Rapscallion
Quickstart v7.1Best For
Groups who want a narrative pirate RPG with dramatic character relationships: where your ship has its own playbook, magic comes from dark pacts, and the dice swing between daring success and messy complication.
Core Mechanic
Roll 2d6 + trait (Blood, Vinegar, Polish, or Spitfire). On 10+ you succeed cleanly, 7–9 with a cost, 6– and things go wrong. Players choose from 6 character playbooks and 2 ship playbooks. Luck can be spent to Twist Fate (reroll), and the Ante system tracks escalating combat advantage. The Fates (GM) use worldbuilding moves to create a living fantasy pirate setting with magic rooted in Death, Demons, the Sea, and Books.
The PbtA core rolls 2d6 plus a trait for clean, costed, or failed results. It is a light pirate game leaning on playbooks rather than subsystems.
- Free to tryQuickstartA free starter you can actually play
- Get it nowSold newIn print or as a legal PDF
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Highlights
Ship-as-character with its own playbook adds group dynamics, Ante system makes combat escalation feel cinematic, worldbuilding tools (World With Laws vs World Without Laws), Magpie Games pedigree, free quickstart to try before buying
Considerations
Only a quickstart: full game not yet released, limited to 6 playbooks, pirate fantasy genre is narrow, requires buy-in from the whole table for PbtA-style play, light on crunch
Rules license Proprietary
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