/pic4120596.png)
Ruthless is a pirate themed game in which players will gather their crew and fight with their opponents.
The primary mechanic of Ruthless is deck building. Every turn a player must play a card or set of cards from their hand after which they may buy new cards to their deck. The deck consists of pirate cards, which allow to attack opponent, draw more cards and perform many more profitable actions, and treasure cards which allow to buy more and better pirates. Treasures can be discarded immediately to acquire gold when needed or added to the deck to benefit repeatedly from their bonus. New crew members are laid out in front of the players and their effects are used at the moment of acquisition.
At the end of each round the players will form poker combinations with the cards in front of them and compare the strength of their crew in play. The player with the strongest crew wins the battle and gains most points.
After five or six rounds (depending on player count) the game is over and the player with most points wins.
–description from the publisher
- Engaging tactical dice combat with a clever slotting system
- Clear, tactile production elements (dual-layer boards, slotting, visible progression)
- Accessible for newcomers while offering meaningful decisions
- Strong variation in player loadouts and playstyles across acts
- Overwhelming randomness can crush strategic control over longer campaigns
- Limited and often solo-leaning cooperative interaction outside boss fights
- Expansion content and base game contents are not clearly delineated in campaigns
- Production risk and delivery timing warnings due to a first-time publisher
- cooperative fantasy exploration with dice-driven combat
- Everion, a three-act cooperative fantasy world
- choose-your-own-adventure influenced by D100-driven events
- Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
- Descent: Legends of the Dark
- Merchants Cove
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- D100 adventure book events — Exploration and events are driven by a D100-based adventure book, with territory lookups and quest codes guiding multi-step objectives.
- dice slotting — Roll colored d10s and assign them to slots on a character board; minimum values activate abilities; middling rolls can be combined with gear to achieve effects.
- doom tracker and boss encounters — Global doom progression pushes toward boss fights; escalating pressure creates tension across chapters and acts.
- dual-layer character boards — Character progression is shown on layered boards with dedicated spaces for weapons, armor, spells, and items, providing clear loadouts.
- simultaneous combat resolution — Damage and outcomes resolve simultaneously; killing a monster doesn’t prevent its attack that round.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The dice combat system is genuinely the most fun part.
- Dying is super forgiving.
- Overwhelming randomness crushes strategic control.
- Combat is a tactical puzzle, but broader game structure lacks meaningful player control.
- Dual-layer boards with visible progression are brilliant design.
- Campaigns feel like choose-your-own-adventure with rules that you keep needing to reference.