You might consider extending the loyalty/dissent system further along the ship hierarchy. Non-captain PCs will also have subordinates, who are likewise able to pass judgment on those PCs’ actions. Defining a set of “clients” who are responsible to the officers also could help develop the different niches the various officers occupy in the ship hierarchy. Ie, the officer in charge of disbursing funds is going to have different interests than the one in charge of keeping the ship stocked. And the officers in command of a bunch of green conscripts is going to be under different pressure than one commanding a unit of crack veterans. This adds another layer of complexity to the political simulation, as smaller units of the whole crew are differentiated by the system.

Player decision making often focuses on choosing something (anything!) for your character to do which is not as central in this genre because you know you’re going to do what the captain says. The players need other choices to make otherwise the game can degenerate into players just following orders, taking away their decision making power (and boring them to tears).

Some red-green vote scenes might have a lot of roleplaying and discussion among the senior officers while others might just be a straight vote because it’s not always appropriate to have a discussion. Either way, the ship’s morale changes as a direct result of player action.

Hey Tony! Yep, we played a session of Poison’d. It’s good stuff, but since it’s all about overthrowing the captain or constantly vying for authority it encourages a lot of things that go opposite of a “the captain is the captain no matter what, mutiny is the greatest sin” game. Like the support the captain mechanic you mentioned — it’s really slanted to encourage the subordinates to take selfish benefit for themselves, so you’d have to slant things the other direction to reflect a law-abiding ship where that’s not the norm.

For the Hornblower idea we were thinking more along the lines that disapproving the captain usually _did_ hurt you and the entire ship, since it meant things weren’t working as well, but you might do it because you were opposed to what the captain was doing (tactically or just because of roleplaying issues, like flogging someone you didn’t think should be flogged).

In Poison’d, in a fight or battle, the captain can hand out his/her dice to other crewmen. This is asking for help, giving orders, and so on. Each player who gets a die, adds another one to it. They may then roll those dice on the captain’s side. However, they can also choose to withhold their aid and gain resources instead. It plays captainship as an authority thing, but also a trust thing.

And then there’s how you become captain. Getting elected captain is as likely as not to involve a bargain. When you strike a bargain, you give your soul in hock to the person you bargained with. Until the bargain is somehow fulfilled, they can then choose to withhold that many dice in a conflict (one time only, and thus dissolving the bargain).

All ideas from the team (instead of just me) go over here. I’m also using this blog to show early bits of game development that might get into projects. Hornblower is not exactly likely to emerge as a full game, but still…

Of course, when the Red card is played, it becomes public, and the Captain needs to decide what to do. And it there are too many red cards, morale and efficacy drop precipitously. So if everyone “holds” back from the captain’s strategy they are doomed.