Using "One Piece" as a Model for Running TTRPG Campaigns - Part 2

How Eiichiro Oda (unconsciously) created the greatest D&D campaign ever

Continuing last week’s post (linked below) on how GMs can use One Piece as a model for campaigns, this article will be delving into three more “pre-time-skip” arcs mostly based off the anime adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s manga. Although many pieces of live action, animated, and literary media within the past several years have started using storytelling models similar to TTRPG campaigns (think parties of quirky characters and episodic stories), One Piece stands out as a story with perhaps the most potential to take inspiration from. In terms of characters, setting, and scenarios, there are a multitude of ideas and resources Game Masters can mine to create a series of adventures their players can enjoy for months or even years!

This post will be covering the Skypiea, Water 7/Enies Lobby, and Thriller Bark arcs, so if you’re currently making your way through One Piece you’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen these episodes! I won’t be covering any filler plots or the controversial “Long Ring Long Land Arc” as I’ve given those a miss. At the time of writing this, I’m still on Impel Down section of the Summit War Arc so if you leave any comments, please try to avoid dropping spoilers following that part!

---

Skypiea Arc: Show The Players There’s More to the World

Although I admittedly haven’t engaged with the One Piece fandom online, from what I understand, a good deal of people consider the Sykpiea Arc to be “skip-able” since there has yet to be a payoff in the current arcs. First-time viewers would be robbing themselves not only of some epic fights and memorable inter-party moments, but important details concerning the history and context of the world of One Piece. While it broadly seems like a side-trek, sometimes those types of adventures are perfect for decompressing while still playing and progressing a campaign especially following such an adventure with high stakes. More “gonzo” excursions into areas of a campaign world can provide both some novelty and potential tidbits the more “lore-hungry” players might latch onto.

Skypiea starts with one of the best examples of a plot hook by having a ship fall out of the clouds, narrowly missing the Going Merry. Most GMs online recommend hitting the players hard with hooks and what better way to do that than having something as unthinkable as this occur? Exploring the falling ship becomes a short adventure in and of itself as the Straw Hats race to plunder it before a scavenger ship appears. Onboard, they find a map of a place called “Skypiea”, which depicts islands in the clouds. Furthermore, Nami’s logpose, a device that helps the Straw Hats navigate the Grand Line (where normal compasses don’t work), has started pointing skyward.

This first part of Skypiea demonstrates some things that I love about and are easily applicable to tabletop roleplaying games. Firstly is the opportunity to give players a “treat” that leads them to a location or piece of information that they previously had no indication of in a campaign world. One function of a Game Master is to design the world the players will be experiencing, and sometimes the GM will come up with ideas that are beyond the scope of the immediate place the PCs are in. The obvious downside to this is that the players might not experience these ideas during the campaign’s lifetime, so having some kind of hook that gets them off the beaten trail on an adventure that is more or less adjacent to the primary goals of the campaign can be a good way to spice things up.

Secondly is the problem-solving aspect of this hook; the Straw Hats have no certain means of reaching Skypiea and everyone they ask about it claims the islands in the clouds are just legends. In many cases, GMs will create encounters that don’t have a single or obvious answer for how player characters overcome them, it is sometimes even more rewarding if Players develop a totally out of the box strategy to solve whatever challenge they are faced with. What GMs should do in these instances, however, is at least leave tools or resources rather than hints of how to best these puzzles—putting them in an indestructible empty room and expecting them to get out would not be very thrilling. The Straw Hats must therefore pool their resources and knowledge, and explore the immediate area to figure out how to get to Skypiea. By interacting with almost every imaginable corner of the closest island, the Straw Hats figure out a way to outfit the Merry with the means of getting to Skypiea and what environmental phenomena to look for to literally blast them into the sky.

Once they reach Skypiea, there are some big differences that separate it from the world the Straw Hats are familiar with. For one that isn’t noted immediately, the initial part of the actual Skypiea location hearkens back somewhat to how the early episodes of One Piece focused more on characters than the background; most the landscape is white clouds (it is known as “the White Sea” by the native inhabitants) with very few landmarks or visual clutter. The Skypieans appear as normal humans but with vestigial wings and some antennae-like hairstyles. Like most of the characters with more “eclectic” appearances in One Piece, neither of these features are given direct attention, but distinguish them from the normal human characters from the world below (called “the Blue Sea” by the Skypieans). Subtle but notable differences like these in a major side-trek to a different land or even world can help cue the PCs and players about the fact that they aren’t in Kansas anymore.

Another huge difference that becomes a problem for the fighters in the crew is the sudden altitude change; Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji find it more difficult to maintain their energy and recover from attacks. Environmental effects can also be a great way to distinguish new locales from the base campaign area where likely there aren’t any effects the players need to worry about. This effect isn’t addressed much after the first few episodes when the Straw Hats reach Skypiea, but it is possible they became acclimated to the new environment.

There is also a novelty concerning the culture of Skypiea, which is the difference in currency and technology. The Skypieans use extols instead of berries for money, the latter of which can be exchanged for high amounts of the former. They also have access to a unique technology resembling seashells in appearance called “dials.” There are a multitude of different functions for dials including radios, cameras, jet engines, heating pads, and blasting devices. Both alterations in money and everyday technology can provide some novel challenges and resources for players as they navigate this new area. What I liked most about the dials is that while they were far from any legendary magic item, the Straw Hats (namely Usopp) and other characters found creative uses for them in combat and exploration.

The primary conflict in the Skypiea Arc sees the Straw Hats, along with a few other factions and characters, dealing with the machinations of God Enel, the supposed overlord of Skypiea. During the initial episodes, Enel (simply referred to as “God” by the Skypieans) is kept hidden. GMs might use similar tactics when foreshadowing the villain of an adventure of entire campaign, with only their underlings or effects on the world being present. Seemingly omniscient, the entity known as God at this point demonstrates his terrifying ability of being able to vaporize people and huge sections of land with beams of lightning; he specifically targets people who criticize or denounce him, and those who encroach on the feared, sacred territory of an island known as Upper Yard. Initially, Nami is the only one of the Straw Hats to witness the wrath of Skypiea’s God, meanwhile the rest of the crew is doing things that will draw God’s attention to them. A common mantra among most players is to “never split the party”, but in instances like this, GMs can build tension by feeding smaller groups of PCs information while the rest of the party is absent from an encounter. It still keeps the “big bad” in the dark, but gives the players the idea that something is happening.

Following some transgressions, the Straw Hats eventually find themselves transported against their will to Upper Yard where things really begin to kick off. This island looks more like the land masses common to the Blue Sea rather than Skypiea, being composed of solid earth (or “vearth”) and vegetation. Enel operates from a temple situated above Upper Yard and commands four priests to guard different sections of the island. His ultimate plan is to eradicate Skypiea and bring a small cohort of those he deems “worthy” enough to follow him to a place of “endless vearth.” He predicts a great battle taking place on Upper Yard between his own priests, legion of goat-like followers, the Straw Hats, and another faction known as the Shandians. This last group is a tribe of people living in the White Sea who formerly lived in Upper Yard but were driven out and terrorized by the Skypieans and a different man who held the title of God. Their major stake in the island is that it houses their ancestral city of Shandor (also called the City of Gold). The Straw Hats’ appearance and consecutive shenanigans on Upper Yard inspires the Shandians to attack, unaware they are playing into Enel’s plan. What follows becomes an almost free-for-all with combatants being knocked out by the score until only five “worthy” participants remain, as Enel predicts—this includes Enel himself, Nami, a Shandian girl named Aisa, a bird that ate a Horse Horse Fruit named Pierre, and Luffy.

The battle across Upper Yard can be good grounds for a tournament-style adventure. In the show, it doesn’t go into full PvP but GMs with Players who could reasonably handle partaking in that type of combat might wish to attempt that for one adventure or encounter. What is also good “fodder” for things GMs can mine from this arc is the fact that (aside from a few of the bad guys) nobody actually dies in the Upper Yard fight; players locked into a large tournament might not have to worry about their PCs dying and will simply have to deal with them being knocked out. GMs might also opt to have Players take control of NPCs if their characters are out of commission in order to keep the game going and everyone engaged. Some of the characters who get knocked out early on also come back towards the end, which merciful GMs could capitalize on if some of their Players didn’t get a good fighting chance at the beginning.

The summaries shown in simplified maps at the beginning of each episode also are some good visual cues GMs might use if they want to illustrate to their players where everyone is (especially if the party is split). One major decision many GMs will have to make from the very start of campaigns is deciding whether to have detailed maps for encounters or play everything in the “Theater of the Mind.” Nowadays, more rulesets are providing options to make Theater of the Mind play feel less difficult, like streamlining distance and move action. I think simplified maps can provide a happy medium between those who desire or might need visual cues and allowing the GM and Players to imagine specific scenes more abstractly. The “summary maps” aren’t 1:1 scale at all, but are more like board game maps where it generalizes where each PC and NPC is while certain environmental or other effects might come into play in each combat zone.

Aside from the fighting, what about the tidbits for “lore-hungry” Players I mentioned above? A lot of Skypiea’s storytelling about its history—and some history of the world of One Piece in general—aside from the flashbacks and expository dialogue, is largely visual. Upper Yard is littered with ruins from the city of Shandor, among the artifacts are poneglyphs, which only Nico Robin can read. Unfortunately, a lot of them are purposefully destroyed in a fight she has with one of Enel’s underlings, but one she finds at the very end connects with the larger story of One Piece entirely, hinting that Gol D. Roger did indeed reach Skypiea during his travels. What was fascinating about the lore of Upper Yard and the reveal at the end is that it provides the Players with information that has different levels of relevance. The story surrounding Upper Yard is the context Players might need to understand why the things that are happening currently are happening at all, and the tidbit at the end is a small breadcrumb in the larger trail that they might be following towards the end goal of the campaign.

Overall, Skypiea is a great example of how to develop a side trek adventure that is interesting and even has its own stakes. It can start with a simple, yet gonzo, premise and evolve into something greater. There are strong emotional moments in this arc, which makes it all the more unfortunate that some viewers recommend skipping it, although the Straw Hats definitely change for the better by the end. In one sense, they acquire a great haul of treasure, which is also something GMs can consider putting in as rewards for completing side treks!

Water 7/Enies Lobby Arc(s): Raise the Stakes

To use the original D&D alignment system (which only had Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic without “good” or “evil” tacked on), One Piece is essentially a Chaotic campaign done right. Modern D&D players would classify the Straw Hats and (most of) their cohorts as Chaotic Good, which is also a fair assessment since a great deal of Luffy and co.’s motivations are or become altruistic. What makes me classify it as Chaotic rather than Chaotic Good is because not all the pirates in One Piece are “good”, but they nonetheless directly oppose the World Government, which is probably one of the best portrayals of the force of Law as antagonistic in modern fiction. I came to this realization as I arrived at the Water 7/Enies Lobby Arc(s), where the Straw Hats faced their most difficult challenge yet (even more so than fighting a man with nigh god-like powers in Skypeia).

This arc progresses the central story of Onr Piece and the Straw Hats' personal journeys, so it would most accurately described as getting back on track if compared to a TTRPG campaign. There are several plots that emerge during this arc that raise the stakes and test the Straw Hats in every way imaginable—

Following the mostly inconsequential Long Ring Long Land Arc, the Straw Hats are approached by an admiral of the World Government’s Navy, Aokiji, a man with the powers of the Ice Ice Fruit and a connection with Nico Robin, the most recent member of the Straw Hats. He claims she is dangerous and her being with the crew can only lead to pain.

The inciting event that leads the crew to the island-city of Water 7 (known for its legendary shipwrights) is that the Going Merry is in dire need of repairs, having gone without a proper shipwright for so long and through so much damage. They hire the best shipbuilding company on the island, Galley La, to investigate and hopefully repair it. The assessment, however, comes back with the unfortunate news that the Merry’s keel is irreparably damaged and is impossible to replace. With a huge amount of berries leftover from their Skypeia adventure, the Straw Hats would be able to afford a brand new ship. Two million of those berries are taken by Franky, the leader of the notorious Franky Family.

Because of the Merry’s condition, the Straw Hats decide it is best to get a new ship. Usopp, however, refuses to accept the crew’s choice; on top of feelings of inadequacy amongst his stronger crewmates (namely Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji), he ends up renouncing his friendship and leaving the Straw Hats after escalating to a full-on duel with Luffy. Later in the arc, however, a mysterious figure known as Sogeking (“Sniper King” in Japanese) joins up with the crew to help them.

While exploring Water 7 with Chopper, Nico Robin is suddenly swept up by a shadowy faction serving the World Government known as Cipherpole 9 (CP9). Their plan and motivations slowly unfold over the course of the arc, but the Straw Hats are mostly unaware of their existence and the reason why Robin left them. She gives them a warning not to follow and also renounces her friendship with them. Luffy, however, won’t let that stop him from trying to get Robin back in the crew. This mission to free Robin from CP9’s clutches becomes the primary motivator for the Straw Hats in addition to the myriad plots running alongside this one.

Since there are so many things going on in these dual arcs, I won’t go into an exhaustive summary, but rather I’ll provide four key points GMs can take away from Water 7/Enies Lobby to add to their games:

Location

One of the beauties of tabletop roleplaying games is the ability to transport the minds of a group to fantastic vistas that may literally only exist in dreams. The physical locations of both Water 7 and Enies Lobby have been some of my favorite areas in One Piece. They are both island-cities with entirely different functions that are connected via a railway running over the sea. Water 7 is a lively and active metropolis somewhat reminiscent of Venice with its canals flanked by ancient, towering buildings and the threat of being overtaken by water with each passing year. If your campaign doesn’t normally take place in an urban setting, bringing the party to a large, famous city can be a novel way of introducing a new adventure and providing players with new challenges. Urban exploration in TTRPGs can sometimes be more difficult to manage than wilderness exploration, with how many buildings, rooms, and people a GM would have to generate on their own or even with a random table. The Straw Hats don’t really get an opportunity to explore Water 7 extensively, with the primary locations they visit being the Galley La work yard, the Franky Family’s house, the home of Iceberg, boss of the Galley La company, a few small inns or bars, and the sea train station. There are parts of the arc when they traverse through the streets and over the rooftops but most of the story takes place at the aforementioned locations. This reminded me a bit of how Dragon Age 2 handled its setting—Kirkwall, the City of Chains; the player is restricted to going only to certain locations across the city map as they unlock due to progression or certain quest availability. What GMs could do in instances like this is provide “hubs” that are detailed and/or mapped out where they know the primary encounters of the adventure are going to take place. When it comes to navigating the streets, GMs could opt to run “skill challenges”¹ for PCs attempting to locate a particular place, item, or person in a city with abstract details concerning the process of getting there. Urban areas are also great places to set up random encounters for those attempting to brave an unfamiliar city, especially if PCs are walking around with purses full of gold.

The other major location of this arc, Enies Lobby, is a World Government stronghold where major criminals are brought to as a “last stop” before reaching the Gates of Justice; any wrongdoer brought through those gates never steps back out of them. It is situated on an island precariously situated over a massive waterfall. As with the Shandor sections of Skypiea, Enies Lobby has great environmental storytelling as the island obviously once held a civilization, indicated by the abandoned buildings and entire neighborhoods surrounding the larger World Government establishments. During the Enies Lobby part of the arc, the Straw Hats along with their allies (detailed below) lay siege to the entire island. As with Skypiea, we get mapped visualizations of where everyone is on the island and who is doing what. Whereas Skypiea was more of a tournament-style affair, Enies Lobby exemplifies how GMs and their players can run sieges against an enemy faction’s stronghold. Each character and group has their own tasks they assigned prior to the attack, including unlocking and opening gates, fighting challenging guards, and mitigating other obstacles to ensure the bulk of the attackers can get through. TTPRG players and GMs unfamiliar with war games like Warhammer might have some difficulty managing larger-scale fights such as this, but the GM could streamline the complexity by doing two things. First, large units of enemies could be run as “swarms” which share a single statistics block. Second, the entire siege could be run as a single encounter with each strike team having their own turn rather than addressing one encounter at a time. This might read somewhat like how in the show the scenes flip to each character progressing the assault. GMs can easily used the streamlined map when implementing both these features in order to reduce the amount of moving parts in the encounter.

Enemies

Something Oda has mastered as a writer of fiction is creating villains that readers and viewers will love to hate. While most enemies the Straw Hats have faced prior to Water 7/Enies Lobby have had sown lots of frustration and received well-earned beatings, the members of CP9 (excepting Nico Robin who is only with them temporarily) are a whole other caliber of antagonists. Each member is essentially a boss with varying levels of power and assortment of abilities. As stated above concerning the matter of alignment in One Piece, every one of these characters are devoted to the concept of Law. They wish to utilize it as a controlling force in order to subjugate anyone who defies the World Government or their faction’s own agenda. Polar opposites to the Straw Hats, they care little for the people they meet along the way who are either mere obstacles or expendable resources in their missions.

While each of these villains might have “understandable” motivations, most of them are far from sympathetic; storytelling gurus and Hollywood filmmakers nowadays like to preach the “sympathetic villain” approach, but a large reason why people engage in fiction is to find catharsis, and few things are more cathartic than seeing villains beaten to a pulp. When creating meaningful enemies and final bosses in TTRPGs, GMs should want their players to be motivated to thwart the villains’ plans since the success of the game relies greatly on player participation and engagement. What might initially motivate them to go after villains could be an event like Robin being taken away—a beloved member of the party is swept up and held hostage by the bad guy who has no intention of letting them go. As the PCs come to learn more about who they are fighting, they might be further provoked to lay on the heat (potentially using scorched earth against them; see “Picking A Side” below). What makes CP9 such despised villains, aside from their capture and mistreatment of Nico Robin, is the fact they are so unlike the Straw Hats; while Luffy and his crew are always willing to help people who have been wronged, CP9 are usually the ones wronging others. Finding that “dark mirror” villain party to your players’ own party can be essential in creating villains your players will love to hate; people who stand against everything their own characters believe in.

In terms of actual fights, each member of CP9 gets one or two episodes where they are “matched up” with one of the Straw Hats. I think it would be interesting to try and pull off something similar in a TTRPG where each PC is matched up with a villain, but in a way where everyone isn’t simply watching each fight individually happen. GMs could try to do something similar with the mass combat where each PC is fighting their match up in separate arenas and it is treated as a single encounter. Whatever the case, it would require some flexing and tact in order to get such fights to run smoothly.

Allies

While GMs may understandably wish to keep the focus of campaigns on the party—primarily for the sake of playing a co-operative game, but also perhaps for the sake of GM sanity—there may be adventures where it could be necessary or even desired by the players to recruit NPC companions to their cause. Often, these might take the form of hirelings or henchmen that the party employs with their own money. Sometimes they might be joined for specific quests by the quest-giver who lends their assistance to the party for the adventure. In Water 7/Enies Lobby, the Straw Hats manage to make a lot of friends before they kick off the siege, each with their own skills and motivations. These aren’t only individuals but entire groups, namely the Franky Family and the Shipwrights of Galley La. Both factions were originally hostile to the Straw Hats at different points in the arc, but once they discovered their goals aligned they decided to join up in order to stop the bigger threat of CP9. I thought the idea of entire allied groups was more interesting in some cases than individual allies since it can keep the focus on the party rather than a unique friendly NPC the GM made up while still allowing them access to resources specific to the groups’ functions. The Franky Family, for example, are master saboteurs and provide the right equipment and skillsets for breaking into a maximum security stronghold. Additionally, should the Straw Hats ever return to Water 7, they likely would be safe roaming the seedier corners of the city since the Franky Family would look out for their best interests. What a relationship between NPC groups and PCs provides to the party are both immediate and extended benefits. A GM might not have to keep track of their relationship level via a meter or anything, but using deeds and previous interactions as bases for determining where a party stands with an NPC group could be all they need.

In addition to the entire Franky Family, one of the unlikeliest allies the Straw Hats pick up is Franky himself. In last week’s post, I talked about incorporating more “exotic” PCs into parties; Franky goes a bit beyond exotic and into gonzo territory, as he is a fire-breathing cyborg who runs on cola. One Piece fans know that he becomes a member of the Straw Hats following the victory at Enies Lobby, serving as their sole shipwright. His skills are not only exceptional but the fact he is the head of a crime family, joining a misfit band of pirates, was very surprising to me. After Franky was recruited, I got another callback to BioWare’s games (as I mentioned in last week’s post) and how some companion characters are incredibly powerful or leaders in their own right. As I said with Nico Robin, a PC like Franky would have to be played by someone who knows exactly what their doing and wouldn’t cause problems for the rest of the party by wielding power that might sometimes take entire campaigns to acquire. What is helpful is that the Straw Hats remove Franky from Water 7, where he has major sway over an entire faction, and simply have him as another crew member on their new ship the Thousand Sunny.

Picking a Side (Point of No Return)

Player autonomy and consequence are delicate but necessary components to have in a long-running campaign. While tabletop roleplaying games provide opportunities for players to simulate and experience actions they normally would never live out in the real world, a GM providing equal and opposite reactions can make their campaign world feel real and potentially extend its longevity. Some RPG video games have sections that are a Point of No Return for the player, meaning that once they reach such a stage the game either hurtles towards the end or the game world is changed forever. In either case, players may be given some choice in shaping the ensuing narrative. Enies Lobby is definitely a Point of No Return for the Straw Hats; as shown in the clip above, they willingly declare war against the World Government by burning one of its flags. By being a pirate crew, they already somewhat set themselves up for a life of outlawry and enmity with the commanding forces of civilization, but this decision reinforces their position against the World Government.

Players should also be given such weighty options in long-running campaigns where most of their choices can shape the world around them and the “world” of the party. The choices might not have to be binary, but having clear distinctions and ideas about what the consequences for each decision might be can help with the collaborative negotiation for how the party proceeds. After the choice is made, the party should get some kind of indication as to how the world or campaign changes. For the Straw Hats, an immediate change is that all of them get wanted posters and bounties, along with a few nicknames. This shows that they are in even more danger now than ever before, but most importantly that their actions are having an impact on the world around them. I think one of the greatest gifts a GM can give their group is showing that their characters are making a difference on the world they made for the campaign. At particularly tense or important moments, GMs should give players the choices to shape the world they occupy as the lifestyle of adventuring is not one that most would pick, but it gives them agency over their own lives.

Thriller Bark: Give The Party a Breather but Keep it Important

The arc following Water 7/Enies Lobby is a far more lighthearted adventure taking place on a haunted ship-island filled with zombies. I’ve always had a soft spot for “Halloween specials” for shows that aren’t normally centered around horror, so Thriller Bark scratched that itch perfectly for me even though the sense of horror isn’t very intense or constant throughout the arc. Unlike Skypiea, there are some more “immediate” outcomes to what occurs on Thriller Bark, thus the “Keep it Important” part of this section.

Although I say that Thriller Bark is a bit of a breather following Enies Lobby, the stakes are still somewhat high here as several of the Straw Hats are put in a perilous position where they have until the sunrise to live. The major enemy on Thriller Bark is Gecko Moria, an exceptionally lazy Warlord of the Sea who desires to create a zombie army to do his bidding. His power of the Shadow Shadow Fruit allows him to remove people’s shadows and implant them in corpses, which raises them as zombies who might possess some of the personality and ability of the person whose shadow occupies them. Anyone without a shadow is burnt to ash by the sunlight; Thriller Bark dwells in an area of the sea perpetually shrouded in fog, which is a small blessing for those who don’t have shadows.

The first victim of Moria the Straw Hats come across is the skeleton musician/swordsman Brook. Yet another “exotic” party member. Undead “good guys” in most games can be difficult to work into a mostly normal party. In fact, the only reason Brook is welcomed into the Straw Hats is because Luffy simply thinks he's cool. What works very well with Brook's introduction and incorporation into the Straw Hats is his connection with the island. One pitfall of introducing a new PC late in the game is if part of their backstory has them wanting to go way off track from where the rest of the party is heading. The entrance of Brook offers a solution to that issue by having him go where the party is already heading. Brook’s deeper backstory also connects him to the Straw Hats via a mutual relationship with a character they had met upon entering the Grand Line—Laboon the Whale. This gives him a reason to stay with them in the long term aside from the fact Luffy wanted him to join unconditionally. A late-game PC addition may have differing circumstances but having the immediate connection to where the party is already going can help integrate them into the group.

Thriller Bark has somewhat of an opposite setup as Skypiea, in that the party's challenge is not to get to an island but rather figure out how to escape it. As shown in the picture above, Thriller Bark is encircled by a floating wall and accessed via the lip-shaped gate. The Straw Hats unknowingly float into the main gate which they have no means of opening. Nami, Usopp, and Chopper decide to scout the immediate area but end up stranded on the island, forcing the rest of the crew to look for them. This is somewhat of another inverse from Skypiea as in that arc, the Straw Hats also split the party but did so willingly, here they are driven into separate areas of the island completely by accident. Some of the weirdness they get cornered into includes facing a literal spider monkey zombie, being waylaid by a goth princess who can control ghosts, fending off living portraits, and getting kidnapped by an invisible lion-man for a wedding. A friend I talked with about One Piece while I was in the middle of this arc described it as reminiscent of Scooby-Doo. As with what I said about “Halloween specials” above, this is the sort of light-heartedness that some campaigns might need following an intense arc. Thriller Park puts the characters into silly situations but are scenarios that weirdly compliment their characters; they are off the beaten path enough to not happen on the regular but still things that could logically happen to each of them. When translating this into a game, it could be fun to have PCs thrust into scenarios where it makes light of them but not in a mean-spirited way and could actually be beneficial to the characters. For example, Usopp’s “match up” in this arc is against the aforementioned “goth princess” Perona who can control ghosts via the power of the Hollow Hollow Fruit. These ghosts can pass through living beings and implant negative thoughts in them, temporarily disabling them. Usopp is constantly negative, rendering him immune to Perona’s power. What’s most enjoyable about this is that it doesn’t necessarily compliment Usopp’s “mechanical” abilities but more so his personality. GMs should take a similar approach by understanding who each of their PCs are as people and presenting situations they might not normally be in even in the regular campaign but could still excel in.

Towards the end of Thriller Bark comes the “important” part of this arc. With how silly things get, it's easy to forget about the things that Water 7/Enies Lobby set up. At the end, another one of the Warlords comes to Thriller Bark to speak with Moria and investigate the Straw Hats’ appearance—“The Tyrant” Bartholomew Kuma. This large, imposing man seemingly has the power to make people vanish into thin air as well as deflect most attacks. It is only by making a deal with Zoro that he holds off on bringing the Straw Hats into World Government custody. This is following the final battle against Moria and his strongest zombie minion, so each of the characters are “tapped out” at this point with no chance of beating Kuma. GMs can also use this type of foreshadowing, especially at some point after a Point of No Return scenario, to telegraph to players how their decision impacted the world. I particularly like that nobody is killed off or removed from the crew in this scene as it shows the worst is yet to come for the party. In a TTRPG, a scenario like this gives the players the opportunity to test where their characters are at without quite being in danger of losing them, giving them time to plan how they want to advance and prepare for the actual fight once things snap back to reality.

---

Thanks for reading this week’s post! What idea are you going to try out in your campaign? Leave your plans in the comments below (as long as your players aren’t subscribed to me)!

Refer a friend to Senchas Claideb to receive special rewards including a personalized Gaelic phrase and a free, original short story!

Follow me on other social media platforms!

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter (X)

1. From D&D’s controversial 4th edition, skill challenges are special encounters that involve PCs using mechanical skills they are proficient in to overcome one or more obstacles. Normally, the party must gain a certain number of successes depending on difficulty, but are allowed only three failures. Such encounters are perfect for theater of the mind type play.