I ran a short arc of a revenge story in AEG's 7th Sea a few years back. The idea of swashbuckling is seldom far from my gaming thoughts, and the game system had enough interesting knobs and dials for me to long to try it out.
When I had decided I wanted to run it, and had read the books, a new problem appeared. The game was set in an imaginary Europe with new names for everything, and magic to boot! I liked the idea of filing off the serial numbers. I remembered that Dave Arneson had thought that taking the adventure into fantasy was a great way to stop arguments about historical minutiae, that was not the problem. The magic on the other hand, was.
For some reason I wanted a regular world, with none of that "gamey stuff". I wanted exciting fencing and swinging in chandeliers, but no fireballs. I also decided to ditch the culture inspired by ancient Norse culture. Those are always corny when done by Americans.
Starting the game it also became clear that even though the game system had some really good ideas, for example the incentives to do dramatic stuff, it did have problems. One of the most glaring ones showed up already in character generation, where the sheer amount of knacks and skills made it take too long to whip up a character. I like that part of a game to be quick and breezy, which is why I fell out of love with GURPS.
Now this weekend when I saw the movie I posted about yesterday, I realized I had been wrong about the magic, though.
While my 7th Sea game was a success, the way that musketeer movie shoved in non-historical air-ships and steampunk features showed me the joy of mash-ups. I still think vikings through an American lens is just corny. But magic, swords, Napoleon, cthulhu, intrigue and lost treasures actually goes just fine together in the soup! One reason I liked the movie was those elements which were contra factual. Hey, what was it Dave had done again?
I'm thinking about revisiting 7th Sea, and this time I'm not going to take things out. I'm going to put more gonzo stuff in! There are still issues with the game system I will address, like a hack to limit the amount of skills you get. Maybe even eliminate the fact that there are skills and knacks. That was a bit fiddly. More of that will be posted here, shortly.
Showing posts with label 7th Sea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 7th Sea. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Monday, April 1, 2013
Swashbuckling!
This Easter weekend I was able to stay home and enjoy some time with my family, even though I was on call and had to work way to much. But, when it was calm we watched a movie. Guess if I suddenly felt the urge to game? It was the 2011 edition of The Three Musketeers, which was rollicking fun. Airships, dashing sword fights and some witty banter. What more can you ask for? Well, maybe some female characters that are not victims or scheming bastards, but I guess I have to blame Dumas for that one.
I'm breaking out my 7th Sea books tonight!
I'm breaking out my 7th Sea books tonight!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Action/Drama/Fate points and player engagement
I was replying in a comment on this post, and realized it was turning into a post of its own. I'll expand all my thoughts below.
The idea was that points which players can use to change probabilities and/or change the game world is bad in a old school game. The perceived threat was that of eliminating the deadliness of the system. Here are some direct feedback on that, and some further thought on the matter.
There are multiple kind of systems for giving the players a way out, and for changing the fact of the game world. I have played multiple systems using those and have some experiences to share.
First, in Warhammer FRP there are something called Fate Points. Those can be used to "save the character from certain death". Suggestions are mitigating the effects of a fall from a cliff, or a critical hit. But, and it's an important but. Once they are gone, they are gone! In a game like WHFRP, which is quite deadly, this is literally a life saver. Will it rob the game of something? Well. I have played with quite a few characters in WHFRP and I tell you that I sweat every time my character takes a hit! Fate points or not. Too see those few points dwindle just reinforce how close to death I just came.
Secondly I want to mention the Drama Dice of 7th Sea. In that system you roll dice depending on your stat and your skill, as a pool. But, you only keep as many as your stat's value. Using the Drama Dice, you basically get more dice to choose from to keep. So, using this mechanic you make it likelier that your character succeeds. These Drama Dice you get for acting in a heroic and swashbuckling manner, i.e. it reinforce the theme of the game. It's a reward mechanic. When I was running 7th Sea, I noticed that the psychological effect of getting a physical token (poker chips in our case), and comparing the amount to the guy sitting next to you, made it work really well to reinforce the theme of the game. Sure, sometimes people chucked in token after token (you can commit them after the fact) on a roll they really wanted to succeed at, but it mostly worked as a prod to act thematically correct.
Thirdly, and finally, I'm coming to Type IV D&D. I played in a campaign up to "Paragon Tier"? See, I have already managed to dismiss the jargon from my head. Anyway, up to what used to be called Name Level. I remember that I once in a while used a Action Point when I wanted to do something, but in that game the "respawn time" of powers was dominating the game so much that yet another mechanic, like getting "blooded" and triggering new effects, made it down in the general noise of game mechanics. Basically, I barely noted those points and they never affected our actions as far as I could see. They surely never did mine.
So, what am I trying to say? I'm saying that having some kind of points or game mechanic to "save your bacon" can work out in many different ways. I would claim, with some emphasis, that the brittleness of characters is not the defining factor of old school play, and that there are more than one way to skin a cat. The cat in this case being giving those points to players. Compare getting xp for gold to the Drama Dice in 7th Sea. Those are both reward mechanics. Also, having dwindling resources can in fact give the game an even tenser feel, and reinforce the dread. If that's what you're after. But, when you add something like a new mechanic to the game, make sure you are not conflicting with other systems in the game, making the effect lessened by it being forgotten or drowned!
I am vary of the idea of giving more spells to neophyte magic users. It change the tone of the game, but I don't think a scarce resource like the Fate Points in WHFRP does. Is it a valid comparison? I don't know.
The idea was that points which players can use to change probabilities and/or change the game world is bad in a old school game. The perceived threat was that of eliminating the deadliness of the system. Here are some direct feedback on that, and some further thought on the matter.
There are multiple kind of systems for giving the players a way out, and for changing the fact of the game world. I have played multiple systems using those and have some experiences to share.
First, in Warhammer FRP there are something called Fate Points. Those can be used to "save the character from certain death". Suggestions are mitigating the effects of a fall from a cliff, or a critical hit. But, and it's an important but. Once they are gone, they are gone! In a game like WHFRP, which is quite deadly, this is literally a life saver. Will it rob the game of something? Well. I have played with quite a few characters in WHFRP and I tell you that I sweat every time my character takes a hit! Fate points or not. Too see those few points dwindle just reinforce how close to death I just came.
Secondly I want to mention the Drama Dice of 7th Sea. In that system you roll dice depending on your stat and your skill, as a pool. But, you only keep as many as your stat's value. Using the Drama Dice, you basically get more dice to choose from to keep. So, using this mechanic you make it likelier that your character succeeds. These Drama Dice you get for acting in a heroic and swashbuckling manner, i.e. it reinforce the theme of the game. It's a reward mechanic. When I was running 7th Sea, I noticed that the psychological effect of getting a physical token (poker chips in our case), and comparing the amount to the guy sitting next to you, made it work really well to reinforce the theme of the game. Sure, sometimes people chucked in token after token (you can commit them after the fact) on a roll they really wanted to succeed at, but it mostly worked as a prod to act thematically correct.
Thirdly, and finally, I'm coming to Type IV D&D. I played in a campaign up to "Paragon Tier"? See, I have already managed to dismiss the jargon from my head. Anyway, up to what used to be called Name Level. I remember that I once in a while used a Action Point when I wanted to do something, but in that game the "respawn time" of powers was dominating the game so much that yet another mechanic, like getting "blooded" and triggering new effects, made it down in the general noise of game mechanics. Basically, I barely noted those points and they never affected our actions as far as I could see. They surely never did mine.
So, what am I trying to say? I'm saying that having some kind of points or game mechanic to "save your bacon" can work out in many different ways. I would claim, with some emphasis, that the brittleness of characters is not the defining factor of old school play, and that there are more than one way to skin a cat. The cat in this case being giving those points to players. Compare getting xp for gold to the Drama Dice in 7th Sea. Those are both reward mechanics. Also, having dwindling resources can in fact give the game an even tenser feel, and reinforce the dread. If that's what you're after. But, when you add something like a new mechanic to the game, make sure you are not conflicting with other systems in the game, making the effect lessened by it being forgotten or drowned!
I am vary of the idea of giving more spells to neophyte magic users. It change the tone of the game, but I don't think a scarce resource like the Fate Points in WHFRP does. Is it a valid comparison? I don't know.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Three combat options
Here are a few more options in combat for the world's most popular frpg, and similar games. The rules in the block below are Open Gaming Content.
These rules came from me thinking on combat in 7th Sea. In that game you have flesh wounds and dramatic wounds. The former you can rack up as many as can be dealt, and only after failing a save do you get serious damage. I thought that maybe that could be used, in a way, to give characters in other games some more staying power.
Pairing that with Hits and Misses, you will probably adjust the power up slightly. Any kind of crits and fumble rule are going to affect the player characters most, since they are present in all fights. But if they also can take some more damage it wont be so hurtful to once in a while be the victim of double damage.
Doing damage by level might be less fun, since it is actually fun to roll dice. On the other hand it do take a while for some people to find the right die, roll it and tell you the result. Having ten players I'd imagine it would be a time saver, though.
Hate them? Love them? Indifferent?
Hits and Misses
Being Hurt
- Every time you roll a natural 1, a complication occurs. It wont necessarily hurt, but it will complicate matters.
- Every time you roll a natural 20, something happens that's good for you. Roll damage as usual, and then double it!
After your HP reaches 0, the Hits and Misses rule no longer apply. Now you are Hurt. When you suffer enough hits to reach the negative of your initial HP you're finally dead.
Damage by level
To speed up play, especially if you have many players, roll one less die and just assume you do your level amount of damage. If you are Hurt, you do half that.
These rules came from me thinking on combat in 7th Sea. In that game you have flesh wounds and dramatic wounds. The former you can rack up as many as can be dealt, and only after failing a save do you get serious damage. I thought that maybe that could be used, in a way, to give characters in other games some more staying power.
Pairing that with Hits and Misses, you will probably adjust the power up slightly. Any kind of crits and fumble rule are going to affect the player characters most, since they are present in all fights. But if they also can take some more damage it wont be so hurtful to once in a while be the victim of double damage.
Doing damage by level might be less fun, since it is actually fun to roll dice. On the other hand it do take a while for some people to find the right die, roll it and tell you the result. Having ten players I'd imagine it would be a time saver, though.
Hate them? Love them? Indifferent?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Fancy moves in combat
After tonight's 7th Sea session I've come to the realization that there's a side effect to trying to make combat more interesting by adding options.
Now we have had a few fights where my players have started to use their fancy moves, paid for with hard earned XP. But, every time someone want to Tag an opponent, or Feint him or Riposte, we have to look it up in the rules.
Guess which move is most commonly used? The one you first bothered to look up, since that's the one you remember the procedure for.
Somebody is right now probably thinking I must have missed the whole conversation about how Feats and Powers not make combat more interesting, just take longer. Yeah, I know. Sometimes it takes a while to penetrate this thick skull of mine.
Seriously, though.
This makes me think of general resolution mechanics. It's so much easier to add options and have complexity in a system if everything you do is based on the same mechanic. D&D 4th ed. does that, but only makes it dull. I on the other hand feel the idea have merit, knowing how well the basic percentile roll works for any kind of action in RQ and other BRP based games. In 7th Sea you sure can have interesting combats, but every option is handled differently. Some people like so called sub-systems. I'm less than charmed.
A general resolution mechanic, and some more options in combat. That's something to chew on.
Now we have had a few fights where my players have started to use their fancy moves, paid for with hard earned XP. But, every time someone want to Tag an opponent, or Feint him or Riposte, we have to look it up in the rules.
Guess which move is most commonly used? The one you first bothered to look up, since that's the one you remember the procedure for.
Somebody is right now probably thinking I must have missed the whole conversation about how Feats and Powers not make combat more interesting, just take longer. Yeah, I know. Sometimes it takes a while to penetrate this thick skull of mine.
Seriously, though.
This makes me think of general resolution mechanics. It's so much easier to add options and have complexity in a system if everything you do is based on the same mechanic. D&D 4th ed. does that, but only makes it dull. I on the other hand feel the idea have merit, knowing how well the basic percentile roll works for any kind of action in RQ and other BRP based games. In 7th Sea you sure can have interesting combats, but every option is handled differently. Some people like so called sub-systems. I'm less than charmed.
A general resolution mechanic, and some more options in combat. That's something to chew on.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
How to create a swashbuckling campaign in no time at all
This is one post players in my present 7th Sea game might want to avoid. I don't say that because I'm going to spoil any important parts of the plot, but because I will come across as disorganized and confused.
Many bloggers have posted about how to set up "sandbox" campaigns. Personally I'm not yet a convert to that style, so I will post something different. I'm not sure what can be learnt from my experiences, but if my suggestions are not good advice I at least hope some of it might be amusing.
So. This time I had gotten a request for a game of pirates and swashbuckling. I own 7th Sea, so I suggested that. Now it was time to think of some way to start it off. Since the theme didn't fit very well with meeting in a tavern to go off and fight monsters I decided to start everything on a ship.
Now what?
Swashbuckling means a merry chase round and round and breathtaking escapes and chases, right? Ok. Then I'll start with a fight, and let them get hold of a treasure map. Either they grab it from the villain when winning the fight, or they get hold of it because he drops it. Yeah, I know. But, I figured it kind of fit the style of story. Then they might go off and try to find the treasure and I can have someone mysteriously trying to stop them, or if the go ashore to find out more I can have people chasing them and trying to get the map back.
As you might note I had no master plan. I kind of figured they would meet the villain whose map they had gotten in the end at the treasure site, but that was it.
So what you need for a campaign are three things
1. a location that reinforce the theme, a ship.
2. a villain
3. a MacGuffin, the map and the treasure
Then it might help to have a few outs for the likely roads taken, like "Somebody chasing them if they go to A and somebody chasing them if they go to B."
After this I had no idea. I did buy a pile of adventures for Flashing Blades when they were on sale at DrivethruRPG, so I figured I could somehow contrive to place them in front of the players if they went off in unexpected directions.
Now we have just began to entangle us in a few of those adventures and I have introduced a whole crowd of conspiracies and secret societies. I have a strong suspicion it will become more and more twisted, and considering I have no idea how it fits together I wonder what will happen?
What amazes me most of all is that they still haven't tried to get hold of that treasure from the map.
Many bloggers have posted about how to set up "sandbox" campaigns. Personally I'm not yet a convert to that style, so I will post something different. I'm not sure what can be learnt from my experiences, but if my suggestions are not good advice I at least hope some of it might be amusing.
So. This time I had gotten a request for a game of pirates and swashbuckling. I own 7th Sea, so I suggested that. Now it was time to think of some way to start it off. Since the theme didn't fit very well with meeting in a tavern to go off and fight monsters I decided to start everything on a ship.
Now what?
Swashbuckling means a merry chase round and round and breathtaking escapes and chases, right? Ok. Then I'll start with a fight, and let them get hold of a treasure map. Either they grab it from the villain when winning the fight, or they get hold of it because he drops it. Yeah, I know. But, I figured it kind of fit the style of story. Then they might go off and try to find the treasure and I can have someone mysteriously trying to stop them, or if the go ashore to find out more I can have people chasing them and trying to get the map back.
As you might note I had no master plan. I kind of figured they would meet the villain whose map they had gotten in the end at the treasure site, but that was it.
So what you need for a campaign are three things
1. a location that reinforce the theme, a ship.
2. a villain
3. a MacGuffin, the map and the treasure
Then it might help to have a few outs for the likely roads taken, like "Somebody chasing them if they go to A and somebody chasing them if they go to B."
After this I had no idea. I did buy a pile of adventures for Flashing Blades when they were on sale at DrivethruRPG, so I figured I could somehow contrive to place them in front of the players if they went off in unexpected directions.
Now we have just began to entangle us in a few of those adventures and I have introduced a whole crowd of conspiracies and secret societies. I have a strong suspicion it will become more and more twisted, and considering I have no idea how it fits together I wonder what will happen?
What amazes me most of all is that they still haven't tried to get hold of that treasure from the map.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Why I don't play 55 session campaigns
I knows many of those of you who read this blog also read Grognardia. Perhaps that mean you have followed the adventures of James' groups in Dwimmermount. Then you have probably also noted that they have played at least 55 sessions in that campaign. I don't play games like that.
Tonight we had another session of 7th Sea, and we managed to play (I think) roughly 2 or maybe 2 and a half hours. This is how much time we have available after working, grabbing a bite, all assembling at my friends and just chat a bit before playing. Now, if you want to feel like you are not playing a online ply by post game where a single fight can go on for weeks, you want to focus. That focus means you want to have everything happen at a somewhat accelerated pace.
Imagine you roll up a character, and decide that his motivating factor is to find the one armed man who murdered his father. If that is not something that will just fade away, you will have to make sure it happens to play a part in a fairly short time, in game. This is just an artifact of the slow pace of our game. If two months have to pass in game before that plot start to develop, it will mean maybe 150 sessions. 150 weekly sessions mean everyone will have forgotten that part, and the player will fell like the GM ignored his interesting story hook.
I'm not sure I like this, but the alternatives are not that many when you have at most 3 hours a week to set aside for a game. Anyway. That is the reason there wont be any session report from our 55th session if this game. I'm guesstimating 5-10 sessions more and then it will be a new game.
Tonight we had another session of 7th Sea, and we managed to play (I think) roughly 2 or maybe 2 and a half hours. This is how much time we have available after working, grabbing a bite, all assembling at my friends and just chat a bit before playing. Now, if you want to feel like you are not playing a online ply by post game where a single fight can go on for weeks, you want to focus. That focus means you want to have everything happen at a somewhat accelerated pace.
Imagine you roll up a character, and decide that his motivating factor is to find the one armed man who murdered his father. If that is not something that will just fade away, you will have to make sure it happens to play a part in a fairly short time, in game. This is just an artifact of the slow pace of our game. If two months have to pass in game before that plot start to develop, it will mean maybe 150 sessions. 150 weekly sessions mean everyone will have forgotten that part, and the player will fell like the GM ignored his interesting story hook.
I'm not sure I like this, but the alternatives are not that many when you have at most 3 hours a week to set aside for a game. Anyway. That is the reason there wont be any session report from our 55th session if this game. I'm guesstimating 5-10 sessions more and then it will be a new game.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
To save a king, swashbuckling style
This last Tuesday we had our latest 7th Sea session, after having had a hiatus of a week. You could say a lot about that session, but it was not event less!
After having met the rector of the university, and heard that Francis old friend now was a spy, they decided to go shopping for some fancy clothing suitable for a night at the theatre. Now they had agreed to try to help find that list of contacts for the Invisible University. Cloak and daggers!
Suddenly Juan saw his hated half-brother in the crowd! Without thinking he drew his rapier and started to run. At once someone yelled "Assasin!" and all hell broke loose.
A shot was heard, and suddenly a gilded carriage crashed down the street, mowing down pedestrians like harvesting wheat. From nowhere rushed black clad people with blue sashes, attacking and pushing people aside. Francis got pushed into an alley and beaten, until he managed to shake them off him.
Anna Maria grabbed the reins of the stampeding horses and surfed on the back of one horse, trying to make them stop. At the same time a masked figure jumped on top the carriage and gallantly greeted her as the whole vehicle at last slowed down. She got down, but as another shot ran out an arm from the carriage grabbed her inside.
Juan had, at the same time, fenced his way out of a bunch of the guys with blue sashes, using elbows, knees and sword. Now he thought he saw his brother again, this time running after the newly started carriage. Quickly he drew his gun an shot the "sash" blocking his sight. Naturally, his brother was then nowhere to be seen, but since the vehicle ahead was speeding up he must have jumped inside.
A Olympic quality sprint later, Juan caught up with and threw himself onto the rear of that horse powered mode of transport, and feet first he then entered the vehicle after having clinged onto its back for a few seconds. Suprised he gazed up into the eyes of his king.
Francis now came out of the alley, having at gunpoint gotten the information that all this was arranged by "the cardinal".
Much later they had gotten the promise of a favour of the Castillian king, and with new fancy clothes where ready to go to the theatre.
Sometimes it's fun with some political intrigue and assassination attempts. I guess this is why some people prefer games where intrigue and conspiracies about. When was this first tried? My first thought is Flashing Blades (and Flashing Blades modules are what we are playing next...), but might be wrong.
After having met the rector of the university, and heard that Francis old friend now was a spy, they decided to go shopping for some fancy clothing suitable for a night at the theatre. Now they had agreed to try to help find that list of contacts for the Invisible University. Cloak and daggers!
Suddenly Juan saw his hated half-brother in the crowd! Without thinking he drew his rapier and started to run. At once someone yelled "Assasin!" and all hell broke loose.
A shot was heard, and suddenly a gilded carriage crashed down the street, mowing down pedestrians like harvesting wheat. From nowhere rushed black clad people with blue sashes, attacking and pushing people aside. Francis got pushed into an alley and beaten, until he managed to shake them off him.
Anna Maria grabbed the reins of the stampeding horses and surfed on the back of one horse, trying to make them stop. At the same time a masked figure jumped on top the carriage and gallantly greeted her as the whole vehicle at last slowed down. She got down, but as another shot ran out an arm from the carriage grabbed her inside.
Juan had, at the same time, fenced his way out of a bunch of the guys with blue sashes, using elbows, knees and sword. Now he thought he saw his brother again, this time running after the newly started carriage. Quickly he drew his gun an shot the "sash" blocking his sight. Naturally, his brother was then nowhere to be seen, but since the vehicle ahead was speeding up he must have jumped inside.
A Olympic quality sprint later, Juan caught up with and threw himself onto the rear of that horse powered mode of transport, and feet first he then entered the vehicle after having clinged onto its back for a few seconds. Suprised he gazed up into the eyes of his king.
Francis now came out of the alley, having at gunpoint gotten the information that all this was arranged by "the cardinal".
Much later they had gotten the promise of a favour of the Castillian king, and with new fancy clothes where ready to go to the theatre.
Sometimes it's fun with some political intrigue and assassination attempts. I guess this is why some people prefer games where intrigue and conspiracies about. When was this first tried? My first thought is Flashing Blades (and Flashing Blades modules are what we are playing next...), but might be wrong.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Play experience - different rules for different feel, in one game
Last night we played my weekly 7th Sea game. It was a session where we really exercised the rules. It made me think about different subsystems.
One of my players wasn't able to participate last time. He was just about to engage with a pirate captain for a duel when we had to end the session, so we just had a cut scene, since he had been separated from the rest of the groups since then. That duel was done with the full combat rules. Initiative was rolled, action dice used to take actions and drama dice used to boost rolls. We tried both passive and active defences. A thorough exercise.
We also had another fight, with the other two players fighting pirate ruffians in a bar. The pirated was about to thrash the place, and our stalwart heroes stepped in when it turned out that the Ladies present was about to become hurt. In this fight we rolled rolled to hit, using the Brute Squad mook rules, before the antagonists were knocked out. Here we also used drama dice to boost our swashbuckling skills. There was swinging in chandeliers, tables overturned and women daintily replaced on chairs while parrying fencing attacks and spinning around.
Afterwards it felt like the first fight, while tense and exciting, was more of a slog than the latter one. I'm not sure I'm ready to say that the mook fighting was "better" or more interesting. They were different things. This clearly showed what can be done with having different rules for different things.
Having rules emphasize theme is something I mentioned in a post a few days ago. That is not a new idea, but I'm thinking that 7th Sea is the clearest example I've seen of including multiple themes in one rule book.
This is almost like playing different games. Sometimes you want to wade through opponents, and you might want to play Wushu. Some time you might want to do tactical combat with all the dials to tweak for optimum stance, attack, defence and resource utilization, and you might want to play Riddle of Steel. You play different games to satisfy different urges. The idea in 7th Sea seem to be that you can have different urges within the same game, and be bale to scratch all those itches by different methods. I'm not sure I've ever seen it purposefully designed that way before. It's an interesting idea to think about how to make that happen in other games by having some house rules that only take effect when you feel like it, not when a specific situation occur.
One of my players wasn't able to participate last time. He was just about to engage with a pirate captain for a duel when we had to end the session, so we just had a cut scene, since he had been separated from the rest of the groups since then. That duel was done with the full combat rules. Initiative was rolled, action dice used to take actions and drama dice used to boost rolls. We tried both passive and active defences. A thorough exercise.
We also had another fight, with the other two players fighting pirate ruffians in a bar. The pirated was about to thrash the place, and our stalwart heroes stepped in when it turned out that the Ladies present was about to become hurt. In this fight we rolled rolled to hit, using the Brute Squad mook rules, before the antagonists were knocked out. Here we also used drama dice to boost our swashbuckling skills. There was swinging in chandeliers, tables overturned and women daintily replaced on chairs while parrying fencing attacks and spinning around.
Afterwards it felt like the first fight, while tense and exciting, was more of a slog than the latter one. I'm not sure I'm ready to say that the mook fighting was "better" or more interesting. They were different things. This clearly showed what can be done with having different rules for different things.
Having rules emphasize theme is something I mentioned in a post a few days ago. That is not a new idea, but I'm thinking that 7th Sea is the clearest example I've seen of including multiple themes in one rule book.
This is almost like playing different games. Sometimes you want to wade through opponents, and you might want to play Wushu. Some time you might want to do tactical combat with all the dials to tweak for optimum stance, attack, defence and resource utilization, and you might want to play Riddle of Steel. You play different games to satisfy different urges. The idea in 7th Sea seem to be that you can have different urges within the same game, and be bale to scratch all those itches by different methods. I'm not sure I've ever seen it purposefully designed that way before. It's an interesting idea to think about how to make that happen in other games by having some house rules that only take effect when you feel like it, not when a specific situation occur.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Instant swashbuckling, with fast pacing and a fun game
I have been requested to run a game of 7th Sea. This caused me to take down one of those games I have on my shelf which had not seen any action, and make a concentrated effort to make it shine. This brings back the question, before mentioned on this blog, of pacing a game. A game like 7th Sea is very much a game about pacing.
Swashbuckling means you have to keep the pace brisk, and the mood has to be one of adventure and daring. My friends have started to make characters, and while we have decided to start the game at sea, we will probably try to swing from at least one chandelier, and at least have one chase involving horse dawn carriages. My image of how swashbuckling works, is to have iconic settings and iconic dramatic situations presented in swift succession to get that feeling we all look for in such a game.
Now, anyone can line up a few villains, a few chases and a fencing scene or two. Making it sing and dance demands a rhythm, a beat, to keep everyone dancing the same dance.
Swashbuckling is, I claim, not a genre, but a way to approach your game. I suggest the following.
Swashbuckling means you have to keep the pace brisk, and the mood has to be one of adventure and daring. My friends have started to make characters, and while we have decided to start the game at sea, we will probably try to swing from at least one chandelier, and at least have one chase involving horse dawn carriages. My image of how swashbuckling works, is to have iconic settings and iconic dramatic situations presented in swift succession to get that feeling we all look for in such a game.
Now, anyone can line up a few villains, a few chases and a fencing scene or two. Making it sing and dance demands a rhythm, a beat, to keep everyone dancing the same dance.
Swashbuckling is, I claim, not a genre, but a way to approach your game. I suggest the following.
- Chases - there must be quick transitions between scenes. If you don't just gloss over a bit of travel, it should be a chase.
- Witty banter - whatever you do, you have to whip out witty one liners. The problem hwre of course is that not all of us are that quick thinking. 7th Sea have something called The Repartee system, usable for tauting and intimidating people while you cross swords. I like that game system support for such a thing.
- Swinging, sliding and jumping - I designed a S&W swashbuckler class in an earlier post, and tried to get this in there. I think swinging from chandeliers is the thing for swashbuckling. Oddly, most gamesystem give you penalties when doing something at the same time as swinging a sword. To make this kind of action happen you should give bonuses for every action you take while fighting! The only game I know of that does it is Wushu. 7th Sea uses something called Drama Dice, which you can use to increase the chance of success. A good idea, but maybe having to roll at all is a bad idea?
Thursday, July 1, 2010
An insight into "rules lite" systems
Yesterday we met for the first real session of 7th Sea, the new game in my "indie Wednesday" group. We had met once before but had not finished making characters. This time I had decided to set a time when everything had to be done, so we could play at least one scene. Having accomplished that goal I was struck by a sudden insight about "rules lite" systems.
I know some of my readers are familiar with The Bat in the Attic blog, and might have noticed the posts about GURPS there a while back. If you would have asked me two weeks ago if I wanted to ever pick up my GURPS books again, I would horrified have said "Never!". After last night, I think I might have changed my mind, slightly.
Just like GURPS, 7th Sea is a game where you build a character from points. Just like GURPS, there are dozens of things to spend those points on and choosing can take a while. A long while. That was really my main beef with GURPS.
Looking closer at the rules in GURPS, both from The Bat posts and my own copies, I realize it can be a fairly smooth game. On the other hand, if you spend all that time making characters, you not only feel an urge to cushion those Player Characters from danger (as a GM) but also risk loosing all interest in the game if it takes two sessions until you get to roll dice.
I don't know if I'd call GURPS a "rules lite" system, but it sure looks like a lot of the clunkyness can be found in the character generation system with point builds. This brings me to my newfound insight and hypothesis that the "rules lite" aspects that are so fondly spoken of in the OSR, is mostly the fact that the games most talked about are games where you get to dive into the action, right from the start. The reason "rules lite" is so popular is that "rules lite" = no point buy systems.
There, now go find a game popular in the OSR which have a quick character generation system with complex rules once play starts. I think that combo could be a seller.
I know some of my readers are familiar with The Bat in the Attic blog, and might have noticed the posts about GURPS there a while back. If you would have asked me two weeks ago if I wanted to ever pick up my GURPS books again, I would horrified have said "Never!". After last night, I think I might have changed my mind, slightly.
Just like GURPS, 7th Sea is a game where you build a character from points. Just like GURPS, there are dozens of things to spend those points on and choosing can take a while. A long while. That was really my main beef with GURPS.
Looking closer at the rules in GURPS, both from The Bat posts and my own copies, I realize it can be a fairly smooth game. On the other hand, if you spend all that time making characters, you not only feel an urge to cushion those Player Characters from danger (as a GM) but also risk loosing all interest in the game if it takes two sessions until you get to roll dice.
I don't know if I'd call GURPS a "rules lite" system, but it sure looks like a lot of the clunkyness can be found in the character generation system with point builds. This brings me to my newfound insight and hypothesis that the "rules lite" aspects that are so fondly spoken of in the OSR, is mostly the fact that the games most talked about are games where you get to dive into the action, right from the start. The reason "rules lite" is so popular is that "rules lite" = no point buy systems.
There, now go find a game popular in the OSR which have a quick character generation system with complex rules once play starts. I think that combo could be a seller.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
What's the probability? AEG knows!
Remember the last post? I did find something yesterday that made me want to post a follow up.
Have you scratched your head about dice pool based systems? Those really drive me crazy when it comes to probabilities.
When AEG once printed the Game Masters' Guide to 7th Sea, designed by John Wick, they included something really nice, a table of probabilities.
If you own a copy of the GMG, turn to page 203 and you'll see the probabilities of reaching the different Target Numbers with different sized dice pools.
A big Thank You! to AEG for that table!
I wish every game designer included such a table in their game.
Have you scratched your head about dice pool based systems? Those really drive me crazy when it comes to probabilities.
When AEG once printed the Game Masters' Guide to 7th Sea, designed by John Wick, they included something really nice, a table of probabilities.
If you own a copy of the GMG, turn to page 203 and you'll see the probabilities of reaching the different Target Numbers with different sized dice pools.
A big Thank You! to AEG for that table!
I wish every game designer included such a table in their game.
Monday, June 1, 2009
PDF books, or how to pay more for less
I guess by now everyone have noticed that the business of traditional gaming products on dead trees are not the place to make big bucks. Not that it ever was a money maker, but the hobby are transitioning to electronic sales for a reason. While I readily see the advantages from a producer perspective I am also kind of vary of this development, and not only for nostalgic reasons. Fairly recently I bought some pdfs and I'll tell you about my experiences and conclusions. How does pdf compare to physical game books?
On DriveThruRPG they had a sale when it was time for "GM Day". Since I had just got hold of 7th Sea, I felt some stuff for Flashing Blades might give me inspiration. The adventures where fairly cheap and I bought all I could find, all four of them. They cost $2.10 USD and it felt like a decent deal. Now when I looked them up they were marked at $7 but striked through and reduced to $2.80 which gives me the suspicion that DriveThruRPG is one of those places which never sells their stock for what they claim is "full price". In total I paid $8.4 USD for the bunch.
Since I prefer to have my gaming stuff on paper, which for me is easier to cram in a pocket, read without electricity and for making notices on, I decided to have them printed. But, just stealing the resources of my workplace wasn't what I had in mind. Yes, I said steal. How many of you dear readers have a deal with your boss about printing game stuff at work? Without paying? Didn't think so.
At my local print shop (the good one, not the bad one where the cranky persons worked) they could make booklets of my pdfs, full letter size so I could read the slightly blurred text. They also gave me the option of getting cardstock for the covers and the front page illustration in colour. Now if this seem excessive let me remind you that this was done to compare a printed game book to a pdf. All in all I paid $32 USD for this. That makes it $10.1 USD per book.
Now when I look at those books at, say Noble Knight Games, they will cost you roughly $5 USD. All four plus shipping to me here in Ontario adds up to $26.69 which means $6.67 USD per book. Since none of the books available at the Knight were mint I guess we could add a few bucks to that total to compensate. Still, cheaper than the pdf.
Why is pdf sales such a big thing then? Well, it's not hard to see why. Printing costs, warehousing and costs for shipping from the printer is probably going to be a major (if not the major) cost in producing a game book. Imagine if you could get some other poor sucker to pay that cost! Frankly, that is what's key to pdf sales. I wonder how many gamers out there who actually go through the pain to get themselves good looking results, like I did? If the product is just black and white, maybe a plain print out on the office printer is "good enough", since it's "free". Once when I complained on the Kenzer message boards about the idiocy of publishing a 200+ page book only in pdf, someone told me they could get a hardcover printed from that at a local print shop, and without paying a pint of blood. I was damn tempted to take him up on the offer. Seriously, where do they have print shops that can do that?
My conclusions from my experiences is that this pdf renaissance is fuelled by companies whose employees print stuff they are not supposed to at work. Otherwise I can hardly understand how it makes economic sense. Unless you have good equipment and pay good dollars you will have a sheaf of black and white papers (probably lesser quality paper than the generic game book, and maybe even not double sided) and not a game book. You just paid more money, for less. Congratulations!
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