Saturday Night 6:30 PM PST Board Game Night - Also Dracos is Crazy

[Dracos]

Trying to blend things up...Would folks be up for a game of:


Libertalia - Pirate themed deduction game, 2-6 players. Players select a card per round, depending on the card ranking you get your pick of treasure or leave junk for others.
Over at boardgamearena.com this friday:
http://en.boardgamearena.com/#!gamepanel?game=libertalia

I have no idea how to play it yet, but I'll probably read by friday :)  It looks to support up to six people at a time and says it is usually a 15 minute game, so we can probably get in 2-4 rounds and give everyone a chance to figure things out by tremendous comedy.

Who's in for this? :)

[Anastasia]

I'm interested in this concept, but this Friday may not be good for me.

[Arakawa]

Boardgames seem to be more my speed, so I might be up for this. I'll see what the day/time settles as....

[CyMage]

Ah, they joys of Friday evenings off... Wait... What the hell does that feel like? >_>

[Merc]

Ah, they joys of Friday evenings off... Wait... What the hell does that feel like? >_>

Any similar to Saturday evening offs? ^_^

I have no idea how to play it yet, but I'll probably read by friday :) 

I'll see if I can post a useful guide of some sort before then to help teach the game.

Who's in for this? :)

I'm in! =)

[Merc]

Also, as an additional note, I'd probably estimate the game to last at least 30 minutes, not 15 minutes.

That's probably an average based on repeat players at that site, meaning they're generally familiar with the game.

[Merc]

Libertalia is a game about bluffing, luck, and outmanuevering your opponents so that you can get the most doubloons out of recovered booty. So of course, the theme of the game is pirate crews and managing your crew of scurvy dogs.

There are a total of 30 cards in each player's decks, each card representing a character of a rank from 1 to 30, and each deck is identical...except for one silver number on the side (for breaking ties). Otherwise, each character has the same unique ability regardless of the deck. Unique abilities trigger during one of four phases, as identified by the round symbol before the ability text (a yellow sun for "Day", an orange sun for "Dusk", a blue moon for "Night" and a green anchor for "Campaign End").

Spoiler: ShowHide

The game consists of 3 campaigns, each with 6 rounds. Each round, you and the other players try to gain (or avoid, in some cases) treasure, as each round there is exactly one piece of booty available for each player, before considering special character effects.

Some treasure is worth 1 doubloon, some 3, some 5. There are also treasure maps, which if you manage to collect three maps in a campaign, you stumble onto treasure worth 12 doubloons, otherwise they are worthless. Unfortunately, some of the booty is cursed and cause you to lose 3 doubloons, while others result in a crewmember dying, sometimes your own...sometimes another player's!

Spoiler: ShowHide

Treasure Chest = 5 doubloon
Map = Collect 3 for 12 doubloon, but two or fewer are worth 0 doubloon
Jewel = 3 doubloon
Barrel = 1 doubloon
Cursed Relic = -3 doubloon
Spanish Officer = Kills your crewman before he goes to the den
Saber = You kill an adjacent player's crewman that's resting in the den

At the start of the game, the available treasure for each round of the first campaign is revealed. Then you are dealt 9 characters and 10 doubloon. Your opponents are also dealt the same 9 characters (with their own unique rank from 1 to 6, as stated earlier).

Each round, you play a card face down, once everyone has played their cards, you place them in order ranking from lowest to highest, with characters of the same rank being ranked based on their unique rank.

Starting from the lowest rank, and going to the highest rank, you resolve all "Day" character abilities.

Once you reach the highest rank, you flip and do two things as you go from highest rank to lowest:
1) You grab one of the round's booty tokens.
2) You resolve your character's "Dusk" ability.

Once this is done, your character goes into your "Den", which is where you keep played cards. At this time, any card with a "Night" ability triggers its effect. This is an ongoing effect that triggers every Night phase, whereas "Day" and "Dusk" abilities are one time use.

Besides your hand, and the den, the last place characters can go to is the Graveyard, which can happen when a character is discarded as a result of a character's ability or a booty tile (a saber will kill one of an adjecent player's den characters, while a spanish officer will kill your own character before it even makes it to the den).

Once all six rounds of a campaign are played, that triggers the "Campaign End" phase, and all anchor abilities trigger. Following that, you count the amount of doubloons you currently have, and that's your score for that campaign. Following that, all booty gets shuffled again, your amount of doubloons goes back to 10, and you're dealt 6 new characters (which all other players also get the same of).

Repeat until you've played three campaigns, and the highest score of doubloons at the end wins!


***

A sample first round, based on image below for a four player game where the first round's cards have been revealed.



Starting from lowest to highest:
1) Black's Cabin Boy has no day ability.
2) Silver's Gambler would have to pay a doubloon for each of your booty tiles...except it's first round, so it does nothing.
3) Same goes for Green's Gambler.
4) Red's Captain nets him 3 doubloons.

Then the reverse:
5) On top of the three doubloons he just got, now Red gets first pick from two chests and two cursed treasures! Given his anchor ability penalizes him for cursed treasures, he'll clearly go for the 5 point treasure chest.
6) Green's happy his gambler was higher rank than Silver's, as he picks the next treasure chest.
7) Silver on the other hand gets disappointed with a cursed treasure.
8) Black saw this coming, and even though at lowest rank he should be stuck with a cursed treasure...his dusk ability says "don't pick any booty tiles." So he doesn't.

***
Since I know some people don't have BGG accounts, I've uploaded the rulebook to my mediafire account, and I'll keep it there for a week or so.

Both links that Drac already included have resources to get familiar with the game further if you need to. Board Game Arena also includes a replay of a two player game, so you can see how their interface looks.

[Anastasia]

I might bite on this another week, but this week isn't going to happen for me. I like the idea.

[Dracos]

Back.

Who is in for Friday at 6:30.  That was the intended timeslot folks.  If it's a bad one, please speak up clearly.

I see:
Myself
Merc
Arakawa?
That's it?

I might be able to do Saturday night if that's better for folks.

[Arakawa]

I might be able to do Saturday night if that's better for folks.

I can make either one.

[Merc]

Hopefully more people show. Libertalia really is best with more people. Still  pretty good with three, but definitely best with 4-6.

I'm okay with either date as well.

[DY]

I will not be able to make it Friday night, if you guys do change the date to Saturday night I should have time =).

[Dracos]

Okay.

Saturday 6:30 pm:
Me
Merc
Arakawa
Dy
Kotono?

[Anastasia]

Yeah, 9 30 PM EST? I'm in. I'll probably be blundering my way through it, but that's okay.

[Merc]

It's okay! All of us will blunder through it! That's half the fun! =D