Hi all,

It's been a couple years since I last posted. Got busy with life, career and marriage. If any of you remember me it'll be for my Seven Systems Legacy that I was working on - big robot table top thing. Do a search and you can find the posts about it. I still want to finish it at some point but I pretty much stalled on it a few years back (see: life, career, etc.).

So, I currently have a lot of time off so I thought I'd start working on SSL again but before I did I'd try and create a few smaller, unrelated games as "practice."

Enter The Scoundrels of the small and somewhat famous Scatter Coast Bay (I've been reading a lot of Christopher Moore lately, sue me).

It's a board/minature(s) game.

I know this forum is about RPG's but A) it's the only forum I know of where pen-and-paper game designers hang out and B) there is an RPG "expansion" module I'm working on for the basic set.

So, if you'd all indulge me and allow me to explain you might find something worthy of comenting on. If not at least I occupied a few minutes of your time.

The basic game is complete and has been played several times and game is called The Scoundrels of the small and somewhat famous Scatter Coast Bay , or "Scoundrels" for short. If any of you are familiar with "The Settlers of Catan" the game is loosely similar but really not.

The board is created by placing clusters of 1.5" hexagons around a center, starting "island" called the Port O' Call. There are six ports on this island to accomodate up to six players.

There are several types of "tiles" used in creating the board - the board, by the way, will be randomly created each time the game is played. The tiles that compose the board are; Port O' Call, Still Water, Reef, Current, Arr! and Island. Each tile requires a certain number of Movement Points (MP) to enter/cross. Plyers roll two d6 each turn to determine the number of MP they have each turn.

The goal is to go out and take control of the majority of the treasure in play (treasure comes from randomly placed Merchant Ships which are the resources of the game), retain control of on of your own Pirate Falgs (or reclaim one) and collect at least two additional Pirate Flags (each player has three copies a unique flag) and return to the Port O' Call. The first person to do this wins the game.

The island tiles placed on the board can be used to bury collected treasure keeping it somewhat safe from competing players. However, there are mechanics by which those competing players can dig up burried treasure.

Combat is fairly simple: the last player to move into a tile commands the battle and must declare "No Fight!," "Capture!," or "Sink!"

To capture an enemy the attacker rolls two d6 and the defender rolls two d6. The higher number wins. If the attacker wins the defender surrenders one pirate flag (flags are used to mark captured islands, however on mu remain on the player's own ship at all times unless it is captured) and all treasure currently on board the ship. If the defender wins the attacker simply sinks.

To sink an enemy the attacker rolls two d6 and the defender rolls one d6 the higher number wins.

What happens if you're sunk?

Any treasure onboard a ship that is sunk is removed from play and the sunken ship is moved back to its starting port and  the player waits for their turn to come around again.

That's the meat and potatoes of the basic game.

I have pictures of the board laid out and the rules completely written and will post them in a PDF file in a few days.

However, on to the first "expansion." In order to play it you must have the basic game.

This expansion is called "The Privateers of the small and somewhat famous Scattercoast Sea". Essentially it allows the players to add up to an addtional 6 players but these players will be playing as the "merchants." This module is similar to "Settlers" in that there is resource aqcusition and trading involved. However if I can work out just a kink or two it will allow two winners on one board. This works by allowing the pirates to play their game and the privateers to play theirs both with unique goals to win but the two games merge at conflict points and are played at the same time on the same board.

90% of the rules and tiles are created for this expansion.

The second expansion will be called "The Legends of the small and somewhat famous Scattercoast Sea."

And this is primarily why I'm posting today.

Assuming you've read this far and are intruiged by the game what would you like to see in the RGP aspect? I was thinking of expanding the combat and making it more involved. Introducing character creation with a few attributes (navigation = might reduce the number of MP to enter/cross a tile, gunnery = affect combat, etc.). Characters would also be persitant, meaning they would grow over time depending on their success and be affected by losses.

The other question was does this idea of a multi-tierd game one where you could always go back and play the basic game seem appealing to anyone?

Anyway let the bar-b-que begin! :)

John K.

Well, I don't know if I follow your description of the game all of the way (I can imagine, though) but that's fine.

We're talking about your proposed expansion.  Your concept sounds pretty good as long as the merchents really get to do some fun stuff.  If I'm imagining this right, it means that negociation with each other is a big part of the game (it amost always is in games of more than 2 people).

If that's the case, that should be the most important thing to consider for the merchants.  It sounds pretty cool becuase there will be multiple objectives that kind of weave together whichi means that objectives change durring play.  If you can pull it off, it sounds like a pretty good idea.

In fact, it might be the key to overcoming one of the biggest problems with board games, the problem that people oftentimes drop out if they aren't doing well.  If people are each working towards a different objectives, it would kind of balance things out and keep play interesting for a long time as different groups come into conflict and people change alliances etc.

If you would, some more information about the game would be pretty useful.

How many players are supposed to play?

How long is the set up?

How long is the game supposed to last?

How expensive is it?

I think that these are some of the most important parts of making board games that are overlooked quite frequently.  Most war games, for example, assume that the players have a lot of experience with the genre and don't hesitate to come with 20 different types of pieces, or have hundereds of complicatedly marked territories.

Most non-war board games are gimecky or simple or both.

It would be nice to find something with both strengths.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Eric

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here are a few pics of the first "production" prototype.

This would be a complete setup ready to play:
[img]http://scattercoast.bravehost.com/public%20samples/set-up2.jpg[/img]

These are the master print sheets (which I may sell in a PDF format for less than the "production set" so that people could "build" their boards/game sets at home and allow me to distribute electronically - we'll see.
[img]http://scattercoast.bravehost.com/public%20samples/cauliflower.jpg[/img]

[img]http://scattercoast.bravehost.com/public%20samples/various.jpg[/img]
As you can see there are what I call "cauliflowers" (sets of seven hexes), doubles (two hexes) and whatnot. These form the board and can be placed together (or on top of each other) to form a random board everytime the game is played.

And these are the quick reference rules (the rulebook itself is layed out like a step-by-step walk through of the game):
[img]http://scattercoast.bravehost.com/public%20samples/quickrules.jpg[/img]

Well apparently my pictures aren't going to hold up so ...

To answer your questions:
How many players are supposed to play?
Up to six players can play the basic game. The privateers (merchants) expansion adds a possibility of up to 6 more for a total of 12.

How long is the set up?
Set up takes about 5 minutes.

How long is the game supposed to last?
The basic game can last anywhere from 15 minutes to probably no more than an hour (with a full six players playing defensively).

How expensive is it?
Well depending on how I sell the basic game it would be anywhere from about $20 (for the electronic version) to $50 for a complete "boxed" edition.

You can see a picture of the board ready to play at scattercoast.bravehost.com