Ruthless – First Impressions
Ruthless is the name and recruiting mateys is the game. Designer and artist Roland MacDonald has hoisted the mainsail on a pirate-themed deckbuilder that combines poker-centric set collection with a slew of ability combos that leave players feeling like swashbuckling fiends by the end of a game.
In about 45 minutes, players will transition from a slow start with limited doubloons and dour powder monkeys to a frenzied endgame pace with a ship full of outlaw sailors and a sizeable strength suitable for any raiding party.
It’s a 2018 release, but it still plays smoothly today, but I’m also interested in it because there is an expansion (currently in the last hours of preorder), with black sails and maybe some tentacles visible through the spyglass.
But I can’t count my treasure just yet. I’ve got to check with the quartermaster and do some inventory on what’s in the hold of this here ship. What is Ruthless doing and is it worth checking out when so many other games have been published in the last three years?
Man the guns!
What It Does
As with any deckbuilder, players start off with the same deck. Sailors who have seen better days and some meager coin that won’t even get you out of the docks.
Start in the tabletop equivalent of Tortuga and start wagering on what kind of crew you want on the open seas. Players will slowly Plunder treasure, Recruit crew members, and start a life of malfeasance. As you gain more gold and more crewmembers, the momentum will build and you’ll be able to accomplish bigger raids and develop a reputation as a fearsome fighter off the shore and on the deck.
Similar pirates—of Rank and Crew—will lend greater strength to your cause and hopefully overwhelm the efforts of any opposing nautical navigators.
Build your deck. Prune it. And create a tight band of baddies while achieving tasks of legendary proportions. Players will be able to decide for themselves how antagonistic they want to be toward the other pirates at the table, but it’s a rough sea out there and you might make waves.
Each pirate has a Rank and a Suit. That will determine what other pirates they’d benefit from pairing up with. And each pirate also has an ability that players will activate when they recruit them or when they reappear from their hand in later rounds. These abilities are how the game shifts gears and goes from slow going at the beginning to moving at a rapid clip by the end.
And then gold is the currency of the game, which allows you to buy more crew members. Discover a rhythm between gaining gold and hiring a crew and you’ll be in a good spot.
Go after gold, corral some crew, and then hunt after notoriety. That’s what you’ll need in order to become a pirate legend.
How It Does It
Players start with the basic actions that jumpstart the game. Powder Monkeys, the sad saps who hold down the ship until more equipped sailors are recruited, allow you to Plunder treasure, Bury lesser cards from your deck, and then refresh the Tavern Row when you need new blood. And then Doubloons are the starting Treasure that will help you recruit new Crew.
In the first few rounds, Powder Monkeys and Doubloons are your main engine, but by the end of the game they will be scarce as you rely on stronger pirates with better abilities.
Treasure is the game’s mechanic for gaining new Crew. Doubloons start it off, but eventually you’ll have gems, rum, gold, and maybe even relics that fill your coffers.
Treasure frequently has immediate versus long-term benefits. Cash in right away or keep it for later to increase your cash flow.
Notoriety Points win the game. Get some at the beginning as you start off small but then gun for the big points at the end as your crew gets stronger.
Legendary Achievements, unused Parley tokens, and particularly strong Crew members at the end (like Quartermasters and Captains) will all provide additional sources of Notoriety Points.
Finding the right balance of Crew members, Treasure cards, and other pursuits of points will be the way to maximize your advantage and get the most points to win the game.
It’s an easy game to understand—to teach and to learn—but it’s got some nuances that allow players to discover their own strategy.
Why You Might Like It
Ruthless offers players choice—to focus on certain numbers or suits, to avoid punishing other players (or to indulge), and to make their deck what they want in what is ultimately a small-box experience.
The gameplay shifts in satisfying ways at different numbers, with tight back-and-forth at two and more free-flowing change in the Tavern Row at four.
Why You Might Not
If you’re not a fan of set collection, that’s the main way of building strength and scoring points in the game as you’re trying to get poker hands with what you play from your hand or recruit that turn.
After a while, players’ familiarity with what can be done in the game will firm up, meaning the game will surprise less (until the expansion introduces new elements).
Final Thoughts
Ruthless surprised me as a deckbuilder that packs the powder in tightly and blasts out of the box more than I thought it would. I do enjoy poker, so I viewed the particular kind of set collection within the game favorably, but it also manages to sit well within a board game matrix of playtime, gameplay, and player interaction.
For what it accomplishes with its crew-accruing mechanics and overall player actions, Ruthless just feels good. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and the gameplay holds up three years later, which I can’t say for plenty of other games that I’ve enjoyed since I pushed into the hobby in earnest back in 2014.
Ultimately, with the same set of players around the table, I think the game would become somewhat stifled as players progressed down the same trajectories again and again, but there is a hearty amount of life in the small box.
To counter that eventuality, however, the promise of the Tall Tales expansion lingers in the air like the rumors of buried treasure. There are good games out there. Hundreds of them. Thousands even. But there is a smaller subset of good games out there that become great with an expansion. Ruthless seems to be one of those games.
All of the additional content and separate modules presented in the Tall Tales expansion lend an air of longevity to Ruthless and endeavor to breathe new life in the deckbuilding game. Whereas other offerings lose the wind in their sails over time, Ruthless (when complemented by the expansion) tacks into a strong gust from a benevolent source and creates the right volume of variability and player agency for a true long-term shelf resident in your board game library.
Special leaders to provide permanent bonuses. Powerful Merfolk to complement your deck. Kraken and Cursed Pirates affect the Tavern Row and disrupt the stream of cards that players encounter. Greater treasures. Quests to pursue. And a solo mode to bolster the accessibility of the game.
My biggest concerns about Ruthless are washed away by what Tall Tales offers. And it really just underscores the strengths of the game as an enjoyable deckbuilder at the right length of play with a bundle of accompanying mechanics for deeper exploration and a life full of piratical debauchery.
If you want to take advantage of the limited window to pre-order Ruthless and the Tall Tales expansion, go to the game’s website.
If you want to check out Ruthless, you can visit Alley Cat Games or read what the community thinks on BoardGameGeek.
Do you like deckbuilders? What about pirates and poker? Ruthless has all of that (and there is an expansion on the way)!
Let us know in the comments and give a recommendation for other games of which to share our first impressions.