How To Play Pirate Borg
How to play Pirate Borg. Hi everyone, this is a special how to play episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Pirate Borg. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play your own Pirate Borg game.
I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections.
Game theme
Attacking and defending
Zero hit points
Abilities
Devil’s luck
Ash
Naval combat
Sea shanties
How to build a character
Pirate Borg is a pirate themed role playing game where you and your friends can pretend to be pirates in the dark Caribbean. Maybe you’re a British imperialist or a French courtesan. Or perhaps you’re a Spanish inquisitor, a merchant from the Yucatan, or a cultist worshiping the sunken one. Whoever you are, the discovery of ash, valuable intoxicating remnants of the undead after they’re destroyed, has forever changed the Caribbean markets as this fabled resource is astronomically expensive. Or will you use it yourself, and risk its mystical, addictive effects? Find where X marks the spot, in Pirate Borg. This game is a melee, ranged, and naval combat simulator where you the player will roll a twenty sided dice, or d20, to attack and defend against undead enemies who have shambled up out of the ocean depths. You can play as a swashbuckler, a voodoo ritualist, a buccaneer, a mermaid, a landlubber, a rapscallion, and more. There are mechanics for singing sea shanties, chugging grog to heal, brewing alchemical potions, testing the devil’s luck, and more.
Let’s talk about attacking and defending in Pirate Borg. Enemies don’t roll dice in combat. The players are the ones who roll to attack and defend. Players will be rolling a twenty sided dice, also called a d20, and adding their ability modifier to their roll. For melee attacks, add the strength ability modifier. For ranged attacks, roll the presence ability modifier. Both are tested against a difficulty rating of 12. If you hit, which is if you got a twelve or higher, roll with the weapon’s damage dice to see how much damage you dealt the enemy.
The party also rolls for initiative. Initiative is a word that means the turn order, or who goes first and who goes second in a battle. A player rolls a d6 dice to represent everyone. If it’s a 1, 2, or a 3, the enemies go first. If it’s a 4, 5, or 6, the players go first. If you want to play using individual initiatives, players roll a d6 and add their agility modifier to it. For example, Hayden rolls a four on the dice and subtracts 1 agility modifier to get a three overall. Amaya rolls a two on the dice and adds zero agility modifier to get a two overall. Three is greater than two, so Hayden’s turn happens before Amaya’s in combat.
Let’s roll an example of melee attack with a cutlass. A chandelier is suspended from the ceiling above the corrupt governor’s ball and you want your character Hayden to cut that rope to cause some mayhem at a party you weren’t invited to. To see if Hayden hits, roll a d20 dice and add your strength modifier. That’s a 10 plus your 2 strength modifier, which meets the difficulty rating of 12. Hayden’s cutlass hits the rope. Now roll for the cutlass’s damage, which is a d6. Hayden dealt four damage to that rope, and the chandelier plunges to the party below.
Let’s roll an example of ranged attacking with a flintlock pistol. Your character Amaya sees a kraken’s tentacle rise from the sea and wants to shoot it before it reaches the ship. This weapon has a thirty foot range, nine rounds of remaining ammunition, and takes two actions to reload. To see if the bullet hits the tentacle, roll a d20 dice and add Amaya’s presence modifier. You rolled a 15, minus the negative one modifier, for a 14 overall. You beat the difficulty rating of 12 and hit the target. Now roll for the pistol’s damage, 2 d4 dice. Amaya dealt five damage to the kraken tentacle, and can attack eight more time before needing to spend two actions reloading.
Sometimes an enemy you’re attacking will be wearing armor. Tier three armor reduces incoming damage by a d6. Tier two armor reduces incoming damage by a d4. Tier one armor reduces incoming damage by a d2. For example, here’s what would happen if Hayden were swinging that cutlass against a skeleton pirate who was wearing a fancy British coat that has the stats of tier two armor. First Hayden’s player would roll a d20 and add Hayden’s strength modifier. That’s a sixteen plus two for eighteen total. Excellent, that meets or beats a twelve difficulty rating so the cutlass hits the skeleton pirate. Next roll for damage, which with a cutlass is a d6. The dice shows a four. Lastly, roll for armor to absorb some of that damage. The fancy British coat makes Hayden’s player roll a d4 for tier two armor, and Hayden rolls a three. The damage Hayden deals with the cutlass is reduced from four to one damage after armor.
Criticals when attacking. If you roll a twenty on your twenty sided dice when you are attacking, that is a critical success. Deal double damage, and then after that, reduce the armor or protection tier of your target by one tier. For example, if Hayden had critically attacked earlier, then after dealing double damage to the skeleton pirate, their tier two armor would have been reduced to tier one armor, only reducing future attacks by a d2 dice. The opposite of a critical success is a fumble. Rolling a one on your twenty sided dice means your weapon breaks or is lost.
When an enemy attacks you in Pirate Borg, you will roll to defend. For example if the ghost monkey that was sitting on the ghost ship captain’s shoulder runs up to you and claws or bites at a player, the player will roll a d20 and add their agility modifier, trying to get a 12 or higher. If they fail, the creature attacks them and hits. This ghostly monkey deals a d4 of damage when it claws or bites someone, which rolling that here is three damage.
Let’s talk about what happens when your character is wearing armor when defending. In the example above, the ghost monkey is about to deal a d4 of damage when it claws or bites you. If you had tier three armor you’d roll a d6 to reduce the incoming damage. Tier two armor lets you roll a d4 to reduce the incoming damage. Tier one armor lets you reduce incoming damage by a d2. If the monkey was going to deal three damage to you with their clawing biting attack, and you had tier one armor, you could roll a d2 and reduce the incoming damage by, rolling it to see what that number is, one damage. Your armor reduced the damage you took from three down to two.
Criticals when defending. If you roll a twenty on your twenty sided dice when you are defending, that is a critical success. You the player character can immediately make a free attack. For example if a ghost ship captain’s monkey was biting you and you rolled a 20 on your defense roll, you could immediately get in an attack against that monkey. The opposite of a critical success is a critical fumble. If you rolled a 1 on your d20 when rolling to defend, then you the player character take double damage, and then your armor is reduced by one tier. Armor can be repaired by spending silver coins, unless it is reduced below first tier, and then it’s ruined beyond repair.
Zero hit points. If you are reduced to zero hit points, you are air quotes “broken”. Roll on the broken table on page 32 to see what happens. One thing that might happen is instant death, with the option that the GM may allow your character to return to life as a haunted soul class. Another thing that might happen is hemorrhage, which means you will die in two hours unless treated. You also might get an injury or fall unconscious, etc. If you are reduced to negative hit points, then you skip the zero hit points table entirely and are simply dead. The rule book says, quote, “Down to Davy Jones’ locker with ye!”
Abilities are like character stats. There are five abilities in Pirate Borg: strength, agility, presence toughness, and spirit. Abilities can range between negative three and positive six. To see if your character is successful at something they try, roll a twenty sided dice and add your ability to the result, then compare the total to a difficulty rating, abbreviated DR. A DR of 6 is easy, a DR of 12 is normal, and a DR of 18 is nigh impossible.
Strength is used for melee fighting, lifting, grappling, and come about. If your character Polly tries to lift a cargo crate from the dock up to the ship, the game master would say the difficulty rating, for example 12, normal. You would roll a d20 and add their strength ability. For example, a roll of 10 plus a strength ability of plus two would equal twelve total. Polly can probably lift the crate, a normal thing most pirates can do. Strength, agility, presence, toughness, and spirit.
Agility is used for defending, balancing, swimming, fleeing, and full sail. If during a hurricane Polly was washed off the deck into the ocean, you would roll a d20 and add her agility modifier to swim. For example, a roll of 10 plus an agility ability of plus zero is ten. The hurricane has a nigh impossible DR of 18. Polly fails her swim check and starts to sink underwater. She can hold her breath for one plus her toughness ability’s number of minutes. Toughness is another one of the abilities. Because toughness ranges from negative three to positive six, a character can hold their breath for somewhere between hardly any time at all, just a minute before they choke on water, to potentially at most seven minutes.
Presence is used for smarts, perception, charm, shooting, and repair. If your character Polly is trying to charm the captain’s parrot to get it to snitch on what the captain said earlier behind closed doors, the game master would say the difficulty rating, 8. You would roll a d20 and add your presence modifier to see if you succeed. For example a roll of eleven minus three presence is eight, exactly meeting the difficulty rating to succeed. The parrot repeats the words it heard earlier.
Toughness is used for drinking grog, holding your breath, and surviving falling. If earlier today your character Polly got punched right in her gold tooth and she’s now looking to take the edge off, you would roll a d20 and add their toughness modifier. Looking at the roll, that’s thirteen on the dice plus one toughness modifier, for a fourteen overall. You would compare the result versus a difficulty rating of eight plus the number of drinks Polly has had in the last hour, which was two grogs. Fail, and you vomit for d2 rounds. But a fourteen meets or beats ten, so Polly succeeds. On a success, drinking grog heals you a d4 of hit points. Rolling for it, Polly heals one hit point. After drinking grog, your agility is at negative one for each drink you’ve had, and that lasts the number of hours per grog you drunk. For example Polly drank two drinks, so that’s two hours of negative two agility.
Spirit is used for willpower, using relics, and casting rituals. If your character can cast rituals as part of their class, then every day at dawn roll a d4 and add your spirit modifier to see how many rituals you can cast that day. Casting a ritual takes your full action. Name the ritual. Roll a d20 dice and add your spirit modifier. If the result is a twelve or higher, you successfully cast the ritual. Some example things you can do with rituals are enable people to breathe underwater, buff your allies, create an illusion, summon tentacles, return a recently deceased back to life, or make the weather obey your commands. Rituals always fail if your character is touching metal or carrying anything made of cold iron. If you fail at a ritual, you can’t use that specific one again all day, and you have to roll on the mystical mishaps table on page sixty six. Example mishaps are getting swarmed by birds, you get possessed by a spirit for d4 rounds, gravity behaves as if everything is underwater, etc.
Devil’s luck. When you build a character, your class will give you a dice to roll to determine how many devil’s luck points you have today. If you completely deplete your devil’s luck points, then after resting six hours, you can roll and gain more luck. Otherwise, the carryover number of luck carries over to the next day. This is incentive to use it all. You can spend devil’s luck in five ways. Four of the ways can be used on any target. The one thing that can only be done to yourself is: spend one devil’s luck to lower damage dealt to you by a d6 dice. These next four things can be spent on any target, yourself or someone else. They are: one: You can spend a devil’s luck to deal maximum damage with one attack. Two: you can spend one devil’s luck to reroll any dice. Three: you can spend one devil’s luck to lower one test’s difficulty rating by four. And lastly, you can spend one devil’s luck to neutralize a critical or fumble.
Ash is a neat lore unique to the world of Pirate Borg. It’s the remnants of destroyed undead. Ash has physiological and psychological effects when consumed. It’s extremely valuable. If your character consumes ash, roll a d20 to see what happens. Some of the effects that can happen when your character consume ash are: you might gain a permanent plus one to one of your abilities. You might have a permanent minus one to all abilities, that means strength, agility, presence, toughness, and spirit. You might gain the effects of tier three armor, reducing incoming damage by a d6. You might lose one of your limbs permanently. It is replaced by a ghost limb at sunset. You might see time slowed down around you and take two actions or attacks each round for 2 d6 minutes. You might begin to see everything that has ever lived glowing in neon colors. You might overdose on the ash and face a toughness roll against a difficulty rating of twelve or die instantly. It’s a random table, so, the only way to know what happens is to roll a dice. Ash addicts have sunken eye sockets, darkened lips, and faintly glowing bones.
Pirate Borg has a variety of ship stat blocks available, such as for rafts, canoes, longboats, piraguas, tartanes, sloops, frigates, ghost ships, etc. Ships have ten stats. Hit points, hull, agility, speed, skill, broadsides, small arms, ram, crew, and cargo. Hit points represents the vessel’s condition. Hull is like armor for ships. Agility is how maneuverable the ship is. Speed is the distance the ship can move each turn. Skill represents the crew’s training to operate the ship. Broadsides are cannons that deal damage to other ships. Small arms are swivel guns and muskets. The ram stat represents how much damage is dealt by ramming something with the ship. The crew stats are the minimum and maximum crew count the ship can carry without penalty. The last stat, cargo, is the amount of cargo the ship can carry.
How to do naval combat in Pirate Borg. Ships roll a d6 plus agility for initiative. The highest ship goes first, and player characters’ ships win ties. A ship does four things on its turn. First, the captain uses their action to move the ship. Second, non-captain player characters take one crew action each. Example crew actions are that you can fire broadsides, fire small arms, set the ship to full sail, come about, drop anchor, weigh anchor which pulls the anchor up, board another ship, ram something, use a relic or a ritual, hide, sing sea shanties, etc. Each action can only be chosen once per ship’s turn. Third, a ship that hasn’t taken at least two crew actions can take up to two crew actions total. Every ship gets at least two actions on its turn. Fourth, if the ships are anchored or really close to one another then stop taking crew actions and switch to close combat.
Here is an example. You and your two party members are pirates attacking a fellow pirate ship. You’re in a tartane, a small ship often used for rum running. These other pirates, in a pitiful dinghy, have been trying to edge their way into your rum running market, and you’ve taken offense to that. You spot them with their dinghy full of rum and start chasing them. You both roll initiative, which is a d20 plus the ship’s agility. The tartane has a plus two agility and the dinghy has a plus three, so it was close, but your sixteen beats their fifteen and you go first. Your captain moves your tartane five ocean distance units. You’re catching up fast on the dinghy, which can only move two. Second, non-captain player characters take one crew action each. Your fellow party member fires broadsides at the dinghy. They roll a d20 and add the ship’s crew skill plus their character’s presence of plus one against a difficulty rating of twelve. Twelve on the dice minus one crew skill for the tartane plus presence modifier of plus one equals a twelve, which meets to beat the difficulty rating. The firing of broadsides is effective, and the tartane’s d4 in broadsides deals two damage to the dinghy. The dinghy has no hull armor, so its hit points are reduced from four to two. It’s your turn. You choose to full sail. You roll a d20 and add the ship’s agility and your character’s ability and if you meet or beat a twelve, you can move one extra movement, quickly closing the distance between you and the dinghy. Your party intends to ram it next turn, but before that, you receive some small arms fire from them and take a d2 of damage to your ship’s hit points, but as a tartane your hull reduces incoming damage by d2 so the dinghy doesn’t do much. They shouldn’t have tried to rum run with a dinghy when a tartane was already on the job. That’s an example of a naval combat.
Sea shanties are a cool part of Pirate Borg. They’re on page 68. Every day, the crew of a ship can sing a number of sea shanties equal to one plus the captain’s spirit ability modifier. For example if the captain has a negative one in spirit, no sea shanties for you. If the captain has a plus two modifier to spirit, then the crew can sing three sea shanties a day. To sing a shanty, pick one that you know, sing it, and roll a d20 and add the crew skill, and compare the result against a difficulty rating of twelve. The crew skill is a number that depends on which ship you’re sailing. For example a sloop has a crew skill of negative one, a brigantine has a skill of plus zero, a frigate has a skill of plus one, and a galley has a skill of plus two. You roll a d20, add the ship’s crew skill, and if the result is twelve or higher, you succeed. Some example effects that sea shanties can have are: the song ‘blow the man down’ gives your ship a plus two difficulty rating to hit until the end of combat. The song ‘a drop of Nelson’s blood’ increases the ship’s speed by 1 for d8 hours. The song ‘fish in the sea’ lets you choose a direction. The wind blows that way for d4 hours. I genuinely looked up all of these sea shanties and have been listening to them and quite enjoying it. I encourage my players to all learn at least one sea shanty you can sing during the adventure.
I will now build an example Pirate Borg character: someone like Mary Readington or Francis Dragon. Character creation involves rolling a dice and seeing what character aspect we got from a random table, so for my Firebreathing Kittens players, you’re of course always welcome to look at a traits table and pick the trait that most matches the character you’re imagining in your mind. Or if, like for Mary or Francis here, we’re not sure what sorts of character they are, you can roll on the random table and see what happens. We will roll for the items they carry, the ability points they have, their class details, and their distinctive personality traits. Let’s get started.
Let’s create a random character, for example Mary Readington. Step one to creating a character is to roll a d6 to see what kind of container they’re carrying they’re stuff in and what they’ve got in it. Rolling a d6, Mary’s using a bucket to carry up to four normal sized items. Rolling a d12 to determine her cheap gear, she has inside that bucket, a… medical kit. Oh that’s useful, she can stop bleeding or poison or infection, and heal a d6 of HP. It has her presence number plus four uses. Rolling a d12 for her fancy gear, she’s got a worn out book.
Step two in character creation is to roll your ability scores. Let’s roll three d6 for each ability. Strength is 11, so using the table, that’s a +0 modifier. Agility is 12, so that’s also a +0 modifier. Presence is 8, so that’s a -1 modifier. Toughness is 16, so that’s a +2 modifier. Rolling three d6 for spirit, I got 12 so that’s another +0 modifier.
Step three in character creation is to roll for a class. Let’s play with all the optional classes, so we’ll roll a d8 dice. The dice says five, so that’s a zealot. This class can cast arcane rituals and use ancient relics as long as they’re wearing tier 2, medium armor or lower. Zealots get +2 to spirit, -1 to agility, and -1 to toughness, so Mary’s new ability numbers are +0 strength, -1 agility, -1 presence, +1 toughness, and +2 spirit. The zealot class has a d8 + toughness number of hit points, so rolling a d8, that’s six plus one is seven hit points for Mary the zealot. Zealots begin with a d4 of devil’s luck, so rolling, that’s one devil’s luck her first day of playing. Next roll a d8 for which weapon on page fifty to start with, so rolling a five that means Mary’s weapon is a boarding axe which deals a d6 of damage. Zealots also get a d8 of clothes on page 52, so with a three she’s wearing common clothes and no hat. Zealots get to learn a prayer, so we roll a d10 and find out that Mary learned the Commune prayer. She can test her spirit against a difficulty rating of 8. If she passes, she can, quote, “Asketh thy deity a singular yay or nay query.”, so that’s cool. She can use prayers d2 + spirit times a day, rolling when dawn breaks. It consumes an action to pray, but doesn’t require a roll or test unless the specific prayer says it does. Lastly for the zealot class, let’s see who Mary Readington is praying to. We roll a d8 and it’s: five, the deep. That makes sense for a pirate to be praying to, honestly. All righty, class creation is now complete.
Step four in character creation is to roll for the tables on pages 55 to 61. These are your personality quirks. Rolling a d100, Mary’s background is a warrior, she has sixty silver and a cultural weapon. I’m not entirely sure what a cultural weapon means, so let’s make her boarding axe specifically a doloire, a type of axe I generated using a list of axes online because I personally am not an axe expert, but it appears to be an axe from the middle ages that was decorated with punched and incised abstract floral patterns. Rolling a d20 for her distinctive flaw, she is way too loud. Rolling another d20 for her physical trademark, she has matted, dreaded hair. Rolling a d20 for her idiosyncrasies she’s afraid of prime numbers larger than three. Any d20 roll of 5, 7, 11, 13, and 17 fill her with superstitious terror. Rolling a d20 for her unfortunate incidents and conditions, she’s haunted by a silent ghost that is always there but only she can see it. And lastly for the random table rolling, Mary is carrying around a shard of crystal, which is important to her.
To summarize the character we built, Mary Readington is a zealot class with +0 strength, -1 agility, -1 presence, +1 toughness, and +2 spirit. She has seven hit points and one devil’s luck her first day and a d4 each morning after that. She’s carrying a medical kit with three uses and a worn out book in her bucket. She’s also got a doloire boarding axe and a shard of crystal that’s important to her. She’s wearing common clothes and has matted, dreaded hair. If you say the numbers 5, 7, 11, 13, or 17 around her, she’ll way too loudly shush you out of superstition. She’s too loud in general, except when she’s whispering to the silent ghost that only she can see. Voila, we have created the character of Mary Readington.
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand how to play. For everyone listening, if you’d like to hear an example adventure, the episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast right after this is a demonstration of us playing Pirate Borg in a oneshot game session. We invite you to listen to it to hear an example of Pirate Borg in action. We encourage you to find the Pirate Borg rule book yourself, and play a game with friends.
Brasil