[hal]

Beat to Quarters (Command Perspective) used a relatively simple approach:

Weight of the cannon ball was the damage inflicted on a hull. A ship's hull in tonnage doubled, was its "Hit points" as it were. Regardless of whether carronade or naval gun, the damage was the weight of the ball. Where carronades differed from long guns was the range and the crew required to handle the gun. If you had half the required crew to handle the guns, the reload times were doubled. If you had half the sailing crew required, your turning times were doubled.

The author of the rules in AGE OF SAIL mailing list later confessed that the casualties from the game were about double what they should have been, but overall, the game played decently. Finding a copy today is nigh impossible. Keeping an eye open might score you a copy or two somewhere down the line. Doing a saved search for the game on ebay might eventually reward you with a copy showing up eventually.


Critical hits that resulted in an entire mast falling, or two masts falling are part and parcel of both BEAT TO QUARTERS and HEART OF OAK. With HEART OF OAK, if you use too much canvas under too heavy a wind force, you risk your mask falling down as it is. What is missing is the fact that historically, the spars for the topgallants and lower, often split because they were made of less "stern" stuff (ie not oak or some of the major hard woods). Ships had to put into port looking for replacement spars, and not being able to find them when the spar parts were not available.

VICTORY BY ANY MEANS is a sort of strategic style game. How well it would mesh with GURPS MAGIC or such, I couldn't say. Truth be told, VBAM is not my cup of tea and I didn't much like it, but others might find it worth the while.

So my advice? Seriously try getting your hands on HOA (Heart of Oak). Hull hit points equals the number of guns the ships carry. Every 50 lbs of throw weight equals one Long Gun. I forget the ratio of throw weight for carronades in the game, but it is s discernible ratio of real life data. At low wind speeds, the wind may "gust" for some ships but not for others. At a steady wind, the wind can stay at that level or it might freshen, or die out. Every 100 turns I think (forgetful in my old age and not having played in a long while!), you roll against the current barometer settings to see if the weather changes strength, or direction or both. There are wind tables for most of the lattitudes on earth.

Could you adapt GURPS to it? Sure can. Could you run a game solely using the ship combat rules and GURPS CHARACTER rules? Yup. I suggested to the company the idea of having a web page devoted to the rules set and GURPS, but they got sticky about it and I backed off. So, what you do with your rules in the privacy of your home is just fine. Just don't put up a web page apparently. I'd have love to have run a GURPS CAMPAIGN using HEART OF OAK rules and GURPS. Hell, if I could only figure out how to get deck plans for the various ships, I Could even try running something over Fantasy Grounds. I'm just not all that good with maps I'm afraid. :(