"Crimson Cutlass RPG rules now on Kindle" Topic

Glad to see these may finally be available to the masses, soon, since I've read a lot of good things about this set.

Book One – the basic RPG rules are available now, for $5.00 USD. Free apparently, if you are a Kindle subscriber.

Hope to see books 2 and 3 released soon, as well as a possible 4th one too:

link

Other than "it's pirates and pirates are cool" why would I want this game instead of one of the other pirates games?

Haven't seen, or played it myself, but it has some nice reviews.

Supposedly, ahead of its time, back in 1979, when first published.

Crimson Cutlass was put out by Better Bames in 1979. The system uses both tarot cards and three 8-sided dice for play. Crimson Cutlass comes in three books; Book One- Passen en Mass, Book Two-Nobless Oblige (mission generation like you would not believe)and Book Three – Terra Firma (advanced encounter procedures that I have never seen any other company pull off or even conceptualize.)George Rahn is working on the fourth book that concerns settings, I don't think there is a release date for it yet.

The first book discusses character creation, ships, armies and massed forces. The first book also details combat mechanics for all of these entities. It is important to note that this is not a miniatures style game (like D&D 4th ed), but relies more on free-flowing referee description, back and forth interaction between the party members and quick and dirty charts detailing rolls needed based on clarifying pulls from the tarot deck.

This is a true pirate players game and characters are given goals of different types to accomplish, which will result in their pirate level advancement. They include Sea voyages, treasure pursued, ship engagements, individual fighting, conflict of arms, personal risk, and a few others. These are termed as ignobles and they are what the inspired swashbucklers-to-be check off as they strive for advancement.

There are not multiple character classes in this game even though backgrounds and skills previously acquired may be varied. All the characters are pirates and doing piratey things will get you moved up in rank. The higher rank you go, the greater the task that needs to be mastered (or disastrously failed sometimes) before the next raise in rank is possible.

Making characters from scratch is blindingly fast; players select a background trait (from dashing, cunning, stout and lordly bearing) and then there are couple of rolls for determining additional traits and also for initial skill and language allotments. There are no hit points, just three character conditions; healthy, wounded, incapacitated (most of the time, better pray your friends can drag you out of the burning house quickly, though.)

That's it for right now. I'll get back on in a day or two and go over the second and third books if folks are interested. I don't want to turn this entry into the post from hell. But before I go, it should be said that the concepts that were introduced in this game produced before 1980 are just now finding their way into modern roleplay game design, and the Crimson Cutlass system still has them all beat with the way it utilizes tarot cards (78) to create incredible wild plots and complications, even in the spur of the moment.

There is a way to improve this game even more. A tarot deck called Lo Scarabo Tarot of the Pirates is available. It can be found on Amazon for around $15 USD or so. YOU WILL WANT THIS IF YOU DO MANAGE TO PICK UP A COPY OF CRIMSON CUTLASS. It's damn awesome with the great pirate artwork unique on each card. It adds huge amounts of theme and swashbuckling attitude to the sessions.

That's it for now. I'll hit up books two and three in a couple of days.

Thanks for the detailed overview.

I'm definitely interested in more info, especially on when Books 2, 3, and 4 will be made available on-line.

Slight oops in the post above. The company name is Better Games, rather that that weird typo I just noticed.

With the first book, you essentially have enough material to play in any Crimson Cutlass game. Books two and three are more for the people running the game, rather than for the players and contain substantial mission and encounter building aids.

Book two deals mainly with generating intricate missions out of nothing and includes many aids for building the missions in a logical construct, which is basically a three act plan with detailed scenes and locations fleshed out. There are suggestions and hints thoughout on how to referee the generated situations and how to analyze the results of the tarot card draws to heighten the action and stakes. This is why I also specifically mentioned grabbing a set of the Pirate tarot cards. The scenes created for each of the cards are extremely helpful in creating a visual aspect of gameplay.

The three critical scenes are specific pivot points, but rather than leaving the referee to just roll a d6 for wandering monsters in between acts, there a system in the second book for what happens in between these highlights. It builds on enhancing the personal struggles of a character (or maybe all of them)through some quick card draws. Sometimes it creates an opportunity for the players to observe what is going on in the area in response to their actions, or maybe something shows the metagame that is going on a politcal level. So many options.

There is also a section on describing typical schematic layouts of various buildings, ships and forts. Along with this there is a pretty handy section on what to do at the aftermath of the adventure and some recommended methods of handling loose ends and smoothly linking the next adventure.

Book Three is a handy mechanism for incorporating an insane amout of diversity into any encounter area the characters are in. Page after page of encounter ideas and all the referee needs to do is decide on a basic exterior condition and the surroundings.

The Fourth book will probaby be about world building and how to get the adventure to make sense in the big uber picture of things.

Now, some bad news. I have no idea when books two and three will be available. I'm just a fan of a great system, just like anybody else. Hopefully they will be coming along soon.

So that's my take on it. The set of books are loaded with things that make many a campaign run in a less hurried and agitated manner. Take what you need and make the game you've always wanted to run out of it. Unfortunately, I haven't run Crimson Cutlass in a while as I'm already in too many other long running games.

Thank you for the additional info.

I look forward to subsequent releases with interest.