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In all worlds, in all times, there are hidden treasures. On the high seas, pirates buried their doubloons on lost islands. In a fantasy world there are dungeons, traps and deadly guardians. In a cyberpunk dystopia the megacorporations hide their secrets and money behind powerful encryption in high chrome skyscrapers.

In "X Marks the Spot" (a roleplaying game run in precisely two hours) the players seek a hidden treasure. The GM decides (or grabs a pre-made scenario from the book) what kind of world the treasure is hidden in, and plays the forces arrayed specifically to take away the happy-go-lucky freedom of the treasure-seekers (hereafter The Law). These can be anything, throughout all of history, mythology and fiction.

The players always play 18th century, carribean pirates.

How'd they get to the colony satellites around Procyon? They followed a treasure map. Duh!

The game is a team effort in which first one, then the next of the pirates leads the team on a Plan to find the treasure. All but the last plan will inevitably fail, but each time a plan fails the treasure is (behind the scenes of course) increased by a number of doubloons determined by how gutsy, risky and brilliant the plan was (as well as how well it used all of the unique skills of the team).

As the number of doubloons in the treasure increases, the adversity is empowered to become more and more ridiculously over the top. Yay!

There is no mechanic for success or failure. Pirates who are on their game never fail. There is, however, a mechanic to see how much circumstances shake the resolve (Steel) of the pirate. While their Steel is above zero, the pirate's actions succeed. When their Steel drops to zero the only action they can succeed at is breaking and running. Steel refreshes with the start of a new plan.

Hi!
Sounds cool, but if they don;t have enough Steel to succeed the first time, what chance do they have if the opposition is increased?

Hooray for anachronism! I'm already seeing the possibilities. "Arrr, that be a fine bolt o'lightening ye have there, Zeus! I think I'll be taking it for meself."

Since it's a team effort, perhaps if one pirate's Steel is running low then another pirate can bolster it with his own Steel. If he performs some above and beyond act of comradery perhaps they can both regain some Steel?

I'm thinking that, hey, it's a roleplaying game: the pirates clearly need to have statistics, and if possible niches.

So, these statistics aren't about what they can do. The statistics are about how well they keep their Steel when doing things. It's about what flusters the pirate.

So Mungo, strong as an ox and twice as thick, would have (say) "Scared 1, Ashamed 5, Confused 2." He doesn't scare real easy, and he's too dumb to get really confused by fancy talk, but he's intensely aware of how he comes across to other people, and ashamed of himself.

So if he tries to face down some bad guys, he rolls his Steel dice against Scared and loses every die that rolls 1 or less. That's not many dice. He can do that sort of thing all day long. He'll probably win out, because he's unlikely to exhaust his entire Steel pool.

But if he tries to talk to the pretty young hostage princess then he's rolling his Steel dice and losing every die that rolls 5 or less. That's quite likely to be all of his dice. From a standing start, talking to that princess could wipe him out for the rest of the plan. The gutsy choices are probably going to be about how many Steel dice Mungo is even willing to risk on such a lost cause.

All of those lost Steel dice turn into Doubloons in the treasure. So it's good (for the doubloon hungry pirates) to have your early plans be ridiculously bad. As in "Wow! That's the worst plan I've ever seen in my entire life!" bad. Because that will swell the treasure chest.

Your last plan is the one where Mungo does the fighting and Fancy Dan does the talking. And, given the statistics, you can have some REALLY big

Anyway, those are my rough thoughts at the moment.

That's a rocking idea, Tony.

How is when the last plan happens determined? Is it a time thing? Are you just aiming to get a certain number of plans in? Or does some quality of the plan determine it?

It's a time thing.

I would like a way to give every player a chance to determine a plan, and then the player who created the highest-earning (i.e. flat out, over-the-top worst of those plans) is charged with making the last plan (with, one assumes, the active cooperation of the rest of the group) that sees whether they get the treasure or return home in disgrace.

Would it be crazy to actually put people on a timer? I feel like you would get the Academy-Award-Speech problem ... that people would feel this is their one chance and therefore would (with all the good-will in the world) have a difficult time yielding the stage gracefully.

Which time constraint are you working with, Tony?

If you go the 10x1 route, each 'plan' can be a separate session.

Or if you wanted to have each of the ten sessions be a different caper, then sure, put the players on a timer -- and take dice out of the treasure chest for each minute a failed plan goes over the limit!

Tony,

You are way too clever to my own good.

Yours,

Doug

PS Arrr!