Since there are several people who would like to start a Sunless Sea tabletop campaign, I figured it would be easier and faster for everyone if we did part of the busywork for each other. By which I mean, share maps, encounter designs, and so on.
Please note this isn’t an "idea exchange": while surely we all have original and compelling ideas about what to put in a campaign, I think it’s better to focus on the basics of what every camapign needs. Does this intrest you?
I’m interested but have no experience, I’m glad to make spreadsheets though!
What system would you use, first of all? Unless there’s a clear idea of the base game system this exercise won’t be mechanically helpful.
It sort of seems like it should be a D&D-esque game, especially because the game is already mostly quality and exploration based.
This is something that I’ve put some thought into as well. I was picturing a system where one player is the captain of a ship, much like in SS itself, and the other players are officers. As the party explores the Unterzee the officers would be specialized and contribute primarily in their area of expertise (iron, veils, mirrors, pages, hearts), while the captain is active in dealing with all situations. The game would be mechanically fairly simple so that many short events could be completed in a single session. Like SS, the game would be dangerous and PCs, especially the captain, would die fairly often. When that happens one of the other officers is promoted and the player who was captain takes on a NPC officer or a fresh zailor who fills the vacant officer position.
The biggest difficulties I’ve encountered in my brainstorming is how to deal with the fluctuating amount of XP caused by the "next man up" death and rebirth system and coming up with interesting challenges within the mirrors domain.