Oyster Pirates

San Francisco Bay, 1888. Major fishing companies have created an iron-fisted monopoly on the oyster market, shipping in oysters from the east coast, spreading their private shoals out into public waters, and bullying out anyone trying to make an honest, independent living.

That’s where you come in. You and your crew operate a small, swift watercraft, dredging and tonging for delicious oysters in the dead of night to escape the arm of the law. Haul your catch, outrun the capitalists, and sell to the hungry people to make a living as oyster pirates.

Oyster Pirates is a co-operative narrative-driven ttrpg about shellfish thieves in 19th-Century California, inspired largely by the works of Jack London. For 2-5 players and one Good Mariner (GM).

Oyster Pirates © 2024 by Jake C-B (RollForThings) is licensed under CC BY 4.0. All art and illustration in this game is either original or in the public domain.

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Whew! This is my biggest project by far, and I'm happy it's out there. I hope you enjoy it, and I welcome any questions and feedback on it. While Oyster Pirates is complete and fully playable, this is the playtest edition of the game. If it gets sufficient discussion and feedback, I will iterate on it and release more refined versions. If this project makes money, I will put some of that directly into a donation to the library archive I got the public domain images from, so that I can release an updated version of Oyster Pirates with higher-resolution illustrations (while also supporting public libraries). Thank-you for checking this out!