Shanty Hunters is a flexible tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) utilizing the Gumshoe system. By flexible, I mean that your group can play it anywhere from lighthearted and wacky to dark and terror-filled. The year is 1880, the place is the high seas, and the hook is that the sailors’ work song, the sea shanties, will soon be lost as sailings ships are replaced by steam-powered vessels.
Those songs hold strong magic, and the player characters (PCs) want to collect and preserve the endangered shanties for posterity. But the supernatural forces who rule the waves aim to stop them.
Before You Play Shanty Hunters
A unique feature of Shanty Hunters is the singing. At least I find it unique; in my dull, boring life, adults don’t sit around a table singing together. We are all self-conscious, shy, and convinced our voices sound terrible. (Maybe I have some issues to process there!) But perhaps you come from a singing culture—you’re in a church choir or frequent pub sing-alongs. Either way, the game accommodates! You don’t have to sing, and if you do, the tunes are easy and the game doesn’t judge.
All that said, you do need some sort of song leader. This person can be the same one who runs the game (GM) or someone else designated to help with the musical aspects of the story.
Character Creation
The Shanty Hunters book includes a good assortment of premade characters as well as a blank, one-page character sheet to create your own. Character creation takes only a few minutes. The characters must be people who would reasonably be traveling on a sailing ship in 1880. They can be passengers or crew; magical or mundane. They all need an interest in collecting sea shanties.
Shanty Hunters Game Play
A typical session will include warm-up challenges, obstacles, and non-player character (NPC) encounters. There might be a mystery, puzzle, or cipher to solve. Or a non-magical song, just for grins. Because the story takes place on a sailing ship, locale can be quite varied and interesting, all in the same session.
But eventually the PCs, be they music scholars, superstitious sailors, or a sea-witch-in-disguise, will risk the ire of the game’s supernatural villain to collect a shanty. They’ll face the magical attacks described in the very song they want to tame.
Shanty Hunters Game Book
The Shanty Hunters book is handy-sized hardback with wonderful cover art and lots of Victorian-era woodcut illustrations. It’s full of all the information a landlubber GM will need to lead the PCs in a fun maritime story. Facts about ships and the sea, ports of call, and, of course, the shanties.
If you liked learning about Shanty Hunters, you might enjoy reading my review of Archive: A Roleplaying Game Resource.
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