Mechanics
Character Creation – Creating a character is a very simple process. There are three main attributes that players distribute a set number of points into along with one set attribute called Salt. Following these attributes are vocations. Vocations are created by the players, and a set number of points are distributed amongst them. To finish the character off, and add a bit of a personal touch, players then distribute a few more points into embellishments – a category of items that the players create for their characters to use in any number of potentially useful situations. This form of character creation is very quick and easy to understand and only takes a few minutes to get a set of characters up and running.
Basic Mechanic – the basic mechanic is a dice pool consisting of anything that can roll even or odd sides. Coins and any die that has an even number of sides is usable – basically, as long as there is a 50/50 chance of getting a success or failure. The Salt attribute from before is the maximum number of dice you can roll at once, with your attributes, vocations and embellishments (along with any situational modifiers) adding dice to the pool (up to the current maximum). The base target number for success is 3 but there are also opposed rolls.
Combat – The combat in this game seems a little hard to follow. There is not any listed method of finding initiative, nor are there any rounds. The actual mechanic of combat involves describing what you want your character to do to an intended target – you can work it so it uses any of your attributes, works off of some vocation and/or embellishment you have. All of the rolls in combat appear to be opposed rolls with the winner dealing damage to the losers Salt – damage is the difference between the rolls. The part where the combat breaks down for me is (for example) when you have multiple PCs attacking one NPC – since everything is an opposed roll, do you roll for each attack against the NPC? Does the NPC get a turn attacking? This was not clear in the rules.
Enemies – The enemies in the game vary from a couple of different basic types. You have mooks which are just individual little nobodies, gangs (which are groups of mooks, counted as one character/unit), and enemy characters, which can be built similarly to a player character. The creation of mooks and gangs is perhaps the easiest enemy creation ever – you just come up with a name for them and a number after that name for the Salt.
Non-combat – This is the area that might work best for the rules and flavor that it is trying to go for. It all works off the same basic mechanic and there are not any additional or special rules for any non-combat activity. The one area that this game differs, however, is that your character can still incur damage when losing non-combat challenges – even those of a purely social nature. This is because the sense of ‘damage’ is abstract enough to cover the mental and emotional states along with the physical.
Player Control – The game includes a special pool of resources called ‘Panache’ – if you have ever read or played Savage Worlds (or games with similar mechanics), this is similar to bennies. The Panache points let players reroll dice, recover a couple of points of Salt or narrate a minor beneficial detail into a scene. They can be gained by using vocations (first time each session) or narrating things into a scene that adversely affect their characters. I view this mechanic as a means of furthering the story building aspects of the game as well as being a slight deterrence to the possible death-spiral that can happen from losing chunks of Salt in combat.
Resolution (Death) – There is no forced player character death allowed in the game. Players must consent to the death of their characters. This is the part that I feel really solidifies this title as a casual, story-building activity.
Loot/Progression – There are no loot tables or experience given with this title, nor any rules for either of them.
Extras (resources, appendices, etc.) – In the back there are a few pages of resources that may prove useful during play. There is also an appendix on adding Naval Engagements. This appendix is, perhaps, my favorite section of the entire book and I was quite surprised to see it off by itself in the back and not up with the rest of the combat rules. The naval warfare rules are very similar to the rules for the rest of the game – dice pool based, each ship has three main attributes (and their Salt equivalent – Seaworthiness) that they use to perform various maneuvers. These three attributes also tie into different mechanical attributes for the ships and if any of these attributes are wiped out, the ships will be disabled in various ways, or even scuttled. That is another difference with these rules – the ships can be destroyed without player consent. This section, alone, could be used as a one-shot adventure or easily expanded with homebrew rules for something longer lasting. And, at the very end, there is a blank character sheet.
Technical
Ease of navigation – The table of contents is hyperlinked and the book is short, so navigation is not a major issue. If there is one problem I might have it is that some of the information is under sections that do not appear obvious for that type of information – such as PC death and enemy creation.
Chapter layout/Progression – The books starts with character creation, leads into the basic mechanic, combat, and then additional material. The flow is suitable.
Text/image layout – The typographical layout is very simple and straightforward – it is not terribly distracting at all. The images are also unobtrusive and kept primarily towards the beginning and end of a section – hitting with regular rhythm. Overall, decent.
Art – The art is all from the public domain and includes some classic pirate pieces. For the flavor of the title, this art is very appropriate and also pleasing to look at. Quite good at inspiring potential story elements, too.
Text – There were not too many typos that I noticed. Certainly not enough to be annoying.
Pages – The PDF’s total is 36 pages, including the front and back covers.
Extras (printability, etc) – There is a grayscale PDF included for printing purposes – it seems the images within that copy have also been lightened even further for less ink consumption.
Price – The PDF(s) come in at US$3.00.
Final Thoughts
There are a couple areas within the book that had me scratching my head – mostly with the combat, mentioned above – and it should be known that this type of game (story-game) is not my cup of tea (or grog, in this case). It seems to be made for one-shots or very short campaigns and should work for those, with a bit of tinkering. Personally, if I were to pick this game up it would be for the naval engagement appendix – that was the section that stood out the most and would be a good basic foundation for building a homebrew naval RPG onto. Otherwise, this title is not going to break the bank – if you are into story games, do not mind (or enjoy) modifying rules a bit, and are looking for something to fill a gap or take a break with, this could be the product for you.