Cargo for Prigwort
Earlier this year, Rise Up Comus posted a fun mechanic to determine how much of a rare good a merchant has in stock. The example given was…
if you go to Wyrmspittle the Alchemist's shop in Prigwort, he always carries garlic, but he only has a 2-in-6 chance of having a rare potion like "Alchemical Tonic" in the store that day.
The blog post went on to clarify that it wasn’t just a simple 33% chance if the item was in stock, but using the fancy new equation “≤ 2-in-6” you can determine exactly how many of the item (if any) are in stock!
To put "≤ 2-in-6" simply, if you roll a 1, then there will only be one Alchemical Tonic in stock; if you roll a 2, then there will be two Alchemical Tonics in stock; but if you roll 3+, then Alchemical Tonics are completely out of stock at Wyrmspittle’s shop
I think it’s a fantastic on the fly tool to use when a player asks for something specific you didn’t prep for
anywho
Earlier today I learned how to play the classic pub game Ship, Captain, and Crew. This game is a Yahtzee-like, where you roll five six-sided dice with two rerolls, locking specific dice results along the way. Thematically, this game is about securing a Ship, a Captain, and (you guessed it) a Crew — each with their own die value, then you score the remaining dice as Cargo
This has the potential to be a fun solo minigame to play during session prep!
As it stands right now, the results are “2D6 or BUST” with a 54% chance of scoring 2D6, and a 46% chance of scoring ZERO (thank you Skeleton Code Machine for being at the top of my Google search results when I was looking for this math)
Because Ship Captain and Crew is pure luck with the illusion of choice, there’s not a whole lot of difference between playing this game and simply rolling (D2 - 1) x (D6 + D6). But, I think Ship Captain and Crew has a few untouched levers that we can play with…
Master of Freight
This variant follows the same rules as Ship Captain and Crew, except when it comes to the scoring phase
| “Secure” | locking a die result |
| “Ship” | a die result of 6 |
| “Captain” | a die result of 5 |
| “Crew” | a die result of 4 |
| ”Cargo” | all unsecured dice |
You are your town’s Master of Freight. First, you must secure a ship. Then, you must secure a captain (you may not secure a captain without having a ship already secured). Finally, you must secure a crew (you may not secure a crew without having a captain already secured). You have five dice and three rolls to complete this task. The remaining two dice will be scored as cargo
If you do not complete this task within the allotted three rolls, every store in town will be low in stock of basic necessities, and completely out of stock of both luxury and rare items
If you do complete this task within the allotted three rolls, every store in town will be fully stocked with basic necessities, and have a variable stock of both rare and luxury items…
If a shop in town would reasonably sell [insert rare item], it has ≤ R-in-10 chance of being in stock
Calculating "R" is simply the value of the right-most cargo die (The value of R will range between 1-6)
If a shop in town would reasonably sell [insert luxury item], it has ≤ L-in-10 chance of being in stock
Calculating "L" is: the number of rolls it took you to complete the task, added to the value of the left-most cargo die (The value of L ranges between 2-9)