Cabin Fever - Pirate Borg Game Jam
Designing a feature submission!
Welcome to the Glyph and Grok - A weekly blog-letter exploring topics in the tabletop gaming arena. We explore design, execution, and culture relating to anything played on a tabletop. If you’d like, start with my recent Pirate Borg review.
Introduction
Through May 31st 2024, Limithron is hosting a Pirate Borg game jam called CABIN FEVER on Itch.IO. The submissions will be judged by a panel for up to a 3k grand prize and inclusion in an official publication. The categories of entry include:
Adventure
PC Class
Monster/NPC/Ship
Generator or Random Table
Miscellaneous
The game jam is live now and has discussion that includes the game community and the judges over on the Limithron Discord Server. This discussion will encompass the entry I am working on to submit here soon this month.
Entry Design
My first thought was to just jump all in and do a complete adventure site. Reading through Pirate Borg and Mork Borg gave me a number of ideas for adventures and I would enjoy the practice.
On second thought, I kept imagining a dark island swamp location with an ASH-obsessed mystic tattoo artist that would host adventurers looking for experimental power. After some basic searching to see if anyone had already made game rules or a table for some ASH-infused tattoos, I decided to focus my entry on just some rules for a small plug-in system with a roll table of options for GM’s to offer their players. The design intrigues me so here we go…
Research
I have two immediate design considerations. First, some basic research regarding tattoos and pirates in the 1600-1800’s. I got some ideas from this regarding sailor tattoo meanings. One big take away is apparently tattoos were called “Gunpowder Spot”. I like that, so I stumbled into my entry title is going to be “The Glowing Gunpowder Spot” because I am imagining the substance of ASH mixed with gunpowder and put into the skin would either glow on its own like bioluminescence or glow when its activated for its effects.
The second consideration is I want this to work with Pirate Borg mechanically and not immediately negate or break any major gameplay tenets. So I read and re-red both Mork Borg and Pirate Borg to steep my mind in the PC classes, abilities, and special items.
I started spit-balling effects and imagining what it might take for a PC to aquire one of these ASH-infused tattoos that can provide a magical effect. I came up with a list of 40 items pretty quick, and I happen to really like the D66 design of one of the tables in Pirate Borg so I’m going to go with that. We’re targeting a two-page spread with some visuals, the D66 roll table of possible effects, and the rules for a DM to incorporate this system into their game of Pirate Borg as simply as possible.
For ideas to fill the D66 table, I wanted some way to vary the size and weight of the effects the tattoos could produce. Inventory slots are a common OSR staple - basically a creature can carry so many slots of items that have associated slot values. To keep it simple, I am measuring each effect to be 1, 2, or 3-slot effects and each slot represents a body part that must be covered in the associated tattoo. So an ASH-infused tattoo that is two slots, requires two body parts (slots) to be covered in the image of the tattoo.
The current draft of the system rules:
Your spirit is potential. Your body is the conduit. Tattoos created by rubbing a mixture of gunpower and ASH punctures in your skin forge the connection. The following applies:
Each person has 5 tattoo body slots. Some effects require a single tattoo to take up multiple slots. If a tattoo is somehow lost, the effect is lost.
Application requires:
A skilled tattoo artist with mystical knowledge and sufficient tools
An amount of money TBD
An amount of time TBD
Once applied:
Tattoo effects are usable once per day (recharge at dawn), require activation, and last 2d12 minutes unless otherwise stated.
After use, test SOMETHING or the tattoo scars and the slot(s) become unusable.
ASH in the blood. Some detriment to having the tattoos and also using doses of ASH.
At time of writing this, I have about 60 effects thought up and am hoping to get feedback from a couple sources before I submit later this month. My next step is to draft a layout of the information within Affinity Publisher and see if I can fit everything on one 2-page spread.
I’m not going to put all the effects on the D66 here in the hopeful chance that I get picked by the judges, but if I don’t get picked will release it on ITCH.IO myself as an unofficial option. Following the D66 grid of pirate names in the Pirate Borg main book, I have 6 groups of 6 tattoo effects in a grid. I plan to put the tier 3 (3-slot) effects at the 6 position of each of the 6 lists that make up the entire grid. (If this makes no sense, it will when you see it.) Get you a copy of Pirate Borg [Affiliate Link] if you don’t have one yet.
The reason the list is presented in a D66 roll grid is so a prospective GM could use it to say, roll D66 6 times and generate a list of possible tattoo effects that an NPC that can create OR just roll 1D6 to offer a group of 6 that will have some 1 and 2 slot offerings and a big 3 slot offering.
After this post, I plan to focus on completing this entry. Finishing the above art piece and page layout will take some time.
Conclusion
This is the first shot I am taking at submitting to a game jam. I’ve been looking around and haven’t seen anyone else doing an ASH-tattoo thing, and I’m hopeful to get some feedback from the community before I submit.
If you have any comments on the idea, or ideas for cool tatoo effects in Pirate Borg, I’d love to hear them.
Thanks for reading.
What I Am Up To
TTRPG Reading: Tome of Adventure Design, Knave 2E
Other Learning: Various Digital Drawing Courses - 21-draw.com
Audiobook: Iron Gold
Useful Things For Your Games
Spotify Playlist Add - Role: Menace and Malice
This is a great concept for the Pirate Borg. Would be amazing if you could find and use historical tattoo illustrations in the public domain.