Can we now admit the new 7th Sea is floundering?

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From an outside looking in impression I find 7th Sea to be all flash no substance. Great art, clever enough mechanics but nothing substantial.

Now I'm not pitching this as an argument and I'd be happy to be shown otherwise, like I said this is an outside impression.

So in that light other than the pseudo history metaplot/background what's exciting about this game?

Why should I add it to my list of games to get or even. I've up the list to get now?

Or is the OP right and this game has stalled out of the gate?
 
I tried running Seventh Sea for two sessions. The group gave up with a sigh of relief. It's not terrible, but there was lots that didn't work right from the word go (the pre-plotted player stories), and the system left me exhausted as GM. I couldn't challenge the players, I couldn't run a social challenge, and each dice roll involved a lot of consideration of raises and complications. It also never gelled with the players. The setting also irritated me; I'd rather have had something either more fantastic, further from history, or actual Europe with the addition of fantasy elements.

There are good ideas there- some of the schools of magic, how secret societies work, and how villains work. The duelling system should have been cool (the central system worked for duelling, just not for anything else). But since the core didn't work, neither did the good ideas.
 
They were aiming for something like the preceding game, Legend of the Five Rings: 7 to 8 very distinct character origin choices rather than 20 complex and blurry ones that require genuine research to even understand, let alone play. Real history is fun for a minority of us, but an intimidating wall of facts for most.
This. Very much this.
 
7th Sea 1st Ed had two great ideas going for it. The first was to give players the license, indeed encouraged them, to be flamboyant in a way that was (relatively) unique at the time. Previously most games were roll to hit, check charts, do damage to some degree or other.
The second was the addition of sword schools which captured the idea of swashbuckling very well.
The problems with 1st ed were the roll and keep trait made traits overpowered, the combat could be very, very slow and then there was the setting which had some good bits and some bad bits. The game started okay and then both power crept with supplements and got more and more weird.
2nd ed just died on its arse though. The new mechanic killed all dramatic tension, swapping it for narrative control and consequences... which basically quadrupled the GMs effort. The sword schools were taken out and shot from anything other than a powergamers perspective as they suddenly had zero real flavour and far too much death dealing capability compared to non swordsman. And a whole host of advantages were added that bypassed roleplaying, rolls or any of that annoying interactivity for an immediate result.

I liked, really liked 1st ed despite its numerous flaws.. but I loathed 2nd ed.
In the end I just rewrote the 1st ed system... it started as house rules and grew. And it still has some of the same flaws (but hopefully fewer).
 
7th Sea 1st Ed had two great ideas going for it. The first was to give players the license, indeed encouraged them, to be flamboyant in a way that was (relatively) unique at the time. Previously most games were roll to hit, check charts, do damage to some degree or other.
The second was the addition of sword schools which captured the idea of swashbuckling very well.
The problems with 1st ed were the roll and keep trait made traits overpowered, the combat could be very, very slow and then there was the setting which had some good bits and some bad bits. The game started okay and then both power crept with supplements and got more and more weird.
2nd ed just died on its arse though. The new mechanic killed all dramatic tension, swapping it for narrative control and consequences... which basically quadrupled the GMs effort. The sword schools were taken out and shot from anything other than a powergamers perspective as they suddenly had zero real flavour and far too much death dealing capability compared to non swordsman. And a whole host of advantages were added that bypassed roleplaying, rolls or any of that annoying interactivity for an immediate result.

I liked, really liked 1st ed despite its numerous flaws.. but I loathed 2nd ed.
In the end I just rewrote the 1st ed system... it started as house rules and grew. And it still has some of the same flaws (but hopefully fewer).
7th Sea 1st ed was basically an attempt to use the same system as Legend of the Five Rings in a new genre. And given that it came out in 1999 or 2000, it's a good decade or so beyond the days of looking up results on tables.

The rst, schools, Roll and Keep and so on, were all artefacts of the L5R game that it was an evolution of.
 
True enough Stevethulhu Stevethulhu but L5R was way more deadly and also much harder to be very flamboyant (without dying horribly). The L5R schools were also much simpler (1st ed)... and somehow 7th sea seemed to manage to be more exuberant?
 
7th Sea just won a number of ENnies: Product of the Year (7th Sea Core rulebook), Silver Best Game (7th Sea Core Rulebook), Silver Best Supplement (7th Sea: Pirate Nations), Gold Best Free Product (7th Sea: Basic Rules), Gold Best Rules (7th Sea Core Rulebook) and Silver Best Cartography (7th Sea: Map of Théah)... :rolleyes:
 
True enough Stevethulhu Stevethulhu but L5R was way more deadly and also much harder to be very flamboyant (without dying horribly). The L5R schools were also much simpler (1st ed)... and somehow 7th sea seemed to manage to be more exuberant?
I never really played 7th sea, so I can't comment on how deadly or not it might be. L5R 1 was certainly a meat grinder, though. That said, I'd like to play it again, with a few house rules.
 
I haven't read one good review about 7th Sea (at least second edition). I read a blurb about the setting of the game when I found out about it hoping it was set in real history or at the very least an alternate history of our real world. I was disappointed and didn't pull the trigger.
 
To be honest, I think John Wick's best designing days are behind him. I haven't read anything good about 7th Sea 2nd edition. And while both Houses of the Blooded and Blood & Honour had some good stuff in them, there were just enough problems to make both games at best hard to play. And at worst, unplayable.
 
What would be John Wick's masterpiece?
 
Makes you wonder who were all the people voting for it for the ENnie Awards.
Generally speaking, indie designs are much more popular in Internet that in face-to-face gaming, IMO. If you visit rpggeek.com, indie games have a disproportionated presence in the rank. But they still put COC first, so everything's OK XD

What I mean is: awards, specially Internet awards, don't reflect gamers preferences.
 
I absolutely love L5R, and have run 4th edition extensively. Despite my setting concerns with 7th Sea (there's good stuff there as well as stuff I found awkward), I'm half tempted to sort out a 7th Sea 2e "back conversion" to simplified Roll and Keep.
 
I wonder if simplified is somewhat overrated. 7th Sea 1st ed needs to be cleaned up and speeded up, but simplification implies removing some or indeed many of the interesting ideas or mechanics. Could the knack list be trimmed? Yes. Could combat be do with being faster? Definitely. Should sword schools be simplified? No that is where 2nd ed went wildly off course.

IMO gamers like some crunch, not Living Steel crunch, but some and often with regards to their characters abilities / capabilities.. hence why magic item books, crafting rules, and various magic systems, spells and addendums exist for so many games. Hence weakening sword school options and flavour would be bad.
 
In the area of purely anecdotal evidence, Numenara got a video game release, but 7th Sea's attempt at a video game Kickstarter bombed pretty massively.

Not really a fair comparison: it's more like, "a video game got a Numenara release". It was an existing highly successful kickstarter (due to being pitched as a "spiritual sequel" to a legendary cult classic CRPG, by many of the original designers) that got moved to Numenara halfway through, purely because the designers liked the setting.

Anecdotally, of the grand total of two gaming groups I know that played 7th Sea 1st, one of them loves 7th Sea 2nd and I've lost track of the other. Personally I backed the Kickstarter but haven't had time to read any of the books because I have SO MANY OTHERS I've been buying from drivethru and still haven't read...
 
To be honest, I think John Wick's best designing days are behind him.

I don't think that's entirely fair - or determinable. He's working on 7th Sea now, but we don't know what he'll move to next.

Personally, I think Wick is at his best when he's working on a small, tight design that deals with a single specific theme, setting or high concept. His Little Games series are all excellent, IMHO. The trouble is that "small, tight design dealing with a single specific concept" is exactly the opposite of what 7th Sea is.
 
Not really a fair comparison: it's more like, "a video game got a Numenara release". It was an existing highly successful kickstarter (due to being pitched as a "spiritual sequel" to a legendary cult classic CRPG, by many of the original designers) that got moved to Numenara halfway through, purely because the designers liked the setting.

Fair enough, I didn't pay that close of attention.

Although, maybe it wasn't a completely unfair comparison considering all of the "Day One" editions of the Numenara game sitting on shelves around here. At least locally it seems like people cared about as much about that as folks in general seemed to care about the 7th Sea game.
 
I don't think that's entirely fair - or determinable. He's working on 7th Sea now, but we don't know what he'll move to next.

Personally, I think Wick is at his best when he's working on a small, tight design that deals with a single specific theme, setting or high concept. His Little Games series are all excellent, IMHO. The trouble is that "small, tight design dealing with a single specific concept" is exactly the opposite of what 7th Sea is.
I'm not so sure. I think his glory days are absolutely behind him and games like Houses of the Blooded, Blood and Honour and now 7th Sea 2nd ed show how incoherent his design ideas are. And also how times have moved on since he was at his peak. And don't get me started on just how damaging his Play Dirty advice can be for your gaming group.

And even the poster child for John Wick games, Legend of the Five Rings, had massive input in terms of mechanics from David Williams. Not to mention the world building that came from the other members of the Alderac Entertainment Group.

Don't get me wrong, I was a massive fan of John Wick and I admire his relentless confidence. But these days, he seems incapable of actually finishing a game, derides many aspects of RPGs such as combat and having a setting that makes sense in the context of the game you're trying to promote. And generally trolls people to get a reaction.

He's an important figure in RPG history, but his glory time was between 1996 and 2002. Now, I cna't help but feel he's starting to look like a bit of a dinosaur.
 
I'm not so sure. I think his glory days are absolutely behind him and games like Houses of the Blooded, Blood and Honour and now 7th Sea 2nd ed show how incoherent his design ideas are. And also how times have moved on since he was at his peak. And don't get me started on just how damaging his Play Dirty advice can be for your gaming group.

...

Don't get me wrong, I was a massive fan of John Wick and I admire his relentless confidence. But these days, he seems incapable of actually finishing a game, derides many aspects of RPGs such as combat and having a setting that makes sense in the context of the game you're trying to promote. And generally trolls people to get a reaction.

I love Houses, but it's very much a PvP game, and I can see why a lot of people would hate it as a result; there's also a pretty direct line from it to 7th Sea.

I think ultimately, like many RPG pedagogues, some of the things Wick has said are perfect for some groups, but you need to understand your group, your game and your goals before realising if the advice is good or not.
 
I think ultimately, like many RPG pedagogues, some of the things Wick has said are perfect for some groups, but you need to understand your group, your game and your goals before realising if the advice is good or not.

This. I was around for the Great REEEing when Play Dirty was originally released, and I've never seen a better example of gamer PTSD. For players with underdeveloped amygdala or an unhealthy conflation of their hobby gaming with their personal identity, of course Play Dirty is going to be disastrous. It's like putting someone with a heart condition on Behemoth.
 
This. I was around for the Great REEEing when Play Dirty was originally released, and I've never seen a better example of gamer PTSD. For players with underdeveloped amygdala or an unhealthy conflation of their hobby gaming with their personal identity, of course Play Dirty is going to be disastrous. It's like putting someone with a heart condition on Behemoth.
That and I've yet to meet a player who liked the GM blatantly cheating and screwing them over in the name of 'drama' or whatever it's meant to be.
 
Are you with the Canadian tourism board? o_O

I don't know any famous-by-name US-based giant roller coasters.

That and I've yet to meet a player who liked the GM blatantly cheating and screwing them over in the name of 'drama' or whatever it's meant to be.

It's not cheating if the GM tells you he's going to do it, and you agree to the play contract. What every amygdala-atrophied gamer REEEEEing about Play Dirty always, always, always ignores is that Wick says right up front that in his campaigns the players knew exactly what they were signing up for, and he told them exactly what the boundaries were going to be on his power as a GM. If a GM springs that crap on you without warning, then of course he's being a dick. But a player who signs up for a campaign knowing the GM is going to shoot for maximum emotional effect doesn't get to complain afterwards that there were (SHOCKER!) emotionally harrowing moments. And gamers who have never played in such a campaign but like to REEEEE on the Internet that someone, somewhere is having BadWrongFun are especially huge dicks.
 
You know, I've never read Wick's Play Dirty, but the reviews and second-hand talk make it sound a lot like my own worst excesses (as a GM and as a player) driven by what passed for GMing advice in 1990s rulebooks and adventures.

Not eager to revisit that.
 
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It's not cheating if the GM tells you he's going to do it, and you agree to the play contract. What every amygdala-atrophied gamer REEEEEing about Play Dirty always, always, always ignores is that Wick says right up front that in his campaigns the players knew exactly what they were signing up for, and he told them exactly what the boundaries were going to be on his power as a GM. If a GM springs that crap on you without warning, then of course he's being a dick. But a player who signs up for a campaign knowing the GM is going to shoot for maximum emotional effect doesn't get to complain afterwards that there were (SHOCKER!) emotionally harrowing moments. And gamers who have never played in such a campaign but like to REEEEE on the Internet that someone, somewhere is having BadWrongFun are especially huge dicks.
Bad advice is bad advice.

It doesn't matter if your players agreed to have all their agency taken away and to have all their cool abilities treated as liabilities. It doesn't matter if they agreed to be emotionally bullied in the name of some obscure and somewhat sadomasochistic brand of fun. For a given value of fun. Giving one player more Experience than another because of obscure ideas of protagonist status is a dick move. Giving out Hershey's Kisses as tokens to represent Blood Points, but with a crunchy gotcha in some of them, is a dick move. As is most of the advice in Play Dirty.

I get it, you like that style of GMing. And that's your idiom, to quote Sir Lancelot. If you're having fun with it, more power to your elbow. Me, I grew out of that style a long time ago. Instead, I started using a different mantra when players began saying things like "That wasn't fun for me" or "That book gave you some really bad advice, Steve."

What I started asking myself was, "Would I like that to happen to my character if I was a player?"

If the answer is anything other than "Yes, I'd have enjoyed that" then it was probably not a good thing to do to someone else.

The trick is to recognise bad advice when it's given. The value of a book like Play Dirty isn't in using it for a What To Do handbook.

It's in reading it and realising that it is in fact a book of What Not To Do.
 
You know, I've never read Wick's Play Dirty

That would be the problem, yes.

The value of a book like Play Dirty isn't in using it for a What To Do handbook. It's in reading it and realising that it is in fact a book of What Not To Do.

[...] gamers who have never played in such a campaign but like to REEEEE on the Internet that someone, somewhere is having BadWrongFun are especially huge dicks.
 
That would be the problem, yes.

Do you have an actual point to make and prove me wrong, or are you just angry that I have voiced an admittedly second-hand opinion that doesn't jive with yours?

Are you okay, man? You're carving a swath of testy posts across the forum.
 
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7th Sea 1st Ed had two great ideas going for it. The first was to give players the license, indeed encouraged them, to be flamboyant in a way that was (relatively) unique at the time.
That trend had started with Feng Shui four years earlier. Plenty of games had already adopted stunt rules by that time. Even the venerable GURPS got on board two years ahead of 7th Sea with the cinematic rules in GURPS: Black Ops.

I had a lot of run running Lo5R, but it was despite the advice in the core book, not because of it. Wick seemed more intent on telling people how not not to run the game than telling them how to do it. He was more intent on crapping on traditional RPG parties than in telling you how to run the game. Fortunately, my friends and I were well enough versed in Samurai movies to ignore Wick and find a way to play.
 
That trend had started with Feng Shui four years earlier. Plenty of games had already adopted stunt rules by that time. Even the venerable GURPS got on board two years ahead of 7th Sea with the cinematic rules in GURPS: Black Ops.
Actually, James Bond 007 did the same, and better than any other game ever, in 1983. Your main point is correct, of course, just nitpicking so one of my favourite games ever gets more love :grin:
 
Actually, James Bond 007 did the same, and better than any other game ever, in 1983. Your main point is correct, of course, just nitpicking so one of my favourite games ever gets more love :grin:
That's why I chose my words carefully. "That trend started with..." as opposed to "The rule was first seen in...";)

The idea had been done before, but it was Feng Shui in 1995 that led to so many games over the following years throwing around the terms "cinematic" and "stunts".
 
For what aspects of your self-control are affected by the amygdala and why having an atrophied set would be bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala

I actually did look that up before I asked, but from "primary role in the processing of memory, decision-making, and emotional reactions" I can't tell if daniel_realm is accusing people who disagrees with him of not knowing history (memory), being unable to control their emotions, or just plain being stupid (decision-making).

I mean, obviously all three are ridiculous, but I am honestly curious what exactly he's being dismissive about.
 
It's in reading it and realising that it is in fact a book of What Not To Do.

That's a perfectly valid point of view, don't get me wrong; and I think tables should generally play to the limits of the most reserved / vulnerable / shyest person there; if one player doesn't want that shit, don't do it. But personally, I love some hard choices and harsh realities every so often. I don't expect everything to turn out OK all of the time.

I'm not sure I'd have liked to have played in all of Wick's games, but they do sound like fun.
 
You know, thinking about the way this thread has turned into a John Wick thread and my rather harsh description of V:TR 2e's writing in another thread, I'm concerned about getting too personal here. I'd rather focus on critiquing the games themselves than the creators for too long. Of course it is inevitable that individual creators and types of creators will and must be considered when analyzing a game's outcome, but there's not need to wallow overlong in their perceived failings either.

Naturally I don't want to shut down the discussion, just proposing a perhaps lighter touch.
 
Naturally I don't want to shut down the discussion, just proposing a perhaps lighter touch.
I completely agree. Which is why I've taken a step back from talking about the designer rather than the work.
 
Sounds interesting, then you figure out it's all about John Wick. That hasn't changed. I thought Monte was bad, but I think Monte is a kid compared to John and John's ego.

To be fair, if there were two popular movies named after you, you'd probably have a big ego as well. :p

... What? :confused:
 
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