A Pirate's Life fer Me!

The upcoming Skulls & Plunder campaign will use two novel systems as part of the sanctioned content: Plunder, and Infamy.

In the original Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, these two concepts were introduced in the Wormwood Mutiny book, in the section called The Life of a Pirate. The sanctioned content uses these concepts in a slightly different manner.

Plunder is an abstract concept of around $1000 gp worth of otherwise useless trade goods. It does not replace the gold piece system, but some rewards in the scenarios are issued in terms of plunder. If the subject comes up, it's good to know:

Plunder: An approximation of valuable but non-useful cargo. One point of plunder is worth about 1,000 gp, and takes up 10 tons of cargo capacity, unless otherwise noted. 

BTW, your average pirate ship probably has a capacity of about 150 tons. Which leads to another point - you won't need to know that! By which I mean, since we are only playing the sanctioned content, there is no ship to ship combat, and no cargo management. I don't think I missed anything.

Now Infamy (and its younger cousin, Disrepute) is a reputation system much like Fame and Prestige in PFS. A LOT like Fame and Prestige in PFS. In the Skull & Shackles AP, you acquired Infamy by coming to port, buying everybody drinks, and bragging about your adventures. This gave you and your ship Infamy, which you could spend as Disrepute on amazing actions (like diving your pirate ship like a submarine!)

In the sanctioned content, both the Infamy you get and the things you can spend Disrepute on are defined on your Chronicle Sheet. This is true for all the Skull & Shackles books, and for the three Plunder & Peril chapters. It is also something that needs to be tracked, much like, well, Fame and Prestige.

Some additional comments. As I said above, there is no ship-to-ship combat, although there could easily be boarding parties. Moreover, the vast majority of encounters take place on land somewhere. However, there are many encounters that involve being in or under the water, so I recommend you familiarize yourself with the underwater rules on pages 432-433 of the Core rulebook.