Backstabbing Pirates

One of the things that I think makes "hidden role" games unpopular in some gaming groups is that there's not generally a lot to them beyond the act of lying to your friends within a slim rules framework. So it is interesting when a "social deduction" game tries to build up that experience with something more strategic. Battlestar Galactica the Board Game is one of gamers' most beloved entries in that space. Recently, I got to try a less involved take on a similar thing, with Tortuga 1667.

Players are secretly assigned to either the French or British fleet (with, in games with an odd number of players, a Dutch player looking to play both sides). On your turn, you take one of a limited pool of actions -- starting mutinies aboard your ship, hopping in a rowboat to head toward the island (where treasure lies), or firing on a rival ship. Many of these actions involve "blind votes" with the other players in the same area of the board as you, leading to suspicion over who with you is truly on your side.

There is a series of face down cards you can also either peek at (in limited fashion, for information) or turn over (one) to reveal an effect. These inject chaos into the game, undercutting plans and even perhaps swapping two players' allegiances. The game ends when you reveal a particular card near the bottom the deck, at which time the country with the most treasure amassed wins.

There are a lot of things this game is smart to incorporate. It offers up a goal besides "hide from suspicion." It casts neither side as "the bad guys" as in many hidden role games. Both those choices mean that players usually loathe to "lie to their friends" can find this more pleasant.

Unfortunately for fans of hidden role games, there's not enough incentive here to really "hide from suspicion" at all. You have a task to fulfill: amass more treasure. And it's too important for you to really remain hidden for long. You won't get far into a game before everyone's role becomes pretty apparent. This leads to a period of time where teams jockey against each other, trying to undermine each other's strategic moves -- which at first seems like its own brand of fun, even if it isn't the one that seemed important at the outset.

But ultimately, the game has so much chaos in it, injected by that deck of cards, that it looms larger over the outcome than any strategic moves your team could make. The winning side seems to end up being the team who just happens to be ahead when the ending of the game just happens to be triggered. While it's nice that it takes 30 minutes or less to play a game that's so ruled by chance, the fact remains that hidden role fans could instead play a couple rounds of, say, Secret Hitler in the same amount of time -- and be much more satisfied. (Or they could embrace the desire for more than just deception and play Battlestar Galactica.)

Tortuga 1667 is ultimately fun-ish, but not one I'd personally choose again over other games in the genre. I give it a C+.