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Quarreling Corsairs

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Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Pirate Board Version 2.0
Pirate Board Version 1.0

Below is the updated rules for my BDS entry Quarreling Corsairs. I've updated some of the rules based on the critiques I've received. I would eternally grateful for any more critiques on the rules I have so far. Also I'd like to let you in on how I came up with this idea because I think the design process was pretty odd.

There I am, sitting reading about the design contest. So they want a game that has an ending that's suspenseful like Bingo huh? So I decided to start off with a themed Bingo game. What goes around collecting things, PIRATES!!!! I made changes along the way but I laugh that the game started out a Bingo Pirates essentially! XD

Quarreling Corsairs

Theme and Setup

Quarreling Corsairs is a game about a bunch of pernicious pirates searching an atoll for treasure and raiding Spanish galleons. At the beginning of the game, each pirate is dealt one card which shows a list of treasures. These treasures can be sold for bonus gold during the game. On the game board are six small islands and two bigger ones. The smaller islands will each have two spots for treasure while the two larger ones will have four thus having twenty treasure spots total. To set up the game pull treasure tokens out of a bag and place one face down on each of the treasure spots. The player with the most R’s in their name goes first.

Gameplay

Each player gets five actions during their turn. The different actions they can take are:

  • Movement: A player can move their pirate ship to an adjacent zone for an action. You may only use this action twice.
  • Dig: The player, if on a space with a treasure token, may dig up the treasure and place it face up behind his player screen. The treasure tiles are replaced when there are three treasures left.
  • Rummin’: A player when rummin’ may use gold doubloons to upgrade their ship by buying more cannons, hiring a better crew, getting a new set of sails, etc.
  • Piratin’: A player may attack a player that is sharing a space with them. If the attack is successful, the player may randomly take a treasure from the other player.
  • Pirate Cove: If the player’s ship piece is on a dock/market space, they may sell treasure for gold doubloons. Cards given at the start of the game give bonuses for selling certain items.

Spanish Galleons

Spanish galleons are special ships that move around the board in a specific manner. These may be attacked like any other pirate but are harder to beat. If you do beat them piratin’. Then you may take a specific amount of gold doubloons straight into your hold.

Bounty

As pirates raid Spanish ships and opponents vessels, their bounty will increase. Once someone’s bounty reaches ten, place a Spanish Frigate on the board near the market. After a player’s turn, the ship will move one zone towards the player with the highest bounty. If it ever crosses the path of any other player, the Spanish frigate will attack that player. If the Frigate wins the fight, the player loses all treasure on board with the exception of the any pieces of eight they have. The player’s bounty is then reduced by the quantity of treasure lost. If there is more than one path to reach the player with the highest bounty, the player whose turn it just was will decide which path it will travel down. If a player’s bounty reaches twenty, place a Spanish Ship-of-the-Line on the board. Follow the same rules for movement and combat as the Frigate for the Ship-of-the-Line.

Combat

In the center of the board is a dice tower in the shape of a sinking ship. When a player attacks another player or a Spanish galleon, they must toss their cannon balls (dice) into the dice tower from their seat. Any shots that miss are immediately returned to the attacking player. The numbers are then tallied from the cannon balls that hit and if the number exceeds the defense number then the attacker may take a treasure equal to the amount the crew skill allows, and may force the enemy to return a number of treasure tiles to the treasure pile equal to ½ the number of cannonballs that hit rounded down. (i.e. if you had three cannonballs hit they’d lose one treasure to the drink).

Ending the Game

On eight of the treasure tiles are different pieces of eight. These can’t be sold for gold doubloons and must be kept but they are worth their full amount of gold at the end of the game. When all eight pieces of eight have been dug up, the game is over. Gold doubloons are counted and treasure still in the pirate’s hold (behind the player screen) count for half its gold value. The pirate captain with the most gold doubloons is the winner.

Dagge Games
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Joined: 10/11/2013
It´s getting better

I like your "eagerness" in this game-design :-) Good job.

The gamed is getting better.

I love the combat-system, but I don´t know if it is wise to aim at the middle of the player-board. The dice that miss might hit or move the player-pieces on the game-board. This might cause some confusion. Normally when I play board-games I like the game to be played without the "physical-skill" element. But for a light game like this, the combat system fits the theme and adds an extra fun part to it.
Crazy idea: Maybe each player should have a pirate-hat or something on their head. In combat, players throw dice in the hat? I see some trouble there, but it would be FUN.

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Pirate Hats!

Ha ha ha ha ha! Hats would be awesome! By the end of the game though you might need some eye patches. Ha ha ha ha ha. I'm bustin' a gut over here. I might need to add a line in the rules saying, "Batten down the hatches before combat! Make sure all ships and treasure are secure before tossing." Not a real fix but perhaps you could make it so that the person you're attacking will place the dice tower in front of them. That way you're really shooting at them. This could also help reduce the number of eye patches needed at the end of the game.

If you attack a spanish galleon, perhaps just have the player opposite you hold the dice tower.

Also the physical skill needed shouldn't be enormous. Unless the board or table is huge, it's like chuckin' marbles into a cup. It shouldn't be hard to miss. It's not like you're trying to spit your chew into a tiny spitoon feet away from you in the corner of the room. The mechanic's main purpose is to create atmosphere and get people into the game.

Thanks for the suggestion though. I didn't think about the pieces being knocked off the board.

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Specifics

Here are some things I want specific advice on, anything other than these things listed though are greatly welcome.

Theme

  • How can I improve the theme of the game?
  • Are there terms I could change that fits better?
  • Is there a mechanic that would better serve the theme of the game?

The Combat System

  • Is there anything wrong with the combat system?
  • Are there any glaring flaws?
  • Is there a better way of doing it?

The Bounty System

This part is brand spankin' new so I don't have any feedback on it yet but what is the community's thoughts on the bounty system? Bounty would increase with attacks other ships + the amount of treasures accumulated/sold.

Diggin' Fer Treasurrrrre, or Raiding Yon Merchant Vessels?

Right now I have pirates digging for treasure, but would the theme be better served by having merchant vessels that you raid rather than digging up treasure? The reason I ask is because of the bounty. The bounty going up per ship raided would make sense if instead of digging up treasure you're attacking merchant vessels. The other idea is to do both but have a seperate stack for the merchant vessels with having stuff from the merchant vessels being distinguished in some manner from dug up treasure.

Zone Movement

I believe Richdurham mentioned changing movement to zone movement thus the game is more about which zones do you want to contest. The more I think about this the more I kinda like the idea. I had originally thought that improving the ship speed through sails and better ship design would increase the amount of spaces you could move in a turn. Now I'm thinking it could actually be used as the defense of a ship in a sense.

Here's how it would work. If I have sails that give me a ship speed of 4, and you had a ship with a speed of 2. If I attacked you, you wouldn't be able to escape my ship thus guaranteeing that combat occurs. If it were you attacking me instead, then combat would happen but there could be penalties to the attacker because they can't stay in the fight as long, or they can't attack at all because they can't catch them.

I think I'd prefer penalties because I could see this turning into an arms race very fast.

Corsaire
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Oliver Twist

I'm not a big fan of suggesting a total right turn with someone else's design, but there are so many pirate games, differentiation would be difficult. So, I had a sudden thought of what if this was re-themed to be urchin pick-pockets/petty thieves working the streets of Victorian London? Then it could be various loot tokens and to twist the ending further, midgame Fagin could declare that he needs 8 pocket watches or silk handkerchiefs, etc.

(no, really, this isn't a secret attempt to get my name removed from the game title, really)

anonymousmagic
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Joined: 11/06/2013
I really liked the pirate

I really liked the pirate theme of the original, but the re-theme Corsaire suggested here has a lot of potential.

Maybe I've been reading and watching too much Oliver adaptations lately causing those to cloud my judgement, but I think such a re-theme might actually stand out in the crowded game market.

disaac
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Joined: 02/26/2011
More info?

I would like to get a better understanding of what the board would look like:
Are there multiple spaces between ports?
Are there separate spaces for Ports, Markets, Treasures, etc?
Are the Treasures in the port or do you need to take a landing party out to get to them?
What would the paths of the Galleons be like?
Perhaps the Ship-of-the-Line could travel up-to-two zones per turn.
Any info on ships, crew, etc yet, or still too early?
Instead of dice, you could just use ping-pong-balls, or some other light-weight cannonball objects.
Again, I could easily be interested in the game, but it still seems far from complete yet. At least in the descriptions so far. But it is improved already.

richdurham
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Lots of development here

Great to see this game finding continued development thought and feedback.

The New Combat - Having two numbers to worry about (a threshold to beat to steal gold, and number of dice shot well for gold lost) might overcomplicate a wonderfully simple mechanic of tossing dice and cause too much lost gold. Who know? Maybe it will test well!

Bounty - I like this! I think the random bonus of finding one of the pieces of eight can be balanced by having that increase your bounty too.

I'd like to see a mockup of a map, too, btw.

KrisW
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Joined: 01/15/2013
More Pirates (and cowbells)

Kroz1776 wrote:
“place it face up behind his player screen”
That phrase makes my brain hurt.

-

Kroz1776 wrote:
Rummin’: A player when rummin’ may use gold doubloons to upgrade their ship by buying more cannons, hiring a better crew, getting a new set of sails, etc.
Possibly phrase more along the line of ‘the pirate takes shore leave while work crews upgrade the ship’. I’m not sure repairs done while rummin’ would improve anything.

The Frigate and Ship of the Line are excellent additions.

-

Dagge Games wrote:
I love the combat-system, but I don´t know if it is wise to aim at the middle of the player-board. The dice that miss might hit or move the player-pieces on the game-board.
One word – HURRICANE!

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Misc

richdurham wrote:
*The New Combat* - Having two numbers to worry about (a threshold to beat to steal gold, and number of dice shot well for gold lost) might overcomplicate a wonderfully simple mechanic of tossing dice and cause too much lost gold. Who know? Maybe it will test well!

Perhaps, that was a bit of a stretch of my imagination. I was thinking of it being overkill. So you beat their defense number and get to take gold, but if you do some overkill they lose gold. But it may be rules overkill! XD

ruchdurham wrote:
*Bounty* - I like this! I think the random bonus of finding one of the pieces of eight can be balanced by having that increase your bounty too.

That could work as well. I was thinking all treasure could increase your bounty by one, but I could make it so that the pieces of eight increase it by more. Sounds like it would work.

anonymousmagic wrote:
I really liked the pirate theme of the original, but the re-theme Corsaire suggested here has a lot of potential.

Maybe I've been reading and watching too much Oliver adaptations lately causing those to cloud my judgement, but I think such a re-theme might actually stand out in the crowded game market.

That could possibly work for a second game! I don't know how you'd incorporate throwing cannon balls into an Oliver Twist themed game though.

disaac wrote:
I would like to get a better understanding of what the board would look like:
Are there multiple spaces between ports?
Are there separate spaces for Ports, Markets, Treasures, etc?
Are the Treasures in the port or do you need to take a landing party out to get to them?
What would the paths of the Galleons be like?
Perhaps the Ship-of-the-Line could travel up-to-two zones per turn.
Any info on ships, crew, etc yet, or still too early?
Instead of dice, you could just use ping-pong-balls, or some other light-weight cannonball objects.
Again, I could easily be interested in the game, but it still seems far from complete yet. At least in the descriptions so far. But it is improved already.

The board's appearance will depend largely on how movement will work out. If movement ends up with zone movement vs. space movement.

Also another detail about board layout that I need to hammer out is if each player will have their own place to sell their loot, or if there will be one place all players will go to.

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Monty Python FTW!

KrisW wrote:
Kroz1776 wrote:
“place it face up behind his player screen”
That phrase makes my brain hurt.

Yes that is hurting my brain now too! :)

KrisW wrote:
Kroz1776 wrote:
Rummin’: A player when rummin’ may use gold doubloons to upgrade their ship by buying more cannons, hiring a better crew, getting a new set of sails, etc.
Possibly phrase more along the line of ‘the pirate takes shore leave while work crews upgrade the ship’. I’m not sure repairs done while rummin’ would improve anything.

Yes, that is the idea when rummin'. You go on shore and drink to your heart's content while your gold goes to work paying people to upgrade your ship. Edit: I believe I will end up renaming it Shore Leave or something to that extent. Thanks!

KrisW wrote:
The Frigate and Ship of the Line are excellent additions.
Thank you!

Krisw wrote:
Dagge Games wrote:
I love the combat-system, but I don´t know if it is wise to aim at the middle of the player-board. The dice that miss might hit or move the player-pieces on the game-board.
One word – HURRICANE!

Lol. Consult The Book of Armaments, "And when thou lobbest the holy cannonball at thine enemy, should it hit another man's playing piece, thou shalt proclaim, 'And insert player's name here was deemed naughty in the Lord's sight, and snuffed it!" ;)

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Rethinking Things

Kroz1776 wrote:

Diggin' Fer Treasurrrrre, or Raiding Yon Merchant Vessels?

Right now I have pirates digging for treasure, but would the theme be better served by having merchant vessels that you raid rather than digging up treasure? The reason I ask is because of the bounty. The bounty going up per ship raided would make sense if instead of digging up treasure you're attacking merchant vessels. The other idea is to do both but have a seperate stack for the merchant vessels with having stuff from the merchant vessels being distinguished in some manner from dug up treasure.

With the addition of bounty, I've been wondering if raiding merchant vessels and then instead of selling your treasures for gold, you could bury them. This would lock them in from being stolen. To do this you'd have to return to your island and place them from your ship's hold into a treasure chest! Then instead of spending gold on upgrades, you'd trade in a certain value of treasure to get an upgrade.

  • I.E. I want new sails that cost 6 gold, I'd need to trade in six gold worth of treasure, any overpayment would be given back in gold doubloons.

This does lower the amount of gold doubloons being used.

The Effect on the Board

The effect this change would have on the board would be that you'd have six player islands where they bury their treasure and one island where everyone can upgrade. Then there would be the one big island in the middle around which merchant vessels appear (this would work the exact same way as treasure before with laying tiles, just a different name and look to them now).

What are your thoughts?

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Update!

I've added two different board concepts to the OP. Feedback is appreciated!

mindspike
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Joined: 09/06/2011
Cannonballs away!

I'm not thrilled about the idea of dice flying across the table, but the pirate hats....

Have you seen a game called "Cuponk"? It's basically chucking ping pong balls into a cup. If you really want to bring out the silly fun, how about bouncing ping pong balls into a central target shaped like a tri-corn hat? The missiles are light. The bounce adds complexity and uncertainty. The target can be shaped to funnel the balls into one of three outlets allowing you to put standees at the outlets so that the "cannonballs" knock down the targets.

Looks and sounds like fun so far.

Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Not That Hard

mindspike wrote:
I'm not thrilled about the idea of dice flying across the table, but the pirate hats....

Have you seen a game called "Cuponk"? It's basically chucking ping pong balls into a cup. If you really want to bring out the silly fun, how about bouncing ping pong balls into a central target shaped like a tri-corn hat? The missiles are light. The bounce adds complexity and uncertainty. The target can be shaped to funnel the balls into one of three outlets allowing you to put standees at the outlets so that the "cannonballs" knock down the targets.

Looks and sounds like fun so far.

Considering the size of most tables, I think most people will be able to get the dice in the tower...unless you're chucking them all at once! *Rubs hands laughing maniacally*

Another option I just thought of is to create the dice tower with a few "holes" in it. These holes when you roll the dice would sometimes expel dice from the tower. These dice would count as misses. This takes away some of the dangers of the dexterity element, while still keeping the feel that sometimes, your cannon ball didn't hit the target at all! First off though is to see if putting holes in a dice tower really could allow dice to tumble out prematurely.

In the end, the dexterity element was more for a fun little add on rather than the core of the game. I don't want it to detract for the game too much but still give it a piraty feeling.

Now about the pirate hats...you could sell them seperately each coming with a special power for each hat. Lol!

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