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.

...

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.