Rules for Thought #41 – Action Changes

[Ben]

Now that the Rules survey has some results (45 responses as of this post), I think it would be a good idea to discuss some various options in detail.

One more response has come in, and I decided to combine all the interesting things I saw from it.

Are there any changes you would recommend to the shooting system?
The player shooting should need to choose which area of the ship is being targeted. That mast must be in range of that cannon. Makes no sense that a one master could shoot a 10 master from the stern, and a mast on the bow of the ship goes down.

I’ve had multiple new players misunderstand that this isn’t how the regular rules work, which lends some credibility to make it so.  It does make sense especially in terms of grape or chain shot, as there would be specific targets to hit rather than just blasting away every time.

Are there any changes you would recommend in regards to explore actions?
You should be able to explore as soon as you dock. Perhaps explorers could let you re-roll mysterious island effects or allow you to ignore a negative unique treasure effect.

This is another thing that has been an issue with new players I’ve taught, as I’ve talked about before.  The whole “when can I explore” gets annoying quickly, and I think allowing explorers to work on ship-to-ship transfers would make the crew better as well.

Are there any other changes to the 4 main actions you would recommend? Any new main actions you would add?
I’d like if the actions were as follows:
Move & Shoot
Move & Dock/Explore
Move/Ram & Board
Repair Masts

Obviously a lot of crew would have to be reworked if Captain became irrelevant, but this system does make a lot of sense for streamlining and speeding up the game.  However, it would massively lessen the dependence on crew, which could make the game less flavorful and give rise to endless swarm fleets.

Are there any other ways to determine player order that you use/prefer?
Player 1 should be whoever has been on the most ships in real life.

😀  Just thought this was funny and cool.

[Woelf]

Almost all of these “changes” are things covered by specific abilities.

In a much more streamlined version of the game, it would make sense for most of those to always be available as parts of the standard actions. You’d lose a big chunk of the strategy in selecting crew for your ships, but it would make things a lot simpler, and would allow you to put much more focus on the unique(-ish) abilities of named crew.

[Author]

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