Longboat races (and other group activities)

[mikec964]

My Viking players are about to race their longboat against another. It's a friendly race between two crews that have an intense rivalry. I'm looking for house rules to use to make the race fun.

Worst case, I could do something like declare the race to be the first to reach 50, rolling a d6 each turn. But there's got to be something that will give it more flavor.

I'm thinking it should involve the crew skills of someone who calls out the rowing tempo, someone at the rudder, and the captain, plus the sum of the strength skills of everyone else. But it would be more fun if there were some decisions to make with consequences.

The race can be rowing or sailing; I'll run with whichever is more fun.

FWIW, the crew on their ship is four PCs and a dozen NPCs (not to scale, but easier to keep track of in role play), and the other crew will be 16 NPCs.

Thanks in advance for any ideas you have.

[vicky_molokh]

Extra effort. The bigger a penalty rowers accept, the bigger the bonus. But if they fail their average roll, they get no bonus. Roll for multiple sections of the race separately.

[Anthony]

The way to make a race fun is to have something going on other than the race. The race itself is inherently rather boring unless there's a substantial chance of at least one ship not finishing the race at all. However, the setup and aftermath has plenty of potential.

[Gigermann]

Use the Chase mechanic in Action 2: Exploits—with plenty of Complimentary bonuses for the rest of the crew, etc. Also, it wouldn't be out of the question to use a tweak on Mass Combat (specifically, WRT heroic actions, etc.—"casualties" would probably be converted to "lead").

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Extra effort. The bigger a penalty rowers accept, the bigger the bonus. But if they fail their average roll, they get no bonus. Roll for multiple sections of the race separately.

This. And for the one who calls out the rowing tempo choice of rolling (a)Leadership to give it's bonuses to Will rolls of Extra Effort or (b)Intimidation to give similar penalties to opposing team.