7th Sea Art and Discussion

I'm actually involved with a playtest group, we're going to do a quick game of 1e to show the RPG newbie the differences.
I can't give specifics, but I can say this: everything is up in the air, even the basic system. Oh, and we're (as a group) fighting the way that Wick keeps giving bad GMs official railroad licenses.
He has good ideas for stories, just bad ideas for integrating them into RPGs.

Man John Wick gotta Wick.

Wick should never be listened to for anything.
Frankly, I don't have high hopes for 2e, because he has complete control over it and has consistently shown that he can't do good work without someone else to pop his inflated head every now and then.

>Oh, and we're (as a group) fighting the way that Wick keeps giving bad GMs official railroad licenses.
>He has good ideas for stories, just bad ideas for integrating them into RPGs.

Having read play dirty and old L5R editions I can fucking see that. How's the system ideas looking so far though? Are schools still in play?

>Frankly, I don't have high hopes for 2e, because he has complete control over it and has consistently shown that he can't do good work without someone else to pop his inflated head every now and then.

That's why I have hope for it. It seems like a lot of control is being ceded to the writer staff. He'll probably dip his wick into the main book all over the place of course, but as long as the basic system shows improvement from the years of RPG refinement the industry has been through I'll be okay.

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I just hope the team he's built can hold him back. Apparently there's been some system arguments already.
The system doesn't ask if you succeed. It asks how well you deal with the circumstances surrounding your success, which can get a bit boring. Social situations can be weird, since it goes by Raises rolled, highest spends first (in accordance with their stated action for the scene) to perform actions until they drop to the level of the second highest, repeat (as in the quickstart, so I can reveal that). This leads to high rollers dominating the scene until the end.
Schools are up in the air. Sorceries are a skill, and each dot gives you additional capabilities. We think. Nobody fucking knows. Yet.

>he system doesn't ask if you succeed. It asks how well you deal with the circumstances surrounding your success, which can get a bit boring.

I can see that working when you're doing stuff to henchmen, but I feel like failure risks on actual hard things and against villains is important. Social sounds interesting but it does blatantly favor socialites. I hope schools don't go, they're a lot of fun. I don't really like how 1e does sorcerey so redoing it is maybe for the best.

>Apparently there's been some system arguments already

I feel like that's important though since it is a group thing to get ideas out and vet the relative merits. As long as it isn't mishandled, which then would likely lead to a weird mishmash set of systems.

>>What is the best school?

Pretty much any school that gives Corps-a-Corps. Close second is any school that gives Pommel Strike.

I'm reading mechanics really for the first time but liking how Riposte looks as a defensive knack.

It is actually borderline terrible. Active defense rolls tend to have fairly high TNs, most starting PCs will have 20s for the most common ones (Footwork or Parry), halving your dice makes hitting those high TNs difficult. Stop-thrust (from the Villanova school) is superior in nearly every way.

Is Feint as good as it looks?

Oh yeah, apparently Wick doesn't think that parrying and dodging is cool enough. So we don't have skills for those.
Pretty sure his mania for "swashbuckling action" is going to get kicked, it'll allow some sensible fighting that makes the crazy stuff all the cooler.

I saw that in the quickstart. That just dodging doesn't "change the scene" enough. Seemed kinda weird.

>Pretty sure his mania for "swashbuckling action" is going to get kicked, it'll allow some sensible fighting that makes the crazy stuff all the cooler.

Yeah sounds like this is the shit one has a write team for.

Aww. It looks good. I'll still use it to give it a try at least and maybe ask to rebuild if it turns out to be as shit as you indicate.

Feint is fairly weak. A guy with a low Wits isn't going to succeed on many active defenses, and since you have to raise a number of times equal to their Wits to Feint guys who are susceptible to Feints aren't going to be actively defending effectively anyways.

Feint's bizarro cousin Beat on the other is significantly better as it uses Brawn as its raise stat, meaning it can beat (haha) a guy with good active defenses.

Neither come close to the mighty Corps-a-Corps action denial and TN reduction powers. Knocking a spud over to make him waste actions standing up and getting a 5 TN to hit him while he's down because of the prone rules is nearly unbeatable. Your first action in a round is to knock him down then you stab with as many raises you can manage to win. In a one on one duel, unless the guy has Rolling and stunts away from you, you can keep him grounded with relative ease.

At rank 4 for each relevant knack in it I think everything evens out and gives you a chance to fucking stab someone who has the temerity to try and knife you. But with the char gen cap at 3 and how you round down when halving anything it looks like a trap for your first few play sessions.

If you've not tried it, you should give it a whirl.

>Oh yeah, apparently Wick doesn't think that parrying and dodging is cool enough. So we don't have skills for those.

Does he even watch the movies he is claiming to try and emulate? Or even irl duelling?

I see what you did there

Actually wait, let me amend that further: How *do* you defend in combat? Just a static TN now? Active defense was such a cool duelist thing.

So you you blow 24 exp after Char Gen (assuming a 3 Attack and Parry in Char Gen) to get Riposte, Attack, and Parry to 4. That is enough to advance a trait from 3 to 4 and have points left over.

Your minimum TN for a parry is going to be 26, your 7k3 active defense (assuming you bought a Wits of 3 in Char Gen) is going to hit that about 60% of the time. The guy who used that 20 exp to up his Finesse from 3 to 4 and had the same 3 Attack knack is going to hit a TN of 30 at about the same rate you are hitting that 26, you'll be hitting that 30 about 40% of the time. If you plow all four of your Riposte ranks into defense, you still only be hitting that 30 about half the time.

Seems an awfully heavy investment for a chancy at best shot at a Parry/Attack. Especially considering you have to succeed at the defense in order to get the attack.

That's depressing. I'm still going for it because fuck it, I want to see how it handles in play, but now I know the risks of it.

Have a handy reference the 1e Schools Handbook.

The only thing that saves it from dogshit tier is if your school gives a Free Raise to Parry, like Donovan. That pushes your chances to about the same as the guy with the Stat advantage. It is still a heavy investment though.

How are things like bind and disarm?

Bind is pretty good when used vs an opponent with a single weapon. It is weakened by the fact that it only works vs fencing weapons and there are many schools that use Heavy Weapons or Knives. It is pretty much mid-tier.

Disarm is hampered by the fact it requires a miss to be used, so you can't control when you attempt the Disarm. The Loring School makes it possible for you to use it anytime (at a penalty) which makes it quite a bit better. Again a mid-tier knack, it is harder to get off, but when it does it is fairly strong.

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So if playtest user is still here, have your groups been informed of anything setting wise or is it purely a mechanics playtest? I am curious what major changes are happening that are soft retcons rather than pure new events in the time skip

>How *do* you defend in combat? Just a static TN now? Active defense was such a cool duelist thing.

Success pools. P1 rolls Finesse+Weapon and groups dice by 10's (not total/10, but groups of dice that add up to 10 or more). These are raises. Let's say they get 3, that's about average. Since Weapon can currently only be used for attack, they bid all three. P2 chooses a skill to defend with - let's go Acrobatics to represent flipping or some shit. They get 3 raises, and bid all 3 on defense.
Static result effectively, you're hoping to get more raises than your opponent.

Currently we're looking at adding Parry to Weapon uses and Dodge to something, so you end up with more strategy (and maybe two skills allowed for complex actions, like tactical combat. Or just roll an attack pool and a defense pool. It's still in the air). If we do that, then we get
P1 gets 3 raises, bids 2 on an attack, keeping 1 in reserve.
P2 gets 3, bids none on defense (taking two flesh wounds), and drops all three on a counterattack.
P1 drops 1 raise on defense, taking two flesh wounds.

That's just running off of averages though. Your typical range of raises is 2-4.

I can't discuss specifics, other than stuff that has been publicly stated (to the best of my knowledge), but it's closer to an alternate timeline. There really isn't a timeskip at all, but we have the new nation, the new map, some culture changes, and the chance to put our own fluff in.
It's mostly mechanics, the situation is about the same, details have changed, and we might get our game fluff canonized. Pretty cool.

So in this mode attack, defense and counterattack all come from one roll from each player each turn? That sounds interesting. I guess if school still happen (And I really hope they do) you'd get abilities to let you fuck around with that dynamic.

A mostly similar alternate universe is fine by me. I'm mostly curious how the brand new stuff looks like Sarmatians and the whole New World a dazzling place I never knew!

So anyone got more art? I'm near the bottom of my tiny barrel.

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No clue on New World. Sarmatians are the Polith-Lithuanian Commonwealth going through the build-up to a major civil war.
Like I said, we're still figuring out the kinks in the system. From what I can tell with Schools, it will let you play around with the dynamic - use a different stat for attacks and defenses, add special maneuvers you can do, stuff like that.
Oh, and you don't have to use Weapon for your attacks. It is in fact a legitimate tactic to demoralize your opponent with sick dance moves (Panache+Perform/Dance, for the curious).

>. It is in fact a legitimate tactic to demoralize your opponent with sick dance moves

youtube.com/watch?v=jaaJyAjvajo

My point exactly. I would be surprised if some playtest group hasn't done that.

Feels like the minutia is being simplified. Which is maybe good but I kind of like systems with a bit of crunch on them