7th Sea...Second Edition, First Impressions
Certes, I am remiss! Grand Master Wick's newest contribution may be found through the following link:
http://drivethrurpg.com/product/185462/7th-Sea-Core-Rulebook-Second-Edition
And now, for a few notes and observations (with the customary caveat that your furlongs per fortnight will vary). As usual, I'm trying to avoid too many spoilers in the process.
1. This edition is less crunchy and more 'narrativist' than the previous edition. Personally, I kind of like the new mechanics, as they will be somewhat easier to teach to my Cub. (If she can handle cribbage, she can handle this!) Character generation is much simpler and faster, and odds are you'll have something in the ballpark of what you want to do without having to compromise too badly (unless what you want is something decidedly off-genre and odd). Villains are much simpler to stat and bring into play. Ships are more abstracted than 1st Ed but no less dramatic. Improvement is now on a story-based 'fiction first' approach as opposed to XP...and of all the elements of the new edition, this is the one that's going to be the most challenging!
2. This is a more inclusive world, and not just in matters of melanin distribution! I'm hoping this trend will continue as we see more of the world in future releases. (But then, gentle reader, you already know I am not the sort of chap to get the vapors over protagonists of differing coloration, gender identity, or romantic preference.)
3. There's an eighth kingdom now present. One of the secret societies has gone from being the oldest to the youngest. Some of what long-time first ed players know (or think they know) about Thean history and backstory may no longer apply. The map is bigger than it used to be and some geography has been moved around.
4. We still have NOM to blame for everything that goes south. That acronym still makes me giggle* even though we all know it stands for Novus Ordo Mundi and has nothing to do with lolcats. While I get the utility of a Villains' League of International Evil for plotting purposes, I cannot help feeling a little bit as though this is akin to statting Cthulhu. Give heroes a discrete list of villains running a vast international conspiracy to do Bad Things, and sooner or later they'll try to do something Heroic.
5. Sorcery is different, too. The Castillians no longer have their own flavor of 'maaaaaaaagic!' but get Alchemy in its place. The Eisen version is now a bit ghoulish, being one part Frankenstein's Lab and one part Potions with Professor Snape--I've seen a couple of comments around to the effect of "this isn't heroic! This is horrific". I suspect that was the intent. Porte is still the fabric-tearing collywobble inflicting madness that it's always been, and we get a new style to go with the new kingdom, but it's less a sort of spellcasting and more knowing how to cut deals with some entities of a powerful nature. Finally there's a sidebar there that seems to rub some folks the wrong way. (I generously interpret said sidebar as leaning toward a mix of the Colville and Wanker Rules** in intent, but that's me.)
6. One thing that's missing: there's no sample adventure. So we get all this neat stuff, and all these interesting ideas, and a new bunch of mechanics...and then we get turned loose to get ourselves into trouble, playing in the sandbox. I think that's kind of neat, but thanks to the changes in the system, there's a bit of a learning curve...and I can see where some folks, trained as we all are to finding certain things in games, will feel that lack sorely.
So there you have it! Now to see how it all plays out...
Oh, yeah. One more thing. Remember I noted that a lot of this has been streamlined and simplified? It'd be duck soup to hack this baby for planetary fantasy without bollixing too much of the underlying rules. I've been a long-time fan of Chad Unterkoffler's Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies for the flexibility of PDQ# as applied to Space Opera, and it looks very much as though 7th Sea 2e is going to be similar.
* Some day I shan't be surprised if a pack of piratical cosplayers decide to stage a counterprotest campaign aimed at the National Organization for Marriage, accusing them of all sorts of overblown swashbuckling skullduggery and insisting that they know Giovanni Villanova is behind it all. What's a little absurdist humor between friends, eh?
** That is, the sidebar should be read in the spirit of "this is a friendly game about heroic characters doing heroic things, so if you read this chapter and start cackling like a Chaotic Stupid vizier in a really cheap movie, knock it off before it causes problems". This is not what was said, and I can understand how some folks might feel a bit put off.
The Colville Rule, somewhat freely interpreted from the section by that name in the Houses of the Blooded core book, is "assume that this is a friendly game, not a cut-throat game". (HotB p339) The Wanker Rule, attributed by John Wick to David Williams, is "If you find a way to interpret a rule that clearly damages the play environment, sabotages other people’s fun or is just plain nonsensical, don’t use the rule in that way." (HotB p355)
http://drivethrurpg.com/product/185462/7th-Sea-Core-Rulebook-Second-Edition
And now, for a few notes and observations (with the customary caveat that your furlongs per fortnight will vary). As usual, I'm trying to avoid too many spoilers in the process.
1. This edition is less crunchy and more 'narrativist' than the previous edition. Personally, I kind of like the new mechanics, as they will be somewhat easier to teach to my Cub. (If she can handle cribbage, she can handle this!) Character generation is much simpler and faster, and odds are you'll have something in the ballpark of what you want to do without having to compromise too badly (unless what you want is something decidedly off-genre and odd). Villains are much simpler to stat and bring into play. Ships are more abstracted than 1st Ed but no less dramatic. Improvement is now on a story-based 'fiction first' approach as opposed to XP...and of all the elements of the new edition, this is the one that's going to be the most challenging!
2. This is a more inclusive world, and not just in matters of melanin distribution! I'm hoping this trend will continue as we see more of the world in future releases. (But then, gentle reader, you already know I am not the sort of chap to get the vapors over protagonists of differing coloration, gender identity, or romantic preference.)
3. There's an eighth kingdom now present. One of the secret societies has gone from being the oldest to the youngest. Some of what long-time first ed players know (or think they know) about Thean history and backstory may no longer apply. The map is bigger than it used to be and some geography has been moved around.
4. We still have NOM to blame for everything that goes south. That acronym still makes me giggle* even though we all know it stands for Novus Ordo Mundi and has nothing to do with lolcats. While I get the utility of a Villains' League of International Evil for plotting purposes, I cannot help feeling a little bit as though this is akin to statting Cthulhu. Give heroes a discrete list of villains running a vast international conspiracy to do Bad Things, and sooner or later they'll try to do something Heroic.
5. Sorcery is different, too. The Castillians no longer have their own flavor of 'maaaaaaaagic!' but get Alchemy in its place. The Eisen version is now a bit ghoulish, being one part Frankenstein's Lab and one part Potions with Professor Snape--I've seen a couple of comments around to the effect of "this isn't heroic! This is horrific". I suspect that was the intent. Porte is still the fabric-tearing collywobble inflicting madness that it's always been, and we get a new style to go with the new kingdom, but it's less a sort of spellcasting and more knowing how to cut deals with some entities of a powerful nature. Finally there's a sidebar there that seems to rub some folks the wrong way. (I generously interpret said sidebar as leaning toward a mix of the Colville and Wanker Rules** in intent, but that's me.)
6. One thing that's missing: there's no sample adventure. So we get all this neat stuff, and all these interesting ideas, and a new bunch of mechanics...and then we get turned loose to get ourselves into trouble, playing in the sandbox. I think that's kind of neat, but thanks to the changes in the system, there's a bit of a learning curve...and I can see where some folks, trained as we all are to finding certain things in games, will feel that lack sorely.
So there you have it! Now to see how it all plays out...
Oh, yeah. One more thing. Remember I noted that a lot of this has been streamlined and simplified? It'd be duck soup to hack this baby for planetary fantasy without bollixing too much of the underlying rules. I've been a long-time fan of Chad Unterkoffler's Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies for the flexibility of PDQ# as applied to Space Opera, and it looks very much as though 7th Sea 2e is going to be similar.
* Some day I shan't be surprised if a pack of piratical cosplayers decide to stage a counterprotest campaign aimed at the National Organization for Marriage, accusing them of all sorts of overblown swashbuckling skullduggery and insisting that they know Giovanni Villanova is behind it all. What's a little absurdist humor between friends, eh?
** That is, the sidebar should be read in the spirit of "this is a friendly game about heroic characters doing heroic things, so if you read this chapter and start cackling like a Chaotic Stupid vizier in a really cheap movie, knock it off before it causes problems". This is not what was said, and I can understand how some folks might feel a bit put off.
The Colville Rule, somewhat freely interpreted from the section by that name in the Houses of the Blooded core book, is "assume that this is a friendly game, not a cut-throat game". (HotB p339) The Wanker Rule, attributed by John Wick to David Williams, is "If you find a way to interpret a rule that clearly damages the play environment, sabotages other people’s fun or is just plain nonsensical, don’t use the rule in that way." (HotB p355)
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