Hi there, guys. I've just begun with playtesting on this. It's a filler game ala what Tasty Minstrel wanted, but had too many kinds of pieces to be acceptable for the showdown. I've given this a few runs and have tweaked the Swabbie, Captain (offensive option), and ship maximum hull points a couple of times. The last game played was very precise, like a game of chess: easy rules that become something much more, so I may have hit a sweet spot in the mathematics.
It wasn't exactly how I expected it to come out - I went into this expecting something very simple and nearly mindless. What I've gotten is a surprisingly deep strategy game that takes only a few minutes to learn, but then somehow finds a way to reveal a new strategy/crew interaction to save you even after playing it for awhile. Needless to say, I'm ridiculously excited and am going to refine this one and submit it to publishers until it sticks :D
Hands Off Me Booty!
The Game of Pirate-on-Pirate Action
Players: 2-4
Time: 10-20 minutes
Components:
20 Ship cards
20 Crewmen counters
• 4 First Mates
• 4 Swabbies
• 4 Navigators
• 4 Gunners
• 4 Cooks
4 Captain counters
16 Dice
• 12 d6
• 4 d8
Rules difficulty:
Easy – learnable in 5 minutes, 10 for slow learners
Story:
You're still not sure how it came t' this. He invaded your territory and took a Spanish galleon, so you went over t' that 'secret island' o' his and sabotaged his rum business. Then thar was that night in t' tavern. How were you supposed t' know that he'd be thar? Insults were hurled and somebody's mother was called a bilgerat. Aye, it weren't exactly t' healthiest o' relationships, but it just seems that this be a bit much, all thin's considered. Might as well make it quick.
Hands off Me Booty! is the story of the climactic ending of every cinematic pirate relationship that goes wrong: a duel to the death with wooden ships and cannonballs! Players redistribute their captain and crewmembers each turn to grant particular portions of their ship a flat defensive and/or offensive bonus. Do they protect the bow and stern, whose helm and rudder grant a defensive bonus to the entire ship, or do they protect the deck and its crucial cannons? At the same time, your enemies know how many crew members are at each section of ship and can always tell where the captain is thanks to his predilection for massive hats. Does he attack your undefended sections or go for the crew, knowing that leaving the gunner alone (wherever he is) would just lead to taking a beating? Furthermore, does he go for the captain, knowing that cutting the head off the beast is sure to kill the body? Does he position himself defensively by using his captain to direct manuevers that will mitigate cannon damage, or will he gamble on a single shot that can blow away the entire side of your ship? Be careful, though, a pile of crewmen in one section is sure to mean the Cook is around, and a well-fed crew is an exceptionally dangerous crew! To make matters worse, sometimes these fights aren’t just mano a mano. That’s when things get really complicated. Overall, Hands off Me Booty! is a simple set of rules that balloons into a game of posturing, positioning, and bluffing.
Losing the game:
Your ship sinks if three or more of the five sections of your ship are destroyed. Furthermore, if the captain dies, you lose.
Winning the game:
The last ship standing with a captain wins.
Sure. I've submitted it to a couple of companies and have already gotten a line back. He said he couldn't quite understand what was going on, so I apologized and wrote the following. I'm just happy I caught his eye. (Yay titles) Have a look :)
Keep in mind this idea is roughly 15 hours old. It's already beautifully balanced for 2, but I'm working on ways to make more strategies work, specially in multiplayer.
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Fair enough, sir.
Each pirate ship is broken up into five segments, each with its own pool of 15 structural points. The sail, located in the central section of the ship, grants one point of defense, while the wheel and rudder, located in the bow and stern, respectively, grant an additional point of defense if both sections of ship are still intact. In a multiplayer game, the bow and stern each grant +1 defense rather than +1 if both are active. (This multiplayer rule requires further testing.) Furthermore, the central three sections (fore, sail, and aft) of the ship sport cannons.
Each turn, players deploy their crew face down onto sections of the ship. Each crew member has its own ability, as stated below.
Gunner: +1 to damage if deployed on a segment with a cannon, +1 additional damage if deployed on a cannon that was not nominated for being fired upon this turn
Swabbie: Repairs 2 points of damage to this segment after combat is resolved
Navigator: Grants +1 defense to his segment, +2 if that segment is the bow or stern
First Mate: Grants +1 defense to his segment and to adjacent segments (adjacent segments rule requires further testing). Can also do the job of any crew member that has passed away.
Cook: Grants +1 to the abilities of all other crewmembers in the same segment.
Captain:
If deployed on bow or stern - +1 defense to the ship
If deployed on fore, aft, or sail - Cannon damage die goes from 1d6 to 1d8, plus an additional +1 damage to that cannon.
The opponent will know how many crew members are deployed where, but not their identities, allowing for bluffs and the like. The exception is the Captain. Given his fancy coat and big hat, everyone knows exactly where he is. This can be done by making his marker token a different color.
Once crew members are deployed, players nominate what enemy ship section is to be fired upon by each of their three cannons (d6 damage die). In a multiplayer game, as a ship has two sides, each player can fire three shots onto each of two enemy ships. This makes 3 players a bloodbath and 4 players a game of diplomacy. Different deployment tactics will work in each situation.
Crew members are flipped up and their modifiers applied. Resolve combat with the assumption that everything happens at once. In other words, if a section is destroyed, resolve everything else for the round as if it were still intact, including defense and cannon fire. If a segment of ship is destroyed with a crew member on it, that crew member is killed.
After combat is resolved, players scoop their crew and redeploy them.
A player is eliminated when three sections of his ship are destroyed or when the captain is killed by occupied segment destruction.
I hope this clarifies things :) I apologize for this - I was led to believe that I had to do a glitzy pitch followed by formal rules if asked thanks to the way most companies word their submission guidelines.
-Bradley Crouch