The_Napier wrote:
The characters are commanding, not piloting the ship. Therefore the pilot can be considered to be taking the ship from location to location between turns.
Castarr4 wrote:
Cool. So unless the ship is anchored, it travels to whoever's turn it is between turns. The card stays put and doesn't move typically. Good to know.
*This* was the biggest thing that was bugging me as I have been getting up to speed with PACG. Anchored ships were intuitive, but each commander suddenly having a ship appear underneath their feet when their turn started bugged me, even with the call for abstraction made in the manual.
It feels much more reasonable to think of the ship as having a completely separate crew with pilot separate from the heroes. Between turns, the upcoming commander calls the ship to meet them where they are (as long as it isn't anchored). When it arrives at the start of their turn, they are now "on the ship".
As for the bits about using long sticks or hopping on and off the ship, I think it makes sense to visualize each turn as something that might potentially be taking significant time rather than minutes. The crew currently on the ship decides to go explore the island, fight the skeleton, then dig up that treasure chest. At the end of the day, they head back to the ship to hit their bunks.
Where the illusion does seem to fall apart though, is if the next commander is at a different location, and they call the ship to them, it feels weird that everyone else on the ship is forced off of it. I can't think of a good explanation for that. Maybe they hate sleeping on the ship so they are all passed out at a tavern when the pilot moves the ship? :) I don't know if it was ever playtested, but I'd offer the suggestion of maybe trying out a rule change where the current heroes on the ship at the end of a turn can choose to follow the ship to the next commander's location when their turn starts.
Anyway, I think it would be great to have some of the color about the commander calling the ship to them in the manual to ease new-comers into the illusion of the world.
