Making of: The Golden Age of Piracy DND Module

By Al Preston

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            Why in the world did we make a Dungeons and Dragons (DND) game about real life pirates? There’s neither dragons or dungeons involved in that!

            Well, as silly as it may seem, sometimes the best way to learn something is to play a game. While we historians take great joy in reading and talking about the nitty gritty details of pirate life, how ships were run, what they had to eat to survive, and the niche politicking done between ships but not everyone does. In fact, a lot of that can be pretty boring without a fun packaging.

            Teaching through games is something we’ve done for centuries; some games are more successful than others. I’m sure we’ve all had that teacher that tried a little too hard to make math or English a board game. The best kinds of learning games are the ones where you don’t realize it’s happening. So, to teach these complex nuances of pirate life, we chose DND.

            DND is actually a very flexible game. In the base game, bending the rules, making your own, or modifying existing ones is encouraged. Players online have already done a lot of the leg work, creating systems for ship battles. All we did was simplify it further since, sadly, magic doesn’t exist in our world.

            As a base, I used DND fifth edition (5e) since it was the system I am the most familiar with. Long time DND players will note just how much was simplified or changed. While, yes, all rules for magic had to be removed, DND is still a relatively complex game. From how characters are made to how to actually play, there’s a lot of bits and pieces that can get lost on new players. Since this game is to be accessible to new and old players, simplification had to happen.

            I remember when I first learned to play the game. Reading and having it all explained to me wasn’t necessarily helpful. Actually playing gave me some idea of what was going on, but for a long time I didn’t fully comprehend some elements. It was only through creating new worlds, creatures, characters, and other homebrew (meaning unofficial additions to the game that you or others on the internet came up with) elements that I really started to get how the game functioned.

            For this module, I wanted to simplify it down but keep the same feel and style so new and longtime players could have fun. Plus, if you can’t figure out how to even play, it doesn’t do a very good job of teaching anyone anything.

            DND had another feature that I really wanted to implement into teaching about pirates and the Golden Age of Piracy. Role-playing games in general have this appeal—taking people to the world they’re playing in. They allow people to see themselves in situations as someone they aren’t.

            Public historians have been discussing some of the best ways to engage people with history and one of those conversations is about how being in a physical space that either is authentically, or a close replication of a historical place or time engages people with history more. They learn more and feel more connected to the past in those places. The easiest way, in our opinion, to transport people to a time without physically having to leave home is a role-playing game.

            DND is also a fun game! Players and game masters can make the game silly and serious in turns. Humor engages people, so does realizing the consequences of their own actions. When I first made this module, I had some friends play it with myself as the game master. I watched gleefully behind my game master screen as they realized, in the middle of the ocean, that they did not have the supplies they needed to prevent scurvy. Later, when they were between islands, they were laughing almost too hard as they held a mock trial over who stole the captain’s socks.

            The best part was that they were so fascinated that how much supplies a ship needs and that mock trials were all real things that pirates had to consider and do. They were having a great time and at least one of them had listened to me talk about all of this before playing. Me going on and on about how ships were run went in one ear and right out the other. Every so often they’ll remind me about how their character almost got scurvy during that game.

            Reality is often far more interesting than fiction and placing players into the minds of real pirates can really engage them with the history. All of the player characters and a number of the non-player characters are all real historical people. Many of them have very romanticized stories from film and media. Blackbeard for example. Those versions of these historical figures aren’t necessarily the ones players will see in this module, although they aren’t exactly the historical people either.

            I based these characters as much on their real counterparts and their stories the best I could. Even at the time they were living, their lives were exaggerated, and many rumors and half-truths were told. The playable characters have as close to accurate backstories and personalities as I could get, but they are still susceptible to the person playing them.

            Blackbeard won’t be like the Blackbeard from Our Flag Means Death, for example, but he will be different in every game played. Regardless, players can learn so much about Blackbeard and his contemporaries from the game. The story of the game itself is also a fabrication, just to allow for all of the playable characters to be in one place since, historically, they possibly could have met, but not all at once and not for very long.

            This module is fiction, after all. A reproduction of a time to learn about what it could have been like to live there. The hope is that it will be a fun silly time that allows players to learn something new and maybe see if they like DND and other role-playing games. It’s a fun, educational experience, I hope, for all involved.

            You can find the module and all of the bits and pieces you’ll need for it on the exhibit’s page of the website. If you end up playing it, let us know your favorite moments from your games!