Top Of The Table – The Best Pirate Games

For well over a decade, September 19 has happily ascended into the world’s consciousness as the single day it’s alright to shout “Argh, Mateys!” in public. Or, at least, you have an excuse. International Talk Like A Pirate Day arrives every year at this time, and the ludicrous event is just the excuse you need to declare a party, invite your friends over, and celebrate with some swashbuckling tabletop fun. 

The pirate theme is one of those concepts that shows up again and again in board game design, sitting right alongside zombie invasions, fantasy questing, and the clashing of armies. That’s because pirates offer a simple and accessible fantasy that translates well into fun action, colorful characters, and often great game mechanics. 

While there’s a good bit of competition out there, here are six of my favorites, any one of which would be a great pick for an evening of pirate-themed fun with friends and family. 

Rum & Bones
Designer: David Doust and Michael Shinall
Publisher: Cool Mini Or Not

This light, quick game drills down through the various elements of the pirate fantasy, and fixates on the most exciting moments – dramatic ship-to-ship battles between howling pirate attackers. 

Rum & Bones sees two opposing pirate ships side by side, and dozens of beautifully crafted colored (but unpainted) miniatures charging, leaping, and swinging into the fray. A simple dice-rolling mechanic resolves combat, whether you’re firing off your deck gun or rigging across to the enemy ship while trying to avoid falling overboard. Fabled krakens and sea monsters even show up from time to time, adding even more chaos. While most of the figures are mindless attackers, each opponent has several heroes with special powers that turn the tide of battle. Faction-specific cards add additional nuance, letting you affect the outcome of dice rolls and other effects. 

Rum & Bones embraces the more fantastical elements of pirate mythology, including skeletal sailors and magic coins. The rulebook includes several narrative sections that help flesh out the fiction of the game universe, which is a feature I really love. While the two-ship competition is built as a two-player game, team-based play is also supported for up to six would-be pirates. With its simple rules and quick play time, along with Cool Mini Or Not’s signature inclusion of dozens of great minis, Rum & Bones is an easy recommendation for almost any group.

Jamaica
Designer: Malcolm Braff, Bruno Cathala, Sébastien Pauchon
Publisher: Asmodee

Just because a game is simple and accessible doesn’t mean it can’t be lavish in its artistry and components, or clever in its gameplay. Those seem like the guiding principles that led to Jamaica, a family-friendly racing game for up to six players about a frantic pirate ship race around the Caribbean island.

Production value is high in every aspect of Jamaica, from its appealing colored pirate frigates to the art that graces both the game board and its action cards. Even the rulebook uses a clever twist, as it is presented as a meandering treasure map that all players must follow as they make their way to understanding how to play. 

Gameplay is deceptively simple, focused on taking different paths around the island and paying various resources as you stop at each spot along the way. Planning ahead is essential as you consider what to keep on hand for subsequent spaces, but you also need to make sure and have enough gunpowder to fight off your fellow players, in case their ship stops on the same space as you. 

Even with a significant component of luck in the mix, Jamaica nonetheless has a strong appeal that works for gaming groups of any experience level. If you want a pirate game, but some of your players are new to the hobby, this is your best choice. 

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures On The Cursed Island
Designer: Ignacy Trzewiczek
Publisher: Z-Man Games

I play a lot of tabletop games, so when I say that Robinson Crusoe is one of my all-time favorite board games, I hope it tells you something. While not beginner-friendly, this cooperative board game has offered a harrowing and tense adventure every time I’ve played. 

You are a castaway on a forbidding and dangerous island filled with beasts, traps, and the looming threat of deadly weather. Whether you take on the role of the carpenter or the cook, everyone has a role to fulfill in the quest for survival. You venture forth across the island looking for resources, even while other players stay near to base to build up shelter. Buried pirate treasure might be as likely a discovery as a roaming predator cat. Rules govern everything from food spoilage to curing diseases. 

On top of the core rules, every game session of Robinson Crusoe also unfolds a chosen scenario, from the threat of a volcano explosion to settling down to build a family on the island, abandoning any hope of escape. The replay value is tremendous, since each scenario dramatically changes both strategy and pace of play.

Up to four players can attempt to survive together on the Cursed Island. While it can take some time to wrap your head around the many options and rules of the game, Robinson Crusoe is rich in its thematic presentation and elegantly balanced – well worth the time it will take to fully understand.

Next Page: Explore the infamous pirate haven of Libertalia, and add a little magic to your pirate adventures. 

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles
Designer: Mike Selinker
Publisher: Paizo Publishing

I’m a big fan of Selinker’s twist on the Pathfinder game formula, which takes the traditional tabletop RPG structure and streamlines it down into a strategic card game. Each player adopts a single character in the adventuring party, and heads off into missions filled with fearsome dragons and devastating magic. 

The first iteration of this cooperative adventure format, Rise of the Runelords, was one of my favorite games back in 2013. The follow-up standalone campaign – Skull & Shackles – uses most of the same rules and concepts, but tackles a new storyline all about fierce buccaneers, monstrous fantasy creatures from the depths of the sea, and a merciless pirate king.

Each game session sees the party confronted by a series of locations to clear before confronting a designated villain, all the while gathering new magic weapons, casting spells, and aiding each other out of tight spots. Like a true tabletop RPG, your character carries over between sessions, leveling up and gaining new equipment that makes the next scenario possible. The core Skull & Shackles game includes the first several adventures in the campaign; if you get hooked, the relatively inexpensive adventure decks fill in the rest of the story. Up to four players can tackle the base game, but a sold-separately character add-on deck moves the potential player count up to six.

Skull & Shackles’ character and environment art on the cards is stellar, and I love the way narrative concepts come across even in the card game format. If your taste for pirate games might be something you’d like to feed over a full campaign of cooperative play with friends, Skull & Shackles is your game. 

Libertalia
Designer: Paolo Mori
Publisher: Asmodee

The famed pirate sanctuary city of Libertalia is the organizing principle for Paolo Mori’s unusual and engaging game. Every player has their own deck of character cards, each meant to represent the characters of their crew. While the crews all set out to plunder treasure together in the name of Libertalia, they’re actually in competition to become the richest pirate crew. 

Libertalia is all about selecting roles to play in each turn of the game, in the hope that the character you select is able to garner the best treasure in that go-around. As the game begins, all players (up to six) have the same nine randomly selected cards in their hands, but depending on whom you play each turn, the cards that any one player still has access to changes. Every card has its own rank that determines when it acts, as well as a special ability that has the potential to dramatically change both your own play and those of your opponents. With initial abilities resolved, players share out the available booty for that turn of play, with the highest-ranking characters choosing first. Booty can be anything from jewels and treasure maps to the capture of a Spanish officer – all of which have their own rewards and penalties. Over the course of multiple turns (days of looting), and across three in-game weeks of adventures, the leading pirate is determined by whoever ends up with the most cash. 

Beyond its intriguing gameplay, Libertalia shines thanks to its gorgeous card art, which skews toward a realistic period-appropriate style, rather than leaning into the fantastical. The strategic gameplay demands you think carefully about not only your own cards, but also the cards that are available to your opponent and what they have already played. If some of the silly or over-the-top elements described in other games on this list rub you the wrong way, Libertalia might be a good fit, and the fascinating interaction between its many characters has the potential to truly intrigue students of design. 

Merchants & Marauders
Designer: Kasper Aagaard, Christian Marcussen
Publisher: Z-Man Games

Many of the games on this list explore one particular aspect of the classic pirate story, whether that be ship-to-ship battles, suffering as a castaway, or desperately catching the wind to race ahead of enemy ships. Merchants & Marauders is a deep, rewarding, and sometimes complex game that is fun because it offers a broader and more complete vision of the pirate fantasy. 

Every one of up to four players starts out as a seemingly honest merchant, moving between the ports of the Caribbean, buying and selling trade goods, hiring on crew, and winning glory through service to their respective nations. But a darker path beckons, as any player can abandon maritime law and become a vicious marauder, attacking other player and non-player ships on the board. Though you may have a quick influx of cash, you’ve also become an enemy of the state, and ships of the offended nation will try to hunt you down as allied ports refuse you entry. 

As this drama unfolds on the high seas, you simultaneously pursue missions across the island chain, like rescuing a stranded captain, or escorting a member of one of Europe’s royal families. Combat breaks out between players, with the results often determined by each captain’s unique skill set. Major events unfold across the Caribbean. You may even upgrade your ship from a humble sloop to a towering galleon. 

For many players, the biggest selling point to Merchants & Maruaders will be the multiple viable paths to victory. Merchants & Marauders is a lengthy and involved game with a lot of interlocking rules. For that reason, it probably isn’t the best choice for beginner players.  But there’s a lot to recommend taking the time to learn. Its remarkable spread of options and available play styles can’t help but ignite the imagination of the true pirate enthusiast.  

Are you excited about these pirate-themed games, but never run your own board game get-together? I’ve got you covered – check out my tips for running a great board game night for friends and family. 

The pirate theme is a popular one in tabletop gaming, so there were a lot of options to pick between. If some other pirate game you love missed my notice, make sure and let me know in the comments below. If buried treasure and seafaring scallywags aren’t your thing, make sure and check out some of my other game recommendations in our ever-growing hub for Top of the Table by clicking on the banner below. And, as always, hit me up by email or Twitter if there is some other game you’d like to see featured in an upcoming column.