Jaffee Realms comments and questions from a player

A reader tried out Jaffee Realms, my custom mod for Jamey Stegmaier's Rolling Realms roll & write game, and left me some comments and questions in the comments of that post. I responded there, but since I doubt people will see that, I thought I'd copy it into a new post:

We played the Jaffee Realms twice. Never played any of these games, so maybe that would have helped? Never 
played any of the Stonemaier games either except Wingspan, but playing the realms game encouraged me to try them out.

I definitely designed those realms with the games in mind, so it would not surprise me if knowing the games would help understand the realms better. Perhaps playing these realms could spark people's interest in checking out the games they're based on, like what happened with you and Stonemaier games :)

Crusaders:
I'm guessing that if I roll a 3/4, I could build, then the next turn, if I rolled 3/4 I could gain a star?

That's correct, the first time you use a 3 or 4 you get to circle a building, then subsequent 3/4s get you a star. In Crusaders, there are 3 enemy types. The brown ones (Saracen) give you a free building when you defeat them, and the other two (Slavs & Prussians) give you points. The Enemy tokens are circular discs in that game, so that's what those colored circles are supposed to represent.

Eminent Domain:
I assume that I can just circle the different planets whenever I roll 1-3. I had had the entire 1st column filled out, and then roll a 5, I could claim two stars...but I'm not sure if I could reuse the planets.

Close... Research (5) is based on having the SAME planet type, so your statement would be exactly correct if you had the first ROW filled out, not the first COLUMN.

If I only had two planets in a column filled, then rolled a 5, I could get a heart and a star...then after the entire column is filled, and rolled a 5, I could claim 2 stars using the same planets.

Correct (again, "row" instead of "column"). It does not "use up" the planets to do research. Same with Trade (4) -- if you have 2 different planets and use a 4, you get 2 coins and 2 pumpkins. Later if you get a 3rd different planet then use another 4 you would get 3 coins and 3 pumpkins.

I feel that there aren't so many rolls in a game, or maybe I'm not using pumpkins or hearts enough enough, but I haven't prioritized trades.

Depending on what other realms are in play, it might be more or less strong to get bunches of resources.

Embark:
This is the most confusing one, because I'm not sure what "score" means? I'm guessing it means to cross out a dice that's in one section of the island.

Correct, "score" in that context means crossing off the boxes on the island. So you fill up the boats by writing numbers in the boxes, then when a boat fills up, it "sails to the island," and you get to choose 1 section of the island, and cross off ("score") the appropriate die icons on that part of the island.

It isn't clear if I need to roll a 1 in order to score, or if after using a dice to fill a box, if I had a 1 dice, I could gain a resource of a boat that just embarked.

The latter -- you "score" automatically when the boat fills up. When you score a boat with a 1 on it, the 1 doesn't ever let you cross off anything on the island... instead it gives you another resource of that boat's type.

The five dice confused me, because I thought it meant to fill a box, but I suppose it means to cross off a box on an island, because it says "score", but I suppose if I ever had a situation where I had left over dice to cross off, I could do that.

Per the text, you normally collect a resource when you write a number on a boat. If you write a 5, you do NOT get a resource as normal, BUT, when the boat fills up, the 5 is kind of wild. This actually corresponds to one of the worker types in Embark. I wanted to label them on this realm, but it was suggested that might be more confusing (and there's not a ton of room anyway).

The six die is super confusing, because I don't see how I could score a box if a boat is unfilled, but I need to copy something from the same boat that I just used to fill

If you score a boat (fill it up) that has a 6 on it, then that 6 can be a copy of any other number on that boat. So that's similar to a 5, but instead of your choice, you have to have another one of that type on the boat. In other words, if a boat has 1, 2, 2, 6 when it scores, then that 6 can only copy a 1 or a 2, not a 3 or a 4. On the other hand, if you have 1, 2, 2, 5 on the boat, that 5 could be a 2, 3, or 4.

Bomb Squad:
It says "matching completed clue card"...none of the clue cards match, they're all different shapes. So I interpreted it to mean matching die and at one point I interpreted it as matching item.

I don't love that wording... it is referring to the number. So if you use a 4 for example, you can either get resources by marking off one of the resources on the lower left card (heart or pumpkin), AND one from the upper right card (heart or heart), OR you can instead cross off either or both of those cards IF both resources are already marked off.

This was not really my version of the Bomb Squad realm. I had a couple of ideas for it, but they sort of broke the fundamental rule of Rolling Realms in that they involved a die roll or something that wouldn't necessarily be the same from one game to the next (like if someone else played based on the same rolls later). This version sort of captures the feel of giving clues and then playing cards once you have some information about them. Bomb Squad is like Hanabi - you don't see your own cards, so players give each other clues as to what they have in hand, then you play cards to move and act with a bomb squad robot.

Thanks!