7th Sea Appreciation Thread
Conditional_Axe
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Registered User regular
From John Wick (Legend of the Five Rings, Orkworld) and AEG, 7th Sea is probably the best expression of swashbuckling in role-playing form. Far more concerned with mood than details, its combat system is fast and loose, though it provides plenty of fan service for the fencing enthusiast in the form of a few dozen Swordsman Schools that come into play during those duels that are bound to crop up.
Mechanically, 7S plays similarly to L5R - the game is d10 based (10s explode, allowing you to add an additional die to the roll), and everything in the game is resolved via a Stat+Skill roll, with the dice being added together to beat a target number (TN). Each of the stats has some concere impact in the game - Brawn helps you soak up damage, Finesse is what you roll to hit, Resolve determines the number of wounds you can take, Wits is very important in swordplay since it's the stat you defend with, and Panache determines initiative. Yes, combat order is determined by how cool you are, and can also affect combat in other ways via the game's Repartee system.
Sticklers for history may be disappointed by the game's pastiche setting, but it succeeded in creating an iconic post-Renaissance Europe that was very easy to get into.
The game's metaplot was simultaneously engaging and totally able to be ignored by players and Game Masters. Like L5R, the game sports a great cast of NPCs, and while they overpower most characters significantly, there's rarely any good reason any of them should be involved in a serious fight with your party anyway.
Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean or Errol Flynn's pirate films will find a lot to enjoy. The game is pretty simple to learn, and while it's mechanics aren't flawless, they have a certain character that makes them fun to use (kind of like the original Deadlands engine).
2004's Rapier's Edge was the final book for the line, but the game (with a few exceptions - Pirate Nations, Montaigne, and Swordsman's Guild still fetch hefty sums on eBay). The line also sprouted some non-gaming minis and a CCG that had both a respectable following and a real impact on the RPG's metaplot. A planned 'new world' supplement never materialized, but the developers have hinted that the Americas would be much more South American than Colonial in scope.
Share the love, voice dissent, or otherwise discuss.
Mechanically, 7S plays similarly to L5R - the game is d10 based (10s explode, allowing you to add an additional die to the roll), and everything in the game is resolved via a Stat+Skill roll, with the dice being added together to beat a target number (TN). Each of the stats has some concere impact in the game - Brawn helps you soak up damage, Finesse is what you roll to hit, Resolve determines the number of wounds you can take, Wits is very important in swordplay since it's the stat you defend with, and Panache determines initiative. Yes, combat order is determined by how cool you are, and can also affect combat in other ways via the game's Repartee system.
Sticklers for history may be disappointed by the game's pastiche setting, but it succeeded in creating an iconic post-Renaissance Europe that was very easy to get into.
The game's metaplot was simultaneously engaging and totally able to be ignored by players and Game Masters. Like L5R, the game sports a great cast of NPCs, and while they overpower most characters significantly, there's rarely any good reason any of them should be involved in a serious fight with your party anyway.
Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean or Errol Flynn's pirate films will find a lot to enjoy. The game is pretty simple to learn, and while it's mechanics aren't flawless, they have a certain character that makes them fun to use (kind of like the original Deadlands engine).
2004's Rapier's Edge was the final book for the line, but the game (with a few exceptions - Pirate Nations, Montaigne, and Swordsman's Guild still fetch hefty sums on eBay). The line also sprouted some non-gaming minis and a CCG that had both a respectable following and a real impact on the RPG's metaplot. A planned 'new world' supplement never materialized, but the developers have hinted that the Americas would be much more South American than Colonial in scope.
Share the love, voice dissent, or otherwise discuss.
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I have a thing for shapeshifting characters, so of course I was drawn to the Urssun peple.. But I also like the "German" guys with the enormous Zweihanders.
My favorite mechanic was the drama dice. If you were in a tight spot, you could spend drama dice to augment what you are doing, give it a better chance to succeed, so on. But it comes as a price.. for every drama dice you spend, the GM -gets- to roll against you. This can be bad if you are cavalier with your drama dice...
But how can you not be, with things like the villain? You see, every villain has a weakness (well, 1 in 10 don't, but that's just being evil. ;-) ). If you burn your drama dice to activate the villain's weakness, then the villain has quite a few things he can do. Some of my favorite examples are revealing his entire plot to you, putting you into some overly-complex, somewhat easy to escape from death contraption, leaving his henchmen to kill you, assured of their ability.. stuff like that.
7th Sea is part of a trio of games released by AEG, all set in the same world. L5R is the East, 7th Sea is the West (you can hear accounts of the Unicorn clan in L5R travelling through 7Th Sea lands), and the Burning Sands in-between. L5R and 7th Sea are the most established, both of which got card games and RPG's. The Burning Sands and that central area I know the least about, other than some product was released for it, or was at least in development. It was to have a very strong Arabic feel to it. There were also rumors of a 4th setting, the "Americas," but that was probably never beyond concept.
7th Sea did get revived as Swashbuckling Adventures for a while there, but that was pretty short-lived too. In the L5R appreciation thread, I'll post the whole torrid story behind AEG and WotC.
The shoehorning of d20 material into the supplements is why I walked away from my freelancing for the game. Being told that I had to make a workable, 20 level version of Linnae Knute that should preferably less than 20th level, well, that goes beyond herculean labor.
I agree with you totally about the utility of Drama. As GM, I love making the party use them, because they know it's going to bit them in the ass eventually. I began letting them bargain with me using Drama Dice to affect the game world in certain ways (kind of like players can in the d20 The Hunt: Rise of Evil setting - an underappreciated gem).
The high points of the 2 RPS I was involved with (that require the least amount of Explanation), were forcing a draw in a duel with a Sidhe lord whilst fighting with a rapier (my character had no expierience with fencing) by turning his precious dueling style against him and when my character ran across a burning ship to stab a faerie/genie thing with a cold iron dagger, thus saving her friends (but nearly killing herself in the process).
It's really tough to die.
When you take damage, you get a number of flesh wounds. You roll Brawn, and if you beat or match the number of FWs you took, you don't get a wound, but the FW count stays put. Each time you get hit, you keep rolling against the total number of FWs you've built up. Failure nets one Dramatic Wound, and damage stages, so melee weapons give you an additional would for every 20 you fail by (handguns every 10, and cannons every 5). When you take your Resolve in DWs, you're crippled, and when you take double, you get knocked out. Another character or NPC has to deliberately take an action to kill you. And the same works for the NPCs. It really serves to reinforce the heroic nature of the game, since you can do crazy stuff and not die, and also because you have to make a conscious choice to murder an opponent.
Another great innovation of the combat system is the Brute Squad - groups of low-powered enemies that attack as one entity. They don't take damage - one hit knocks out a Brute, and characters can call Raises to hit multiple Brutes in one attack (Raises increase the target number voluntarily, and are used for this purpose and for called shots and other sorts of actions).
IT's actually kind of funny how my character was able to beat the faerie lord.
See, the sidhe was practicng this dueling style that was intended to balance out the action of there oponent; if your aggresive, he's defensive, if you spend time defending your right side, he'll be all over it. That sort of thing.
What his lordship hadn't counted on, was my character Impaling herself on his blade, so that she could simply put her blade to his throat and force a surrender.
I have a homebrew school that involves this tactic pretty heavily. I should post it.
To be fare, I did wind up pissing him off to no end when my character jumped over his head and then slapped Mr. pretty pretty princess across the face with the rapier.
Bishi's are so sensitive to little things like that.
Journeyman is the part that's germane to Gaddez's post.
Actually, since Lord evarryn was a faerie, that wouldn't work.
Need to either use cold iron (and get hunted down by every faerie on theah) or duel him if you want him to die.
If anyone wants to try to get a e-group together post in this thread or whatever, as I said I've never played the game but I got both of the books.
Spycraft had/2.0 has something similar called action dice. Great for getting out of tought situations, over-killing an annoying NPC, or making sure you definitely pickpocket that old lady.
No need--the game materials are available as e-books. (Is it sitewhoring if I don't own the site I'm linking to, and am linking to it in the course of a discussion?) The 7th Sea website has a news post about it.
I was in a 7th Sea game for a short while. It was tons of fun, but like Legend of the Burning Sands (the game Athenor wasn't sure existed) it was competing with Alderac's key market--people who already played L5R. The new games just couldn't get traction. It was a real shame, since LBS is frankly the best-designed CCG I've ever played.
The Villain's Kit originally cost 25 bucks, and was decent, but not worth the price after the Crow's Nest stopped being published (it originally came with a subscription). Six bucks is well worth it.
I'm actually playing in a 7th Sea campaign right now. Given the number of swashbuckling-esque characters I've made for d20, 7th Sea is so wonderfully right up my alley.
The character I'm playing is so hopelessly gimped starting out, but should be awesomely fun to play after about a years worth of sessions. Since it's a points based character system, I ended up spending a bunch of points on things that end up being character flourishes, and I spent very little on starting stats. For those that play AEG system games, it's sort of a recipe for disaster. I started with a Resolve of 1! Got fun things instead though, like having a Fate Witch for a friend.
My favorite moment so far has been using the drama dice as well. Got to a point where the party was standing behind a burning school in the dead of night, trying to save the students that were being hunted by the 7th Sea equivalent of the Inquisition. We're hunting for the woman that runs the school to make sure she made it out alive, and my character spots a henchman standing over her, about to kill her. I got to blow a drama die to throw a knife at the guy and incapacitate him before he could kill her. The great part is the system is really set up to make it so that pretty much everyone in the party gets to pull something like that every session. I love it. My second favorite moment would have to be facing down some sort of Cthuluian horror in the sewers of Charouse (Paris). There was a whole lot of running away involved, but we beat it.
Also, for those looking to play, I recommend going the PDF route. I helped my GM buy the Montaigne (France) sourcebook off of eBay, and he paid $68 for it. And I think he got off light.