I had a copy back in the day, but never ran it. A friend was an experienced recreational sailor and had a lot of knowledge of the period. He was also the sort of player who couldn't help himself pulling up the GM on inaccuracies (even in a fantasy game!) So I thought it best to let him run it.

We played a fun (in the main) campaign using P&G, although my friend switched to running it with BRP half way through. However, the FGU rules were totally playable, if a little clunky in places. (He just found it too clunky for him.) The background information was great; and if you are interested in this sort of thing but don't have a great depth of knowledge about it, then I think it might be worth getting hold of a copy to use as a sourcebook, even if you end up using a different rule set. Personally, I'd stick with the FGU rules.

We had fun in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean with an elderly frigate (foiling General Napoleon's invasion of India), and then the Admiralty entrusted us with a new brig of the latest design, and asked us to do a cruise of the Caribbean to see how the ship performed.

I was commanding officer by this stage, and due to unforeseen circumstances the big was wrecked. Thankfully I was cleared by a court martial of any neglect of duty.

If you are OK with 1980s rules, I'd recommend you try and find a copy.

BTW – You are not limited to playing Royal Navy officers; there is plenty of information on the American Revolutionary Navy, and the US Navy of the early 19th Century. After the fun we'd had in the Red Sea, I was eager to sail a US frigate against the Barbary Corsairs, but the GM never bit.

Panzerkraken - really glad you liked it! It was the fact that P&G was out of print and unavailable in pdf - and costing hundreds of dollars to buy used - that made me release In Harm's Way: A Napoleonic Naval Roleplaying Game  back in 2006 - and launching my In Harm's Way series of seven military rpgs. If it had been available for a reasonable amount of money,  I would never have designed IHW:NN. I never did read P&G until after I released IHW:NN.

Quote from: Simlasa;942903They sell a PDF of just the ship rules... but it's a crappy scan that I ended up re-typing for improved readability.

The full game is availabe as a pdf on drivethrurpg http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/82553/Privateers-and-Gentlemen?src=hottest_filtered http://

Quote from: waltshumate;944491The full game is availabe as a pdf on drivethrurpg http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/82553/Privateers-and-Gentlemen?src=hottest_filtered http://

Unfortunately it's the same lousy PDF that FGU reprints as a book. It's basically a scan of the book, nothing more, and hard to read due to shrunken print size.