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In lugnet.fun.gaming, Frank Filz writes:
> First off, as has been mentioned before, this was absolutely the best
> game we have played so far. Some contributions to this were:
I agree, but I think that this is in spite of some things that you may feel it
is because of.
> - We were able to setup Friday night.
Very important! It would be even better if we could coordinate the game ahead
of time, and get more participation in island provision and crew/ship setup.
> I really simplified island play. Instead of having major scenario
> islands, most islands just had some buried treasure, or a stranded
> pirate or two or three. The most time spent on any island was about 5
> turns (3 separate islands). None of those islands required heavy
> interaction with me.
>
> - With more treasure to be had on the islands, several folks made it
> into port to sell captured ships and treasure and buy more gear or
> better ships.
I think it is good that there were lots of good quick simple islands. The more
the better. But I also think that there is benefit to more complex scenario
type islands. I've been reading through Steve's rules again and I note that
battle is supposed to happen independent of the overall timeline. I think
islands should work that way too. However, both of these absolutely require
someone to act as a sub-GM. I should have done that instead of playing and
trying to help where I could.
Selve-serve islands just like suttling, through a palm or laptop, would
minimize the need for GM interaction.
> Some things which may not have gone so well:
>
> - The only larger ships were three class 2 ships I brought. We were
> severely lacking when Scott Quirk (?) got a big treasure haul.
Yeah, we'll have to do better at coordinating this next time.
> - I probably made gems a little too valuable (they were word 1d6x10
> gold, if a 6 was rolled, they were worth 1d6x100 gold, and if yet
> another 6 was rolled, they were worth 1d6x200 gold).
I think the mined silver was similarly too valuable (or too quick to acquire).
> - I had talked about using a deck of cards for island contents, I think
> this would be a good idea.
Yup. Or software.
> - We didn't have enough range sticks. A combination of the K-8 not being
> out Friday, and the sparseness of it meant we had to improvise a bit. I
> am thinking about having some 2x4s engraved with numbers to use for
> making some range sticks.
Oooh. Good idea! I intend to bring more than two range sticks next year.
> - We were almost short of island material, though Lindsay came up with a
> couple clever ways to use all the palm tree bits Chris had brought
> amongst which was only a single palm tree fork. Duplo 2x2 bricks
> actually worked out to make nice little rocks (which tended to not be
> very interesting, though one chain made a handy way for some pirates to
> swim from one island to the next, and reduce the chance of attracting
> sharks).
I think Duplo in general is a tremendously valuable island tool, the potential
of which we have only scratched the surface.
> - NPC ships are just a pain,
Wow. I'm surprised at this. What hassle did they cause? Just remembering
them? Maybe this is evidence once again that a dedicated assistant GM is
really needed. I'll do it next year unless we automate stuff in the mean time.
> The Islander catamaran wasn't too much of a pain to
> run because it didn't last long.
It lasted long enough for me to sell it at port!
> - I needed to think a bit about the islands which were a little more
> interesting. The shrine was pretty easy when Kai Brodersen blew up the
> statue's head with a cannon ball (each pirate who spent a turn searching
> found 1d6 gold, with a 6 meaning a gem instead). On one large island,
> Lindsay stumbled into an alligator. On another, Larry found some silver
> worth mining (unfortunately, his ship and captain were killed and
> someone else [durn, forgot the name] captured the silver). On a third,
> some islanders were present, and put up a bit of a fight (and launched a
> catamaran which proceeded to nearly sweep Larry's new ship of crew,
> fortunately he was right next to an island populated by three stranded
> crew, and then headed to Strawberry Island to collect some giant
> strawberries and some more crew).
I still think it would be very cool to generally use the islanders more,
creating a simple political and economic model that governs their behavior.
That would take care of lots of islands and there would be a sensible "look and
feel" to how the islands effected the game.
> I'm thinking that most islands should be small (the 16x16 printed
> islands work great, but a few built up islands like the shrine or
> Strawberry Island [built from about 10 Duplo bricks - this provided
> cover for Larry once] would be nice also). The larger islands are harder
> to deal with since they can take several turns to explore. The island we
> used as a pirate base turned out to also provide some separation of the
> ocean which worked well.
I agree in general, feeling that it should be clear that the islands on the
floor -- like the ports, represent larger more complex environments. The
division of the sea by islands is to my thinking a very good thing. We had
scands of islands this time and I actually think that more would still be
better.
> When Scott realized he wasn't going to be able to crew all the ships he
> had to buy to spend his money, he negotiated with Shiri and (?) who were
Aaron?
> not in the best of shape. They helped crew his ships and the combined
> armada stood a good chance of sweeping the ocean had we more time. Of
Pisha! We could have outmaneuvered him and sown dissent among his partners.
> course Chris Weeks and Larry had joined in common cause, and Kai was
> potentially going to join them, which would have made it a close fight
> (but still with the advantage to Scott's fleet).
It depends on how long a pirate coalition like that could hold together.
> Lindsay and (?) capturing one ship, starting to tow it home, and then
> the other player back stabbing Lindsay just as Scott's fleet was about
> to set sail.
I think it was Nicholas Greene.
> The time two ships both destroyed each other's cannon (I think this was
> Larry and Shiri).
That was great. But I actually think the tables should be recomposed. The
chances of that happening are not exactly high, but I do think they're too
high.
I'm going to take this year to make some changes to the system and convince you
that they're appropriate to implement.
Chris
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | The Pirate Game at BrickFest 2002
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| Well, I didn't take many pictures, and I don't think we had a web cam in the room, so I won't be able to do a turn by turn re-cap of the game, so I'll just free associate about the game... First off, as has been mentioned before, this was absolutely (...) (22 years ago, 24-Jul-02, to lugnet.gaming, lugnet.events.brickfest, lugnet.pirates)
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