Evil Stevie's Pirate Game
copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2010, 2011 by Steve Jackson
Last updated 1-24-2011
Hi. This pirate base is still under construction, as it has been for years, and a couple of links are still just placeholders. Enjoy, but come back later and look again. Arrrrrrrrr.
I would like to thank all the Legophiles who have traded with me to help me build up my pirate fleet; Jackie Hamilton, for creating the logo above, and lots more invaluable help in building these web pages; Derek Schin, who has been a huge help, and a very competent Admiral of the Royal Navy, for some of the first public games; Franklin Cain and Meredith Monaghan, for HTML and PDF help, and everyone who has played this game and made suggestions! Acknowledgements also go to Frank Filz, who has carried the Lego Pirate banner to GenCon and other faraway shores . . .
Introduction
This is a game, involving elements of both roleplaying and tactical combat, in which grown men and women sit on the floor and push toy pirate ships around, going "Arrrr!"
I use Lego (tm) ships and figures for the games that I run, and the "ship class" rules are written to support Lego and similar building sets . . . but any sort of toys can be used, and these rules are emphatically not licensed or approved by The Lego Group, more's the pity. Non-Lego products that can be used with these rules include Playmobil, Pressman's Weapons & Warriors play sets, Mega Bloks (which makes some cute Viking ships), Best-Lock, Rokenbok (www.rokenbok.com) and many others. You could also adapt these rules to use the WizKids "Pirates of the Spanish Main" mini-ships.
These rules are shareware. Have fun. You may print them out and play with them, make copies for personal use (retaining the copyright notice and this paragraph) and give them to your fellow players, and so on. You may not, however, incorporate any of this material into other publications, hardcopy, online, or in any other media, with or without credit. If you want to refer to this material online, please just link to this page.
Unlike most of my work, this game is published privately (that is, not through Steve Jackson Games or any other professional publisher). I hope you have as much fun with it as I did. If you REALLY have a good time, don't send money . . . just keep playing!
Suggestions can be sent to me at sj@sjgames.com. If you take any great pictures of your own pirate battles, I'd like to link to them.
Want to Play?
The schedule of upcoming games . . . when and where I'll be with several boxes full of ships and other toys! This file also contains FAQ about the game as played at public events.
The Rules
- Parte ye Firste: Combat. How to sail around and sink things.
- Parte ye Second: The Campaign Game. Roleplay, gather wealth, and try to become the King of the Pirates.
- Ship Record Sheets. Thanks to Meredith Monaghan for creating this version and PDFing them. This URL just sends you to a directory. If the PDFs won't open by themselves, try dropping them on the Acrobat icon.
- Charts, Tables and References for the referees. Thanks to Franklin Cain for HTMLizing these!
- GM Tables: An assortment which one hopes is self-explanatory. Note that some of these are designed for long, complex games, and are of no use for a sail-and-shoot game.
- Movement Plot: Each player needs one of these in order to plot his moves before making them.
- Player Setup: A sheet to use when starting a new player, if you are allowing players to choose some elements of their starting setup.
- Sutler Information: Buying and selling goods. Again, some elements here are more complex than you'll want for every game.
- Turn Phases: A "cheat sheet" from which the referee can read aloud in order to control the flow of the game.
- Slips: Print out and cut apart these ships to allow random drawing of cargo items, special non-combat bonuses, or pirates with special abilities.
- Pirate Names: A very brief list of individual and ship names with the right "sound" for a pirate game.
- Logistics: What it takes, in terms of time, space and people, to run this game for a large group.
Support
Photos
- The best Pirate Game photo sets I knew of have vanished from the web. Suggestions welcome!
Some Great Lego Pages
- Check out Classic-Pirates.com, a whole site dedicated to the Pirates theme, with forums, photos of original creations, news, and much more.
- The Classic-Pirates.com / Eurobricks forum for Evil Stevie's Pirate Game.
- BrickLink is a well-organized host site for THOUSANDS of little Lego stores. Need a weird part? Need a hundred weird parts? Look here first.
- RailBricks is a magazine for the Lego train modeler.
Some Great Pirate Sites