As some of our GiN Columnists have recently pointed out, playing board games with friends can sometimes be just as enjoyable as video games. Obviously, video games are great too, but couch co-op titles are extremely rare these days, and sometimes sitting around a real table with people who are not on screens can be a really fun experience.
“Oh Captain, My Captain!” is designed with just such group dynamics in mind. In fact, the entire premise of this new card game is that each player is tasked with building onto a shared story during their turn so that eventually a coherent, and probably a little bit wacky, narrative unfolds. There are no defined winners or losers, and the goal is ultimately to give each player a chance to dazzle and amuse others with their creative storytelling while the full narrative slowly falls into place.
In a lot of ways, the gameplay for Oh Captain, My Captain is much like a role-playing game where each player (and by extension the character they represent) contributes in some way to the shared world that everyone is building. It should then come as no surprise that the creator of the game is James D’Amato, who is well known for his Ultimate RPG series of books such as “The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide” or the “Ultimate Game Master’s World Building Guide,” both of which would probably come in handy in terms of providing tips for making this new card game’s shared story more detailed and exciting.
Each player in Oh Captain, My Captain takes on the role of a crew member on a ship. The ship can literally be anything that people want it to be, as nothing at all is defined until someone adds it to the story. In our playtesting through multiple games, our ship became everything from a spaceship filled with blood-thirsty space pirates to an amusement park ride populated by cast members who took their jobs a little too seriously. Part of the fun is coming up with new and interesting ways to shape the story, although teamwork is at least marginally required because subsequent players really need to add to the narrative and not “fight” other storylines when building the world. It’s not required, but the gameplay will go a lot more smoothly if everyone tries to cooperate.
The goal of Oh Captain, My Captain is technically to define the ship’s enigmatic captain. There are a set of cards that people can vote on or randomly select that shows what the captain looks like. However, the captain cards are not canon. Like everything else in this, nothing exists until someone adds it to the collective story by talking about it. Just because the captain in the picture looks like Blackbeard does not mean they can’t be a woman, a monster or a giant space alien. Whatever players describe them as is what they will become in the current story.
Players are not just unleashed on the story without guidance. On their turn, a player draws a question card that asks something about the captain or describes an event where the captain was involved. It then tasks the player to either fill in the details about what really happened or perhaps asks them how they feel about the captain after witnessing or participating in such an event. Again, it’s all about creativity and having fun. In our play testing, we had everything from meteor showers to fights with giant spiders to a rather curious case of someone who stole the captain’s favorite shoe buckles. All of that storytelling helps to define the captain, which leads to the endgame event.
It’s worth noting that Oh Captain, My Captain comes with a red rejection card which stays face up in the middle of the table. If someone draws a question card they don’t feel comfortable talking about, they can simply point to the rejection card and get a new draw. No questions are supposed to be asked, and the game should just move on without pause. Nobody used that option in any of our testing, but a few of the cards could possibly make someone uncomfortable, like ones that sort of imply a romantic entanglement with the captain, so it’s nice that there is a no-fault and no hassle way of just skipping over them if a player wants.
Eventually, someone will draw a stop card from the deck of questions that will start the last phase of the game. At that point, everyone will vote simultaneously by a show of hands whether they think the captain, as defined by the many stories that were told, is good and just, weak and silly or mean and evil. There is a different ending sequence for each of those options, and another in case the vote ends up in a tie (like it did for us on one occasion). That last event kind of frames the final push for the mythical treasure the captain brags about in the onset of the adventure and gives each player one more chance to add to the story and help bring it to a conclusion.
The Oh Captain, My Captain card game can best be compared to other story-building titles like Once Upon a Time, but instead of providing players with nouns, verbs and concepts that they need to try and work into the story on their turn, they are given complete freedom to drive the story wherever they want. That can unleash a lot of creativity, but on the negative side that approach can also lead to some pretty nonsensical stories that are filled with more holes in the plot than a sinking ship that is already half underwater.
Even though each player is fully independent in their choices, a little teamwork and cooperation will go a long way to making Oh Captain, My Captain more enjoyable for everyone. Also, the lack of direction beyond the sparse question cards might make the game seem pretty intimidating for shy players who don’t want to be judged too harshly if what they are able to come up with does not make sense or ends up being kind of boring. Not everyone is creative like that and starting with nothing other than a vague concept can be rough when someone is placed on the spot like that.
We played Oh Captain, My Captain with a tight group of friends who have role-played together and also enjoyed a lot of board game nights in the past. Because of that, everything fit together perfectly, and everyone had a really great time trying to push the story and make it either more believable or perhaps more absurd. Some of our stories were really hilarious and we almost spent more time laughing about them than we did playing. But that was after we played a few rounds and felt comfortable branching out and adding in some crazy story elements.
Oh Captain, My Captain might not be the best ice-breaker type of game for a group of players that don’t know each other too well or for a bunch of strangers. But it’s practically perfect if your group of creative players are good friends who have played together before. That way, they can really spread their creative wings and play off one another, enjoying the unlimited adventures that Oh Captain, My Captain has to offer to the right group. And that is truly a prize that is worth questing after.