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Hands Off Me Booty - The Game of Pirate-on-Pirate Action!

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GitfaceryGames
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Joined: 02/10/2011

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.

End of Time Games
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Joined: 04/16/2009
set up?

This sounds really cool!

Can you tell us how the game is set up?

I don't see a game board. Does it not need one. Are the sections of ship different cards that are placed together?

May you have great success with this! :)

GitfaceryGames
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Joined: 02/10/2011
Sure. I've submitted it to a

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.
---
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

GitfaceryGames
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Joined: 02/10/2011
Example Combat Round

Player 1 has the following deployment:

Bow - Navigator
Fore -
Sail - Cap'n, Gunner, Cook, First Mate
Aft - Swabbie
Stern -

Player 2 has the following deployment:

Bow - Cap'n, Cook
Fore - Gunner
Sail - First Mate
Aft - Swabbie
Stern - Navigator

Strategies:

Player 1 is playing a loaded central cannon and is bluffing his Swabbie as his First Mate in an effort to make the stern look like a tougher target than it is. The central cannon is bumped up to a 1d8+1 thanks to the Cap'n, but also gets +1 from the Gunner and an additional +2 from the Cook for feeding both the Cap'n and the Gunner. If this section is not fired upon, the Gunner grants an additional +1 to damage, for a total of 1d8+5. An average of 9.5 damage, this can crack the hardest of defenses.

Player 1 is making a huge gamble, though. The bow, fore, sail, and aft all have a decent 4 defense from various buffs, but the stern is sitting at only 2 defense. If his opponent rolls well, he may be forced into a defensive crouch.

Player 2 is playing a total defensive lockdown and is hiding his Gunner well, sporting a +2 global defense bonus from the Cap'n Cook combo, which, added to the Sail and Wheel/Rudder global bonuses, grants a base +4 defense. His First Mate gives +1 to the defense of all cannon sections for +5 and the Navigator gives +2 to the stern for +6. This is an incredibly tough defensive position to bust, but has the downside of having its weakest point be the Cap'n.

Cannon Nominations:

Player 1 is pretty sure the First Mate is either in the middle to protect all cannons or in the fore to protect the Captain. He declares his fore shot upon the enemy's aft, guessing the Gunner is there. He then declares both the Cap'n cannon and the aft cannon directly upon the enemy's captain.

Player 2 declares his aft shot on the enemy's sail. It's utterly obvious the Cook and Gunner are there to make his enemy's shot count. He correctly determines the stern to be the weak point and fires his fore and sail shot upon that segment.

The Reveal:

Both players reveal their crews. Player 1 incorrectly guessed the location of the Gunner, leading to the chance of a rather large hit on his stern. Player 2, however, has seen through the transparent front-loaded and has slightly defused it. He's still going to take a beating, though.

Combat:

Player 1 rolls.
He rolls a 6 against the enemy's aft, dealing 1 point of damage after 5 defense soaks damage. The Swabbie will fix that right up.
He then rolls a 3 against the enemy's bow with his remaining unbuffed cannon, dealing no damage.
The Cap'n cannon strikes true, rolling an 8(+1 from Gunner, +1 from Cap'n, +2 from Cook) for a total of 12 damage. After 4 defense, the enemy's bow takes 8 points of damage and is a liability for his foe.

Player 2 rolls.
He rolls a 1 against the enemy sail, dealing no damage, but denying the Gunner his damage bonus.
He then rolls a 4 with a regular cannon and a 4 with his Gunner-buffed cannon, dealing 2 and 4 damage after 2 defense soaked, respectively.

Post-Combat:

Player 2's Swabbie repairs the aft.

Both players now have a heavily damaged segment and will be pressured to heavily defend it while the swabbie does his work, thus leaving other pieces of the ship vulnerable.

Sucao
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Joined: 05/08/2010
hahaha

Just your title alone was enough to sell me on this one. Great job.

MichaelM
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Joined: 03/09/2009
Sucao wrote:Just your title

Sucao wrote:
Just your title alone was enough to sell me on this one. Great job.

Yes... And based on your components list, this is something that could fit into what I am seeking for Tasty Minstrel

le_renard
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Joined: 10/08/2010
I'd like to give it a try...

Hello, we're gathering for a board-game day tomorrow with some friends, and we might find some time to playtest your game... Tell me if you're interrested.

GitfaceryGames
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Joined: 02/10/2011
That would work nicely. Toss

That would work nicely. Toss me some contact information and I'll hit you with the files.

Raylin
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Joined: 02/26/2011
Yarr

This sounds amazing. I love the idea, and I can imagine that if done with plenty of personality (and it sounds like it will be) it'll be a really great game. Congrats. :D

BOEOLDDOG
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Joined: 02/27/2011
play test

Are you still looking for play-testers? I have one pirate game on the market now and have a access to a game store were we are always testing new games. We have a wide varaty of agges as well that play and you we can see the differnce from a teenager and someone a littel more mature.

GitfaceryGames
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Joined: 02/10/2011
Well, this is the third

Well, this is the third request for the rules by a person who had made an account that very day. Am I right to not trust these people?

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