Cost: $40 From: Walter Muller Spiele Players: 3-6 Playing Time: 45-60 minutes Type of game: Family Complexity: 5 Skill level: 9 Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 2.4, Summer 1994
The general consensus on Rette Sich Wer Kann, a game by the same folks who brought us Favoriten and Flusspiraten, is that it's one of those games that you either love or you hate. I'm not sure I agree with that consensus, but if I had to choose a side I'd definitely be in the "love" camp. Not since Junta has there been a game so deliciously nasty, elevating the "screw the other guy" mentality to an art form while simultaenously keeping tensions low and letting everyone have a good time.
In Rette Sich Wer Kann, you've had the bad luck (or bad travel agent) to set sail on a doomed vessel. Desert Island Games veterans will find the situation eerily familiar. While cruising on the high seas, disaster strikes and the ship goes down. Fortunately for all aboard, there are ample lifeboats for everyone. All you have to do is climb in and help row to the relative safety of some nearby islands. But the lifeboats weren't kept in very good repair, and they're prone to leaks...
Everyone starts with two big colored wooden pieces-- let's call them mates-- and a number of smaller like-colored wooden pieces we'll call sailors (the captain, of course, went down with his ship). To make things simple, collectively we'll call both types seamen. Three islands loom on the horizon, each of which awards a different number of points to seamen who land there safely (with mates always outscoring sailors on the same island). The game begins with one more lifeboat than there are players (each boat being a different color). Players take turns placing their seamen into lifeboats. Each boat can accomodate up to seven seamen, and any number of colors can share the same boat. Some seamen may not survive the trip. Since mates get more votes and are worth more points than sailors, it's advisable to try to "protect" your mates by having at least one of your sailors in the same boats with them. Once everyone's aboard, the real fun begins as boats start to spring leaks.
Fortunately, only one boat springs a leak each turn. But which one? Rette Sich Wer Kann is an extremely democratic game. Decisions such as this are determined by majority vote. Each player comes equipped with a voting wheel (the frame for which must be carefully assembled using a hard-to-handle two-sided stickum sheet). By turning the wheel, players can bring different colors into view in the frame's window. These are revealed simultaneously, and whichever color boat gets the most votes also gets a leak
If the boat has a vacancy, that space is simply filled in with a water marker. But if the boat is full, space must be made. Someone's got to be pitched overboard-- and that means another vote. This time, only players who have seamen in the leaking boat may vote. Each voter's choice counts once for every sailor she has in the boat, and twice for every mate. The color receiving the most votes must toss one of his seamen overboard, becoming shark-bait and leaving the game. Now you see why I recommended keeping your mates company-- if you should lose a vote and have only a mate on board, you must feed him to the fishes. If you also had a sailor in the boat, you could sacrifice him instead.
Now comes one final vote to determine which of the lifeboats gets to move forward. Only one may do so per turn. All players participate in this election, each having one vote. The winning boat moves closer to safety (it only takes three moves to get to an island). If the boat reaches land, all its seamen come ashore and score points for their owners.
To add a little spice to the voting, players have access to a wild card. Instead of voting for a color, players can set their wheels to show a sailor's hat. If only one player shows a hat, the outcome of the vote is ignored and that player decides the vote's winner. If more than one hat show up, they cancel each other out and are ignored. Hats are powerful tools, but each player only has three of them per game. You use one up even if your hat gets cancelled by someone else's. Using these wisely is crucial to victory. Don't be surprised if you find yourself playing a hat simply to prevent someone else, who you suspect will also play a hat, from being able to decide the outcome of a vote. It hurts, but it's sometimes necessary.
Lastly comes the brilliant twist which makes this game really work. Your seamen are a skittish lot, and other lifeboats always seem safer than the ones they're in. Players must now in turn choose one seaman to abandon ship. When all players have done so, each chooses a different ship to climb back into-- in reverse order. So the person who bails out last gets to choose their new ship first, and the first one out is the last one back in. You're not allowed to get back into the same ship you left, so if all other ships fill up, a seaman can drown. Without this simple rule the game would quickly stagnate. Because of it, alliances constantly shift as players who voted against each other suddenly wind up sharing a boat and common goals. A player's voting block can be broken up when he's forced to send a seamen swimming next door, perhaps to the very boat he just voted to spring a leak.
The log, a marker indicating which player moves first and breaks tied votes, now passes clockwise and play continues with a new vote to determine the location of the next leak. If a boat ever has more leaks in it than seamen, it sinks with all hands. The game ends when all boats have either sunk or reached safety, at which point the highest score wins.
Rette Sich Wer Kann is tremendous fun to play, but I find its scoring system to be a major drawback. Scores are usually very close, and it's far too easy for people to tie, which is somewhat unsatisfactory in a game like this. But then (and this is uncharacteristic of me), I suppose winning is secondary to malicious fun in this game. Who cares if you win as long as you get to pitch your buddies overboard!
The equipment, by the way, is of a quality we've come to expect from German games. The boats and seamen are all solid wood. The seamen fit nicely in holes drilled into the boats. Be prepared to spend fifteen minutes to a half hour assembling the voting wheels when you get the game. You have to mess around with some finnicky double-sided rubbery stickum adhesive things, and if you make a mistake you're in trouble. So it's best to take the time to do it right.
It's important during play to keep track of who has the log. This player has the power to break ties, and this can be crucial. Try to ally yourself with the log-bearer whenever possible, thus increasing your chances of being in a safe boat or a boat which advances. If you can manage to time your riskier plays for turns when you have the log, so much the better.
Rette Sich Wer Kann has some of the same elements of Adel Verpflichtet, in that players make decisions simultaneously and base their decisions on what they think other players are going to do. Unlike Adel, this game tosses in the opportunity to influence other players' actions through negotiation, wheedling, and veiled promises.
Meta-strategy seems particularly important in this game. The tendency tends to be to gang up on the leader, making it a not necessarily great thing to be in the first ship to come to shore. If there's a choice amongst two or three players to toss overboard, who do you think's going to go: the player with the most men already scoring points on an island, or a player with fewer points already in the bank? If you land early with too many men, expect to fight an upstream battle for the rest of the game. A better strategy seems to be to hold back early on, get everyone's ire directed at another player, and then land all your sailors in the endgame. Assuming you can keep them alive and their boats afloat. Hey, I didn't say it'd be easy.
The process of playing is great fun, even if the whole package ultimately falls short as a game because of the scoring system. Some people have questioned its replayability, and I can see how it might get tiring to play with the same group of people. But change the people around and you change the dynamics, and Rette Sich Wer Kann seems to instantly appeal to new players. A word of warning, though: it's definitely not a game to play with people who hold grudges. If you can't laugh as you sink to the bottom of Davy Jones' Locker, you'd better stick to Scrabble.