7th Sea 2e - Ch. 2 Uikku's Curse

So, is there even a real chance of failure when players roll or is it at best "you succeed but less awesomely as you want?" Or is "not doing what you want" only occurring in a dramatic sequence when they're out of raises?

For Action Sequences, they can be cock-blocked if the NPC is trying to do the same thing or something against one of the PC's actions, and the NPC spent more raises to do so.

For normal Risks or Action Sequences where they're not opposed though, as long as they're not unskilled or improvising (which bumps the necessary number of raises to be spent from 1 to 2-3), it's almost a guaranteed thing that they can succeed.

So only way you could really push to have players opt to fail on a Risk (assuming they have the necessary amount of Raises) is if you give particularly good Opportunities or bad Consequences that'd be enough incentive to ignore doing their initial action.

Some of the pronunciations in this book make me angry.

like what?

i would like to point out an unplayable issue with the wealth system.

"although if a player is specifically trying to
save for something expensive (if she wants to own her own ship, for example) a GM might allow them to “bank” some of their Wealth points. A good general
rule is that a Hero loses at least half of their total current Wealth at the end of each game session."

assuming the base 3 point limit on starting skills its impossible to actually save enough for a ship.

3/2=1.5 after 1 session round down to 1.
1+3 = 4/2 = 2 after 2 sessions
2+3 = 5/2 =2.5 round down. you end up back at 2.

if you let halves go untouched
1.5+3=4.5/2 = 2.5
(2.5+3)/2=5.5/2 = 2.5+.5=3
(3+3)/2=3

maximum build-able wealth without advancements or home-brewing that the players can pool wealth (which isn't touched on to y knowledge), caps at 3

part 2: complaints about "consequences"

"After hearing Approaches, the GM tells everyone what the Consequences and Opportunities are, if any, and when those Consequences or Opportunities occur."

as written, the GM tells the players how much damage they take from a given hazard or element of the scene. this isnt the player knowing "i might get hurt by the fire" and making a judgement call.

this is a narrativist system where the GM tells the player "spend part of your actions for X, or else im going to hit you with this stick."

furthermore the way that the wealth system is written, to not keep track of weapons etc that the part might have, and not governing what gear they can start with, it makes the firearms rules utterly narritivist and autistic.

it takes about 5 raises to reload a musket. fine. it takes a long time to reload that kind of weapon. but since we can't track how many of a weapon someone has, the rules as written don't allow a player to simply carry a brace of 6 pistols and fire off in rapid succession.

this swashbuckling and piracy game is incapable of emulating blackbeard.

Part 4: i jump on the table and run out of swordfighting.

the better question about the raises pool system, is why does the game punish you for improvising and doing multiple things in a round?

if im in a swordfight with someone, and i want to jump up on the table and kick something in the enemy's face, thats not related to using my sword. so it takes an extra raise. if im fighting with 3 raises against an enemy with 3 raises, then by jumping on the table, i have just 1 raise left for the actual swordfight. which means that an enemy with 3 raises is going to get in much mroe damage because i dont have the option of parrying anymore.

you know you've dun goofed when your system is worse and feels more restrictive when doing multiple things in a round than d20 RAW.

"carry a brace of pistols" has always been an option in games like this, including mk1. its existence as a notion is less a problem than apparently the rules never thinking anyone would actually do it. that said i'm not sure how the rules don't allow a player to do that so long as they make it clear in advance.

We must remember that a Firearm deal Dramatic Wound, no matter if somebody can resist somehow Wounds. So carrying 10 Firearms means that a Strength 10 Villain means nothing.

How about carrying Aim/2 rounded up of Firearms? 1-2 Aim, that's 1 Firearm. 3-4 Aim, 2 Firearms. 5 Aim, 3 Firearms. An Advantage would give an additional Firearm or Wits/2 rounded up of Firearms.