[Poison'd] Not quite outrunning the King's ships

[Meguey]

Vincent, Emily and I sat down to play Vincent's new game, Poison'd. This was awhile back, so I can't give you the exact names and sins of my pirate, but let me tell you about the tone of the game.

Vincent's running, I'll call Emily's pirate Pigface Joe and mine Grimey Charlie. We've both racked up a list of sins suffered (affecting our Devil and Soul stats) and delt (affecting to our Brutality), that would make any landlubber cringe. We've both got a mean Ambition or two ( personally, I want to be revenged, and I want get back to Cork to fuck the parson's daugther). There's this wheel of Devil, Ambition, Brutality, and Soul to balance or at least consider as your pirate shapes up. That traitorous ratbastard cook, Tom Reed, is spitting on the deck, cursing us all while blood runs down a cut in his lip. Pigface and Grimey nearly come to blows deciding how to kill Tom.

There's a cool bit of dice play where Emily and I do some flashbacks for our characters in order to have dice to fight the ships even now in sight. It's a show of bravado and guts - Brinksmanship, in fact - to see who comes out on top, with *beautiful* clear paths of escalation: fist to fist, knife to knife, sword to sword, gun to gun, each with it's own path, thus:

Fist to Fist
- your pride vs humbling his, leads to
- being stunned, knocked down or pinned vs same to him, leads to
- broken bones, smashed head, bashed face vs same to him, leads to
(a list of how you might go from there)

Someone's got to be capitan to get us through the impending fight, so Grimey makes a bargain with Pigface that Pigface can be capitan if he'll help Grimey get back to Cork. And Grimey cuts Tom and shoves him over for the sharks, Haha! The bargain means that Pigface's Soul is in hock to Grimey, and I can pull dice out of Emily's roll to skewer her - but only once. Per bargain, of course.

Cut to the battle. Talk about your shivvered timbers! The mechanics for the ship-to-ship fight are gripping, and I don't usually say that about mechanics. The pacing of the King's ships gaining on us, Capitan Pigface boldly stearing straight for them, then the fierce back and forth as we sunk one of their ships, then the gnashing of teeth as we were overrun and captured! Arrrrgggghh!

So now here I am in my 23rd year - how I wish I were in Cork-town now - stuck in a cell with the man who I backed for capitan on the promise of getting home. I can't pound him to pulp because we've got to find a way out. There's a tidy harbor just across the way, and I'm sure any day we'll be out and away, because I've got the Devil burning in my eyes and my Brutality just keeps going up.

[Piers]

I'm sitting here trying to sing the last paragraph to the tune of "Barret's Privateers" and not quite suceeding.  I just can't make it scan, no matter how hard I try.

I sounds great.  What's your favourite 'bit' of the game?

[Meguey]

Piers, you get total points for that

My favorite bit was when the shout went up that the King's sails had been sighted, and Grimey turned to Pigface and said "Orders, Capitan?" and this total 'oh, shit!' look crossed Emily's face. That made me grin.

And being stuck in a cell not meaning the end of the game was cool too, 'cause in most games that's a serious block.

And using a flashback to when I'd been shanghaied to gain an X (extra die) for the coming fight was cool too.

We're playing a Poison'd game now that I should write up separately. It's awesome is getting mixed in my head with this game's awesome.