>>43346762I like the idea of an oceanic campaign since I'm a huge fan of anything oceanic (comes with the family, I quess; my grandfather used to be a sea captain and my father's also really into boating), but I do admit it might be rather difficult to do. First off all, most players aren't relaly into the minutea of sailing (and to be honest, neighter am I), so you probably have to abstract a lot of things when it comes to traval. Secondly, a lot of people think the ocean is boring. They are, of course, wrong but that idea might discourage people from doing that kind of campaign, and it's true that if the GM isn't good enough to exploit the setting to its full potential can easily turn into a fairly dull game.
Some suggestion I can think of:
Give the players their own boat. Try to make them feel attached to it. The boat isn't just something you use to get from A to B, it's your home, a mobile base and the only thing between you and dying horribly in the midle of the ocean.
Take the advantage of the isolated nature of islands. Each place the players visit can have completely different creatures, cultures and terrain, from tropical paradises to volcanic islands to massive partially submerged cave systems.
There are actually a lot of different kinds of enviroments underwater as well. Coral reefs, sunken ships, caves, underwater mountain ranges, open ocean, the deep sea filled with all those scary-looking fish with way too many teeth, etc.
Of course the problem with going underwater is that you need some way to survive down there. Unless everybody plays a mermaid or something, you'll need diving suits or/and handwave things with magic. Not necessarily a huge problem (I'm sure there's a spell for breathing underwater, or enchanted diving helm of not drowning in some book), but something that must be accounted for.
