Blackwater Buccaneers
Blackwater Buccaneers is a pirate-themed 4 player co-op tabletop strategy game where players take on the roles of pirates on a pirate ship. Together the crew must sail around the Blackwater Seas, find treasure, pillage enemy vessels, complete bounties, uncover secrets, and most importantly, drink rum.
Strategy, Co-op Teamwork, Story, Sandbox
Ages 16+, People who like pirates
Blackwater Buccaneers strengths lie in its co-op gameplay style, where each player has a unique set of actions that they must coordinate and use together to keep their ship afloat while engaging with the world
The player experience is the main driving force behind the game design. There are four roles for the four players to play: Helmsman, Barrelman, Gunner, and Bilgerat. Each was a real role that existed on a pirate ship, and they still exist on ships today.
B.B. intends to use these roles to complete two objectives: Define gameplay mechanics and define player experience.
Regarding the player experience, each role is designed to truly embody the spirit of the role, and thus make the player and inter-player dynamics feel just like they might have on a pirate ship.
Together, the four players make up the crew of a pirate ship. Throughout the game, they will obtain gold and ship upgrades through different means, including bounties from Black Market Outposts, encounters with other ships, and most importantly, random natural encounters. This takes the players on a journey as a pirate crew, starting with next to nothing and working their way up to the top, eventually all culminating in a dramatic battle with a sovereign fort.
Early in the game, players may encounter things that are too powerful for them to fight. Eventually, however, their ship will be the one others fear, as they upgrade their actions and gain a reputation [there is no actual reputation mechanic].
Players will start off feeling fairly weak, but end the game feeling feared. A true journey through a pirate’s life.
All of the game assets, from the box to the cards to the board to the instructions, feel like they actually exist in this fantasy pirate world. The cards specifically are meant to evoke a feeling of a pirate treasure map, with the yellowish-brown crumpled texture and the traditional pictographic art standard on maps from that age.
Graphics and visuals are all either licensed from Envato Elements or created by Manav.
The game is played in rounds. Each round consists of the following:
Any played action cards are simply taken back into the players’ hands at the end of the round. This round structure continues until the game ends.
There is 1 way to win the game and 1 way to lose the game.
There are two conditions the crew must meet to win the game:
If the ship’s water level is at max level, then the next time it increases, the ship sinks and the crew loses.
How to: Gold and Riches
There are 5 methods to gaining gold:
Finding Treasure - Digging up treasure at islands, finding treasure in shipwrecks, and pillaging treasure from enemy ships, all provide you treasure cards from the treasure deck. This deck contains various tiers of treasure, from low value to high value, each awarding a specific Gold value. Once you have this card, you have the gold value. No other action needs to be taken.
Completing Bounties - Bounties can be picked up at any of the 4 Black Market Outposts located on the four corners of the map. Bounty cards each contain a goal and a reward value. The goals are all different pirate adventures, ranging from capturing enemy ships, digging up treasure, and even fishing. There are two types of bounties: Pirate Bounties and Scarlet’s Bounties. Scarlet’s bounties offer a much higher reward value and all require you to find some kind of cursed artifact. For all bounties, once the goal on the bounty is completed, the players must return to any Black Market Outpost to cash it in, gaining the reward Gold value, adding the card to their treasure stash.
Selling Lost Cargo - One type of item that players can encounter floating on the seas is Lost Cargo. Lost Cargo can be sold to a Black Market Outpost to gain the Gold value.
Trading Sovereign Spices - Another type of item that players can encounter floating on the seas is Sovereign Spices. These items can be traded to sovereign merchant ships to gain the Gold value…however, the players must first find a royal pardon first. Otherwise the merchant ship will not be open to trade.
Selling Sea Monster Meat - Throughout their journey, players have a chance of encountering sea monsters, from the Bloodscale to the Doomwhale to the legendary Kraken. Upon defeating a sea monster, they gain the card as sea monster meat. Then, they can sell it to certain Black Market Outposts to gain the Gold value.
These four methods (two of which actually encapsulate a multitude of activities) all provide a way for players to engage in the fantasy of being a pirate. Hunting for treasure, attacking ships, doing work for money, and battling the fearsome beasts of the seas. All together, they reward players with gold, which is the point system to achieve a victory state. This keeps players immersed in the game world, using a flavored point system (“Gold” instead of “Points”) and actually doing pirate adventure actions to gain those points. The aim is to remove as much meta-game as possible.
That is the gold-half of the victory state. The other half is the combat half.
The second goal to winning the game, after acquiring 15,000 gold, is to defeat the Obsidian Keep, a fortress situated in the center of the board.
How to: Combat
Combat in B.B. is designed to be simple and flavorful. The player’s ship’s health system functions based on holes and water level, which is detailed in the Danger Phase section of “Turn Structure.” On the other hand, enemy ships, sea monsters, and the fortress, all have individual health values that simply must drop to 0 to be defeated.
Damage dealt by the players, whether by firing cannons, sniping, or otherwise, are all listed on the respective action cards. Damage dealt by enemy ships, sea monsters, and the fortress, are also listed next to their health value on their respective cards.
Cannons, the most iconic method of naval combat, are more in-depth. The gunner has a special card representing the 6 cannons on their ship, 3 on each side. These cannons must be loaded with cannonballs before they can be fired. Cannonballs can be acquired by finding them floating around the sea. Bilgerats can also craft bilgebombs, which act the same as cannonballs. In order to deal damage to a target with a cannon, the target must be positioned to the left or right (port or starboard) of the players’ ship token on the game board.
All actions taken by NPCs (non-player characters) are automated and randomized, which creates a unique and ever-changing narrative not only for every game, but for every fight. A merchant ship might take the players head-on, and a warship might sail away in fear. A whirlpool might develop as the players battle an enemy pirate ship, or a kraken might surface just as they are about to defeat the fort. There is no limit to the possibilities.
There are 5 primary unique game systems that make up the core of B.B.
(3) Water Level/Holes Indicator and (4) Player Actions have already been discussed.
How to: Ship Movement:
Each tile on the game board is a hexagon. The 8 corners of the hexagon directly relate to the 8 cardinal directions, N/NE/E/SE/S/SW/W/NW. The players’ ship can point in any of these 8 directions, aimed at one of these corners of the tile. Just like in real life, ships cannot move sideways or backwards - they can only move forward. Depending on what direction they are facing, the ship will move to one of the 6 tiles surrounding the tile it is currently on. The ship's heading and movement is fully controlled by the Helmsman player.
However, the ship cannot move if the anchor is down, or if the sails are raised. These two aspects of the ship, the anchor and the sails, each have 2 states:
Anchor - Raised, Lowered
Sails - Raised, Lowered
While the Anchor is Raised and/or the Sails are Lowered, the ship cannot “dock” at an island or outpost, meaning the players cannot interact with them. This means they cannot trade, they cannot dig for treasure, they cannot pick up bounties, etc.
While the Anchor is Lowered and/or the Sails are Raised, the ship cannot move or turn.
Every player has 2 actions - Raise/Lower Sails and Raise/Lower Anchor. These actions can be played to alter the state of these two aspects of the ship, but each one requires a second player to also play the same action (to simulate the idea that they need to work together to pull up the heavy anchor, etc.). This adds to the coordination that players must have, to balance who will be helping with the sails, who will be doing the anchor, and who will be playing their standard role actions.
How to: Sea Encounters:
The most pivotal system in B.B. is the Sea Encounters. Every time the ship moves to a new tile, a sea encounter must be drawn. There are 6 sea encounter piles, which match up with the 6 possible tiles that the ship can move to - 2 to the north, 2 to the south, and 1 to the east and west each. These piles are situated around the ship heading indicator, in the same pattern (2 to the north, etc.).
Sea Encounters must be resolved as soon as they are drawn, and contain a mix of beneficial and dangerous situations and encounters for the players to deal with. This adds randomness and excitement to the game, but can be subverted slightly - the Barrelman role has an ability called Spyglass, which allows them to flip over the top card of any of the piles. This means that players can scope out whats ahead of them before they move, and can choose to either deal with it, or plan around it. But, either way, once the ship does move, all face up encounters move to the bottoms of their respective piles, keeping the seas unknown.
Finally, if the ship doesn’t move on a turn, then the 6 sided dice is rolled and the respective sea encounter is drawn. This acts to prevent players from sitting in one spot all game and farming cannonballs, fish, or all manner of supplies and repairs.
How to: Ship Upgrades
In order to become strong enough to defeat the Obsidian Keep, players will need to upgrade their ship. This is also one of the win conditions, players must fully upgrade their ship to win the game. Each role has one upgrade, with the exception of Barrelman which has two upgrades. Each upgrade can be bought from one of the four Black Market Outposts in the four corners of the map. The second Barrelman upgrade is purchased from a pirate ship allied with Lady Scarlet, the Vagabond, and players will need to find and trade rum for the upgrade.
Explosive Shells (Gunner Upgrade): Explosive Shells upgrades the cannons, increasing their damage. Normal FIRE!! does 10 damage instead of 6 and FIRE ALL!! does 23 damage instead of 14. Crucial for having the firepower to take down the Obsidian Keep.
Armored Hull (Helmsman Upgrade): Armored Hull upgrades the hull of the ship, and subsequently the Helmsman’s Evasive Maneuvers action, reducing incoming damage by 2 instead of 1. Crucial for tanking the heavy hits from the Obsidian Keep.
Mounted Spyglass (Barrelman Upgrade): Mounted Spyglass allows the Barrelman to use the Spyglass action for free at the start of their turn. Of course, paired with a normal Spyglass action, this means that they can reveal two Sea Encounters per turn, giving more stable options for the players to maneuver around. Crucial for avoiding sea monsters and rocks while fighting the Obsidian Keep.
Bilge-Monkey Helper (Bilgerat Upgrade): Bilge-Monkey Helper allows the Bilgerat (Or rather, his new pet monkey) to perform any one non-helmsman action at the end of his turn. This means that the Bilgerat can now help cook fish, load cannons, or even bail more water, board more holes, or scrub the deck. Heck, the monkey can even use a third Spyglass! Crucial for keeping the ship afloat during the battle with the Obsidian Keep.
Flock of Crows (Barrelman Upgrade): Flock of Crows upgrades two of the Barrelman’s cards, Identify Weak Spot and Go, Crow. The former always succeeds with the upgrade, when it normally would have taken a dice roll. The latter is upgraded to net one fish if you roll a 4 as well, instead of just being on a 5. Crucial for ensuring your snipes always critically strike the Obsidian Keep.
Blackwater Buccaneers takes place in the Blackwater Seas, a few years after the pirates and sovereigns from the Silkwater Seas area arrived. They had left Silkwater Seas behind due to the ever-looming threat of the Maelstromus, a fearsome sea monster who had twice wrought destruction upon the residents of Silkwater. Once in the ancient times, a second time when the pirate Captain Hawkins released it from it’s magical prison, and nearly a third time when the infamous Captain Elwood sought to use the beast to gain control of the seas. That last conflict began because Elwood hated the alliance between the pirates and the sovereign, and ended with the Captain Blackburn, the Pirate King, trading his soul for Lady Scarlet’s, and Elwood being cursed to the bottom of the sea. Lady Scarlet feared the Maelstromus was too tempting for those who wished for power, and so she moved all sovereign and sovereign-aligned pirates to a new region, which was named Blackwater Seas, after her late husband.
It turned out that in these newfound seas, there was much treasure to be found…ancient artifacts, blessed and cursed. The most famous pirate captains went out in search for this new treasure…but were struck by a terrible curse after a vial of mermaid tears was uncovered. Their souls, along with all the other pirates in the area, were trapped and bound to worldly artifacts. Captains Hatbeard and Ripley to their rings. Mazikeen to her compass. Lilith to her flintlock. Drake to his rum cask. And so on, and so forth.
Without the presence of her leading pirate captains, Lady Scarlet lost the support from many the pirates, and some higher ranking sovereign officials viewed this as an opportunity to disavow her. They inserted new leadership and sent fleets and fleets of ships to occupy Blackwater, killing any pirates or “Scarlet Loyalists” that stood in their way. The alliance between pirate and sovereign was broken.
Lady Scarlet, now left with just a few pirates who remained on her side, set out to find all of the cursed artifacts with the souls of her friends and allies (and maybe some enemies…), so she may free them.
The players play as a new pirate crew, in this present time. Throughout the game, though it is not the focal point, they will find lost journal pages where they can read the story of when the curse was unleashed, through the eyes of a young swabbie. They will also be able to discover some of the cursed artifacts, as well as turn them in to Lady Scarlet for a hefty reward. Additionally, one of the ship upgrades required to win is located on the Vagabond, a ship whose captain is aligned with Lady Scarlet, and thus will not attack the players. Finally, the sovereign-occupied Obsidian Keep is one of many that scatter the seas, and destroying it brings Blackwater one step closer to returning to peace.