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View Full Version : Oh 7th Sea, you are a delicious treat



GryffonDurime
2007-07-20, 06:22 AM
I love 7th Sea; the original Roll-and-Keep system presents a fun and dramatic system that encourages the GM to, when in doubt, air on the side of amazing. With that being said, does anyone else have any comments on the falvor/mechanics of this system, or any nifty memories to share? I suppose I'll start, then:

My first character was an Ussuran Pyeryem adept and a Syrenth Archaelogist. He took the restrictions of Pyeryem very seriously, and so accordingly made it a point to never be seen in mid-transformation. Of course, this leads to problems when you're playing in a party that is...very unsubtle. I was also the only sorcerer in the party, largely because our GM seemed to be of the opinion that 7th Sea was exclusively an interactive Erol Flynn movie, and who would want to use magic in an Erol Flynn movie?

Dmitri's proudest moment probably came as our whole group was escaping from a batallion led by none other than Montague himself: he came hurtling toward his friends in the skin of a firebird, took a swipe at Montague while in flight, and managed to rip off his coat and shirt as a trophey for his troubles.

Sometimes you just have to giv eup on attempting to be subtle.

So, then, anyone else have stories from Theah?

Swordguy
2007-07-20, 10:56 AM
7th Sea (and to a lesser extent, it's cousin L5R) is one of those systems that absolutely requires a GM with a knack for creating house rules - largely because there are holes in the system large enough to sail a Castillian galleon through.

That said, if you CAN get a GM who can deal with the system, it absolutely ROCKS.

So, I'm playing my Avalonian Lord, Byron DaFoe, and we've been tasked by Queen Elaine to get rid of this Synrith artifact that we found months ago, and have been getting chased all over Theah with. One of my party members wants to tell me (in private) that he lost the artifact in a card game a few sessions back, so we traipse off to an unused room in Elaine's castle next to the quarters where we're sleeping. Well, we've got another character (a Vodacce who has seen one too many episodes of Batman) who HATES people having secrets, so he steaths behind us until he sees what room we're in, then goes upstairs and starts repelling out the window of the room directly above ours, so he can listen in through the window. In the middle of a raging thunderstorm.

So, we're standing in this room (kind of a miniature banquet hall, with a fireplace and some benches and tables and liquor cabinets), discussing this artifact that people have been trying to kill us over for the last 6 months, when genius-boy outside the window botches his rapelling attempt. In a streak of mercy, the GM rules he doesn't fall (which would kill him), but instead slams against the window to the room in which we're talking. Our reaction is panic - they've found us again! Lightning flashes to reveal a shadowy figure against the window (the curtains obscure any detail). We each pull a pistol and take a shot through the window (both miss).

Well, Batman has just been shot at, so he climbs back up the rope as quickly as he can, so we're left standing back-to-back in this room. My buddy's frantically loading his pistol, and I've drawn my rapier and hold-out pistol and have declared a readied action to shoot the first person who comes through the door. The rest of the party hears the shots and races down the hall to the room - the first guy to get there is our resident Eisen, a Dracheneisen-clad monster of a man who makes the Governator look like Steve Urkel. (They've come to the same conclusion we did - someone's after us again.) He kicks open the door, I fail my Wits roll (a 15 on 4 dice!) to recognize him and abort the action, and the hold-out goes off. Hit him square in the chest, leaving but the tiniest of scratches (does 2k2 dice of damage - armor drops 2 kept dice from that).

Byron: Umm...sorry.
Eisen: You SHOT me!
Byron: I said I was sorry!
Eisen: But you SHOT me!
Byron: You're not even hurt. It barely scratched your plackart.
Eisen: Doesn't matter. You. Shot. Me.

About this time Batman-boy comes in the room bruised and dripping wet from the storm.

Bat-boy: You bastards SHOT at me!
Buddy loading the pistol: That was YOU?!
Byron: Look, let's not bicker and argue about whom shot whom.
Buddy: What the heck were you thinking?
Bat-boy: You shouldn't try to have a private conversation. Your secrets offend me.
Buddy: *starts chasing Bat-boy around the tables waving the pistol as a club*
Eisen: You realize I'm about to beat the crap out of you, right?
Byron: You realize it was an accident, and I said I was sorry, right?
Eisen: *grabs a bottle and lunges at Byron, who runs away*

The party is now basically running in figure-8's around the tables, on intersecting paths, like Hot Wheels racers.

In comes the last member of the party, our heavy-drinking, walking Swedish murder machine of a Vestenmanavanjar (I will NEVER be able to spell that right). He takes a look around, and sees Billiam chasing Alessando with a pistol-club, and sees Wolf chasing Byron with a beer bottle, and everyone is ranting about how they're going to beat the snot out of each other. So, he does what comes naturally. He walks through the middle of the runners, grabs a stuffed leather chair, drags it back through the middle of the runners, sets it by the fireplace, walks back through the runners, grabs some booze, walks back through the runners, and plops down in the chair with some mead and enjoys the show.

It was about this time that the GM called up the Benny Hill music on her laptop...

Tengu
2007-07-20, 11:22 AM
7th Sea (and to a lesser extent, it's cousin L5R) is one of those systems that absolutely requires a GM with a knack for creating house rules - largely because there are holes in the system large enough to sail a Castillian galleon through.


Not that DND is any different when it comes to that aspect...

BRC
2007-07-20, 11:24 AM
7th Sea (and to a lesser extent, it's cousin L5R) is one of those systems that absolutely requires a GM with a knack for creating house rules - largely because there are holes in the system large enough to sail a Castillian galleon through.

That said, if you CAN get a GM who can deal with the system, it absolutely ROCKS.

So, I'm playing my Avalonian Lord, Byron DaFoe, and we've been tasked by Queen Elaine to get rid of this Synrith artifact that we found months ago, and have been getting chased all over Theah with. One of my party members wants to tell me (in private) that he lost the artifact in a card game a few sessions back, so we traipse off to an unused room in Elaine's castle next to the quarters where we're sleeping. Well, we've got another character (a Vodacce who has seen one too many episodes of Batman) who HATES people having secrets, so he steaths behind us until he sees what room we're in, then goes upstairs and starts repelling out the window of the room directly above ours, so he can listen in through the window. In the middle of a raging thunderstorm.

So, we're standing in this room (kind of a miniature banquet hall, with a fireplace and some benches and tables and liquor cabinets), discussing this artifact that people have been trying to kill us over for the last 6 months, when genius-boy outside the window botches his rapelling attempt. In a streak of mercy, the GM rules he doesn't fall (which would kill him), but instead slams against the window to the room in which we're talking. Our reaction is panic - they've found us again! Lightning flashes to reveal a shadowy figure against the window (the curtains obscure any detail). We each pull a pistol and take a shot through the window (both miss).

Well, Batman has just been shot at, so he climbs back up the rope as quickly as he can, so we're left standing back-to-back in this room. My buddy's frantically loading his pistol, and I've drawn my rapier and hold-out pistol and have declared a readied action to shoot the first person who comes through the door. The rest of the party hears the shots and races down the hall to the room - the first guy to get there is our resident Eisen, a Dracheneisen-clad monster of a man who makes the Governator look like Steve Urkel. (They've come to the same conclusion we did - someone's after us again.) He kicks open the door, I fail my Wits roll (a 15 on 4 dice!) to recognize him and abort the action, and the hold-out goes off. Hit him square in the chest, leaving but the tiniest of scratches (does 2k2 dice of damage - armor drops 2 kept dice from that).

Byron: Umm...sorry.
Eisen: You SHOT me!
Byron: I said I was sorry!
Eisen: But you SHOT me!
Byron: You're not even hurt. It barely scratched your plackart.
Eisen: Doesn't matter. You. Shot. Me.

About this time Batman-boy comes in the room bruised and dripping wet from the storm. Just behind him is our man-mountain of a Vestenmanavanjar (I will NEVER be able to spell that right).

Bat-boy: You bastards SHOT at me!
Buddy loading the pistol: That was YOU?!
Byron: Look, let's not bicker and argue about whom shot whom.
Buddy: What the heck were you thinking?
Bat-boy: You shouldn't try to have a private conversation. Your secrets offend me.
Buddy: *starts chasing Bat-boy around the tables waving the pistol as a club*
Eisen: You realize I'm about to beat the crap out of you, right?
Byron: You realize it was an accident, and I said I was sorry, right?
Eisen: *grabs a bottle and lunges at Byron, who runs away*

The party is now basically running in figure-8's around the tables, on intersecting paths, like Hot Wheels racers.

In comes the last member of the party, our heavy-drinking, walking Swedish murder machine of a Vestenmanavanjar (I will NEVER be able to spell that right). He takes a look around, and sees Billiam chasing Alessando with a pistol-club, and sees Wolf chasing Byron with a beer bottle, and everyone is ranting about how they're going to beat the snot out of each other. So, he does what comes naturally. He walks through the middle of the runners, grabs a stuffed leather chair, drags it back through the middle of the runners, sets it by the fireplace, walks back through the runners, grabs some booze, walks back through the runners, and plops down in the chair with some mead and enjoys the show.

It was about this time that the GM called up the Benny Hill music on her laptop...]
That is awsome. I played a modified 7th sea once, never played the actual game though.

Swordguy
2007-07-20, 11:34 AM
Not that DND is any different when it comes to that aspect...

True, though D&D is better edited. It's gotten bad enough at Alderac that an offensive spell, or punching someone, is no longer considered an "attack". Or grappling rules that heal people. Or a spell called Jade Strike that is the only spell specifically that is supposed to damage Oni becoming worthless, because the spell description doesn't actually say it's treated as Jade for all purposes of overcoming Carapace (Oni damage reduction). Or combat maneuvers such as feinting that have no effect except to hurt you. Or swordsman schools that refer directly to and require rules that were cut out of the finished product. Or armor that specifically weighs the same a cork in a given volume, but somehow doesn't have the same density, and therefore doesn't float. Etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

EDIT: Forgot this. The whole "advanced knack" system needs dropped. You're playing swashbucklers, great. You're supposed to be able to swing from chandeliers, right? Nobody takes the "swinging" knack, because it's advanced and is insanely expensive at character creation (3 CP vs 1 CP for normal skills, out of a pool of 100 CP). So every game starts with a bunch of swashbucklers who are capable of neither swashing nor buckling. Anyone planning to run 7th Sea out there, start your PCs off with 40 CP solely to buy Attributes, 30 points to buy "special advantages (swordsman schools, magic, etc), 20 points in skills (30 if you don't convert all advanced knacks to regular knacks), 10 points solely for advantages, and a 25+ point "general" pool (depending on how strong you want PCs to be - I'd recommend about 40) that can be allocated to anything (arcana, etc.). Leftover points from other pools can be added to the general pool if they aren't enough to buy anything else in the pool to which they're allocated. Seriously, try to make a flavorful Eisen noble with the normal 100 CP.
Attributes to 2 (x5)=40 CP (yay, you're average in each attribute)
Full Dracheneisen=40 CP (yes, you can be noble with even a DE pinky shield, but it sucks - DE is the sole "cool" thing that Eisen get)
Swordsman School=25 CP (Fluff - nobles are SUPPOSED to have swordsman training)
Hubris=+10CP (need every point you can get)
You have FIVE CP left for skills and advantages (skills are 2 each, 1 CP to raise one knack in the skill 1 rank). It's simply not playable.

John Wick can write INCREDIBLE worlds, and comes up with good - no great! - concepts. He needed an actual "game" developer, and needed an editor like a BLT needs, well, bacon.

I should note that, for L5R at least, it's being fixed. Unfortunately, it's not being fixed for 7th Sea, as it's no longer supported by AEG.

Quincunx
2007-07-20, 02:04 PM
I had my husband read over Swordguy's story and see if it also reminded him of a certain EQ raid (the figure-eights, the hostiles chasing after, the Swedes watching and snickering ((ah, Feign Death, how I love thee. . .)) ) and had to explain the "Vwhatchamacallits. That's the name this game world gives to Scandinavia, it's completely unspellable--I just think of it as V-which-isn't-Vendel--"

"Vestenmanavanjar," he interjects.

"What?"

"Vestenmanavanjar."

"Stop saying that!"

*****

I adored 7th Sea, and also played a pyeryem--a falcon and falconer--although the rest of the group was less interested, and switched back to Orpheus within a few weeks.

Swordguy
2007-07-20, 02:31 PM
That's the name this game world gives to Scandinavia, it's completely unspellable--I just think of it as V-which-isn't-Vendel--"

"Vestenmanavanjar," he interjects.

"What?"

"Vestenmanavanjar."

"Stop saying that!"


My wife does the same thing. I'm normally a better reader, but she's Danish, so words with lots of Vs and Js where they make no logical sense come easily to her.

draca
2007-07-20, 02:40 PM
I loved 7th Sea, (and L5R) and cherished the one gaming group I had that actually knew what they were and played them. The world settings are so well crafted and in-debth that I still think about them, and would jump at the chance to play again. I think I always made the mistake of trying to bite off more then I can chew in character creation, but I was so into it that I wanted to try Everything, Now! I remember it being almost too expensive to even take a swordsman school.

I sill love the half-blooded Vestenmannavnjar sorcerer I made that was raised in Eisen (His mom was Vesten: hurray for complicated pedigrees inherent to half-blooded sorcerers). He was SHORT, but carried a huge sword, like any self-respecting Eisen who went to the Drexel swordsman school so plenty of amine jokes were to be had. Yeah, I was cruddy at doing just about anything compared to the twinks who’d been playing for a long while, but I could do just about anything. That alone made the game the most fun.


P.S. I had to google Vestenmannavnjar - who the heck can spell that without an atlas anyway?

HidaTsuzua
2007-07-20, 02:48 PM
Seventh Sea and L5R do have good fundamental systems. There's issues with both such as schools and spellcasting being unbalanced compared to each other/worthless, too many attributes, etc. However my friends and I have been doing a rework of L5R with a lot of Seventh Sea rules (along with other changes). It makes for a very roleplaying intense game that we call L7R. They're getting a complete fancy write up for Magfest V. Once that's done, I'm going to post them in the Homebrewed Forum. It's my favorite RPG system.

deathbyhokie
2007-07-20, 07:34 PM
I love me some 7th Sea. I've played in a game, and GM'ed a game. Both were equally fun (nothing like having all of the hero's lovers show up at the same time. and die/disappear at the same wedding).

When I ran my game, I started my characters out at 100 CP, with an additional 25 available for giving me a good back-story. There was also a free 10 point allotment for learning languages (how does a game have no freaking common?), and taking backgrounds. It worked out fairly well. Our Eisen opted to take ranks in Fencing instead of the swordsman's school.

Probably my favorite moment came in the first session of the first game we played. Myself, a Castilian Swordsman/Mathematician, and the Crescent Street Magician/Sorcerer had arrived in Charouse, where we were supposed to rescue my cousin (another PC) from some trouble she had gotten herself in. We arrive, and check into the Swordsman’s Guild, and begin trolling for rumors. Sure enough, she had recently been seen in the company of a Montaigne noble. Great, my cousin’s a whore, but at least we know where she is. So we head off to his city home, to find that he’s been killed. After a bit of investigation and planning, we decide to head out to his country home and see if we can find any clue as to where my cousin is out there.

We start this brilliant plan off by talking to a guard. He refuses to let us in, and even begins to call for help. Fine, we head back and wait for night to fall. When it does, the Crescent conjures up a mist, and we sneak over the fence and up to a window. Now, when I say “we sneak”, really, he sneaks. I had 3 Finesse, but that doesn’t help much when you have no ranks in Stealth. In order to distract attention (once we were at the window), he decides the best course of action is to light a torch, and quickly throw it to a bush a little ways off. That way the guards will go to investigate, and we’ll get through the window. He rears back to throw and rolls a brawn to see how far he gets it. He rolls a total of 2 on two dice. The torch falls out of his hand and hits the bush right by the window. Now the fun begins.

We scramble in the building, and push a piano up against the window to slow pursuit from the outside. We turn and bust through the closest door. Into the kitchen. With the gigantic Eisen chef. Who decides to take a swing with her frying pan at the Crescent. Thinking quickly, he makes a prestidigitation roll to produce a spark, and manages to ignite the grease dripping from the pan, setting the cook’s apron and frying pan on fire.

The remainder of the flight from the house I spent yelling contrary directions in Montaigne. We got out the front door after dropping the captain of the guard, and the Crescent managed to pull off a 45 on a pickpocket to snag the purse of the guard at the gate as we ran by.

We get back to town and snag a couple of rooms at the Guild. In the morning we wake up and find my cousin. Who had been hiding at the Guild the whole time.

Kiero
2007-07-20, 07:38 PM
I liked the idea behind 7th Sea, but feel the execution left something to be desired, particularly in the setting design. Like there being no internally consistent reason for pirate activity, in the core setting. It wasn't until later on that they added a Caribbean analogue to go along with the European analogue of the core.

LongVin
2007-07-20, 08:54 PM
What is the name of Carribean expansion pack for Seventh Sea? I've never seen it.

deathbyhokie
2007-07-20, 08:58 PM
What is the name of Carribean expansion pack for Seventh Sea? I've never seen it.

It was probably Kanuba/Almanac. I think Kanuba was an online release.

Really though, the European nations fought each other enough in Europe to run a pirate campaign. And there's always Vendel or Vodacce shipping to prey on,

Kiero
2007-07-21, 03:04 AM
It was probably Kanuba/Almanac. I think Kanuba was an online release.

Really though, the European nations fought each other enough in Europe to run a pirate campaign. And there's always Vendel or Vodacce shipping to prey on,

Not really, and certainly not in the form that inspired 7th Sea. It was a special set of conditions enabling piracy-by-proxy in the form of privateering. Distance from the colonial powers was certainly a factor; when they decided to consolidate their holdings in the Caribbean and move the powers of officialdom, piracy was strangled.

Swordguy
2007-07-21, 05:02 AM
I liked the idea behind 7th Sea, but feel the execution left something to be desired, particularly in the setting design. Like there being no internally consistent reason for pirate activity, in the core setting. It wasn't until later on that they added a Caribbean analogue to go along with the European analogue of the core.

Trade to and from Avalon, the Vesten/Vendel lands, and anything that has to get from one end of the continent to the other, as Eisen is basically a perpetual war zone.

Balkanization of a region makes for indirect trade routes. The longer the trade route, the easier piracy gets.

Matthew
2007-07-23, 04:33 PM
I had a fairly limited exposure to Seventh Sea, but I found it very enjoyable. I suspect a lot of my enjoyment stemmed from the bad Spanish accent I adopted... which prompted everybody else to follow suite.

Kiero
2007-07-23, 05:24 PM
I had a fairly limited exposure to Seventh Sea, but I found it very enjoyable. I suspect a lot of my enjoyment stemmed from the bad Spanish accent I adopted... which prompted everybody else to follow suite.

Nothing better than when enthusiasm for affectations is infectious. I did exactly that in a game of Feng Shui. My Maverick Cop character had catchphrases, and once I opened that Pandora's Box, everyone else started doing it too.

Darkflame
2007-07-24, 04:53 AM
What is the name of Carribean expansion pack for Seventh Sea? I've never seen it.

Islands of Gold is the name of the relevant book. The area is called the Midnight Archipelago.

It has some nice stuff in there, but generally it tries to cram too many ideas into one area, so you have end up with a hodge-podge of islands all crammed into one area. You have Montaigne/Castillian Colonies, a Pirate haven reminiscent of Tortuga, a Montaigne holiday resort complete with weird beast to try to hunt, a mad scientist making half-human/half-animal hybrids, natives with volcano gods... I could keep going...

As long as you use it in moderation, it is good.

Chris

Glamourchick
2007-08-10, 04:03 PM
I'm currently playing in a 7th Sea campaign which has taken on the title Good Intentions. It's a decidedly epic campaign, which involves saving/destroying a lot of nations. For example, we saved the Avalon alliance when we disrupted an O'Toole plot to overthrow Jack O'Bannon, we rescued the missing Bishops of Montaigne, and my character's husband was part of a plot to kill Cardinal Verdugo, our Montaigne character stirred up a revolution, overthrew l'Empereur and became an NPC when he took the crown of Montaigne, then we sailed back to Avalon to find that Queen Elaine had fallen in love with our Avalon sea dog, which meant she lost the Graal and her throne. My Inish Glamour mage has become mother to the next King of the Triple Kingdoms (and his twin brother), our Castillian doctor was cursed by a Sidhe, and our escaped Fate Witch has a mysterious destiny involving the Fourth Prophet. We've even been into the 7th Sea, where we've met Mad Queen Marietta. We have moments that go from hilariously funny to heartbreaking, and our GM always keeps gameplay in harmony so everyone has plenty to do. It rocks.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-08-10, 05:39 PM
Has anyone read Steven Brust's Dragaera books, with Vlad Taltos?
Because it suddenly struck me that, if you adpated sorcery, 7th Sea would be a great fit for those.