How to Double Cross Your Friends and Win a Trophy I visited Nashcon in May of 1997 and played a 15mm pirate game ran by a member using Limeys and Slimeys rules. This was a very entertaining game, but I thought it was missing something and had the potential to be an absolutely incredible gaming period. Shortly thereafter, I started working on my own set of rules, Deadman’s Chest, and a had a really intriguing scenario in mind for the inaugural game. Some where along the way, life intervened and this project was shelved for almost six years. Almost ashamedly, I must admit Pirates of the Carribean and the vast array of wonderful 25mm period figures infused a new flow of energy into this project. I felt my local gaming group, the 3-D Historical Society, had become a bit lethargic in our approach to gaming and this would be the perfect game to jump-start our creative energies. Thus, I had a local trophy shop create a very nice walnut trophy that was topped with a piece of Civil War shrapnel, named it the Stones River Trophy and started sending emails in the form of Carribean news releases to our members to prime them for what was about to take place. Most war games are designed around a fixed scenario where every player knows the other’s objective and has a “God’s eye view” of the entire happenings of the game. I did not want this, so I took a page from our fantasy gaming cousins who use a game master to moderate and maintain a level of uncertainty. Each player (captain) was given a character whose attributes closely matched their own unique personality and each was provided with a comparable crew and ship so no one would have an early advantage. Three weeks before the game, I provided each player with an information packet detailing their individual objectives. The emphasis being on individual. Each was told they could freely share the information provided with the others if they chose, but each captain might or might not have the same primary objective. The key to this game is three captains go in, but only one walks away with the trophy. Competitiveness has never been a problem in our group, but the trophy certainly provided more incentive than mere bragging rights. The scenario focused on the island of Antigua. My character, International Brotherhood of the Coast’s President Captain Reed, had attempted a raid on the island to recover a treasure reportedly buried there by Morgan some years earlier. Unfortunately, a native scout betrayed the good captain and he and the Brotherhood’s treasurer were taken prisoner. The player captains’ were all informed at the start of the game the primary objective was to find Captain Reed and bring him home safely. Secondary objectives were the treasure, reportedly guarded by a voodoo priest, and the treasurer who needed to be returned to the brotherhood. Likewise, the captains’ were warned of the native unrest fueled by a young mystic chief Eatyasoon. (Yes, they practiced cannibalism.) The game board was our standard club board of six feet by twelve feet. The town occupied approximately four and a half feet at one end with an inverted L shaped coast line. The French inhabitants had built a large fort atop a hill on the point of the L whose guns commanded the harbor. The town consisted of a governor’s mansion, several residences, the Bloated Hog tavern, a warehouse and then the final two feet of the board were fairly dense jungle. Armed with this information and the knowledge they would be forced to probe the local population about their objectives, our stalwart captains Doug Callahan (Captain Doug), Nathan Ragsdill (Captain Badbeard), and Roy Ragsdill (Captain Lord Archibald Ragsdill) prepared to sail into Antigua harbor. I had intended for the captains to start at the extreme edge of the board and race into the harbor. Captain Doug offered a proposal to save time and allow the captains to begin with their ships already docked. Badbeard immediately restored my faith in basic human treachery by offering a compromised starting point half way to the dock. The captains suspiciously agreed and we rolled for initiative. It soon became apparent why Badbeard had wanted to race to the dock as he immediately turned his ship The Wayward Lass into the path of Captain Doug’s Paradox forcing Doug to go wide around. While Badbeard and Doug jockeyed for position, Lord Archie rapidly docked and, leaving his ship unguarded, marched into town. I controlled all non-player characters and our captains would be forced to ask them questions to gain information on their respective objectives. The responses were pre-programmed based on circumstances and each player would roll a d10 to determine which response they would get. These responses ranged from insults to bogus responses to actual useful information. Lord Archie possessed a trait, Royal Diplomat, that gave him a +1 to all NPC encounters and he quickly used this to his advantage by addressing a young “hostess” of the Bloated Hog. As a result, she gave him specific information about the treasure and he sent the majority of his crew to search for its whereabouts in the jungle to his north. Badbeard and Captain Doug followed different paths. Badbeard left half his crew with the Lass and took the rest of his crew toward the fort. Captain Doug left two crew with the Paradox and headed to the Hog to question the locals. It was evident early on, there would be no honor among thieves. Captain Doug tried to bribe Badbeard’s crew aboard the Lass to join him. As he was attempting his coup, Badbeard addressed the fort’s colonel and alerted him of pirates in the harbor. The colonel strained through the darkness with his spyglass toward the harbor and thought he saw the Jolly Roger flying above Lord Archie’s ship Retribution. Badbeard had sent a crewman aboard the Retribution to hoist the flag in an attempt to cause the French garrison to impound Lord Archie’s vehicle of escape. Captain Doug’s men aboard the Paradox, fearing too much French attention, immediately slipped aboard the Retribution to lower the flag. Badbeard’s men, angered by Doug’s counter treachery, slipped aboard the Paradox and killed Doug’s crewmen and returned to re-hoist the Roger and cut down Lord Archie’s sails. As the main French patrol marched toward the docks, Badbeard slipped into the south end of town and began ransacking homes. Lord Archie’s crew bumped into the voodoo priest, Chumbawumba, and his henchman. A brief fight ensued with the priest, his henchman and one of Lord Archie’s crew being killed. Lord Archie’s first mate discovered a large earthen mound and they began digging. (Keep in mind, these captains did NOT know what was going on with the others.) They could see the others moving around, but any conversations with NPCs took place via pre-programmed index card or private discussion between myself and the respective captain in another part of the house so the others were completely in the dark. There were situations where two captains might be privy to the same info. The flag raising incident is a prime example. Both crews were within six inches of one another so naturally they could see what the other was doing. Lord Archie and Captain Doug created an uneasy alliance due to Badbeard’s apparent treachery. Doug knew he was trying to sabotage Archie’s Retribution, but neither Doug nor Lord Archibald knew what had transpired at the fort to induce the large French patrol. Lord Archibald had made his way to the docks, entered Doug’s Paradox and discovered two of Badbeard’s men attempting to light the powder magazine. Lord Archibald took them prisoner and bribed the rest of the crew aboard The Wayward Lass to join his merry band. In the mean time, Captain Doug found the treasurer and discovered Captain Reed was being held at the native village. Captain Doug entered the native village and pandered to the greedy, vain Eatyasoon forming a three way alliance between the chief, himself and Lord Archibald. The chief agreed to help attack the town and release Captain Reed in exchange for the pirate’s assistance in capturing the governor. Captain Doug knew the governor had taken refuge in the fort and that Badbeard was near the governor’s mansion on his pillaging trip, but hoped to use the natives to tie up Badbeard and/or the French patrol. Lord Archibald’s and Captain Doug’s crew ambushed the French patrol sending them running to the fort to regroup. Badbeard’s men were shocked to see a horde of screaming savages streaming toward the Governor’s mansion. They immediately fortified the house and fired into the shrieking mass. Unbeknownst to Badbeard, the natives were only interested in capturing and eating the hated governor until they were fired upon from the house. Badbeard confessed later he thought Doug and Archie had cut a deal with the natives to attack him. This is an example of misfortune caused by limitations on the flow of information rarely seen during a traditional table top game. The scene that followed unfolded like a cheap Hollywood action movie. Reminiscent of the movie Zulu, half of the natives fired at the house and the rest attempted to batter down the front door. Realizing they could use the roof of the front porch as a pathway to the second floor windows, two natives were hoisted up and rushed to the windows ready to enter on the next turn. Badbeard had sent a runner with his ill gotten gains from ransacking private homes to the fort to bribe the governor for assistance with the natives. With the troops in sight, Badbeard ordered everyone upstairs to defend the second story windows. In his haste however, he forgot to block the backdoor and the natives streamed upstairs after him. Since it was growing late and the game would not be decided by this action, we concentrated on Doug and Archie’s race to the docks. Doug had Captain Reed and the treasurer in his possession, but he and Lord Archibald had agreed to an uneasy agreement to split the two. I think Doug realized Lord Archibald had recovered a substantial treasure based on the slow movement of the treasure party and he refused to allow a fifty-fifty split of the victory points for the two liberated prisoners. Greed began to rear its ugly head and Doug sent Captain Reed to negotiate a peaceful settlement or he would fire on Lord Ragsdill’s men. Lord Ragsdill, being between Doug and the ships, placed a gun to Captain Reed’s head taking him prisoner. Doug could see flames erupting from the Retribution and his own Paradox in the background and became enraged by the unknown treachery at hand. Lord Ragsdill had set the two ships ablaze to delay the French pirate hunter Flatulence who had entered the harbor for refitting. Doug fired on Ragsdill’s booty party who were now on the dock, charged into them and a prolonged hand to hand fight ensued over possession of Captain Reed. Some where along the way, Lord Ragsdill came up with the idea of killing Captain Reed to eliminate the opportunity for those victory points. I was completely unprepared for this contingency. Four months of planning and I failed to think of this ahead of time. After some discussion of the ramifications of killing the President of the Brotherhood, Lord Ragsdill abandoned him to Captain Doug, jumped the remnants of his land based crew from the dock and swam to The Wayward Lass who had sailed a turn earlier with the treasure. The fire ships had completely taken the Flatulence out of the fight, the French garrison was trying to save Badbeard, Captain Doug was stranded on the dock with quite a few victory points, but no way to get them off the island and Lord Archibald was sailing away with a stolen ship, a predominantly bribed crew and a large sum of cash. Unbeknownst to the players, Captain Reed was worth 15 victory points and the treasurer 7. Badbeard had found 9 victory points worth of loot, but was forced to use it to bribe the governor for help getting rid of the natives. Lord Archibald’s treasure had been worth a variable amount and I diced it to be of 12 victory points. The captain’s were forced to take a pirate knowledge quiz which added to their scores with Archie scoring three, Doug two and Badbeard none. Lord Archibald had used 5 victory points to induce people to provide him with information and Captain Doug had used 4 victory points for the same. Archie had carried away a captive, worth 2 victory points, but used these to bribe Badbeard’s crew. I figured Doug should get partial credit for freeing the prisoners and a die roll determined he should get 40 percent credit. When the calculations were finished, Roy “Lord Archibald” Ragsdill had accumulated 10 points, Captain Doug Callahan had finished with 7 and Nathan “Badbeard” Ragsdill was awarded 5 for simply being one of the most devious players I could have hoped for. The use of blind information really made this scenario. Players were doing things behind the other’s backs and sometimes even playing both sides against the other. The blind information hurt Badbeard and Captain Doug as both were victims of circumstance. Roy was crowned the inaugural Stones River Trophy champion based on his efforts and everyone agreed it was one of the best games in memory. I think challenging the status quo can re-energize a group. This game was as much a role playing experience as it was a war game and our group is a mature, veteran group so I wasn’t certain it would be well received. The fact we are playing a variant of this scenario in December is testament to its popularity. The moral: don’t be afraid to try new things on the table top, you might just like it. Back to Dispatch January 2004 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com