A Rum Deal and No Mistake

Tonight Andrew and I dragged a bit of a curio out of the cupboard - Stefan Feld's Rum and Pirates. Feld is known, directly or otherwise, in GNN circles for Year of the Dragon, Castles of Burgundy and Macao, but this was an early effort, as though Mozart had composed "Shaddapa Your Face" before graduating to more serious work.

Jonny Depp played this as research. So did Keith.

In Rum and Pirates players send their salty sea dogs careering around the board, fighting with guards, getting drunk, getting married, practising bigamy, and discovering half a treasure map on the floor - only to pick up the other half of it later, if luck is with them. Each of the five rounds climaxes with a fight over the best bunks on the ship as they bed down for the night. It's kind of a ludicrous game, and not especially pretty, but fun nonetheless, in that it's the closest GNN has to the thrill of Blackjack.

Andrew didn't do anything wrong, but the game is extremely luck-dependent, and I was punching the air like a man possessed as dice roll after dice roll went my way. Fun for me, probably a bit tiresome for anyone else.

Sam 97
Andrew 60

Upright, but sleepy

Because of the chance aspect there are two main things to note about Rum and Pirates - one is that it's definitely not a 2-player. The other is that it's probably a little long - it took us an hour - and the sleeping-bag fight is not the most riveting bit of game design ever. But all that said, I do think it's one to get out now and then, if only to level the playing field. No matter how strategically adept you are, if someone really, really wants a hammock, you're in a dogfight.

Pitch Cars and Jack Tars

Actually, Jack Tar is a sailor, not a pirate, but it's late...

As we enter the last month of the season, five eager players arrived at Chez Sam for the night's entertainment. Adam was to have been there but he had to attend someone's birthday do. A fact he only learnt during the email exchanges on Monday to ascertain who was going to turn up.

We began in a light-hearted mode with a game that Sam received as a birthday present that's suitable for small children as well as adults. Me, Sam, Joe and Quentin decided to play Pitch Cars while waiting for Jonny. In this game, you have to flick wooden disc "cars" around a track. It began jovially enough, but before long our innate competitiveness crept in.

Suddenly, we were lining up shots like snooker players and cursing our luck on unexpected kinks in the road or a crash barrier. In fact, during our two races Joe and Sam managed to get stuck for three goes in one place. The winning tactic seems to be get in the lead and then don't make any mistakes.

Race One
1. Quentin
2. Andrew
3. Joe
4. Sam

Race Two
1. Sam
2. Andrew
3. Quentin
4. Joe

During race two Jonny arrived so, after we finished, we settled down for something a little more involved. We chose newbie Rum and Pirates. Sam explained the rules – except for a brief interlude where he had to go and clean up some cat sick – and we leapt right in. To the game. Not the cat sick.

This game based around a pirate's life (beating up guards, politely declining invitations to the pub and having pillow fights for best sleeping places) is a lot of fun. When Sam and I played it a week or so ago, it did seem as if it would be more fun with more people. And it was, but perhaps five people was too many. It turned out to be quite a long game. I wasn't sure about any tactic, but going to the pub seemed to be a good move. Again, I did badly getting good sleeping berths in the ship, which might have been costly.

I miscounted the number of rounds and thought the penultimate round was the last. So I ended round four smugly with a move that completed a treasure map and set me up for a decent result. When I learnt there was another round, I didn't really know what to do. As it was, we ended with a dead heat, even after a recount. Joe scoured the instructions for a tie breaker, but none was forthcoming, so we rejoiced in their joint victory.

1= Quentin 73
1= Joe 73
2. Andrew 67
3. Jonny 61
4. Sam 53

It's a whirl of excitement on the form table as Quentin leaps from seventh to first. Adam holds on to second despite not turning up, and both Joe and I improve our standings. Jonny's score goes down by one because he got rid of that pesky decay point.

						Points
Quentin	1	3	1	1	3	9
Adam	3	3	1	3	1	11
Sam	4	1	4	1	1	11
Andrew	2	2	2	6	1	13
Joe	1	3	3	5	2	14
Steve	2	2	2	4	4	14
Anja	4	4	3	1	2	14
Jonny	3	1	3	5	3	15
Hannah	2	3	5	5	5	20

Beer and Home-Taping

Having missed last week's regular Tuesday meeting, and with unsullied cardboard in the cupboard, I was unwilling to wait another night for my regular fix and wanted to get sullying. Andrew was similarly inclined, and joined me for a game of Rum and Pirates last night as we, slightly illegally, listened to Andrew's birthday mix CD.

Rum and Pirates is a Stefan Feld game but not one of huge regard - it doesn't even make it onto his wikipedia page. That's right. I checked. Perhaps that's because it's extraordinarily silly theme - not the Pirates themselves, but the fact that the game takes place in a kind of pirate retirement village, where they all get drunk, fight with the guards and piece together treasure maps whilst following the Red Corsair around the place like a bunch of besotted schoolboys - then fight with each other over who gets to sleep in the hammock on the ship, despite there being numerous hostelries available onshore.

The other reason might be the badly written rules, which are so repetitive they feel like an experiment. We started fairly late, and when we turned to the double-page spread on how to fight over the sleeping berths (which is actually quite straightforward), I was ready to pack it in and play Stone Age instead.

But I'm glad Andrew persisted, as the game, for all it's fiddly bits, is actually rather simple and quick-moving. On your turn you move the Red Corsair to an intersection on the map and, as long as you have enough pirates in your supply to follow him there, you pick up what he finds and keep it for yourself. If you want to pay a gold coin you can repeat the action, as many times as you have coins. The resources at intersections might be part of a treasure map, or a gold coin, or a fight with the guards, or a few other options including inviting all the players for a drink and squabbling over the available 'honour points'.

For honour points, not treasure, is how you win this game. Pirates, of course, don't actually have much use for treasure when they have it, as the most they'll ever do with it is buy a round in the pub before starting a punch-up. But the getting-of-it is obviously important to them, in one of the silliest games I've played in a while.

After the initial disdain of the rulebook, and the slightly underwhelming board not winning our hearts, this was actually a lot of fun. Heavy on the luck, to be sure, as combat is down to the roll of a dice - which in most instances favoured me last night, as I ran out the Most Honourable Pirate with 72 points to Andrew's 61. But as Joe keeps saying, "dice are in!"

Let's play it again! Tonight!