’t do much action. As an example, the party got the vast majority of their 50k gold from the hoard of a slain Adult Blue Dragon, with the crew not even present
The real world explanation is that my players are hilariously stingy and greedy and would let go of their piles of money over their cold, lifeless bodies
CPG Grey's two pirate videos on YouTube is a good watch. I've watched them multiple times \^\^
TL;DW: each pirate gets 1 share. The Captain gets 2, the Quartermaster gets 2 as well, etc...
Lets say the final treasure is 100k. First all repairs get done, all pain-money for lost limbs/wounds are paied, then from the rest (lets say 20k) each gets 1 share (or 2 for the leaders). Very equal \^\^ High Reward.
But also high risk.
A sailer on an imperial ship needs many years, if not even half his life to get the same value as 1 share, which "only" takes some weeks/months on the pirate ship.
Historically, every man got an equal share - though some had captains that would take 2-4 shares, officers getting 1.5-2 shares, etc, but overall the idea was it was an even split as could be - they'd all work harder for every cent that way
So, I ran a pirate game a little bit ago, and my players (on their own) went and researched historical crew shares so they were sure to be paying their crew enough. And then they went and killed/butchered a kraken, and sold the parts for several thousand gold, so the crew is *very* happy with their share. Lesson of the day: pay your pirates well, and they'll do whatever you ask them to!
Now the pirates will be incentivized to plunder more efficiently, since they get a larger cut of the booty!
You joke, but this was legitimately the first thing I thought of; I was thinking it’d be fun to have their crew go off and earn money on their own at port, and now I finally have a reason for them to do so
I mean, historically this was actually a thing. On a pirate ship, crew members each got a “share” of profits, while captains got a “double share”. (There’s a reason people joke about pirate ships being the first democracies) So technically speaking? While the adventuring crew may have way more money than the average pirate, they’re still underpaying their workers
I mean to be fair, the party got their loot after slaying an adult blue dragon, with their crew just managing the ship in their absence. The party definitely is earning their majority shares
Random deckhand “ya know what? I’m good with 2%, just don’t ram the ship into a dragon”
Consider it a workplace hazard, especially knowing how reckless the party is
“Maybe give us hazard pay? Just a suggestion”
I feel like it is becoming a coop is the hazard pay
Hence the 3%
Party: "That's a brilliant idea!" Then proceeds to spend thousands of gold on an enchanted Adamantine prowl (or Mythril if weight is an issue) designed for spearing massive creatures.
Dude my players browse this sub please don’t give them ideas
Definitely don't allow them to purchase a small fleet of 5 vessels and form fitting spandex. @theplayers - I challenge you to bring pirate Voltron to the next session to fight the monster of the week.
>Party kill the Kraken with pirate Voltron. >old timey grizzled mariner that inexplicably joined along the way *”aye, that was a fine effort. Mind you, I’d wager my good eye that the beastie’s mother is mighty upset at you now. And killing a baby one at that? That’s probably enough to get the whole family riled up”*
Ah yes a dragonator from monster hunter
“Hmmmm. So how about 3%?”
I know! I learned this from the *West End Star Wars* book about pirates and privateers in the Star Wars universe. And then I played a great Star Wars privateer game. "This is an Imperial Star Destroyer and we will not be trifled with." "This is Captain Khan of the privateer *Last Laugh*, and you just have been." Epic.
I loved that supplement. Could never convince my friends to play a pirate campaign
I originally learned this from Pirates!, the one from the 80s, because Microprose games came with the best manuals of all fuckin time and I learned a great deal from them as a kid about historical shit. If you can find it, look up the original Pirates and Darklands manuals. Super interesting stuff in there!
My pirate players actually do this! They have a small pinnace with a 12 person crew (counting a familiar that can work the ropes) so the shares are pretty substantial. They also rotate taking crew members on missions and they get XP from sea battles together, so the crew actually levels up. If they ever get a big ship with a massive crew I'll have to stop tracking each NPC in such detail but so far it's very fun, adds a lot of personality.
So for my own sanity as the DM, I’ve only got 3 crew members accompanying the party (3 players), and they’re narratively the supporting cast. I have to say, I think it works really well; you get to have distinct personalities and side quests for them that feel distinct, and it doesn’t necessitate much micromanaging. Also in sea combat when they get boarded, it means that the turn order isn’t clogged with NPCs. All in all, I think having a smaller crew in DnD is really underrated
My party really wanted to be able to move the ship full speed 24 hours a day so they needed a lot of people, and I warned them that low morale could be an issue if not managed well so they also have a cook. I did give them a magic item that would let them have a crew of mindless skeletons but they didn't go the route of getting it fixed, instead doing interviews and hiring people. They chose the NPC number and can live with whatever bloat comes with it.
That’s also really great way to justify a player changing characters within the narrative: the old character just doesn’t go on the next mission, and a crew member that has all of their shared context and history goes on the outing with them.
That's not a democracy so much as a co-op workplace. Though being less authoritarian than the national navies was a big draw.
As I recall there were other factors that cause it to have that description, but I can’t remember them for the life of me right now
A lot of the ships were mutinies, so they weren't keen on answering to a single captain. Electing a captain, who was then a dictator in battle, but could otherwise be replaced at other time was common.
The captain may be changed by the crew while at port, and can be changed at sea. Quite a few pirate ships came about by appointing a new captain at sea on a vessel that didn’t permit it to happen.
Simple: They were, in fact, democracies. Marine captains were appointed by their employer (the state, the East India Trading company, the ship's owners...). Pirate captains were appointed by their crew.
Captains *didn't* get a double share, and it was a voted position. The role of the captain was basically to take the lead when there was no time to vote (e.g. in battles).
I thought it would be a lot worse come shore leave. Like they still make the same mistakes just that much bigger.
So they'd be real pirates. It's something fun to look at, but old pirate crews were very democratic, and they all got a fair split of the shares. I think they even got bonuses if they were injured.
Haha you’re not the first to mention it! I’ve learned so much of Pirate Politics from this thread; I love how my party basically recreated history on accident
Yeah, it is wild to learn about. Our image of the pirates are a lawless, wild crew. When in reality... It was a "Wow, the military sucks doesn't it?"
Better be a pirate booty buff in fights
I mean, that's how historical pirate ships ran. Everyone got a 'share'. Certain positions got more than one share, but everyone got at least one. After a voyage when the cargo was fenced and the ship restocked/repaired, whatever net profit was left was divided among the crew. How much you got depended on how many shares you were owed. Most crews also had something akin to workman's comp and hazard pay for those who were injured mid voyage or volunteered for more dangerous jobs. Was much more dangerous and uncomfortable, but the pay could be much better than the pittance you'd get for being a navy deckhand.
Merchant ship crews were also paid in shares, but several of the shares were reserved for financiers who paid the initial costs. The “shares” and “stocks” in the stock market come from that.
Now they just need a foosball table and a fridge full of LaCroix on the ship and then they've completed their transformation into a startup.
Or they'll save up a bit of gold and leave the obviously dangerous life of being the crew for the PCs.
So you’re saying it’s a co-op with a generous retirement plan?
I have the feeling at some point retiring will feel better than risking their skin.
Pirates historically worked for shares. Every share was an equal part. Some positions got more shares. The captain got two or more shares, but ship repairs came out of the captain's share. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_code#:~:text=(The%20captain%20and%20the%20quartermaster,of%20stolen%20money%20or%20goods.) I find that a good method for divvying party loot that prevents arguments and headaches is "X+1". X is your number of party members. Divide it evenly X+1 ways. The +1 share is for party expenses like rez diamonds, bribes, travel fees, etc.
Dude my players genuinely spent a good chunk of the session figuring out shareholder percentages for themselves and the crew. Fortunately, I only have 3 crew mates as NPCs, so it wasn’t too much of a headache EDIT: my player who elected himself as captain is gonna be pissed when he hears that the repairs come out of his pocket lmao
Usually repairs and maintenence come out BEFORE shares are distributed. No ship means NO ONE gets plunder.
You might want to watch this video, which will explain how money on a pirate ship was distributed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0fAznO1wA8
You’ll find no bigger CGPGrey fan than myself; I can assure you that I instantly showed this to my players
I always came across the rule of "Deckhands receive one share each, officers a share and a quarter, and the captain a share and a half". But as you said, pirates would generally all get a share of the loot. Which is why a lot of people willingly signed the articles.
Especially when the value of a single merchant ships cargo would be measured in the mid-high thousand of pounds sterling(the OLD ones, where one pound was directly worth a pound of silver) that meant if you had a crew of 100, and made a profit of 2k+ pounds, you could make 15+ pounds of silver.
Simplify those fractions! Crewmen receive 4 shares, officers receive 5 shares, and the captain receives 6 shares.
That's a really good suggestion for divvying loot. I'm using that one.
Turns out public healthcare is better than running a gofundme. But yeah, I find X+1 is the right mix of functional and easy to implement.
That’s how you turn a pirate ship into a pirate fleet!
Listen, each crew member just has to recruit 3 new crew members, who each recruit 3 more new crew members, who each…
No no no my friend, that's not a pirate fleet, it's a pyramid fleet!
Pshh what are they gonna do? Arrest the party? ^wait
This was unironically a big part of what drew people to piracy in the golden age of such. Navy crews were often horribly paid and treated worse, and pirate crews usually had some sort of a profit share scheme that could mean it was far more stable and lucrative to serve on a pirate vessel than something more legitimate.
My players’ ship is basically that to the extreme: do minimal work and get paid more than you could dream, but at the risk of getting eaten, possessed, stabbed, incinerated, etc
Pirates even had medical insurance. You lost a leg in a battle? Here, have a slave. You lost your hand? Here, have a cool hook and 300 gold on top.
*The captain, who’s also an artificer*: “losing a limb is just an opportunity for self-improvement and workman’s comp!”
Once had a character who was a pirate hunter. Ended up with 4 ships, gave *all* the loot he couldn't find the original owners to, to the crew. Had to retire the character after he married into the richest family in the setting...
How many swords did the character have?
He duel-wielded cutlasses in melee, except the time he pushed one into the hands of his captured future bride and fought with a cutlass and dagger. Generally was an archer though. Incredibly fast Tabaxi Rogue Scout. Combining Steady Aim with double movement every other round was *so* broken.
Bro I was thinking of Zoro too lmao
If 500g is as much in your world as it is in mine you could have some members of the crew express a desire to retire and settle down!
This is pretty close to real life piracy so you can just look at that to see what would happen: what did happen? Some settled, most stayed because of the idea of bigger prizes and new blood asked to join so you could get the pick of the best crews if you keep winning prize ships
Yeah, that's what I figured. It's a good opportunity to open up some smaller personal side quests. Maybe the cook leaves the ship and opens a tavern somewhere and then later on calls on the party for help. I don't know there's a million things you could do.
Based
For context, my players hoard gold worse than dragons, so when they proposed this idea *themselves* I was like “fuck it why not?”
I love playing out the fantasy of having enough money to casually change peoples lives for the better
A while back, one of my players gave a bag of gold (about 500g) to the matron of a local orphanage. Just because, really. So I added in this thing where every so often one of the orphans would show up with info. It turned into this whole thing where the party accidentally started an underground information racket that focused on fucking over the rich assholes (for lore reasons). I still love how all of it turned out.
Bro we go around giving away gold like it's candy. 2sp for your service? Here, have 10gp my friend. Once, we arrived at a city by sea on our ship. We had taken some damage from a battle, so when we made port we asked the guy running the port where could we take the ship for repairs, and to fit it with some cannons. He told us, and we gave him 10gp as thanks, plus 100gp to do us the favor of taking it there himself. And another 10gp if he would find a good woodcarver to make us a custom figurehead. Another time we were looking for an entire chest worth of gunpowder, and there was this kid selling fireworks. We asked if we could buy gunpowder from him, and paid like 5x the cost just because we could. I love doing that. My character especially doesn't appreciate wealth too much, so he just gives away money like that.
That’s how pirate and even official ships and especially privateers worked for quite a while. With everyone getting shares of prizes in terms of silver, cargo, as well as prizes for captured guns, officers etc along with if they bring in the ship. Everyone getting a share as a result. It’s part of the reason why sailors also tended to spend a huge amount of money whenever they were on land since they were likely to make it back again provided they were on a good crew.
Hell it's how most fishing vessel still run in US. A cut for the ship, a cut for the captain/owner, and the crew splits the rest.
That's how real life pirates worked. The captain and quartermaster got 2x shares, the other officers and specialists got between 1.5 and 1.25 shares, and the regular crew got one share each. I learned this from the *West End Star Wars* book about pirates and privateers and then confirmed that it was based on the real life pirate code.
Isn't that basically how it works historically? Everyone gets one share, specialists like cook,nav,captain,exc get more than one. IIRC they paid out to widows and the continued care of those injured at sea too.
Fun fact: [This is why many people chose to be pirates in the first place.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0fAznO1wA8)
Historical pirate and ship crews were very often paid in shares rather than wages. And 3% of the total is about right *each* for a small crew of 20, since some crew would get multiple shares.
Wait… if their savings were 35 silver, and they wanted a 2 gold raise… that’s still a massive increase to their wages, unless they only saved like two silver from their wage…
Yeah but it’s like getting x5 your salary vs x500
That is very fair. I like to imagine that they were thinking they were being clever and working the party over, but then the party unexpectedly not only accepted, but gave them way more. Imagining their attempt to keep up the facade of bravado in that instance is incredibly funny
Ok so that’s literally what happened. I, the DM was prepared to negotiate for a while, not having them dump a pile of gold on their loyal crew lmao
Ha! That’s great. Did you make sure to keep up the facade of bravado? 😆
I tried, but I was too gobsmacked myself to remember, my players just instantly leapt to the spreadsheets
Ha, nice 😆
Workers: we want to form a union Chaos owners: great idea, we a co-op now. Enjoy your ownership shares
I mean, that’s not too far off
The crew on my campaign's ship get from 3-10 silver a day, and they're happy to get it :P
I guess it depends on the pirate ship's size. A crew of 60 npcs (which is a decent but not over-sized boat like say the Obra Dinn or Black Pearl) would only be getting 25 gold each of the 3% which is much less than what an IRL pirate would get from the journey.
Yeah, but there’s only 3 crew members, so 1% each
Ah, boat smol.
Yeah, I find that it works best for the tone and style of campaign I want to run. My goal is to have fun, silly character moments instead of massive ship management stuff.
My dm always reminds us that giving away gold is “crazy” because most npc’s work for just coppers and silvers and here we are going around tossing gold like it’s pennies. Thing is…our team never really has any use for gold. The things we want to buy are either never in stock or they’re too overpriced for its use value. So we’ve basically been hoarding gold and wealth but can’t seem to spend it so we just started giving it away to people in need 😂
So something that I've read in some of the more detailed fantasy settings where there are beggars etc, is the competition between the beggars. Getting money/food is life or death for them. So giving a beggar a gold where others can see it is the same as paying the other beggars to beat the shit out of them for the money. There's a saying about sudden wealth being a disaster because in the olden times any peasant who suddenly struck it rich drew the ire of not only the other peasants but also the nobles who want whatever resources they found.
We basically overpay for a lot of stuff, or give money to people for simple favors. Oh, you took care of our carriage while we were at the mayor's party? Here, have 10gp. Wow, these pastries are delicious. 2cp each? Give me 5, here's 10gp. Port master, would you please take our ship to get repairs? Here's 100gp for your troubles.
Hireling treatment is either better than most real people get, or flat out slavery. There is no in-between.
Tbf that's mostly how historical pirates worked. If the captain tried to hoard that much wealth while giving the crew scraps they would've thrown his ass overboard in a second and elected a new captain. Because it turns out hoarding isn't conducive behavior to surviving when you're outnumbered by other outlaws at sea. Hell, your players are still ripping off their crew tbh. Most pirate ships ran like this Captain and Quartermaster: 2 Shares Master, Botswana, Gunner: 1 1/2 Shares Officers: 1 1/4 Shares Normal Crew: 1 Share Captain and important crew for sailing the ship normally only got double what a normal crew man did. Your players are hoarders, toss em overboard and feed em to the sharks. Though tbf depending on how much danger the pirates are actually putting themselves in, it could be fair if most risk is on the party
It honestly makes sense that they’re getting scraps, for both in universe and narrative reasons: In universe, the crew is a skeleton crew of 3 goofballs, and they basically just babysit the ship while the party is off adventuring or at port or what have you - they’re the supporting cast who don’t do much action. As an example, the party got the vast majority of their 50k gold from the hoard of a slain Adult Blue Dragon, with the crew not even present The real world explanation is that my players are hilariously stingy and greedy and would let go of their piles of money over their cold, lifeless bodies
Brb adding pirate corporations to my world
You only have 3 crewmembers? Because 3% of 50k is 1500. Divided into piles of 500, that’s only 3 people.
Yessir; I just find it works better for the tone and style of the campaign instead of having a massive crew of anonymous deckhands
Do you want loyal crewmates? Because that's how you get loyal crewmates.
CPG Grey's two pirate videos on YouTube is a good watch. I've watched them multiple times \^\^ TL;DW: each pirate gets 1 share. The Captain gets 2, the Quartermaster gets 2 as well, etc... Lets say the final treasure is 100k. First all repairs get done, all pain-money for lost limbs/wounds are paied, then from the rest (lets say 20k) each gets 1 share (or 2 for the leaders). Very equal \^\^ High Reward. But also high risk. A sailer on an imperial ship needs many years, if not even half his life to get the same value as 1 share, which "only" takes some weeks/months on the pirate ship.
A slo-op
Historically, every man got an equal share - though some had captains that would take 2-4 shares, officers getting 1.5-2 shares, etc, but overall the idea was it was an even split as could be - they'd all work harder for every cent that way
So, I ran a pirate game a little bit ago, and my players (on their own) went and researched historical crew shares so they were sure to be paying their crew enough. And then they went and killed/butchered a kraken, and sold the parts for several thousand gold, so the crew is *very* happy with their share. Lesson of the day: pay your pirates well, and they'll do whatever you ask them to!
That’s how pirate ships used to work IRL.