Guild of San Marcos Forum

My book just showed up.

Solid production. Wasted back inside cover.
Seeing it in print, I am now convinced putting Jen's multiple page short story as the opening piece is a bad idea. Literally went tldr and skipped on.

Still not delighted with the organization of i formation. But it's easy to search compared to many rpgs. And easy on the eyes for reading.

My book w/black cover & scull and crossbones showed up today.

Looks good, but then other new books have looked good too. (BTW BJR, I don't see any writing under the scull & crossbones w/BJR).

So, I played in four (4) 7th Sea 2.0 games at GenCon (all pre-reg).

#1 was a play of the quickstarter adventure, which I hadn't bothered to look at before. I played the Vodacce brother who was an Ambrogia duelist.

I've chosen two Schools in 16 years of 7th Sea, Half-Dansson and Bonita, for my characters- which should indicate that I'm not a tactical player. (Not that I can't; but I prefer to have fun in RPGs rather than work at it. I also despise puzzles.)

I pretty much understand the Vodacce mind-set. It would have been too obvious to get a bless (or curse) from sis, so I poisoned my blade for the duel. I won easily (I like Flourish).

#2 was Dana DeVries' Swashbuckling 201. I played a minor Vodacce nobleman, the party leader. A great time was had by all (Brutes, but no big fights). Nine players for a four hour event Dave! Dana is one of the best ad-libber GMs ever... enough said.

#3 was the blackmail JWP adventure. GM went over backward to explain the 2.0 Drama mechanics, which worked really great. I was the 6'6" female sea captain with little fighting ability but great investigation: 8 raises for Notice on the blackmail note, thanks to Dice from other players! Conclusion: If players help each other, 2.0 can be lots of fun with the right GM. No fighting here either.

#4 was missing mayor JWP adventure. Like a linear D&D crawl, not much of interest. No fights.

Conclusions:

A. 7th Sea 2.0 is only as good as its GM. 2.0 makes greater demands on the GM than most other games. If the GM doesn't know/have information on hundreds of subjects, to be able to differentiate raises qualitatively and quantitatively, the game will fail for players who do know about hundreds of subjects.

B. Character creation, as described in 2.0, is inadequate- except for a game at a Con. A campaign would get pretty boring quickly

Point one: Dana is a brave man. And if agree that he is that good.

Point two: I hate that playtest adventure because it puts the entire final fight on your character while the others stand around and watch. It's cool for one person at the table.

Point three: I don't think the GM needs to be well versed in "hundreds of topics" so much as willing to work with a player's ideas. I probably prefer having to worry about a single knowledge skill compared to needing to advance 20 different knacks. Sure it requires a player mature enough to admit their scholar is not versed in something from time to time but it also fits the film sources where the hero DOES happen to know exactly what they need to about damn near anything.

Point four: I think this will campaign just fine for adventures built on arcs. Are you going to play one character for the next 15 years in a single epic? Probably not. But it will work for things in the scope of what we do with Altamira. (Counting PA time 24-48 adventure sessions spanning a game year).

What players are going to need to accept is that the campaign and game is not about character stat growth anymore. You are starting out pretty much at movie hero level and just tweaking up to movie legend. What the campaign play needs to focus on is interesting story advancement and personal storylines. I think this game could run with stagnant characters in a campaign and be fine.

But I can't be sure of that until I use it in a campaign.

ah, the most helpful staff at JWP just sent me an email this morning to inform me that my book has been shipped out from the company and should be arriving soon.

That would be the one that arrived yesterday.

Timing is everything.

salamanca wrote:ah, the most helpful staff at JWP just sent me an email this morning to inform me that my book has been shipped out from the company and should be arriving soon.

That would be the one that arrived yesterday.

Timing is everything.

Same here, only mine arrived three hours before I got the email. O_o
*sits semi-patiently and waits for Tarot deck*

if you had the deck, you would know when it was arriving.

salamanca wrote:if you had the deck, you would know when it was arriving.

I do have a deck, and a set of runes for that matter.

Well, when in October do they say it is arriving?

The days after the best time for them to get there, of course.

I wonder if anyone is learning much from this website?

http://www.7thsea2e.com/port/

It seems to me that there are lots of nits being picked... and little enough about some of the bigger faults IMO.

A lot of the posters there are dealing with translation issues and the need to fix things that are not broken BEFORE they actually play the game. Plus the typical crowd that insists on ignoring the nuance of a phrase in exchange for literal translation.

Some nice folks and many new to the game having missed the old edition.

In case anyone missed the email, the second book Heroes and Villains is available to download and proofread. I'm reading it but not all that interested since I don't really think I need help with my plots.

I'd have much preferred to see the nations books come out next

Black Jack Rackham wrote:In case anyone missed the email, the second book Heroes and Villains is available to download and proofread. I'm reading it but not all that interested since I don't really think I need help with my plots.

The first JWP novel is out and I downloaded it- because I could. Having stared at a CRT at work for decades, I'm unlikely to read much of it online.

I hadn't bothered to download Heroes and Villains before now. Since my comments on the initial Rulebook were never acknowledged, let alone commented upon, I figured why should I bother? Someone at JWP dropped the ball as to feedback of the rest of their output. Why should anyone offer comment if it is not encouraged?

I'm still playing in one PbP 2.0 game. I'm having fun at it, a bit to my surprise. The others have died. The most ambitious one died because 2.0 was just too difficult for most of the players (and for the GM to explain).

One of my 1.0 PbP games lasted over five years before GM RL (and exhaustion I believe) ended it.

Sister Sonya wrote:Having stared at a CRT at work for decades, I'm unlikely to read much of it online.

You kids and your new-fangled acronyms...So, what's a CRT? (my top guesses are, Computer Response Technician and Central Reading Terminal...oh oh oh, wait, is it Computer Reading Terminal?)

Cathode Ray Tube?

edit: Sixteen years ago now, I purchased a used 20" Sony Trinitron for $180. Four Hard Drives later the CRT is still going strong, if there is a color shift present about 1/2 of the time.

So, anything new on 2.0?

I've stopped looking for new stuff. The site seems mostly rehashing the old 2.0 stuff.

Previews of the Sorte Deck and the GM Screen are the latest two. You can grab them on Backerkit.

And since you asked, Pirate Nations Preview was just released.

Black Jack Rackham wrote:And since you asked, Pirate Nations Preview was just released.

No notification here yet. Guess some of us have more clout than others.

Just got the mass-email (you should have gotten it too).

No.

Hmm, did you turn off the Project Update emails from Kickstarter? That's where I'm getting all my info.

*does the canon character dance* check your backerkits folks, final version of heroes and villian, and the proofread of nations vol 1 are up. There May or may not be a familiar name on page 123 of the latter. correction. it seems that the heroes of altamira OWN page 123.

and though it slipped in under the radar JWP has also released three short "Basic Rules" books (Characters, Playing the Game, Setting). They're available for free HERE