So, is there even a real chance of failure when players roll or is it at best "you succeed but less awesomely as you want?" Or is "not doing what you want" only occurring in a dramatic sequence when they're out of raises?
>>47575201
For Action Sequences, they can be cock-blocked if the NPC is trying to do the same thing or something against one of the PC's actions, and the NPC spent more raises to do so.
For normal Risks or Action Sequences where they're not opposed though, as long as they're not unskilled or improvising (which bumps the necessary number of raises to be spent from 1 to 2-3), it's almost a guaranteed thing that they can succeed.
So only way you could really push to have players opt to fail on a Risk (assuming they have the necessary amount of Raises) is if you give particularly good Opportunities or bad Consequences that'd be enough incentive to ignore doing their initial action.
Some of the pronunciations in this book make me angry.
>>47576633
like what?
>>47575201
i would like to point out an unplayable issue with the wealth system.
"although if a player is specifically trying to
save for something expensive (if she wants to own her own ship, for example) a GM might allow them to “bank” some of their Wealth points. A good general
rule is that a Hero loses at least half of their total current Wealth at the end of each game session."
assuming the base 3 point limit on starting skills its impossible to actually save enough for a ship.
3/2=1.5 after 1 session round down to 1.
1+3 = 4/2 = 2 after 2 sessions
2+3 = 5/2 =2.5 round down. you end up back at 2.
if you let halves go untouched
1.5+3=4.5/2 = 2.5
(2.5+3)/2=5.5/2 = 2.5+.5=3
(3+3)/2=3
maximum build-able wealth without advancements or home-brewing that the players can pool wealth (which isn't touched on to y knowledge), caps at 3
>>47577169
part 2: complaints about "consequences"
"After hearing Approaches, the GM tells everyone what the Consequences and Opportunities are, if any, and when those Consequences or Opportunities occur."
as written, the GM tells the players how much damage they take from a given hazard or element of the scene. this isnt the player knowing "i might get hurt by the fire" and making a judgement call.
this is a narrativist system where the GM tells the player "spend part of your actions for X, or else im going to hit you with this stick."
>>47577215
furthermore the way that the wealth system is written, to not keep track of weapons etc that the part might have, and not governing what gear they can start with, it makes the firearms rules utterly narritivist and autistic.
it takes about 5 raises to reload a musket. fine. it takes a long time to reload that kind of weapon. but since we can't track how many of a weapon someone has, the rules as written don't allow a player to simply carry a brace of 6 pistols and fire off in rapid succession.
this swashbuckling and piracy game is incapable of emulating blackbeard.
>>47575201
>>47577267
Part 4: i jump on the table and run out of swordfighting.
the better question about the raises pool system, is why does the game punish you for improvising and doing multiple things in a round?
if im in a swordfight with someone, and i want to jump up on the table and kick something in the enemy's face, thats not related to using my sword. so it takes an extra raise. if im fighting with 3 raises against an enemy with 3 raises, then by jumping on the table, i have just 1 raise left for the actual swordfight. which means that an enemy with 3 raises is going to get in much mroe damage because i dont have the option of parrying anymore.
you know you've dun goofed when your system is worse and feels more restrictive when doing multiple things in a round than d20 RAW.
>>47577267
"carry a brace of pistols" has always been an option in games like this, including mk1. its existence as a notion is less a problem than apparently the rules never thinking anyone would actually do it. that said i'm not sure how the rules don't allow a player to do that so long as they make it clear in advance.
>>47577803
We must remember that a Firearm deal Dramatic Wound, no matter if somebody can resist somehow Wounds. So carrying 10 Firearms means that a Strength 10 Villain means nothing.
How about carrying Aim/2 rounded up of Firearms? 1-2 Aim, that's 1 Firearm. 3-4 Aim, 2 Firearms. 5 Aim, 3 Firearms. An Advantage would give an additional Firearm or Wits/2 rounded up of Firearms.
>>47578081
>We must remember that a Firearm deal Dramatic Wound, no matter if somebody can resist somehow Wounds. So carrying 10 Firearms means that a Strength 10 Villain means nothing.
It's kind of a necessary compromise when you write a rule system that's super narrative on the one hand by extremely anal about its combat rules on the other. >>47577169 is correct. RAW, the situation is annoying no matter how you look at it. Either you're artificially forbidding players from doing something perfectly appropriate for the story, or you're throwing game balance to the dogs because there's nothing to prevent a character from carrying a whole bunch of death ray pistols.
Of course, a third option would be to make pistols less ridiculously powerful.
>>47578418
I think there needs to be a good blend. It makes sense for guns to be nasty, AND let the brace of pistols trope survive AND not make them autokill blasters
>>47577169
I would assume you don't take it out of what you've banked. It doesn't make sense to set money aside and then use it for carousing and living expenses anyway. Even then treasure, trade and pay are probably going to do the heavy lifting on your big purchases.
>>47581071
i suppose. it would help if they had edited it once even, instead of rushing out the fucking book on a legal pad like George Lucas did with the prequels.
as written it says "total wealth". idk. i feel like im going to have to forge this thing into a home made 2.5 to make the potentially good ideas usable.
>>47582624
Well they have delayed printing and put up preview 2 so we're getting at least two rounds of editing. Even then you'll probably have to bash it into working order but to hear 1e vets tell it nobody's played RAW 7th Sea in 15 years either.
>>47583346
does anyone play raw anything? i had a group play an extended risus game and we even homebrewed that.
>>47583346
As a 1e vet, nobody actually played RAW 7th Sea even back then.
The parts that made 7th Sea work were (in rough order):
-the genre (nobody else really did a swashbuckling game that FELT "swashbuckl-y"),
-the setting (using NOT!Europe meant that everybody could have a fast and mostly accurate picture of what things meant without reading a ton of background fluff),
-the narrative structure and focus on over-the-top heroics (Brute Squad rules, "You can't die", etc),
-the general Roll&Keep system (flexible enough to be houseruled about however you wanted it to and still more or less function)
The majority of the actual game rules NEVER worked well. TNs NEVER matched up well with the RAW dice rolled, especially for new PCs. Character creation was a joke (100HPs...). The ship rules were *especially* a joke. The dueling rules were detailed and fantastic, but that actually felt like an accidental consequence. Magic was either useless or completely game-breaking without much middle ground, and required such an investment that you basically had to suck up being useless for 20+ game sessions until you crossed the "break the game" threshold. And then there was the whole issue with having unspent Drama Dice turn into bonus XP...thus incentivizing people NOT to spend their DDs when the mechanics of the system assumed that you'd spent at least 1 DD on *every* important roll.
RAW 1e 7th Sea just wasn't a thing after the 2nd session you actually played. It was a lot like playing AD&D; the game gave you a reasonably flexible rules framework and a really neat setting, and then you went and tweaked the shit out of the rules to make them what your group actually wanted to play.
>>47584020
As somebody who got interested in 7th sea due to 2nd edition, but is looking at playing 1st edition instead, how much work is required to make 1e playable?
>>47584183
A fairly solid amount, beginning with character creation and moving the whole way through.
>>47584183
Well, it depends on what you want out of it, honestly. IMO it takes a fair amount of work, but because of the flexibility of the R&K system, it's not *hard* work.
I wouldn't normally do this, but here's my house rule packet for my 1e campaign. Keep in mind that this is a rules packet that's covering the core book and *all* of the nation and secret society sourcebooks. It's optimized for my specific campaign world and the feel I wanted out of the game (I really despise the "Scooby-Doo and the 3 Musketeers meet Cthulhu" feel the 7th Sea metaplot developed into later on), but you could take just the character creation section out of there and it would solve about 80% of the issues. So really, the first 5 pages are the important ones.
There's also a complete naval wargame I wrote at the end of the PF which completely excises and replaces the existing naval rules. My table really likes tabletop wargames, so they wanted a naval game with more detail. If you like the RAW, or don't plan on using ships that much, then feel free to ignore it.
>>47584375
>I really despise the "Scooby-Doo and the 3 Musketeers meet Cthulhu" feel the 7th Sea metaplot developed into later on
I don't think ANYONE actually liked it.
It reeked of early 90's RPG metaplot that happened 2 to 3 years after that had fallen completely out of fashion and had been proven to not be nearly as popular as everyone thought.
So does anybody have the new update for the core preview?
>>47584693
Yeah, I just got it.
It's not really too much different but for a black and white map that looks more old-fashioned and thus could be used in-world.
>>47585003
I hear they tweaked the bit about Murder, which is good if only so people can talk about something else for a bit.
>V2
Still no Advantages & Skills table. You want to know where is your Advantage in the list? Fuck you, check the last page of the book.
Vodacce Princes still don't have explained what they are know for. Do you know what part of the economy Villanova has control over? Lucani?
Still no example character creation.
The logo hasn't changed...
So what did they change in V2? Range? Payload? Can they hit London yet?
>>47575201
>So, is there even a real chance of failure when players roll or is it at best "you succeed but less awesomely as you want?" Or is "not doing what you want" only occurring in a dramatic sequence when they're out of raises?
You mean a heroic swashbuckling genre-game makes heroic swashbucklers only fail when they are either out of plot-shield, or directly opposed by plot-shielded villians?
How subversive. What a failure to simulate the genre.
>>47587258
Emulating a genre is a combination of emulating it through description and through gameplay. Yes, the end result "in-universe" looks like a swashbuckling story, but to the players around the table, it is missing the most vital element thereof: a sense of danger.
This is a constant problem with the rules. Because of the way the narrativist system works, few things are ever surprised, suspenseful or threatening to the players. Failure is near impossible unless the player explicitly wishes for it, all the possible consequences of an action are laid out by the GM beforehand (and the player even gets to choose!), the rolling mechanic means that the "dynamic, sandbox-y" combat of swashbuckling films can hardly take place (since you need to establish what you're doing, and are very limited in it, before the round starts), etc.
The game suffers from a serious problem of not knowing what it truly wants to be. It wants to be Wushu, but it can't be because Wushu is an almost purely narrativist system and the game feels the need to include just enough rules to get in the way. It wants to be Apocalypse World, but it can't pull that off quite well, either, because its rules aren't tight ENOUGH. It wants to be Houses of the Blooded, but HotB's system worked as great as it did because that game was almost 100% player driven, with most of the game revolving around the players setting themselves up against each other. The same principles can't work for a game which is is expected to have a traditional players-GM dynamic and set plots.
It lands in the middle between all those games it tries to emulate with the end result being inferior to all of them.
>>47587721
>it is missing the most vital element thereof: a sense of danger.
Unless you... I don't know... make them actually use their plot-shield resources (called raises in this system) and pit them against worthy foes. It's the same as with literally every system with a clear seperation between hero and mook, and with plot-shield resources. Whether they are called bennies, FATE points, Healing Surges, or Raises, it works if you actually make the players use them to be heroic, as the design intended.
>>47588189
Funny: Fate suffers from the exact same problem. It's not "suspense" if you ask your GM to kill the character.
>>47588231
>It's not "suspense" if you ask your GM to kill the character.
And "suspense" is only one of many storytelling tools and tones in the toolbox of the half-decent DM
>>47588730
except risk (not fake "risk" of completely known sets of numbers and consequences the gm threatens you with), real risk, is what makes it a role playing GAME.
>>47588730
Too bad it's absolutely vital to the genre the game is purporting to emulate.
>>47588746
I equate it to fiction where the threat of death and risk to main characters is pretty obviously minimal (either its a fully of obvious Good Always Triumphs,or the Author is in Love with their own character) but they still manage to make you like the characters involved and feel invested in the Plot.
Sure the risk isnt there but you still want to follow the story.
>>47588789
i suppose this is one of those things thats subjective to each persons ida of role playing games, bu8t the ability for players and gms to tell a collective story that has some rules governing it and real risk is what makes the medium special, and distinct from just sitting around telling a story the way kids would play pretend.
>>47584375
>I really despise the "Scooby-Doo and the 3 Musketeers meet Cthulhu" feel the 7th Sea metaplot developed into later on
As someone not overly familiar with 1st Ed and only knows a little through the original couple books, could you please explain what you mean?
I ask mainly as our GM has decided we must now play 2nEd and I do not reallyl like the sound of that kind of game.
>>47588853
>As someone not overly familiar with 1st Ed and only knows a little through the original couple books, could you please explain what you mean?
1st ed 7th Sea was a very metaplot heavy game. Towards the end of its life, it kind of went off the rails and the courtly intrigue and pirate action somehow gave place to a lot of Lovecraftian crap about an alien city rising from the ocean filled with robots and demons.
>>47588841
>the ability for players and gms to tell a collective story that has some rules governing it and real risk
My good man
>some rules governing it
>real risk
These are two distinct features. You may need both to have fun, but some may be content just one, the other, or neither.
>>47588875
>Lovecraftian crap about an alien city rising from the ocean filled with robots and demons.
i..uh..what?
I thought this was Three Musketeers the game?
>>47588875
>1st ed 7th Sea was a very metaplot heavy game. Towards the end of its life, it kind of went off the rails and the courtly intrigue and pirate action somehow gave place to a lot of Lovecraftian crap about an alien city rising from the ocean filled with robots and demons.
And this may be something that they are actively trying to avoid this time, in favor of
>>47588789
>fiction where the threat of death and risk to main characters is pretty obviously minimal (either its a fully of obvious Good Always Triumphs,or the Author is in Love with their own character) but they still manage to make you like the characters involved and feel invested in the Plot.
Given the fact that the bloated eldritch horror lore that was not in-line with the surface marketing is what killed the game the first time (discouraging new players while the existing fanbase slowly fell away, until only the most autistic lorefags remained) it would make a lot of sense to intentionally move away from that, and mechanically design your game to actively fight that sort of tone,
>>47588908
The book is quite clearly not pushing a freeform approach. It's not even really "rules lite", unless you suffer from the same form of autism which causes Onyx Path writers to always confuse "bad rules" with "rules lite".
It has a lot of rules. Enough that it impedes pace and impairs drama. They're just not good ones.
>>47588908
that's why I started with
>i suppose this is one of those things thats subjective to each persons ida of role playing games
if rules that are only able to properly govern a traditional narritive without providing many elements of genuine risk to the player, thats fine. im happy for you. i hope you have fun.
but its not for everyone. and to a lot of people (but of course not everyone) the feeling of overcoming genuine risk is a big part of the appeal. its one thing to tell a story about dashing characters who, through daring and bold action, save the day, thwart the evil viscount, and help someone's true love triumph.
its a different feeling entirely for the PLAYERS to have genuinely overcome some kind of risk in the process. its kind of like the difference between movies and video games.
>>47584663
I like the goofy as fuck ANCIENT ALIENS crap. I find it delightfully batshit so long as everyone's on the same page with it.
The only thing I didn't like was Avalon and Fair folk.
Fuck Avalon
>>47589067
the hell is wrong with Avalon? its just the bacwards neighbour that stil believes in goblins and elves when everyone else knows its just theAlmighty fucking with you
>>47589190
there's an immortal king of not!ireland that's fanatically loyal to the queen of not!england.
>>47589605
only because the queen of not!england just threw off the not!french who have been doing most of the repressing in living memory
also,hes outright stated to be MAD,what would be crazier for an Irishman?
>>47590274
my real question is, given how his immortality is presented; ie he became so renouned in innish lore that the stories became true... this means someday there will rise an innish independence leader who rises to such prominence as to become a living legend too.
then the country will be locked in an eternal battle between two immortal madmen until judgement day, when the trumpets sound.
>>47590309
..........
how is that not awesome?
youd end up with ireland split into two nations with its two kings eternally locked in combat
>>47590349
so like irl ireland, but with kings. the real question is, how does one get rid of an immortal innishman? mind magic to make people forget?
or is this like whiplash said in iron man 2?
"If you can make god bleed, people will stop believing in him. and there will be blood in the water. and the sharks will come."
>>47590410
you get him drunk?
"After 50 hundred years of incessant violence the Innish kings finally collapsed in exhaustion, their blades red with each others blood and knuckles raw from wear.
The fell to their knees to weak to continue barely able to speak let alone fight.
They simply knelt there on the grass, glaring at one another untill the O'Bannon finally spoke.
"So....down to the pub then?"
The Good Patrick paused, as if to insult his rival king, and then shrugged.
"Well...allright then."
And in they drank and drank until they forgot their woes and found that they were not so different but for their argument.
Thus the two kings have been since that day, wandering drunkenly from on Innish pub to another leaving only once all the booze has been consumded and all Innish dread the day that they find a pub where no alcohol is to be found as the day they sober the violence is sure to ignite once again.
This is why the Innish pubs always keep a special reserve in their cellar, named the Kings Share.
>>47590558
50 hundred years is a bit much isnt it?
>>47590607
Ah, right.That was just meant to be 50
Is it just me, or do the Corruption rules and their whole "never murder" angle meant to offer an additional layer of plot defense to Wick's darling metaplot NPC's?
>>47590668
apparently hes already promised to revise them. id generally adopt the sane version of jedi rules from any star wars game.
killing? yes. cold blooded murder? transgression. i actually dont mind the random chance of turning bad the more you dance the line. but id put it at like, 0%, 10%, 25%, 50%, and then make the last one guaranteed. you want the players to be able to get at least one warning before the dice basically kill their character due to meta concepts.
but yes. as written tis just another way to control the players' actions. which is really dumb since the villains section already has a flat influence cost they can pay to escape from basically any scene.
it strikes me as weird because of the 2 likely types of villains in a swashbuckling game... pirates/guard captains/sword fightey types are fine to kill, for the msot part. and type 2: the aristocrat/influence villain is likely going to have connections that force the pcs to bring him in alive if they dont want their faces on posters.
>>47588231
You know what's funny?
We already get you aren't particularly fond of narrative systems, but you keep repeating yourself anyway.
That's kinda funny.
>>47590309
No, that wasn't why The O'Bannon was immortal.
Basically, he has all the powers of a Sidhe but unlike them he isn't stuck following a narrative or rules and still possesses human free will.
This makes him effectively immortal and unkillable.
>>47591691
which leaves you with an immortal king. so we'd need some way to get rid of his powers. seriously, an immortal person in leadership of any kind is a very bad thing.
>>47590668
The upside to Wick's rules like that is that it's REALLY easy to spot them because of how obvious he makes them.
This makes the game extremely easy to modify because each rule that you need to remove, ignore, or alter is double-underlined by Wick himself basically.
Another layer of making those rules obvious is when you do ignore or alter it you can distantly hear faint echoes of Wick screaming in pain as his heart has palpitations.
>>47591712
The O'Bannon actually removes HIMSELF from the metaplot. He's not figuratively mad, he IS actually insane.
Eventually he does what he always does; he up and leaves without explanation and Inismore falls into civil war right alongside the rest of Avalon as Queen Elaine goes into a coma.
He's done that repeatedly through history; makes a show of "ruling" and then eventually leaving because he's nuts and leaving Inismore to fall into factionalized clans again.
>>47591646
Not really. Neither is your sucking John's dick. Nobody's insulting your precious narrative system, they're pointing out genuine flaws at them.
>>47591781
>He's done that repeatedly through history; makes a show of "ruling" and then eventually leaving because he's nuts and leaving Inismore to fall into factionalized clans again.
>>47591822
THERE ARE NO FLAWS IN WICK'S SYSTEM
>>47591738
so far, i think ive got a shortlist of things that need altering.
1. villains should have 2 strengths; mental and physical. rate as normal, but can be designed to take points from one strength type and put them into the other. ie a cunning noble might be strength 5, but count as 7 for social and mental purposes, and 3 for physical.
2. players should be able to generate 2 types of raises instead of 1 type. this would allow much more flexible movement in a round. purhaps roll 1 skill for combat, and 1 for movement/a utility skill. not sure how many raises from each roll should be put in the pool to keep the action econemy as is, but still let the player jump on a table without running out of sword fighting.
3. banked wealth isn't touched by the arbitrary loss of wealth at the end of the session.
4. double all wealth gains. double listed prices for ships, buildings etc. allow players to buy extra weapons/specific narritive altering equipment for low numbers of wealth.
5. scrap or alter the corruption mechanics as you wish because fuck that shit.
6. somehow unify how brute squad initiative works (always going last) with how initiative and action order is determined by other characters' number of raises. otherwise any brute squad goes after the pcs all get several actions and become incapable of doing anything.
7. come up with some guideline for defending one's self that dopesnt involve incapacitating the brutes. i get what wick was aiming for with encouraging active descriptions and play, but the game is incapable of simulating jack sparrow escaping the firing squad at the docks in the first movie, because the acrobatics would be MANDATED to hurt the brutes.
8. ignore the rules stating you have to tell the players how much damage they'll take from each possible consequence. instead just make sure they know what things need their attention and have the potential to cause damage/impede them.
>>47591918
did i miss anything major?
oh, anyone find it weird how parrying and ripostes dont prevent a hit, but instead retroactively negate damage that just happened? as written the final blow of a duel is impossible to defend against because the damage hits and is calculated, putting you to helpless, BEFORE you get the chance to defend.
>>47591822
John Wick is an asshole and both times I've been GMed by him I've felt bored and vaguely insulted, especially the second time.
Look; we get that you don't like him and don't like the system and aren't going to use it. All three a pretty damn understandable, given the guy in question.
You also aren't actually going to change anyone's mind about modifying the system because they like the setting. That's not how changing people's mind works; they actually have to care about what you say and think first, and unfortunately you came to 4chan so that's kind of precluded that ever happening.
A narrative system isn't "precious", it's just a set of meaningless rules we slap onto the game to make us feel better about playing make believe as adults, just like every other meaningless set of rules. This is why it's easy for me to gut entire sections of it and replace it with something else; I don't care about how "accurate" or "sensible" or "gamey" or "well-designed" the rules are. My only objective is to have fun with my group, and every other subject relevant to the game is a distant secondary concern that I forget about frequently.
Also, my apologies if you have other reasons for coming on here.
No offense is meant.
>>47591904
There's always flaws in his system.
1e was one of the most flawed games our group ever played and houseruled, even from when we first got the core rulebooks.
>>47591918
>7. come up with some guideline for defending one's self that dopesnt involve incapacitating the brutes. i get what wick was aiming for with encouraging active descriptions and play, but the game is incapable of simulating jack sparrow escaping the firing squad at the docks in the first movie, because the acrobatics would be MANDATED to hurt the brutes.
It also fucks over the 'Pacifist priest/Hercule Poirot' sort who turns up in a whole heap of Swashbuckling tales.
'No, you can't just patter and distract the brutes for a while, you have to fight them'
>>47591918
I'm actually just writing Villains up as characters so far.
>>47592039
this is of course, also an option.
if you happen to get to play before i do, make sure to report in with the results of combat. honestly, everyone having 40hits to take, in this particular dueling system, makes me think it will end up being super padded.
i think he designed it with the expectation of his open consequences damage threatening gm method chipping everyone down, but forgot that resting between scenes resets the wound track.
as is, one of the smartest things you could do is take the advantage that lets you spend a hero point and take a DWound to take out a brute squad. take out a squad, get to the "bonus die" part of the track, and then rest. giving you +1 die to everything for the session, while still giving you 40 hits to take.
>>47591998
Are you agreeing or arguing with the guy? I think you might've linked to the wrong post.
>>47592104
Dramatic wounds don't actually heal naturally with rest, only regular wounds do that. Dramatic wounds require either some special effect, actual medical treatment (which typically takes a few hours and a wealth point to heal one wound) or they just stay until the end of the game session.
>>47592181
I'm saying he's right about everything he says, but also that coming on here and trumpeting it isn't actually going to convince anyone not to play this game, which begs the question of why he's here at all.
I don't take rules particularly seriously due to their inherently arbitrary nature, so I don't care what RAW is because RAW has never even once been relevant to my tabletop group having fun, which is literally the only measurable metric I rate a game by since nobody else's opinion on here is particularly relevant to it.
I'm not one of those guys who comes into 4chan and whines about a system because he doesn't actually ever get a chance to play and thus it's the only activity related to RPing he can do.
I also don't really understand people getting mildly triggered over some system when we always end up changing the RAW for our house anyway.
Coming onto 4chan and complaining about a thing to people who inherently don't care about your opinions because you're just "Anon" to them seems like a huge waste of time to me.
I get onto /tg/ to exchange and discuss ideas for GMing and characters in various settings or systems I run to some degree, not to rant pointlessly about some designer I probably actually have more reason to hate then HE does because I've actually met the asshat twice in my life and had to deal with him on a personal level.
>>47592362
Edit:
Sorry misunderstood the post. I still think that the wound track wouldn't reset entirely while allowing you to maintain your first dramatic wound bonus. Most likely I would just rule that it resets to the top of the dramatic wound in question.
>>47592396
Speaking of Wounds, I was thinking of linking it in my game to your Resolve somehow and testing that a few times before moving onto something else if that doesn't work.
>>47592379
Don't worry, bud. First time on 4chan is always hard. You're gonna love it here in a few years.
>>47592548
everyone takes the hazing. everyone gets shit. some people get shit in one thread while 1 tab over their ideas are being held up as an interesting take on a system.
welcome to the community boyo. we're all autistic here. welcome to the family.
>>47592548
Been here for some time actually.
Since...goddamn, '06? Fuck I'm old.
You probably know how it is; a friend keeps talking about it and so you go and check it out yourself and find both stuff you like and stuff you hate, etc.
I used to be much more REEEE about things (well, not actually REEEE because that wasn't a thing quite yet) on 4chan that annoyed me, but I got over myself eventually and learned to take the internet less seriously.
>>47592475
How?
>>47592693
meant to reply to >>47592379
>>47592778
the more we talk about fixing it, the more our proposed fixes resemble 1e.
>>47592778
Well my IDEA at least is kinda like the old Flesh Wound/Dramatic wound thing.
You get a number of Flesh Wounds equal to Brawn and a number of Dramatic Wounds linked to Resolve, but I don't know how that would actually work in play quite yet as I only just thought it up today.
>>47592819
1e has good ideas.
2e good ideas too.
>>47592890
hmm...
instead of 10, the number of flesh wounds is equal to brawn, or brawnX2 depending on taste. the first wound after that is dramatic. you can tak as many dramatic wounds as your resolve before becoming helpless.
make the first dramatic wound grant a +1 value to all dice instead of a bonus die. every dramatic wound after that inflicts a penalty die to the hero or a bonus die to any villains/npcs opposing him.
this is just spitballing. idk.
>>47592902
oh i know. i was mostly joking. thats the really frustrating thing. when i saw the quick start playtest i assumed it was a super trimmed down rough version of what we'd see. now...
there are ideas i like in therwe. but everything so far in 2e feels unrefined and not thought out. i like the grouping dice thing to generate raises. however, this makes the mathematic curve of the dice roll ssuper strict. at most you can hope for dice pool/2 in raises, unless you gret 10s. but 2d10 is very likely to generate a total of 10. so its almost just rolling to test for natural 10s.
i like he villain influence ideas. but the game suggests refilling a villains influence by fiat if you want. i also have a little bit of hesitation with influence translating 1 to 1 to combat dice pools.
>>47592954
That's kinda what I had in mind, something along the sort.
>>47593003
>i like he villain influence ideas. but the game suggests refilling a villains influence by fiat if you want. i also have a little bit of hesitation with influence translating 1 to 1 to combat dice pools
Even as I planned to give Villains hero-like stat blocks I was still planning on using Influence.
Not being a Wick and saying "and then he refills it because he did shit off-screen" like it suggests though.
>>47593053
as a gm i sometimes think i come off as playing against the players, when really im just doing my best to roll play the villains.
i, and most villains that might use influence, get more of a kick and demonstrate more menace tot he players to organically out-plan them. brute squads are cheap. minion villains are cheap. it should be easy to set up a (detectable if they pay attention) diversion scheme.
showing back up with a new armada isn't as interesting as the players saving some kidnapping victim only to realize some cuck in another county died "from illness" and now Count Dickface is a duke in charge of twice as much land and manpower.
and then they realize that he's literally never kidnapped anyone before and prefers murder and trickery to blackmail. shit.
>>47593122
Speaking of, I hope there ARE more counts and Vicounts and dukes and barons and shit in 2e.
1e 7th Sea felt more like ASoIaF where everyone was just "Lord", which makes sense for the books, but noble titles and ranks are awesome and it's something impprtant to Europe that needs to be utilized more in fiction.
>>47593230
CK2 has beaten into me the importance of distinct titles of nobility. speaking of i might need to play more than my measly 30 hours to get into scheming villain mode for 7th sea.
its good to at least be able to see the character's rationale when you have him do something so insane as to imprison a 10 year old boy and declare war on his aging widowed mother.
>>47591918
>2. players should be able to generate 2 types of raises instead of 1 type. this would allow much more flexible movement in a round. purhaps roll 1 skill for combat, and 1 for movement/a utility skill. not sure how many raises from each roll should be put in the pool to keep the action econemy as is, but still let the player jump on a table without running out of sword fighting.
This seems like a good idea and I'd like to develop it further, in a way that doesnt devolve into needing too much bean counting of Type A and Type B raises
>>47594824
maybe you roll the one skill, but pick a second, and can use at most half your raises as if they were from the second skill?
also i just noticed, they still have the rule that gives bonus dice for describing your action, but you could conceivably get penalized raises for describing your action in a way a particularly Wickish GM deems "unrelated" to the skill.
"oh well you're swordfighting in such an acrobatic WAY"
The amount of churches still makes little sense, if you read the Organization part of the Vaticine Church.
>10 Churches per Parish
>10 Parish per Diocese
>10 Diocese per ArchDiocese
>10 ArchDiocese
That makes only 10k Churches which is fucking low as fuck for not!Europe. And it makes no sense. If they are strict about the rule of 10, then what if somebody wants to build a new village? It's stated that the first building that will be built is the church. What if the local Parish already has 10 Churches? A new Parish? Okay, what if the Diocese has already 10 Parishes? A new Diocese? Okay, what if the... you get the point. Suddenly you get 11 Archdioceses that go against their own rules, which are retarded. Whoever thought of this failed basic math.
in my second full read through. just got to the sailing section. by Gygax's ponytail! They've dun goofed so hard. They have these sections describing the different vague types of ships, then give every ship identical stats.
tghe only thing separating one ship from another is a background and what country built it. also apparently no Montaigne ever threw together a cheap, bulky trading ship. because every one of their ships get bonus dice to social interactions when dealing with other ships... apparently EVEN when dealing with Castille, who they are currently waging war against.
I'm sad that Castille now doesn't have their Armada, which means Avalon's navy is unstoppable.
>>47595293
further proof, along with the slipshop editing, that this was ghost written by George Lucas.
>always 10 there are, no more, no less. but which was destroyed? the parish, or the diocese?
>>47595466
Maybe it would make sense if there was some more info, but this is unclear as fuck. Uikku at his finest.
>>47595364
This is the system in which there's no difference between punching a dude, smashing them with a beer mug, slicing at them with a knife, stabbing them with a rapier or crushing them with a blacksmith's hammer. Do you honestly expect for it to give different stats to different ships?
>>47595533
man, when you put it in perspective, this game delivers less nuance and detail than Sid Meier's Pirates!; a game which was a remake of a NES game made in 2004...
still, I'm determined to keep hitting this fucking pdf until it gives me every ounce of play-ability I was promised. This might be the first book that I can bring myself to physically write in the margins of, fixing every single fucking thing.
the real joke, was that when my friend and i went in on a kickstarter bonus together, the collection of 1e pdfs they sent him was less complete than on that i grabbed off the trove links around /tg/.
>>47595293
Well it's a religion so they probably just bullshit a bit with some creative accounting and come up with a reason the Creator says it's fine.
>>47595654
>a remake of a NES game
I should challenge you to a duel for this. The original versions were the C64 (still the best), the Amstrad CPC and the Apple II in 1987. The NES port was an afterthought.
>>47595364
In all fairness, the size and build of ships is rarely relevant in swashbuckling genre stuff.
Anyone remember that scene in Curse of the Black Pearl where a single short-mast ship crewed by two is somehow the fastest ship ever and considered a match with multiple heavier ships in a later scene?
>>47596050
ah, did not know that. my bad. John Wick can't match the nuance of the C64.
>>47596111
i suppose. still it feels like a little bit of flexibility could have been put in. honeslty, what bugged me more than the Interceptor being the default fastest despite having 2 crew, wasa that in later movies the Blakc Pearl was fastest due to magic.
In the first movie it was "fastest" because even when the wind wasn't favorable it could deploy oars and be rowed.
>>47596287
>In the first movie it was "fastest" because even when the wind wasn't favorable it could deploy oars and be rowed.
I don't think that's what that scene was implying.
I think it was just supposed to be a dramatic scene to show how much in danger they were to show that they were going to have a hard time escaping.
It was the 18th century naval equivalent of a scene in a movie when a bunch of guys go "maybe we can win the fight"! and then the guys they're fighting whip out a bigger knife or gun and they realize they aren't really doing so hot after all, they just THOUGHT they were doing well.
Remember; in the EXACT SAME MOVIE written by the SAME PEOPLE the Interceptor, a tiny little sloop, is supposed to be the fastest ship in the Caribbean.
>>47596530
>Interceptor, a tiny little sloop, is supposed to be the fastest ship in the Caribbean.
I always thought that she had an unusually efficient hydrodynamic hull, and an outsized amount of canvas for her rate. The combination of less hull drag and a better power/eight ratio from her sails could make her a very fast ship.
Granted, you still couldn't run her with only two people, but that'd be true of literally ANY meaningful ship they captured, so it's less of a commentary on ship-handling and it's a "turn off your goddamn brain and enjoy it" plot point.
>>47596598
>turn off your goddamn brain and enjoy it" plot point.
Kinda my point; in swashbuckling films that revolve around ships, ships are only as different as the plot needs them to be and often are different in ways tha run contrary to actual naval logic.
If you want realistic ships best go for the Aubrey-Maturin novels, which while truly fantastic reads once you get through the language density are not very great swashbucklers, instead being historical military fiction.
the buddy i went in on the kickstarter with is working late. anyone able to give me the revised preview from yesterday?
>>47598666
Still waiting on mine myself. download from the backer kit keeps timing out.
>>47593292
Seems totally legit for getting that one title needed to claim a kingdom.
>>47589190
I didn't like the whole Genderswapped Queen Arthur soap opera thing because of how immutable to player interaction it comes off in the writing which makes it worthless as the players can only watch this oh so tragic event unfold.
It's not helped by how transparent the Sidhe in being GM beat sticks in their function. Like they're all omnipresent and ever watching and will swarm you if you even look funny.
My plan to fix it is to have a player seduce Elaine and then deal with the derailment of the metaplot via the cucking of Lugh but also bring about some fairy version of Berserk's Eclipse hellscape due to fairies being assholes and that plot magic about loving others above the country and start removing Elf like kebab.
Also you kill The O'Bannon with Iron and Explosives, and failing that I guess you use that Pirate Dude's bullshit katanatanium scythe.
>>47602515
I kept Eliane but largely ignored the rest of it.
She's an Elizabeth I analogy and I ran more with that rather then her pseudo-Arthurian stuff, having her bring back Glamour and improve Avalon ine the same ways Elizabeth helped improve England rather then just have everyone be magically fuckin' happy because of her shit.
The trick to characters like Elaine and O'Bannon and all those other ones is to STOP TREATING THEM LIKE CHARACTERS.
They aren't PC's, they aren't NPC's, they are backround elements to sit there and run the country add flavor the way most politicians are simply highly paid backround functionaries who keep the country running while the actually interesting stuff is done by other people in other parts of the country with other jobs.
This is especially true in the 17th century when even "warrior kings" (of which there were not many) were not commonly front-line fighters and stood back and had strategies and planned meetings and basically served in an administrative fashion while actual soldiers and such did all the real fighting.
Wick of course never learned this, because it forces him to ONLY be a GM instead of GM who pretends he's writing a novel with his NPC's like his PC's watch the novel he's writing unfold.
Actually, a lot of those Gen X game designers didn't seem to learn it. Apparently they're all just super butthurt that nobody ever wanted their shitty novels or something, I dunno.
Point is, focusing your hatred and loathing on something as a plot point isn't a way to remove something, that just proves in one way or another it's important because YOU felt the need to actively deconstruct it, so one way or another it adds influence to your game and thus holds power over how you view it.
Irrelevance is better then a big dramatic death, because big dramatic deaths show that somehow they somehow mattered in some way.Plus, Wick HATES it. Oh he hated it so very much.
>>47604296
>Gen X game designers
Somebody has to like it enough to see it published. Are some Gen X players into that sort of thing?
>>47605476
In the 90s, many non-DnD rpgs were sold on fluff and setting alone. There was quite a few people who wouldn't end up playing the games they bought for some time (mostly because of other campaigns, simply not having a group at the time, or just not having the free time.)
So quite a few rpgs tried selling a sort of story with the books, whether through fiction or through setting events.
In addition, multi-book setting description was relatively new. Not many rpgs even had settings (leaving it to the GM to make for themselves), and the few that did were pretty fire and forget. Instead of going into detail about other factors of the setting, they'd write about the plot hooks from previous books.
It's mostly a product of people trying a new way to write RPG settings and simply imitating the closest thing they could: traditional books.
Wick's problem is that he started with TCGs and TCG plots. He carried it over to his RPG writing and sees no reason to change.
>>47605680
this is why he needs to be forced to JUST be a player for year or so. best way to break bad GMs of habbits is to flip it around.
>>47595533
I genuinely don't understand people who whinge about there not being different weapon stats. Who gives a crap? What does that add to the narrative or gameplay? Does it really improve your experience in any meaningful way, or is it some war gaming simulationist thing people are clinging to?
>>47606833
no. it tears me right out of a game when getting hit with a pocket knife is identical in function to getting a claymore to the face.
>>47606850
Claymore to the face kills a person. Pocket knife jammed deep into someone's eye kills a person. That seems identical in function to me.
>>47606869
>That seems identical in function to me.
This is because you are stupid.
>>47606877
With retorts like that, I don't think swashbuckling games are for you.
>>47606869
so what you're saying is, if someone had a weapon, you wouldn't mind being hit with a claymore instead of a pocket knife. got it.
I'd say "anon no! you have so much to live for!", but with mental faculties like that, you really don't.
>>47606947
I'm saying that in narrativistic fiction, you die either way regardless of whether you're killed with a claymore or a pocket knife. There's really no sense in simulating the specifics of that, much like there's no need to keep track of when your characters need to eat or poop. Nitty simulationist details only detract from the story.
Do you understand that explanation, or should I use simpler words?
>>47606957
except in most games, including an especially in this system where each character have 40 fucking hits to take, you don't drop dead instantly.
if you really think that weapon types are irrelevant, well im glad your life is so far removed from any combat, up to and including fucking basic street fights, but weapons matter.
and when you ignore the fact that weapons matter, it alters the way a game plays, because the world you're simulating starts to disconnect from anything even resembling a possible world to the point of becoming meaningless.
yeah, you might want to simulate people taking a shit, if you were playing fatal. but given that shitting isn't part of the swashbuckling era in most cases, its not relevant to this game.
if weapons don't matter, then getting shot shouldn't deal a dramatic wound either. i mean, we all know a knife tot he kidney is just as lethal as getting shot. for that matter you can die from a heart attack or bad influenza, so why even model combat? a thing happens that kills a character right? i mean, since its all fucking irrelevant as long as the result is similar enough right?
fuck it, why even simulate adventuring anyway. in a narrativist system like this, we all know the heroes triumph in the end or dont, depending on the GM/authors whims. so why not just sit and listen to the beginning of the story, then the end. who needs that pesky middle bit.
>>47607014
Tell me more about these basic street fights you're so experienced with. I never expected such a tough guy to browse /tg/!
>>47607014
>we all know the heroes triumph in the end or dont, depending on the GM/authors whims. so why not just sit and listen to the beginning of the story, then the end.
This is Wick's goal for the system anyway, so what you're describing is more likely a feature than a bug.
>>47607025
Don't be a cunt. Yes, it's the internet, but there's a fair number of people here who actually do/have experience or practice violence. Gropey and NEA are both good examples (who regularly post in 7th Sea threads), if you want to go with someone more verifiable than just some random anon. Just because you're online doesn't mean that someone you're talking to ISN'T a subject matter expert.
It's just odd that weapon damage is seen as such a sacred thing.
You don't simulate footwork, you don't simulate witty retorts, you don't simulate serenading someone under their balcony and trying to win their heart. Why simulate weapon damage? Why is that something that matters so much?
Only reason why people give a shit is because of the wargaming tradition and "this is how it's always been!!" and they justify their complaints by lack of realism (as if anyone's favourite system is realistic even in the slightest).
>>47607025
i don't resolve things with violence anymore, partly because I've adopted a much more freedom of speech principled world view, but mostly because after enough suspensions in middle school I just got better at bullying people back.
What I CAN tell you from the last legitimate fight I was in, is that we were about equal in skill (completely unskilled). It turns out method of dealing damage matters. Rope and fists beats neck and fists.
also, unless you do hit a vital organ or artery, it is very difficult to stab someoen to death. if you get a larger sword wound, you're more prone to bleed out.
im not even proposing some ultra simulationist system, just that maybe we could have Heavy, Light, and Finnesse weapons? i mean the styles very very lightly make differences in style, but it still feels weird that there's no reason my pirate crew would have cutlasses over pikes.
>>47607151
In what system is there a reason your pirate crew would have cutlasses over pikes, though?
>>47607110
>footwork
sure i do. you'll note i was complaining earlier about how jumping up on a table made me run out of swordfighting.
>witty retorts
sure i do. social skills. social stats. taunts. feints. the bonus dice from describing your actions also includes rewarding the player for a (sometimes literally) cutting remark.
>wargaming tradition
I don't wargame. too fucking poor. and no i like to have something, even a very light guideline, for differentiating weapons because it allows me as a player and gm to have the characters make descicions about what they look like, do, nd how they do it that is informed by a logical reason. again, cutlasses became popular on ships because they were slashy, light, and could be shoved down your pants.
musket and pike lines developed from the needt o put out as much gunfire as possible on pitched field battles. if weapons all do the same nebulous "damage", you lose the reason for so much descicion making.
if you run a fast and loose enough game for it to not matter and have fun, fine. good. glad for you. but its not for everyone. i think the medium is at its strongest when the players and characters are in sync in their reactions and decisions making through organic logic informed by mechanics that tie to the logic of the game world.
its why i want at least a little difference in ship stats between types. sloops and schooners were used as pirate vessels because you could hit and run with some loot before shit went south, and could outrun the navy when you had to.
likewise sloops only prayed on certain types of ships because no matter how fast you are, a 100 gun naval treasure ship is going to fuck you out of the water unless you have a lot of pirate ships and a plan.
i got a little heated in my argumentation and im sorry for that. but i stand behind my points.
>>47607167
any system where equipment weight, how many hands are needed on the weapon, proficiency, weapon speed etc are taken into account. any one of these components in a game would be solid reason to tend towards one handed fencing/person to person weapons over heavier war-based gear.
>>47607206
Yeah, you have a point. I do understand what you mean, honestly.
I just personally think that all of this is justifiable in narrative. Yeah, on an abstract level a claymore deals as much damage as a knife, but in-character you can just fluff it as claymore dealing some bashing damage or almost-hits until it finally cleaves a man in half, and the pocket knife dealing small cuts until you manage to pierce someone's throat with it.
To me, personally, the fact that they game mechanically deal similar damage is totally irrelevant; what exists isn't the dice, but what's being described.
On the other hand, it can hurt immersion if the rules have nothing at all do with reality. And different weapon stats and such could easily add some depth and tactics to the system, even add to the story.
So really, the boring answer is of course that "it's a matter of preference." Even though I still think that a lot of people are completely unwilling to even consider handwaving away weapon damage without considering the benefits of a more fast and loose approach.
>>47607110
>It's just odd that weapon damage is seen as such a sacred thing.
That's not a totally unfounded argument, and you're correct that you can kill someone with a screwdriver or a pocket knife just as dead as you can with a longsword or a pistol.
The trick comes when you're talking about gradiating damage. Dead is dead, sure...but a wounded man is not dead, and the *degree* to which you get wounded can depend VERY HEAVILY on the type of weapon used. This subject is ludicrously complex and totally unsuited for anything less than a full multi-page article, so I'm going to deliberately simplify the issue and use a very basic example, comparing weapons.
>2" Swiss Army-style knife
The most *likely* outcome to being wounded with a pocket knife (aside from death), are a shallow surface cut that hurts but doesn't incapacitate in any meaningful way. The blade is technically long enough for a meaningful body cavity penetration, but it's unlikely to actually get in there due to lack of weight/impetus and high probably of outright snapping on a bone (light blade). In essence, wounds from a mini-knife are unlikely to matter much except as a cumulative effect.
>smallsword (circa 1700)
The most *likely* outcome to being wounded with a smallsword (aside from death) is a moderately deep puncture wound (usually 1-4"). This sort of puncture is unlikely to incapacitate a limb due to small wound cavity, but a hit to the torso is highly likely to puncture deep enough to damage internal organs; while not immediately fatal (several primary sources record 20-40 hits in a fight before the cumulative effect disables the opponent), these serve to hasten exsanguination and each internal hit to the torso has a relatively high chance of inducing disabling shock. Wounds with this weapon are VERY common, but only usually matter inside of "fight time" (as opposed to "sepsis over the next few weeks") if you take a hit in the head, torso, CNS, or a limb nerve cluster.
>cont
>>47607284
>cont
>longsword (circa 1500)
Longsword wounds are actually going to be very rare. A hit that connects in a meaningful amount will remove or partially a limb, and a thrust will open a large enough wound channel to be disabling more often than not. Deflections of the weapon off bone are rare (it's simply crushed or shattered), though getting the weapon stuck in the bone can be a thing. As a rule, if you get meaningfully hit, you're dead.
Those three weapons should be treated differently. In one of them, it's unusually to actually kill someone, and it's very hard to cause a meaningful wound. In another, a hit generally means a kill, with "wounding" effects so bad that they may as well be lethal. In the third non-lethal wounds are very common, and may or may not be disabling. If I'm writing a novel, I can choose when the guy dies from a pocket knife hit, and it doesn't matter, because I'm the author. But narrativist games are NOT novels (as much as Wick may think they are), and some level of unexpected result is still appropriate. Differentiating weapons by capability provides that unexpected result during combat. You don't know until you roll the dice whether your hit with a smallsword will be a fleche to the arm that hurts but doesn't disable, or a deep penetration to the outside of the hip that can cripple. What the weapon is capable of actually *does* matter in terms of generating that unexpected result.
>ok, have to run. Hopefully thread is still around tongiht
>>47607252
i should also note i ran a Risus campaign for about a year and a half. it was all good fun, very funny game, comedy superheroes etc.
But it left me relatively sated in terms of narrative-over-mechanics stuff. i think im currently swinging towards the opposite direction.
>>47606957
That would've been all fine if the game was completely narrativistic. There are completely narrativistic games which are fucking amazing. Wushu is mentioned in this very thread and I have a feeling Wick was thinking he was trying to emulate it when he wrote the combat rules.
The problem is that you can't do shit like that by half measures. Wick wanted the complete freedom of narrativism, but for whatever reason couldn't give up on jamming it with just enough rules to annoy. The result was a system that's arbitrarily simplistic and open to abuse on the one hand (why couldn't I carry a brace of six pistols and overstep the reloading rules, again?) but cumbersome and clunky on the other (No, you can't pull a swashbuckler by jumping from the table to the chandelier than using a knife to slide down the tapestry all the while mocking the villain. You don't have enough raises for that). The weapons issue, for example, falls flat on the explanation that "all weapons kill" because in this game, they clearly don't.
>>47607025
To be fair, you hardly need to have experienced a fucking slapfight with your little brother to be able to understand something so basic as "weapon type matters". Having half of a functioning brain should suffice. Hell, even previous John Wick games accommodated this truth by making weapon bonuses circumstantial (so a halberd may give you +5 in one situation but -2 in another, and a knife might be perfect for a close quarters fight in a narrow ally but shitty against an opponent with a spear). It's actually a fairly elegant solution, which is a shame wasn't adapted here.
It's okay, guys. This time the setting's gonna include a Japan equivalent. You can bet your ass Wick's gonna make katanas cause double damage or something. That's just being realistic!
>>47602515
of course /tg/ plots devolve into cucking. of course.
>>47604296
>Wick of course never learned this, because it forces him to ONLY be a GM instead of GM who pretends he's writing a novel with his NPC's like his PC's watch the novel he's writing unfold.
Fuck, GMs like this are the absolute worst. And the cancer isn't restricted to oldfags. I had a PbP GM who was like 18 pull this shit until everyone got sick of it and dropped.
>>47607433
>No, you can't pull a swashbuckler by jumping from the table to the chandelier than using a knife to slide down the tapestry all the while mocking the villain. You don't have enough raises for that
The issue here to me would be the GM considering each of these things distinct enough to merit their own "actions" versus being parts of a whole. Jumping rom a table to a chandelier probably shouldn't require a raise to begin with, or that whole thing is one "action in progress" to get you to the villain and shouldn't be broken down into smaller components because, as you said, that kind of granularity makes actions cost way too much)
>>47607206
>you'll note i was complaining earlier about how jumping up on a table made me run out of swordfighting.
only in an absurdist reading of the rules desu
>>47607220
And since this system clearly isn't interested in any of that (for good or ill), what's the point in being bothered by it or trying to graft on more rules?
>>47607433
>why couldn't I carry a brace of six pistols and overstep the reloading rules, again?
Because Wick dun goofed and despite his adamance that all weapons are the same, made firearms instant death disintegrators of doom. Gotta keep those players from using them against his favorite villain.
Bumping, there has to be more to rage about.
>>47610476
on the non-rage front, has anyone run any scenes yet? had real issues with running out of raises? found that the system worked OK to model some things but not others? i'm thinking of starting a game but want to hear others experiences first
>>47602384
>>47602441
Oh my god, this guy would be the best 7th captain ever. "Stat me" time?
>>47612562
First time id have seen a porn character turned stated for a game...
So heres an issue Ive noticed and im wondering what others take on it is, namely language in 7th Sea.
You obviously start with you home nations language but how do you pick up any others? I mean theres the knack but thats automatically ALL languages in Theah. Is there no way of handling a middleground?
>>47613720
handle it like FFG star wars? you know your hoe language and maybe what would make sense for your background, but weird other languages you'd have no reason to be exposed to, you need a translator or have issues. basically language barrier is a problem only if it's dramatically appropriate, and otherwise it's a non-issue because it can be really un-fun and obnoxious at times
>>47613673
Can't say it wouldn't be inappropriate, though. That character is wildly hilarious. He's come up as a character concept before, but I don't think I've ever actually seen a "stat me" request for him.
>>47612562
Brawn 3
Finesse 2
Resolve 2
Wits 2
Panache 4
Background
Aim 2
Athletics 5
Convince 1
Empathy 2
Perform 5
Tempt 4
Theft 1
Backgrounds
Performer
Earn a Hero Point when you used your crowd-pleasing skills for something more than making a few coins
Jenny
Earn a Hero Point when you resolve a conflict with seduction or sexual wiles.
Advantages
Virtuoso
Inspire Generosity
Dynamic Approach
Fascinate
Reputation "Pornstar"
"Large"
.....oh, you meant the character didnt you?
>>47614611
>.....oh, you meant the character didnt you?
A little column A, a little column B
>>47613720
You start with an equal number of languages to your Wits. Thus since everyone starts with two base, you are automatically proficient in your home language plus one other.
The game suggests Old Thean (the Latin equivalent) since it's the church language and thus can make for a good common tongue for the party, but I wouldn't require it. Most likely try to plan out with the other players so everyone shares a language to ease communication.
Theoretically one would learn more languages if you increased your wits, but that's certainly not the main reason you would increase Wits Particularly since its more expensive an according to the rules you can only increase your traits twice. (I suppose to avoid a "perfect" character with five in every trait.) If learning more languages after character creation is that important linguist lets you have them all for one fifth the cost of raising your wits.
>>47620157
Of course, Wick's NPCs would get their 6-5-5-6-5 statlines.
>>47621093
Lower their stats to more human levels, I'm sure he'd be fine with that.
>>47622476
Not a chance. PCs might actually get a chance to affect the story that way. Absolutely unacceptable.
>>47607110
>Only reason why people give a shit is because of the wargaming tradition and "this is how it's always been!!
Why is it that the most ignorant fuckers are always the one's prone to bitching about D&D and "the wargaming tradition"?
Original D&D did not have variable weapon damage, nor did Chainmail i.e. "the wargaming tradition", all weapons did 1D6 and could be used logically. (a spear could be set up to deal with a charge or attack from second ranks)
The "genius John Wick" situational damage modifiers mentioned earlier were done then as well based on environment before Wick had even been born.
>>47622667
There were special rules for magic swords, though.
>>47584375
My preferred way of doing the old Arcana was 'Every PC has a hubris and a virtue. You are, after all, larger than life characters'.
Rather the silly 'You can have a virtue or hubris but not both'
>>47591279
It's also rather a 'Hmm...depends on the situation' case for me. I mean, if you are the legal authority of a town, I'm not going to make you take a corruption roll because you hanged a villain. That's not really murder, even if it is killing a man who can't resist.
I honestly just think they are rather fiddly and pointless rules.
>>47622738
That's more of a class feature of Fighting-Men.
>>47602267
...that seems unironically like a really good 7th sea art.
Like, most of the women there are 'Ok, yeah, that's a porn star' but she looks better than some people in the actual PotC movies.
>>47622885
agreed
whoever decided on her costume decided to put some actual effort in
especially compaird to plastic lips>>47602347 and >>47602421
asian hooker
>>47622552
youre right anon comments like this in every thread certainly dont get old, not at all
>>47623598
Bitching about John Wick is a game as old as John Wick himself.
It will only end when someone goes and kills his car and steals his dog.
>>47623618
he doesnt have a dog, thats his wife
>>47623695
i thought it was odd when his dog started mooing.
>>47627109
That's one of the best "Varying Degrees of Want" pictures I've ever seen.
>>47604296
tl;dr
Besides fairy genocide is fun and profitable.
>>47621093
I feel this is a little presumptuous. So far we haven't seen any new 7th sea NPC statlines (though we are liable to see some in the Heroes and Villains book) but there is a sidebar that emphasizes that while you can use the standard character creation rules to make NPCs, it emphasizes that NPC's should not outpace the PC's, since the PC's should always be the heroes of their story.
Frankly as I've been following this project it seems like he's been avoiding quite a few "John Wickisms". That "no murder. Ever." rule? People had problems, and now it's gone in the new version. The project's been very receptive to criticism through the whole process, to the point where they even extended the period by which people can send in their comments and critiques of the current version.
I don't know, just seems like the guys maybe learned from his mistakes and is doing his best to listen to the fans. Given that the main reason a 2nd Edition is getting made (and became the top-funded RPG ever on kickstarter) for a game that hasn't had a sourcebook since the 90's is because of the love of the fanbase. Wick has his faults, but even he's not going to pretend that any decision he makes is going to be inherently beloved by the fans.
>>47628015
>That "no murder. Ever." rule? People had problems, and now it's gone in the new version.
No it isn't. Page 296 of the most recent version. Right bottom side. Not a word changed.
>>47628015
He's defending Wick! REEEEEEEE
>>47628015
>>47629695
Can a third party check this no murder page out in the newest version?
>>47633673
Copy-paste:
For the most part, killing a Helpless person is an
unjustified killing. A murder. An Evil Act, under
nearly any and all circumstances.
Heroes do not commit murder. Ever.
But Heroes do kill when their hands are forced by
Villains and their cronies. They kill when there is no
other way to get justice, when they must end a life
to save another. They kill when there are no other
options. But they remember it and often regret it.
For some Heroes, the act haunts them to their grave.
>>47633784
Seems like they softened up the language and acknowledged heroes can and sometimes should kill.
>>47633784
Inego Montoya, D'artangan, Athos, Aramis, Zorro, Captain Peter Blood, Cyrano de Bergerac, Scaramouche, Sir Percy Blakeney, Don Juan Tenorio, Edmond Dantes, and Julie d'Motherfucking-Aubigny are ALL confirmed to be Villains.
Good fucking job, Wick.
>>47629695
Very well, I stand corrected. However, I should note that that very section is followed by "It's your call."
John Wick isn't going to burst through your door and take your game away for having badwrongfun, you think killing people will enhance your swashbuckling experience, go ahead.
>>47634016
>John Wick isn't going to burst through your door and take your game away for having badwrongfun
That's actually demonstrably untrue. He's been known to crash the 7th Sea larps at GenCon and both overrule GMs and tell players they're playing wrong. Luckily he has a distinctive look, so if you see him come into the room it's not hard to avoid him. He's one of the main reasons why the 7th Sea larp that Dana was running actually stopped being associated with AEG - just so they had standing to demand he leave instead of loudly shitting on the game in progress.
>I generally just sit in a corner in full plate harness (was given a very nice Eisen card when I showed up to my 1st 7th Sea larp in my harness) with a very large mug of beer, smoke an incense pipe, pick fights with people who annoy me, and bitch to anyone who'll listen about religion and how shit <insert country of choices> beer is, so generally I'm considered to be playing an Eisen "right". He's bitched out my pirate-playing wife before, though, when she stole an unguarded bag of 1000G from the tabletop when nobody was looking. "Heroes don't steal."
>>47634199
>both overrule GMs and tell players they're playing wrong.
it takes a special kind of narcissist to think people give a shit about your opinion if you do this. then again, Uikku is an asshole, so he probably doesn't care because he must show how he is Always Right about His Game.
>>47634199
>He's bitched out my pirate-playing wife before, though, when she stole an unguarded bag of 1000G from the tabletop when nobody was looking. "Heroes don't steal."
you fucking decked him right
>>47635089
No need. As it happens, I'm married to the daughter of one of Denmark's Olympic Judo coaches (Barcelona, Atlanta); she started in Kodokan Judo from the time she could walk, and came up one or two slots short for the US women's team (lightweight; 57kg) a couple of times before moving over into BJJ and stage fighting choreography. She's entirely capable of throwing him through a window or basically removing a limb if she was so inclined.
I've only had to come to her rescue once, and that was when a third guy decided to try and engage her from behind during a bar scuffle at Cincinnati's local theatre bar. She was handling the other two just fine. Shit, that was 11 years ago - the guy who started it *might* have regained the use of his elbow by now.
But in any case, decking Wick would have been counterproductive. IIRC, the other pirates upon whose behalf she was stealing the loot just shot his character anyway. From surprise. Point-blank. I don't know if his PC lived or died, but I didn't see him in the larp area after that during that year.
>>47633458
I wish the art book kept with the pirate rape and not descended into shitty cgi lovecraft art.
>>47638234
I wish Shirow had actually done anything for the past 20 years except for making shitty cgi art and porn.
>>47634199
>>47635313
Holy shit. This sounds just enough like him I actually find myself believing it.
>>47640123
Have played 7th sea larp at Origins. Can confirm that wick shows up and shits on things.
Organizer told us a story about how when the larp started wick would insist on only playing Reis, and would go around punishing bad RP by killing people. That stopped in 2002 or so when poeple stopped showing up because of this, though.
>>47640315
Wick, like Reis, appears to be trying to turn himself into a living meme for superpowers.
>>47633992
>They kill when there is no other way to get justice.
You're a bit retarded aren't you.
>>47634016
Also, you don't stand corrected at all
>>47633784
It was changed quite a bit. Exceptions are mentioned, it's softened up, and generally made much more reasonable.
>>47640315
>2002
It's 2016. You say he hasn't changed a bit?
>>47642386
He's certainly been pretty bad as of 2015. It's hard to imagine that recording the biggest affirmation imaginable (for a narcissist like him) that he's always been at the right's going to do much to change him in such a short time.
>>47643088
Arent a lot of creators in the scene like that though? Its like being adick head is part of success in the Tabletop scene.
>>47644052
Wick's on a different level. He's got being a dick down to an art.
No, really. He released two books about it.
>>47644052
ALL "creative" fields are like that. Artists, writers, actors...basically any field that relies on your being able to turn out original work is populated *almost* exclusively with egomaniacal assholes.
Think about the process by which you become a "professional" in a creative field. You have to have the self-confidence (aka: massive egotism) to put your work out in front of other people who are looking for ANY excuse to reject it and tell you why you're terrible. And each time you get rejected, you have to have the self-confidence (aka: massive egotism) to say to yourself, "no, they're wrong - I actually AM the greatest goddamn actor/writer/singer/etc on the planet and I'm going to prove it to every goddamn one of you." And you go back and start from scratch on your next project and put it out there again, and again, and again. As a rule, it takes between ten and twenty YEARS of constant rejection and criticism before you've developed your skill enough to be able to even have a chance of making a living at doing it. How much self-confidence (aka: massive egotism) does it take to ensure 10-20 years of getting constantly shit upon - without making ends meet - and still keep doing something to a point where you can get it published or picked up by a record label or theatre troupe?
On top of that, once you *do* get good enough you can do something creative at a pro level, about 90% of the time the creative person is going to develop the, "*I* have the power now, I'll show them!" attitude that turns an already egotistical person into a complete asshole.
I'm not saying that creative people being egotistical assholes is in any way OK, or that they shouldn't get bitchslapped for acting as such. But I *understand* how they got that way. It's not OK, but it's also not surprising. it's a natural result of the way the process of becoming a professional "creative" person works.
>>47644052
Is there anybody part of this hobby at the developer level who ISN'T an autist?
>>47648211
Shiny, but I think he's holding one of the swords backwards. And why the bolt between the teeth?
>>47648402
He ate a crossbow and it stuck.
>>47639571
seems very GoT but it's still awesome
>>47649510
High heels REEEEEEEEEEEE
>>47650489
yeah! I mean really! women in heels? this is the 17th century, thats mens wear!
dueling system means no matter how cool the fight looks, you know one of the two runs out of raises first and takes a hit.
also the way parry is written, the guy who goes second doesn't get to do anything but block until he uses his 1 riposte for the round. then his opponent uses HIS one riposte and gains offense again.
>>47651392
The flaw of "person with most raises wins" is true, and could use some sort of houserule to give the weaker opponent a bit of a fighting chance.
However as for parrying, this isn't correct, you can only parry after you've been hit to avoid damage, but there's nothing forcing you (you can just choose to take the damage)
What's more, you actually can't continually parry because you can't use maneuvers consecutively. So you have to look for other options in the mean time. Luckily however your opponent can't continually use slash either, so they have to try using some of their other maneuvers, such as feint and bash.
Given that these maneuvers only deal one wound regardless, you're better off not parrying them and instead trying to take the offence when you have the chance.
I am actually intrigued to see if any "optimal dueling strategies" start to be developed. Obviously a lot of them will fly out the window when you consider that every dueling school has their own maneuver that can completely change their tactics.
>>47652379
ah right. thanks for pointing that out. yeah i'd like to see more maneuvers developed.
ps: captcha, i didn;'t click that one because an open faced sandwhich is just a pile of crap on a slice of bread.
>>47645708
Actually as a writer I've always felt my work was never good ENOUGH, even the stuff I don't send in to get rejected.
I keep doing it though because I want to get better and practice makes perfect and I really enjoy writing.
>>47655333
Are you a professional writer on the level of Terry Goodkind, Jim Bucher, or Stephen King?
>>47655930
Terry Goodkind isn't even a professional writer.
>>47655930
No, not for lack of trying on my part.
Every year I send in another short story or another book or novel or whatever else I can think of, and nobody ever really wants to publish.
The most honest answers I've got from publishers seem to revolve around the mathematical fact that readership in books is declining so publishing a book that they think will mostly just break even due to lack of name-author awareness isn't really worth the financial investment even if my writing isn't actually half bad.
I'm thinking about digital publishing to at least say I have my work out there and build up a portfolio of sorts. Apparently that's a decent way to get yourself published by an actual company these days.
>>47651274
Not for actual combat, though. It's just fashionable.
Is there some rule that you can't use duelist maneuvers against brute squads? I had a player decimate an 8 strength squad with only 3 raises.
>>47658978
>Is there some rule that you can't use duelist maneuvers against brute squads? I had a player decimate an 8 strength squad with only 3 raises.
Unless Wounds =/= Raises against Brute Squad.
>>47658978
>>47659084
RAW I think that's possible, and may even be intended. That said, Slash could very well just be a crazy powerful move. Keep another Brute squad in reserve to close in once a duelist has wasted it?
>>47659192
How it is now, I would need 4, yes four, brute squads of strength 8 to be even a challenge against my players. They took care of 2 brute squads strength 8, with only one of the duelist using his powers. One player wasn't even engaged in the fight. Additionally I used a Danger Point to up the needed number to 15 for a Raise. That means a group of 4, with one duelist, took care of two brute squads of 8. I don't think it's intended that way.
>>47659252
When I first saw the rules I was worried getting Raises would be a problem and players would fail too often.
Now that I'm playing with my group I'm seeing them get so many Raises that I frequently misjudge how much of a threat any situation I put them in is.
>>47658658
Muskateers see no issue with being fashionable on the battlefied!
>>47659948
Historically, the French "musketeers" with the tabards and all (Musketeers du la Garde, etc.) were cavalrymen. Less of a chance of tripping over themselves while walking fast.
>>47659252
I think this game intends brutes to be a narrative speed-bump and not a real challenge, except in super high numbers, and even then, it's more about getting around them than anything else. This is not an uncommon notion carried across many different games, though as a GM myself i understand how that's probably an unsatisfying answer. Basically if I want a fight to be a real challenge, in 1e I'd use henchmen, in 2e I'd use a couple lower strength villains as brute leaders.
>>47660752
There's still a difference between simulating swashbuckling fights between a hero and 8 nameless guards, and the current system, which seems to be aimed at simulating the fight from Hero of two guys versus the entire Qin army.
>>47660888
how do you think changes could be implemented to make them more threatening, but still generally chaff?
the system that I've seen that does nameless chaff fights best is FFG star wars. minion squads or whatever they're called can be very competent, but get less so as members die. compare this to brute squads in say legends of the wulin, or whatever small group thing is in exalted 3e - those are basically pointless to even roll out onto the field, they die basically immediately
On a completely separate note:
Who else thinks that the Vow powers, possessed by the Knights of the Rose and Cross, were awfully underwhelming in the last edition (and hoping for them to get better)?
For those not in the know, the KotR&C (which, it may bear mentioning, are one of the only aspects of the setting written almost exclusively by Wick, throughout all the relevant sourcebooks) are supposedly a group of altruistic heroes and do-gooders throughout Theah. Their secret shtick is that they know what they refer to as "The Secret": that the Third Prophet was false, Sorcery is the result of a demonic bargain and there is a set of forbidden gospels hidden by the Church which espouse that the human soul itself possesses power beyond any sorcery.
To illustrate this, KotR&C characters can take an advantage called "The Vow", which allows them to roll on a table to get a powerful special ability representing the benefits of their enlightened meditations unlocking the true potential of the soul (each roll also requires a roll, by the way, on a permanent injury table, unique in the whole of 7th Sea: unlocking those benefits is apparently so grueling it causes permanent harm even to heroes).
The only problem with this cool theme was that those powers really sucked. "Greater than any sorcery" my ass. The table included powers like "+2 unkept dice to saves against extremes of heat and cold" or "can stay awake for Resolve nights before having to sleep twice as long".
Like, what the fuck?
>>47662227
Imagine the conversation.
>Porte: "THE LAWS OF TIME AND SPACE BEND TO MY WILL."
>KotR&C: "Huh! You know nothing of true power. You may think your magic makes you mighty, but though I may have had to go half blind and crippled in one leg for this, I possess abilities the likes of which you fools could only dream of."
>Porte: "Oh?"
>KotR&C: ":BEHOLD! I can hold my breath for TWICE as long as any regular man!"
>El Fuego Adenture: "Err, I can turn fire into a semi-intelligent bird of solid flame which I can ride across the sky."
>Laerdom: "Yeah, and I can shoot lightning from my fingertips."
>KotR&C: "W-well, that may be true, but I am MARGINALLY BETTER THAN A REGULAR PERSON AT RESISTING THE COLD!"
>Sorte: "I can make someone's own son murder them out of spite with a wave of my hand."
>KotR&C: "BUT DO YOU GET +1 unkept die to serve against fear?! I think not!"
>>47662254
It always felt like those bonuses were meant to be bonuses the KotR&C got from training and they never got around to creating actual Vow powers.
Would of liked something along the lines of no-selling sorcery or doing something along line of aggravated damage to supernatural creatures.
>>47662254
And thats when the Kreuzritter show up with some misreable looking Eisen and ruin everyones day.
>>47662227
>>47662254
>>47662391
Man of Will is a 25 point advantage (20 points for students of Undbendwar) that makes you immune to the repartee system, all mind affecting supernatural powers, all penalties from wounds or pain, and attempts at forcing your behavior through GM use of Drama Dice.
Men of Will shit all over KOTR&C and their soul powers, and they didn't even have to lose an eye for it. It's absurd to imagine that organization was built around "powers" equaling 1 point advantages.
>>47662436
Actually, the Kreuzritter's pet sorcery (Nacht) is also laughably underpowered. Both organizations are made up to be awesome Renaissance ninjas by the fluff, but once you examine their actual abilities you realize most of them have just spent half their character points on stupid gimmicks with so many limitations any other sorcerer (except possibly Sorte types) would laugh them out of the room.
>>47662457
Man of Will is total fucking Uikku's-pet-NPC bullshit to boot
>>47663432
You can take it yourself, though. Then enjoy Uikku's rage as he realizes half his traditional ways for fucking with your character become impossible.
>>47663655
Even better: taking Man of Will prohibits you from taking a Hubris, something which has painfully clearly been put there so that Wick could grin smugly at the player as he dooms their character and say "Well, you did get an extra 10 HP, didn't you? This is the price..."
>>47662254
>Sanderis: I use a Major Favor to make all of them mute.
>>47664101
So? Magic in 7th Sea doesn't rely on spells.
>>47663668
doesn't matter, it's such a snowflake bullshit power even compared to sorcery (or especially compared to it). the sort of shit that never should have been printed. "hurt burr this single investment totally obviates any number of challenges" is shit design; if exalted has taught us anything, it's that.
>>47665011
What isn't snowflake bullshit in 7th Sea (or in swashbuckling genre, for that matter)?
>>47667276
i mean, it's just straight up bad mechanics. the other snowflake stuff, like sorcery, really never gets this powerful even with huge investment. i feel like Man of Will exists solely to give to Rhys
>>47670065
Luckily 2e's closest equivalent, indomitable will, is much more limited. (Spend a hero point and you can't be intimidated, goaded, or seduced.)
I do kind of wonder how this mechanic is supposed to work with Pressure though.
As written, pressure allows you to use social skills to try to coerce a particular action from another. What this means is that it in order for the target to do anything else, they must spend an extra raise.
On the one hand, I think this is a great mechanic because it can be used by and against players fairly easily (Because everyone knows that it would be absolutely cheap if an NPC could rolls diplomacy well enough to force the PCs to believe them.)
This allows social skills to have a little kick to them, without making it entirely ridiculous.
However, looking at indomitable Will, it seems to not really be worth it in the pressure system. A hero point will almost always be more valuable than an additional raise.
I'd probably run it more as indomitable will allowing you to spend a hero point to ignore pressure until the end of the scene.
I really do like the Pressure system though. I feel it could be especially interesting to use in duels as a way of pressuring opponents into only using certain maneuvers. Only downside is using it would require you to use your own actions rather than attacking.
Obvious solution. While the duelist fights his rival, you have the diplomancer watch from the sidelines and use pressure to make the rival fight for crap.
