Thinking back on 7th Sea

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.

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!

How to have interesting extened conflicts

I have been thinking on how some parts of rpgs never seem to turn into the drama intended, but devolve into endless rolls of the dice without any of the buy in and excitement I had hoped for. Lucky for me, the guys at the Narrative Control podcast have been thinking on this as well. A mashup of their ideas in show #65 and my own follows.

Everyone have probably tried to run a game where one guy suddenly is the focus of everything, and the rest is sitting idle. Maybe the thief is checking for traps and picking locks or maybe the netrunner is hacking a computer system. In both cases the rest of the players do nothing. While shared narrative control and kibitzing can help somewhat (like I talked about in my last post), maybe some rule support to keep everyone involved would be a good thing.

Here are the things you can do, and import in your game as rules supporting more engaging play.

1. A Unified Mechanic - One way to make even climbing a cliff or a trek through a snowstorm engaging is to have it use the same game mechanic as the players. Stat up the snow storm, and let it have an AC, attack rolls and defensive maneuvers. Yeah, I know it sounds daft to have the door you are trying to break down or pick the lock have an attack. But, imagine how it "attacks" your concentration as you pick the lock. Maybe the door attacks you and as a result pearls of sweat forms on the forehead of the thief giving him -1 to his picking because his will is strained? The cliff might not maneuver away, but that beast you are trying to rescue up that cliff might be climbing higher! What I'm saying is, let the whole challenge act as more than it's just sitting there. Make it an active participant in the challenge. It sure helps if you can use the same mechanic that you have used since fifth grade while killing orcs, right?
2. It's Not Over Until It's Over - In the marvellously cool game Wushu, everything you as a player say is true. Yes, you can say in the first volley of melee that you strike the villain through the heart. As long as the Threat Rating (I don't remember the specific term) is not down to 0, anything goes! When inventing cool moves is part of the game, everyone listen up just to hear what outrageous stuff their friends is inviting.
3. Let Everyone Pitch In - Closely tied to the last point is the idea that everyone should be able to chip in. If you think the NPC made a lame move, suggest something cooler to the GM! Listen up, game masters! When someone is trying to make your job easier, let them. It's just more engaging for everyone if everyone is engaged. Right?
4. Make It Measurable - There is one thing among all this loose and woozy stuff that I'd suggest you add some crunch to. In order to have tactical options, and in order to make informed choices, the players need information. If you need to figure out the big trap in order to stop the doomsday device, don't just reduce it to a bunch of skill checks. Here is where I differ from the guys on the Narrative Control podcast. I think the skill challenges in D&D4 bores me to tears. With a skill list that short it tales all of two seconds to figure out one skill you need, and a backup. Instead, toss the skill list or make it far longer. Better is to have the players just speak their mind. Whatever they say that sounds cool, investigative or proactive, give them a +1 or an extra die or whatever. Then let them go at the doomsday device. Now for the interesting part. Have a tally of their progress, and make it public. Make them see what made the scales tilt in the preferred direction and what did not. Actions should count, not rolls.

Some of you might think this is just bogus, or maybe newfangled ways to beat down open doors. More power to you! If you have an un-engaging game, try some of these ideas out, or think them over and tell me what worked for you.

I love these ideas.

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.

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.

The value of battlemaps

At our last session of 7th Seas I learned something new about battlemaps.

Have you seen the floorplan in the back of the 7th Sea rules? It depicts a small tavern, with some tables, stools, benches and a bar. Also, there are some stairs, an oar up on a wall, a chandelier and a row of bottles on the walls. Nothing odd or special for a small seaside tavern, eh? No, but also a treasure chest of ideas for what to do when a brawl erupts in that locale.

The first thing my players said when I took it out and placed it in the middle of the table was "oh!" and "ah!". They at once started talking about how cool it would be to grab that oar and whack some bad guy with.

When the fight erupted they were primed for doing cool stuff. Naturally when a woman was treated badly, one proud Castilian declared the ruffian to be lowlife and scum before charging into combat. I guess I don't need to tell you how well this gelled with the mook fighting rules of 7th Seas? Grab the end of a table and turn it over in order to push a brute squad out the door again. Nothing breathes action like disposing of 5 opponents with one attack!

All in all it turned out to be a great fight, and a great gaming session. Not in any way was the battlemap used to plan where to be, or to count squares and distances. The only thing that made it work was the paraphernalia, the extra, the decorations. It was a stark contrast to the hastily drawn squares and corridors I used to make on the Chessex vinyl battlemap we used when playing D&D3.

Visuals matter.

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.

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.

• 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?

My idea is that if you manage to get that in your game, the pace of "brisk succession" I mentioned above might come naturally. If nothing happens for a while, I'll just have someone enter with a loaded gun (hey, in the 17th century you can have guns!) and then add the three points above. Instant "swashbuckliness". Should work, eh?

Swashbuckling, whitebox style

Reading up on the rules for 7th Sea for our game tomorrow I found myself with the idea of a swashbuckler for S&W. My White Box showed up a while ago, and this is a new class for S&W-WB, my first attempt to do anything with WB.

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The following content is hereby designated as Open Game Content via the Open Game Licence.

The Swashbuckler Class

Character Advancement: The Swashbuckler uses the Magic-User advancement for Hit dice and Saves, and the Cleric advancement for Experience.

Weapons and Armour Restrictions: Having trained to strike quick and be light on the feet, Swashbucklers are limited to Leather armour, no shield. Also, no other weapons than swords (long, short) and a dagger may be used.

Saving Throw: Since the Swashbuckler is swift moving, and as such get +2 to attacks (like oil splashes) and spells with an area effect.

Swiftness: The Swashbuckler may roll a Saving Throw to once a round push one item or character in between himself and a foe, or to swiftly transport himself behind an enemy by swinging in low hanging chandeliers . This ability may be used as many times per day as the level of the Swashbuckler.

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Blogging is good marketing!

Some of you surely read Grognardia some time back when James wrote about Daredevils. That post reminded me of why I dislike the gaming genre "pulp". It makes no sense at all, but I have given up hope of that fallacy ever being corrected. What I can understand and appreciate is the search for adventure, plain and simple. Letting go and just do daring deeds and confront villains of dubious character and rescue individuals (of your choice) in distress. That brings me to my latest brainbug, swashbuckling.

I started to plan for a game of 7th Sea a while back, and have now brought the rules on the commuting train in the mornings. Hopefully I will be able to serve up an adventure of panache and style. Right now I think a lot about how to start every fight with a boom, every social encounter with lot of drama and in between I envision chases.

While in that mindset I read James post and felt the urge. As you can see I got a package in the mail with some action adventure. It even included some of the tiniest d20 I've ever seen! Maybe there's even a buck I can swash in the box.