Traveling to Other Worlds

In which a different kind of role playing is considered.


The most important part of the costume (that is, the costume itself) will likely be  very slow process as I find the appropriate fabrics and accessories at thrift stores (and teach myself to sew) which leaves me with plenty of time to develop John Baker's personality.  As I have a history of tabletop rpgs, I naturally turned to them.  The collaborative nature of rpgs should give Baker's adventurous backstory a sense of credibility that they might lack if I just made them up (not being a very good writer) and it would give him a history with other lively and colorful characters.
I did a little research into the rpg systems that have been specifically designed for pirate adventures.  The two that turned up were "Pirates of the Spanish Main" and "7 Seas".  Judging by the reviews, I favor "Pirates of the Spanish Main" but both are older, out of print games.  A quick survey of local gaming shops turned up neither new or used copies.  It would be possible to order them online, but I discarded the idea.  There is a free pirate rpg system available on the web (http://zapti.free.fr/pirates/) but, while it looks like fun, it doesn't seem to be serious enough for my purposes.
That means that, if I pursue tabletop rpgs as a means of character development, I can either homebrew a complete system (which I have neither the time nor experience to do successfully) or I can modify an existing game that I already own.  I have settled on using D&D 4th edition, as I own the core rule books but have never actually played (which is sad, as D&D Next will be coming out soon).
I plan to use the system with little or no changes to the rules but create a world suitable for Captain Baker.  Struggles with sea monsters are one thing, but for Captain Baker to be able to tell stories of his daring exploits with a straight face Elves and Orcs just won't due.  Ideally, his adventures should easily translate from a world of high fantasy to a more realistic one.  To that end, I will create a world map with geography mirroring our own and assign each fantastic race to a nationality that played an important part in the age of piracy.
A few daunting hurdles remain in the way of this cunning plan.  First, while I have specific ideas about the world, I will need someone else to take the role of GM if I am to play.  I hope that I can arrange a rotating GM responsibility to take care of this.  I'll start the first adventure, to introduce everyone to the world, and then all the players can take turns running the game so everyone gets to play.  Also, and this is a biggie, I have no regular group to play with.  I'll need to find interested players once I'm ready to start the game.