The Landor Syndicate, a pirate alliance in an area of space controlled by the Lunar Orion Order, needs a new leader. The outgoing Supreme Admiral is looking for his replacement. Players take on the role of rival captains recruiting crews, capturing rival pirates, and collecting treasure.

Pirate Tricks is a trick-taking game for 3 to 5 players with a unique scoring system. The game is played over three hands. Each hand has different scoring goals. Once the scoring cards are revealed, the players are dealt five cards. Then players each bid on another 7 cards to complete their hands.

As the players bid for cards, they will look to gain certain cards that will boost their scores. While taking tricks, the players will need to be mindful of the different factions of pirates as some will score higher than others or may be worth negative points. At the end of the hand the players will collect treasure based on how well they matched the treasure scoring card. During some hands the players will want to get as many tricks as possible, other hands they will want to have few to no tricks, or they may have to match a predicted number of tricks taken.

Play continues for three hands. New scoring cards are revealed before each hand. After three hands, whichever player has gathered the most treasure will be proclaimed the next Supreme Admiral of the Landor Syndicate.