Oh Captain - First Play!

13th August 2023

It's Sunday lunchtime and that means we're at The Sovereigns in Woking for some gaming diversions.

Being a brave adventurer comes with its risks and drawbacks, like for example; being trapped out at sea in a sea monster's mysterious cave lair.
Luckily, being the industrious adventurers that you are, the dangerous situation you all find yourselves in won't stop any of you from trying to screw over your companions for cold hard cash in this bluffing card game.

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What's in a game?
Captain's bottle: This is an actual message in a bottle, it's not a glass bottle and fortunately has very little chance of breaking. Since we never pulled the message out, we've go no idea what it says?

A bottle o' rum might have been more 'agreeable'!

Adventurer sheets: This is a bit of a misnomer to call them 'sheets' as they are fairly chunky and sturdy double sided tiles.
Each 'sheet' represents a individual character on these double-sided tiles. One side has the character in a 'explorer' role, while the other shows them in the 'captain' role.

• Explorer: The explorer side of a adventurer sheet shows a character portrait and their unique special move below it. Most of the tile's space is given over to showing a breakdown of most of cards that appear in the deck - although I'm sure it doesn't show the purses (which have no action).

Nostromo the explorer.

• Captain: The captain's side of the adventurer sheet is identical to the explorer's side save for it doesn't show the character's special ability - which they can't use as captain anyway.

Nostromo the captain.

Cards: There are 7 types of cards in Oh Captain.
4 types have actions in game associated with them. These are the Grappling Hooks, Lanterns, Lizards and Pistols.
Purses are worth gold while Nukha Eggs are essentially booby traps.
Finally. there's a Nomads' Arrival card which triggers the game end.

Tokens: Two types of card tokens are used in the game.

• Gold coins: These round tokens obviously depict some kind of gold coin.

Gold!

• Majority tokens: There are 3 of these pennant shaped card tokens and they're colour coded to correspond the grappling hook, lizard and pistol cards. Majority tokens come into play at the game end.

Card dispenser: This neat looking component is a card holder constructed out of thick card and used to hold the game's deck. Thematically, it depicts the game's mysterious but also item laden cave lair.

Component quality is good throughout Oh Captain. The tiles, tokens and card dispenser are all made of suitably thick card and feel nicely robust. Arguably the gold coin tokens are typical for what you'd expect for gold coins, which means they're not bad but average and completely acceptable.
The cards have a laminated feel to them while their back have gold foil finish.
The bottle looks great and is transparent acrylic, it doesn't feel like it would break unless someone purposely tried to do so.

Oh Captain has great presentation. Artwork displayed on the adventurer sheets and cards in particular is clear, colourful and does a good job of portraying the exotic location the game takes place in.
The card dispenser, while unnecessary adds a nice touch to the game and the same is true of the captain's bottle.
It all adds up to make Oh Captain a pretty looking game.

There are only a handful of actions in the game, consequently there aren't too many icons to remember and the items/cards they're associated with are self explanatory, well, except for the lizard, since when do lizards steal money?
anyway, other than the lizard, everything straightforward and easy to understand.

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Example of a couple of cards.

Shiny card backs!

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How's it play?
Setup
Players: Players carry out the following set up.

• Captain: Randomly determine who will be the captain at the start of the game. All other players will be explorers.
  Give the captain the captain's bottle and 5 gold.
  Give all explorers 3 gold each.
  Then give 1 Purse card each explorer, this should begin the game face-down. The remaining purse cards are not used in the game.
• Roles: Starting with the captain each player chooses an adventurer sheet.
  Each player then should place their sheet in front of them, with the pertinent side up.
• Cards: First remove the Nomads' Arrival card and set it aside.
  • Next, shuffle the deck of cards and draw 3 cards into a face-down stack, then add the Nomads' Arrival card also face-down, creating a 4 card stack.
  • Shuffle this stack and place it at the bottom of the dispenser, thus the Nomad's Arrival will be one of the last 4 cards.
  • Shuffle the remaining cards and place them on top of the stack of 4 cards in the dispenser.
• Discard pile: Finally, draw 3 cards from the stack and place them underneath the captain's bottle to form the beginnings of the discard pile.
  The captain is free to look at the cards in the discard pile.
• First player: The player to the left of the captain becomes the first player. Give that player the card dispenser.

On to play
Oh Captain uses a more-or-less typical turn order with the active player resolving their action before play moves to the player on their left, except if it's the captain, the captain does not get turns! They can potentially act in other player's turns but are skipped as active player instead!
The active player performs the following phases.
Mutiny.... or not: If at the start their turn, the active player has more coins than the captain, they can choose to mutiny.... or not!

• Mutiny: If the active player does mutiny, they take the bottle along with the 3 cards into their personal area. They also take 1 gold from the general supply.
  The player's turn then immediately ends.
• Loyal.... for now: If the active player chooses not to mutiny (or cannot because they do not have coins), then they pledge their loyalty to the captain.
  This is not just words though and they must pay 1 coin to the captain!
  The active player must now explore.

Exploring: The active player now draws 1 card from the dispenser and keeping it hidden, looks at it. they should keep it face-down.
They must now offer to sell it to the captain for 1 coin.

• Sell card: When selling the card they just drew to the captain, the active player must tell the captain what type of card it is - which will be 1 of the 4 action cards; grappling hook, lantern, lizard or pistol.
  However, the active player can choose to lie about what kind of card it is and in fact, if they drew a Nukha Egg, they must lie about what the card is, they can never offer to sell an egg.
• Captain's choice: The captain has the choice to buy the card or not.
  • No sell: If the captain chooses not to buy the card, then the game proceeds to the active player's action phase.
  • I'd buy that for a coin: If the captain chooses to buy the card, the following occurs:
    • Payout: The captain gives the active player 1 coin and takes the card.
    • Reveal card: The captain now reveals the card and places it face-up in their personal area.
      • Lie: If the active player was lying, then nothing further occurs. The turn is over and play progresses to the player to the left of the current active player.
      • Truth: If the card is what the active player said it was, then the captain immediately resolves the card's action and then the turn is over. Play progresses to the player to the left of the current active player.
        More on card actions below.
• Action phase: If the captain chose not to buy the card, then the active player must use the declared card's action. The card should not be revealed and the active player cannot use the action that would come from a different card.
  I.e., regardless of whatever the card might be, if the active player told the captain it was a Pistol, they must perform the pistol action.
  Actions: When performing an action, remember the card is not revealed and the active player can must target another explorer, they cannot target the captain (It's good to be the captain!).
• Challenge: Before resolving the action, the player who was targeted by it can challenge the action. When this occurs, the active player must reveal the card (Cards are only revealed in this phase when challenged.) and the following occurs.
  • Lie: If the active player was lying about what the card was, then they must pay a coin to the targeted player and their turn is over.
  • Truth: If the active player was telling the truth, the targeted player must pay a coin to them and the card's action is still resolved.
• Resolving actions: The 4 actions are:
  Grappling hook: Take a card from the targeted player.
  Lantern: Reveal a face-down card in the targeted player's personal area.
  Lizards: Take a coin from the targeted player.
  ​Pistol: Destroy a card in the targeted player's personal area.
  Nukha egg: No effect - although since a Nukha Egg cannot be declared as an action, it can never have the possibility of having an effect?
• Next turn: Once the action for the round has been resolved, the active player's turn is over and play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until an explorer draws the Nomads' Arrival card, in which case the explorer reveals it and the game immediately ends, players now reveal all the cards in their personal area and the game goes to scoring.

Majority
Before final scoring, majority needs to be determined for Grappling Hooks, Lizards and Pistols.
Basically; whoever has the most cards of each type (ties do not count) gains the majority token that corresponds to it.

Players then total all their gold coins, this comes from:

• Gold coins.
• Lantern cards (worth 2 or 3 gold each).
• Majority tokens (worth 4 gold each).

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

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Overall
​Thematically, Oh Captain is a bit left field; a bluffing game about shipwrecked adventurers trapped in a sea cave who decide - while exploring - to try and steal valuables from and out do each other as they wait for their possible rescue?
It's definitely a bit of a stretch for a bluffing game!

Minor quibble aside, how does Oh Captain fare mechanically? fairly strongly I feel albeit with a flaw.
Like pretty much all games based on bluffing, this is as much about playing the players as it is about playing the game and depending on whether a player is the captain, active explorer or other explorer there's 3 sets of conundrums to consider.

If an explorer doesn't mutiny, they have to draw a card and then consider their options. The mechanic that allows the explorer to potentially sell it to the captain adds an extra winkle here.
When declaring what the item is (or what the explorers says it is) the active player has to try and consider whether the captain will want it or not. If the captain might want a pistol, declaring it a pistol might get the captain to buy. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether the active player wants to use a pistol or not and if they would prefer a gold coin for it. Generally, getting cash it good!
Additionally, the active player also has to think about how they would use the card if the captain doesn't want it. Saying it's a lizard in the hope the captain doesn't want it is no god if the active has no need for it themselves.
So sometimes the player will need to lie to try just to try and get the card they want or need and sometimes it'll just be dropped into their hand and of course, there's the Nukha Egg that forces players to lie.

Challenging is another element to think about, when an explorer is targeted by the active player, they'll need to consider whether it's a bluff and challenge it, the outcome for getting it wrong can be costly. As there's only 5 of the Grappling Hook, Lizard and Pistol and 7 Lanterns, there's definitely a slight element of card counting that can be used but since not all cards will be revealed (And 3 have been removed from the game.), there's also some imperfect knowledge at work too, meaning there's generally always a slight gamble when challenging.

The dilemma faced by the captain is a little different, since they don't get a turn, they can only act in other players' turns by buying and using their cards! This can be useful since potentially, the captain could get a lot of actions but there's a cost to this though and if another player lies, then the captain loses money for nothing.
Thus the captain will need to calculate whether the card's action is worth 1 gold to use - provided it is what the active player says it is.

This is where we come to what I feel is a bit of a flaw in the game: As captain, I never felt motivated to needing to buy a card offered to me and generally ended up refusing them..
Take the Lizard card for example, the captain could pay 1 gold to use it, but all it does is allow the captain to steal 1 gold from another player. So ultimately, the captain gains zero benefit from it, sure if the captain feels another player is close to mutiny, it can be employed as a denial strategy but it also gift a coin to another player. All the captain is doing is shifting coins around the other players. This is all provided, it really was a Lizard, otherwise it's just a loss of a coin.
Or the Pistol; the captain could pay a coin to use it to destroy card or just let the active player use it to destroy a card instead.
Why waste a coin to destroy a card?
It might not be the card the captain would want destroyed but a card will be destroyed regardless unless of course it is challenged and proves to be a lie - in which case the captain was wise to not buy it.

I found it quite likely I was being lied to when I bought cards which is mostly why I just stopped buying them altogether - it just wasn't worth the risk.
In a 4-player game, the captain will gain 3 coins per round and if other players aren't gaining at least that many coins per round, they'll never catch up. So why should the captain spend coins for anything?
This is compounded by the rule that prevents explorers targeting captains with cards, I understand why as everyone would pick on the captain but it's even more reason not to buy a card as leaving it with the explorers means they'll just end up attacking and stealing from each other!

It's not entirely 100% the case that it'll go down that way as it's likely that other players will get the majority tokens which would be a 4-coin swing but I feel, unless 1 player gains 2 of them, it won't be enough.

It means that it's generally a no-brainer to just not buy cards and no-brainers are bad because they are the opposite of meaningful decisions - which is bad.

It's a bit of a shame as otherwise Oh Captain is a very nicely presented, fun game to play if bluffing games are your thing.