Darn the Torpedoes!

A guide to naval combat with paper ships

An Argyle & Crew scenario for people aged 12+
The Land of Skcos can be a peaceful, magical place, wonderfully non-combative. That is until several Soppets have issues over the same body of water. Once that happens theres nothing for it but to knit your brows, construct a magically powered ship and darn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

By Benjamin Gerber

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Argyle & Crew

For players aged 4 104

Adventures in the Land of Skcos

Creativity, storytelling and role playing
Special thanks to Jonathan J. Reinhart for design help and sanity checks. Created and Written by: Benjamin Gerber Argyle & Crew Artwork: Khairul Hisham Cover Design: Benjamin Gerber This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
What this means is that you are free to copy, share, and remix the text and artwork within these books and PDFs (with the exceptions noted below) under the following conditions: 1) You do so only for noncommercial purposes; 2) You attribute correctly (see below); 3) You license any derivatives under the same license. Exception The following items are not covered under the Creative Commons license: A&C Cover artwork by Khairul Hisham copyright 2011 by Khairul Hisham and cannot be reproduced without permission. All other artwork is public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose, anywhere. Attribution When reusing/remixing Creative Commons-licensed Land of Skcos material, credit must be given to Benjamin Gerber and please also provide a link to http://www.trollitc.com

This is a scenario for the game Argyle & Crew, available through DriveThruRPG and Amazon.com

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Introduction
What happens when you have a magical land powered by pure imagination, populated by living and breathing sock puppets that have a dispute over a large body of water? Magical naval warfare, of course! To do this, all you will need is some paper, a six sided die, a ruler or tape measure, and a Soppet to pilot your ship. Argyle & Crew is not necessary to use these rules, but will be needed if youd like to include your Soppets.

The Goal
Rule the seas! Create your ships out of paper. They can be flat drawings, folded boats, complex papercraft models or just about anything in between. Feel free to also use models, gravy boats or what have you.

The Challenges
You must construct your ship. Each ship starts with a Hull of 3 and a Damage of 1. Write that directly on your ship. You must specify at least two Extras for your ship, and what they do, depending on the scenario you all agree on. Some scenarios can have multiple ships, or you can agree to increase the number of extras each ship has. An Extra is just that, something extra that gives your ship a special ability. Each Extra can do one of the following: Add a magical power. Magical powers do not increase hull points or damage points but can add special abilities. Some examples of magic powers can be: Flying ship (Can travel vertically as well as horizontally) Glowing blue ship (glows blue, looks exceedingly cool) Underwater ship (can submerge for one turn, avoiding being hit) Giant Telescope (increase the range to hit by 1, with 6 or 7 feet requiring a roll of 6 to hit) Radar Dish (reduce the roll required to hit by 1) Electric Fence (+1 to die rolls to repel boarders) If youd like to add to the list, feel free to do so! Just make sure all the players are in agreement before you start constructing your ships. Add 1 hull point by adding something to the hull to do exactly that, such as armor or fish scales.

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Add 1 damage point by adding cool and interesting new weapons like lasers, or catapults. Double the movement rate (per extra added) by adding interesting power sources, whale tails or other propulsion devices.

The Turn
So youve created your navy and youre ready to duke it how. Heres how it works. The turn is divided into two phases, the Movement phase and the Combat phase. Each player rolls a six-sided die. The player to roll the lowest number moves first and shoots last, the player to roll the highest moves last and shoots first. If there are more than two players, move in order of the lowest to the highest and shoot in order of the highest to the lowest. In the event of a tie, resolve it by having any players who have tied re-roll until all ties are resolved. Movement Phase The standard movement is six inches per turn, unless your ship is equipped with something that allows it to move faster. Combat Phase Each ship now has the ability to fire on other ships. If they score a hit, they inflict 1 point of hull damage (or more depending on extras added). When a ships hull equals 0 or less, that ship is sunk and out of combat. In order to fire on any other ship, they must be within range, and within line of site. If something is large enough to obscure the entire ship, that ship cannot be fired on. If at least 2 inches of ship is visible, that ship can be fired on as normal. Ships are only able to shoot at each other from six feet distance or closer. The closer you are to your intended target, the more likely youll be to hit. Distance to target 5-6 feet 4-5 feet 3-4 feet 2-3 feet 1-2 feet 0-1 feet Roll to hit 6 5+ 4+ 3+ 2+ 1+

Boarding If you are playing with one ship, that ship should have your Soppet aboard as the captain. If youve created multiple ships, then your Soppet plays the role of the Admiral of the Fleet and gets to have a fancy hat.

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Also, any ship with a Soppet on board, which comes within six inches of an opponents ship, may attempt to board that ship. If the opponents ship does not contain a Soppet, the boarding action will be successful on a roll of 3 or higher on a six-sided die. If the opponents ship does contain a Soppet, each Soppet must roll a six-sided die. If the boarder gets the higher roll, they have successfully boarded the ship and the opponents Soppet must spend one full turn swimming to another craft. Of the opponents Soppet wins the roll, the boarding action is not successful, and the attacking ship sustains 1 point of hull damage. Soppets may use any applicable extras to add a +1 to their boarding roll. The Play Area This is where youll have your actual battle. The confines of the play area should be agreed on before the game starts and ships are constructed. It can be your dining room table, or it can be your living room. For extended combats, try the whole house! Unless you are playing with flying ships, the floor or agreed on surface represents the body of water you are fighting on. Obstacles can be natural (the couch, the chair) or constructed (moving shoe boxes into the floor, etc.) They can also be in the nature of titanic natural forces working without the influence of players (the dog, cat or toddler). If a giant toddler, dog or other force of nature enter the arena of battle and eat or maim a ship, that ship is out of the game. Starting the Game Determine the site of the battle. Then each play positions their ship or fleet no less than three feet from the starting point and no more than six feet from the starting point.

Conclusion
The winner is the person who still has ships which have not been destroyed, either by unfriendly fire or dogs/toddlers. A draw can be declared if any ten turns go by without anyone able to fire on each other. In a draw, no one wins. These rules are of course very loose and designed to give players an operational framework on which to base your naval power. If you modify this document by adding new rules, Id love to hear what they are. Please feel free to send any house rules or rules modifications to me at ben@trollitc.com.

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Additional Variants
Sometimes the basic rules just arent enough. Here are a few variants you can try. Feel free to add your own to the list! The veteran crew: If you are playing with several ships in your navy, choose one and designate them as a veteran crew. That ship gains one additional Extra. If everyone playing agrees, and you have more than two ships in your fleet, select several to be crewed by veterans with varying degrees of additional Extras. Winning! If youve played Darn the Torpedoes and have ended up with a winning ship or winning fleet, select one ship in that fleet and award it veteran status. Add one additional extra to that ship. Aerial Combat: If you should give one or more of your ships an Extra that allows them to fly, you can take the game to the next level. Flying ships move the same as floating ships, however they can choose whether they are moving vertically or horizontally each turn. For ease of tracking, either keep a small slip of paper with the ships current elevation (i.e. 18) or employ your children as ship-holder-uppers. Combat rules apply for total distance, both horizontal and vertical. Ships that Sink On Purpose: If youve given your ship an extra which allows it to travel underwater, use the same rules as Aerial Combat with the following changes. Movement rate under water is standard movement rates. Add +1 to any rolls made to hit ships underwater. Add +1 for any ships underwater to hit any flying ship.

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