The Crew: Mission Deep Sea rules refresher

Read the refresher

You are working as a crew to complete every task card in the Deep Sea Academy training set. Instead of playing a campaign mission, you tackle one task per round, and each task comes with a precision requirement: its owner must win exactly as many tricks as the task's level.

For setup, sort the task cards by the difficulty number that matches your player count. Each player secretly takes one Level one, one Level two, one Level three, and one Level four task, and the rest of the task cards go back in the box. Everyone then checks their four tasks against the new trick requirement. If a task can't possibly work, such as a Level one task that says to win the first two tricks when you are only allowed one trick, discard it face up and immediately replace it with another task of the same level. Your tasks stay face down in front of you.

Each round runs like this. Deal the playing cards as usual, and the Captain reveals themself. The crew then picks one task to attempt this round. That round is played as a normal base game round, and then you evaluate whether the task succeeded. If it succeeded, the task is done. If it failed, it goes back to its owner for a later round. You keep dealing new rounds until every task is complete.

Now the details, starting with mission planning. Look at your hand and decide which of your own tasks you could most likely complete. Starting with the player to the Captain's left, each player may announce at most one task. If you think you could handle several, announce only the highest level one. After someone has announced, each following player speaks up only if they believe they can complete a higher level task than the highest one announced so far. Otherwise, you just say you can't take on a higher level task. The Captain speaks last. As soon as anyone announces a Level four task, selection ends immediately. The chosen task is placed face up and becomes the mission for the round, and all other tasks stay face down with their owners. Your goal is to finish everything with as few failed attempts as possible. So it is usually best to knock out the hardest tasks early, because being left with only difficult tasks near the end makes repeated failures much more likely.

The trick rule is the heart of this mode. Every task has two conditions: the owner must complete what the task says, and must also win exactly as many tricks as its level. That means one trick for Level one, two for Level two, and so on, up to four for Level four. So if your Level one task is to win the blue three, and you win it but end up with two tricks, the task fails.

For communication, all the communication tokens are shared by the whole crew. Any player may use as many as they like, as long as tokens remain available. Otherwise, the base game communication rules are unchanged. Anyone can communicate to help, even before the task owner does. For example, if a teammate needs to win a certain red card, you might reveal that your red nine is your only red card.

During play, the round ends immediately once the task can no longer succeed. That happens if the owner has already taken more tricks than allowed, if another player wins a required card, or if any other task condition becomes impossible. If the outcome is still open, keep playing to the final trick. If both conditions were met, the task is complete, so place it face up on the completed pile. If either condition failed, whether because the wrong card was won or because too few or too many tricks were taken, the task goes back face down to its owner. It can be attempted again in a later round.

The training ends when every prepared task has been completed successfully. The measure of a strong crew is finishing with as few failed attempts as possible.

A turn, played out

Four of you are playing, and 3 tasks already sit on the completed pile. You still hold a Level three task: win the blue three. The blue three is in your hand, with 2 high reds. The player to the Captain's left announces a Level two task. The next player cannot take on anything higher. You can, so you announce your Level three. The Captain speaks last and passes, so your task goes face up. The player to your left spends a shared token and reveals the blue one as their only blue card. You win 2 red tricks, then lead the blue three and nobody tops it. That is your third trick, so now you must lose every trick. Late on, you are stuck winning a fourth. The round ends right there. Your task goes back face down, one failed attempt.