Recently I’ve been thinking about a simple way to represent scale/differently sized vessels in my Storm & Sail game; I didn’t want to make it too complex, you can see the rules I arrived at in full in the rules google doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g-LA9GQUJUZm4JqGlb7cioOd4erEcs_QvmlIDwEXIHE/edit?usp=sharing
For ease of viewing they’re also reproduced below:
Ships have a size rating, the sizes are as follows (if it is necessary in a game then human-sized creatures count as size 0), the default group ship begins at size 2:
- Size 1: Small vessels – Pinnace, sloops and barques.
- Size 2: Medium sized vessels – Barques, Fluyts, Brigs and Merchantman.
- Size 3: Large vessels – Galleons and Frigates.
In any vessel attacking a smaller vessel than itself adds +2 damage on a successful hit per point of difference in size (so a frigate successfully hitting a pinnace would add +4 damage); however larger vessels are less maneuverable, a smaller ship trying to flee or out-maneuvre a larger vessel gains +2 to the attempt for every point of difference in size (so if the pinnace attempted to use it’s maneuverability to dodge the incoming frigate attack it would gain +4 to do so).
Could also just add an aspect to the ship indicative of it’s size and throw a couple of free invokes on it. The narrative itself could dictate when it is an advantage or a disadvantage. If a group can narrate the advantage of a smaller faster ship while invoking those relevant aspects (ie running away through a narrow break in a cliff) that will go a lot further than simply adding damage when ships are larger.