Rules for Thought #29 – Extra Points for Crew

[Ben]

Now that the Rules survey has some results (43 responses as of this post), I think it would be a good idea to discuss some various options in detail.

Feel free to list what house rules you have used in the past.

More points are allotted on top of the original points cost and are reserved explicitly for crew. For example, a 40 point game would have 40 points for ships and crew, but the players would agree to add 10 extra points just for crew.

If applicable, please list and explain any house rules that didn’t work well.

I didn’t especially like the extra points cost for crew since it allowed for very strong crew combinations in small points games.

I actually think this would be fun to try out.  I’ve played some games with a house rule where you either have to fill every ship’s cargo hold with crew, and a different one where every ship must carry a maximum amount of crew in terms of points. (14 points of crew on a 14 point ship)  It can be pretty fun.  More crew options also means not having to cut corners on stuff that doesn’t get used a ton, like the “extra” crew that aren’t too competitive – specialists, silver explorers, non-essential crew like shipwrights, etc.

I think it’s worth playing around with as an idea, but there are a number of ways to go about it.  Maybe 40 points just for ships, and 20 points just for crew.  (or a different ratio)

Any opinions on these types of house rules with crew?

[Woelf]

Unless you have a rule to enforce a specific percentage of your fleet going into ships and/or crew, I’m not seeing how a “variant” giving extra points for for crew only is any different from simply raising the build total.

If you know ahead of time you’ll get X-amount of bonus points to spend on crew, you can simply build your fleet under that assumption by taking more and/or better ships with fewer crew initially, then add the rest of the crew you need later, as if you were working under the expanded build total right from the start.

You could make the variant more interesting if the extra amount was variable and randomly determined, so players would expect to get something extra but couldn’t count on getting enough to make specific plans for what to do with the points. Rolling 2d6, a d10, or even a d20 would be simplest, but you could also create tables of values, where a few low results might give nothing, while other ranges increase at a certain rate (+5, +10, +15, etc.)

[Ben]

If you know ahead of time you’ll get X-amount of bonus points to spend on crew, you can simply build your fleet under that assumption by taking more and/or better ships with fewer crew initially, then add the rest of the crew you need later, as if you were working under the expanded build total right from the start.

Haha that is a great point, and I thought of your next point right as I finished reading the above paragraph.  XD

You could make the variant more interesting if the extra amount was variable and randomly determined, so players would expect to get something extra but couldn’t count on getting enough to make specific plans for what to do with the points. Rolling 2d6, a d10, or even a d20 would be simplest, but you could also create tables of values, where a few low results might give nothing, while other ranges increase at a certain rate (+5, +10, +15, etc.)

Exactly.

I think it could also be worth experimenting with specific amounts for different types of stuff.  Perhaps 40 points for ships and 20 points for crew, and maybe even go farther and say 5 points for equipment. (which sounds cool to me since it would incentivize equipment to be used, which it often isn’t)

[Author]

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