Wait - What?

Sunless Sea
1

[li]&quotCARNELIAN - slated for release early October. Officers integrated as crew …&quot
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[li]i read this long, long ago, before i started play, and happening upon it again today, now vested in many hours of sailing circles 'round the zee … i wonder. does this mean that, at some point, it will be a mechanic in the game to treat officers as digits in your ship’s crew count? as in - &quotcrewman #7 was just grabbed by the fierce tentacles of the beast and exploded like a cheap blood sausage in its vile, foetid mouth. your Genial Magician is now carp bait. …&quot ??
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[li]am i reading that right, or am i imagining false things? breathing life to nightmares lurking in the corners of my own mind?

2

That would be the logical implication, yes! Presumably generic crew members would be devoured before officers…

3

[color=#009900]This is indeed what it meant - but it may, or may not, now happen with the combat direction change.[/color]

4

“Crewman, put on this red shirt and go protect the Doctor. You, here’s your red shirt. Go stand next to the First Mate.”

5

wow.

that’s so evil it’s awesome.
would definitely put a lot of pressure on strategic decisions, especially early on in the game.

ooooh … i think we’ll just sail 'round Mr. Crab at the moment, Mr. Pibbs…

of course, everything is topsy-turvy at the moment, but if this does get booked-in with the new Steel … please make sure to also book-in plenty of extra officers. t’would not do to disappoint the carp.

you know, speaking of evil … has anyone thought of incorporating ‘reputation’ into the hiring of crew? back in the day, a successful pirate in Sid’s masterpiece would attract new recruits like flies. well, in Sunless, what about a captain with a rep for feeding the animals? would that not diminish enthusiasm at the docks? or at least, lead to some salary inflation?
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6

Wouldn’t this mean we’d need a lot of generic officers to replace the actual ones, should be do really poorly at keeping them alive?

7

[li]well, the intent is clear - to increase the risk of joining battle, which then influences your decisions. i’d be much less concerned about the officer than, say, the associated storyline. if the Magician gets off’d, do you lose any hope of a serpentine? if the Carnelian Exile gets cut in half, is the potential for snatching a sub equally reduced?

offhand, i’d guess that this was / is the intent. because as we know, not every officer’s storyline ends your favor. a bad roll of the electric dice and you can lose the prize, the officer, or both. &quotdestiny&quot has not decreed that these and all things shall fall happily into the player’s lap.

so, if you add the risk of sudden death and the loss of storyline to the mix, the cost of combat shoots up and forces a hard decision on the player - fight for terror-trophies and cash prizes if you must, but risk the loss of things you cannot replace if you do. and that really seems to ‘fit’ within the game’s dynamic of balancing your options to leave no easy path.

for those ‘opposed’ the only saving grace might be the havoc such a mechanic could wreak on play. a lot of storylines are interwoven (or to be interwoven) with the officers. high casualty rates among their ranks could really end up limiting the scope of play in a narrative-driven vehicle such as this. and how to compensate? do you re-introduce the officers? hullo, i’m the Entirely Similar Genial Magician #5! … or do you &quotpass&quot their storyline to another non-dead character? but with either of those approaches, you diminish the sting of the loss and thus limit the impact on player decisions that the mechanic was designed to push. that’s a hard set of factors to reconcile.

whether for or against - it’s an incredibly powerful mechanic. you can see how this one subtle change could completely alter the character of the game and the psychology of those who play it. that’s pretty impressive stuff.

8

And hear was I about to suggest such a thing as a logical step in the crew loss.

9

I was thinking this myself.

10

Yay! This was one of the things that weirded me out a bit about the “Crew” number.

11

I think it’s a good idea because right now crew are kind of disposable at about 10E per head. “Zailors come, zailors go. May this one last a little longer than most.”

But I think you would need to increase the crew capacity of the beginning tramp steamer a bit to make things like battle losses and capturing pirates non-awful.