I am actually a bit wary about both the setting and the rules.

I must be one of the few that liked the "aliens" in the 1e. And flame walls, and invisible walls, and krakens, and rivers with two mouths. It took me a while, but I finally got that Theah is not our Earth. I would be a bit sad if the new setting deviates too much from what it was and gets too mundane, or "generically fantastic". Although "too much" is yet to be defined :P 

Regarding the rules I am not sure if my group of players are going to be up for the kind of system JWP are making. But there is still time for rules and players to change. I just hope they release beta versions once in a while so we can get an idea where the game is going. That would definitelly help to buffer the shock from 1e to 2e.

Well, I had enjoyed the freedom of the new rules, and our group seemed to have fun coming up with interesting things to do with our raises.  I am looking forward to the new setting, to see what has changed, whats new and the like, but I too, also liked the Syrneth, and the meta plot of them being in an alternate dimension.  I had a character who studied them in great detail, and had discovered the existence of an ancient vault in Numa.. but he never got their before the gm retired the camp.  Granted, I was in Ussura, fighting a vampire and learning about a still living Drachen that lived under some castle... and had talked with both a Thalusi, as well as a Setine... so, my character was on the path of death, or villain hood.. since if he ever discovered that Vault, and learned the Truth... he would see the Syrneth as gods...

Hey El Vago.  Fancy seeing you around here.

I'm on the fence with the new system.  I haven't had a chance to play through the QS with my group.  Also, it's built from a draft (and a potentially early one at that).  So to say I won't use the new rules is VERY premature.  There is a lot about that that puts me out of my comfort zone to be sure.  But that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Of course, my experience with the old 1st edition rules wasn't nearly the torturously broken affair some people make it out to be, so I'd be very happy to jump right back in with a slightly homebrewed 1.5 version of the game that satisfied my old school aesthetics.  But I need to see a lot more of the finished product before I pitch it for something else.

But yes, you could consider me a bit...apprehensive.

Tom

Like I have said on other threads in this Forum. I will more then likely be playing 7th Sea 1.5 ed. . I like some of the ideas with the new skill sets and some of the new setting ideas but there are other portions of both that I dont care for. I will more then likely keep most of the old Theah and just add in the Commonwealth ,Ifri parts of the new Crecent Empire and anything else that catches my eye and I will keep the Roll and Keep system also. That said the Syrneth will still be the boogey men in the background, the Inquisition will still be a major threat, and Villinova will assuredly be leading NOM toward world domination. I wont have settlements in the New World but will instead have our characters be some of the first to step foot in the undiscovered areas.   

                             Brian

Oh yes indeed I am most excited for the setting, as are the growing members of the group we're getting together for 7th Sea. All the NotNations, their culture, geography, special quirks and their histories, are especially tantalizing places where I can immerse myself and characters. Swashbuckling derring-do, political intrigue, powerful yet perilous magicks/ancient artifacts, exploration, piracy; excitement everywhere in a setting that is closer to the real than usual yet still fantastical in its presentation and personality.

That said, in whatever form the rules turn out when the full core book drops, from my experience with the QS I'll have to take a long look at the rules to see if certain things need to be tweaked, removed, or added to facilitate the gameplay. Not that the QS was not fun (in fact it was a great success with my group!) and some of the more major issues were more likely than not due to having little time to discuss the rules and my own inexperience as a DM. As it stands now I can definitely say I'm more in for the setting and to play a tabletop in that setting than for the effectiveness of the rules themselves. But, as others have said, I'll wait until I see a more final (not necessarily the final) version of the rules before I make the decision to toss them out wholesale.

May I ask, in like a bullet point fashion, what people have against the new ruleset?  I mean, different Strokes and all that, so I don't want to sound like I am bashing anything.  But, I am curious what peoples biggest problems were with the QS rules (since we don't have the full ones).  Some people seem to like that they condensed the skills, but not the system as a whole.  So, I am just curious :)

My main dislike is the fact that there seems to be almost no chance of failure  and the complete lack of a Ship to Ship Battle system. I would like there to be a bit more of a Target number base system with some adjustability to the difficulty of things. This all being said you are correct that we dont have the new rule system yet and a lot can change between now and then. I will review the new system again when we get more of the system but right now I am leaning toward a mix of both

Dice rolling is currently *so* boring. Just grab yourself 4 d10's and keep rolling them and see how many raises you get. It'll be 1 or 2. Oh it looks like you might have 3 because there's two 9's and two 8's? Nope. That's 2 raises. One 10 and three 9's? 2 raises.

I get that predictability is the intent since the game is designed so players cannot fail but a side effect is that the current system makes dice rolling arbitrary.

People can criticize 1st Edition for it's many flaws, but dice rolls, in my experience, were almost always fun. Having the potential for dice to explode and variable TN's provided a sense of uncertainty that I miss - a mechanical opportunity for my character to pull off something truly daring because there was real risk involved.

If I could change one aspect of 2e I'd bring it back to it's R&K roots.

I am, admittedly.  The concept of declaring "Risks" and "Consequences" doesn't sound like my style.  I've always been kind of iffy on rulesets that rely on the GM being able to do a lot of hand-waving for the sake of the storyline.  Not that 7th2e is that or that I don't understand the appeal, but I guess I like having fairly defined rules on what is and isn't possible for a character.

* Magic: Just one stat for "sorte"? How do you give individual Strega some individuality, instead of all just having more dice? Extrapolate that out to the other sorceries (glamor as a single stat? -- no, just... no.)

* What many others have said about the probability curve being short and flat. I once rolled a 72 on 4k7. Fortunately I had a GM who was able to take that amazing success and run with it :-). I don't see any real options for spectacular successes, or failures, in the current system.

My GM wrote up a whole review, which I can link here, but those are my thoughts as a player.

Ahoy!

The thing is... Maybe it could be better go to John Wick team and tell them: "We are going to give you the failures that we think 2e rules have. Do you want them?". Because I listened Mike Curry in a podcast telling that he knows all our complaining about the rules. And that he knows all of them and even more. But that's what they made. They alrready know the things that the old scool think that they are "failures" of 2.0 .

So little by little I'm thinking that we have a new game.

Now it's our turn for wait and choose then between jump to 2.0 or create our own 1.5. 

NOTE: I continue hopping that they surpreise us with 1 edition rules for the NPC's and new nations. That can be amazing for everybody, so, if you want to continue with 1.0 or 1.5 it's going to be really easy. But I don't thing that they have that in mind. Even more horrible when they present the East... the 1.5 of that it's going like make your own game...

Just an update: full post to follow.

<RobJustice>: I can tell you that Sorte was COMPLETELY reworked after the QS.

<RobJustice>: Skills: Aim, Athletics, Brawl, Convince, Empathy, Hide, Intimidate, Notice, Perform, Ride, Scholarship, Sailing, Tempt, Theft, Warfare, Weaponry

I think the main issue a lot of people have with the rule set is that it is so fundamentally different from Roll and Keep (in deep philosophical ways) that it's jarring. We want "hard" mechanics and most of all we want structure. The system feels so loose that "system" seems the wrong word. We want a causal system: if A then B. If you roll a 15, then you hit. We also want binary outcomes: we want a clear, sharp answer to "what happens?" in terms of success or failure. This is how we learned to game, this is how we imagine a game, and this is how we understand a gaming system.

Zen

Patience. I think we'll get it. I have been reading and re-reading the core mechanic, testing and retesting: only now am I starting to get it (I think). It's a little hard to explain and it is going to be HELL on GM's early on. One of the reasons it is hard to explain is that the logic is so commonplace, so ingrained in the way we live our lives that we have to stop a moment to figure out how to articulate it. I'll give it a shot.

Put "success" or "failure" to the side a moment. We don't "succeed" or "fail" when we go grocery shopping; baring some extreme set of circumstances, we enter the store with money and leave with groceries. The only real drama in the event is the set of decisions we make about which items to purchase, which items to forgo, whether to remain within our budget, or whether to max out the credit card on beer. We're never in danger of "failing" to buy milk, even if it is on our shopping list: if we are without milk when we leave, it is because we decided something else was more important. The question, in most decisions we make is not whether we will succeed or fail but what we are willing to give up or compromise in order to achieve our ends. It's not about a binary "success" or "failure," it's about resource allocation.

A good example is the statement "even with our technology, we couldn't build the Great Pyramid today!" Of course we could. Could we do it in a way that is cost efficient? Could we do it in a way that is humane? Doubtful. However, if we really wanted the Great Pyramid built, we could absolutely build it: it's amazing what you can accomplish with an unlimited budget or a callous disregard for human life.

Taken for granted in almost every system is the idea that your character wants to succeed at whatever task she has set herself to. What this system does is question that idea: what if the consequences of success were high, or succeeding cost others around you a chance to do the same? I think once we wrap our collective heads around that shift in paradigm we'll be okay. It's not really about "can you do it?,"  it's about "what will it cost you"

Unfortunately, this means that the GM needs interesting opportunity costs and consequences for nearly every conceivable action. More on that in a moment.   

Motorcycle Maintenance

I am not a cheerleader. The system has serious flaws. It has a lot of character. Much like a  motorcycle with a lot of character, however, it tends breaks down at the exact moment we need it not to.  Right now, as it stands, it's not great for combat. We haven't seen the entire rules set but I already see a big pushback against the concept of all weapons being the same. Fortunately, there are options, such as giving a big hammer the opportunity to knock the target back rather than do a wound. Larger pools will allow weapons to express individuality in this way but the problem is that I don't have the time to think up unique opportunities for every weapon. Ship to ship combat could be the same way; ships could be tricked out with gear or crew training or whatever which would provide unique opportunities  and/or something to do with all those dice.  Combat needs to be a bit more crunchy; not like Grapenuts crunchy, but at least Rice Crispy crunchy. Maybe the full rules set will address this.

The rules totally break down in the face of "the highly unlikely."  If my stated Intent is to hit a Randy Johnson fastball and I have a Finesse of 2 (starting score) with an Athletics of 1 (rudimentary training), the odds are pretty good I will succeed. Considering a 90+ mph fastball would be past me before I could blink, I find the idea that a novice could even make contact a bit laughable; and therein lies the problem: even if you make the consequence a "foul ball" or "you embarrassingly hit the ball less than 1 foot," I have still done something ridiculous. While this can be fixed for some complex and difficult tasks by making them multi-staged actions, this is not the case for something like the fastball. Real and serious tweeking needs to happen here for this system to get off the ground.

Also like an old motorcycle, this system seems to require three hours in the shop for every hour on the road; which is to say that a ridiculous amount of planning is going to be needed by GMs, at least until things become natural. The average number of Raises is about 1/2 the pool and the starting Trait score is 2. This means that as soon as you have even a moderately skilled character, you're going to need some consequences...a lot of consequences... for every.single.roll. While I get that the system is built to cut down on the number of dice rolls in a given session, I imagine that old habits will die hard and a lot of rolls are going to be made in early sessions. This is either going to encourage GMs to establish "set piece" scenes where the number of potential Intents are limited (burning buildings are well and good but every building can't be on fire), destroy their families ("why is Daddy always in the office, scribbling and mumbling about risks?"), or, in the face of such a daunting task, make them lazy (and when they get lazy, the get sloppy, and then things go way off course). I will say that, on the plus side, once the session does go totally off the rails because of randomly discovered horses or some such, Consequences do provide a simple means of nudging the players back toward where they need to be.

In the End...

...if it sucks there will be 30 Savage Worlds conversions up on the web in less than a week. I am going to give it a fair shake. I want it to work, I think it could be great for my group, but I know it won't work for every group.

Doctor, where did you read that quote from RobJustice?

(Edit: This is mostly in response to the question "where does the tension in RPGs come from?")

Technically, with a good GM one doesn't need dice at all. My husband and I can roll/role-play for hours without picking up any sort of random number generator, or if we do he adjudicates on the fly based on how good my character tends to be at something and how high/low I rolled. Even with our larger group (6 adults who've been gaming more years than any of us want to think about, and 2 pre-teens) he ran an entire Marvel "Avengers" campaign with some people never fully finishing their character sheets (I don't even remember what system we used, but for the finale he dragged out the Marvel SAGA deck and used that for the villains, while we players rolled dice).

And at that, well, I posted his commentary on the QS to the blog here. As it stands, he'll probably only worry about consequences beyond succeed/fail for major story beats and not every roll. We're reserving judgement until we see the full rule set, because we don't think the QS was enough to make a final judgment, especially since we already know there are going to be significant changes.

While I agree that the GM is the principle motor for tension, my concern is that the GM wears a lot of hats all at once and has a lot going on. I also agree that you can have a great time without strict adherence to a sheet or system... But people are not forking over their money to have fun without a system; they are paying for a system ultimately that system is susposed to help the GM create the tension. 

There are a few areas where I think the system problems can be corrected without altering the mechanics too dramatically. These are not all solutions, they are suggestions to be explored.

1: Round Out the Probability Curve

Caveat: I am not a math whiz, but I am pretty sure these numbers are close enough to sustain my argument. Anyone with better numbers, please don't be shy.

This might be anathema to what John intended for this system, but the current predictability of the dice pools is just too high for the tastes of many. For the sake of argument, let's just assume maximum possible efficiency in dice (i.e. the most efficient means of assembling a given outcome), mostly because if someone can figure out how to accurately model rolling 6d10 in the 2ed system on anydice.com in a way that requires less than a few million operations, you're a better man than I. Inefficient set-making will only slightly skew the number of Raises downward, never upwards (a 21 can be only one Raise but a 29 can never be three), and even then not by too much.

As discussed, the chances of outright failure on 6d10 is negligible (%0.0084) and the chances of only a single Raise is also too small to be a concern (%2.6544). The odds of two Raises are significant (%28.686) but the problem, I think is that you are slightly more likely to get 3 Raises than you are all other outcomes combined (%50.4315) and you have only a small chance of 4 Raises (%17.4195). The Rank 3 bonus flips the odds on 2 and 4 raises but still leaves 3 Raises the most likely outcome by far (%48.52969). Assuming the Rank bonuses stack, the Rank 4 and Rank 5 bonuses make the math a bit more difficult than I care puzzle all the way out at this hour but I am pretty sure the odds of rolling 3 Raises doesn't drop any lower than %42.7499.

So what do all these numbers mean? They mean that a player can predict the exact number of Raises she will have more often than not and narrow the range of options to two possible outcomes with a high degree of accuracy (~%80). If the number of viable options were increased even to three, I think you'd see fewer comments like "Dice rolling is currently *so* boring."

2. "Suggested" Opportunities/Consequences and Equipment

We all hate that guy: the guy who has poured over all the weapons tables and, regardless of how nonsensical for his character, carries some improbable weapon because it is the "best." The current objects system (I say "objects" because it applies to basically anything that isn't alive or perhaps sentient) has rid us of that guy and I do not think I will miss him. Still, I will miss a meaningful process of gear selection; "what weapon does my character use" is not merely a statistical question, the answer has often been more revealing to me of how my character will be played than "is my character rich or poor" or "how does my character feel about his mother."

One way to split the difference between weapons tables detailing fifty flintlocks and a single bland and amorphous "ranged weapon" would be to take a few broad classes of weapons and, in a side bar, provide some "suggested" opportunities (and maybe consequences) for various weapons. There were eight defined weapons in the 1ed Players Guide; I think somewhere around that number of suggested Opportunities would not eat up that much space and would give GM who want to be more crunchy sufficient context to get as creative and in depth as they want in providing their own equipment rules.

 I think gutting weapons, ships, and gear of all mechanical effect is a mistake: it robs the world of depth and flavor just as surely as Rolemaster style tables. I think players should ask themselves "why a sword and not an axe?" for purely thematic and narrative reasons, but a little incentive to distinguish the two might be enough to encourage more players to ask that question. While I agree that the decision to utilize such suggestions should be up to each GM and group, I also think something of this nature would go a long, long way to easing the fears of those who find the system too light as well as encouraging players to Google a weapon or two and come to the GM with "So, how about these blunderbuss pistols I found?"  

3. Make Risks a Little More About Risk

One of the first things I noticed with the new system is "things just happen:" Raises/Opportunities make good things happen with absolute certainty and failure to spend Raises on Consequences results in bad things happening with equal certainty. Perhaps I am biased by the fact that my job every day involves deciding whether certain sets of risks have been sufficiently mitigated, but risk is really about what I am willing to leave to chance rather than what I am willing to allow to happen with certainty. Drama doesn't come from things "just happening" it comes from the tension of wondering whether or not they will. In short, there needs to be an element of risk in a Risk. The down side here is I don't have a good systemic solution.

I know that my plan is to pick up a decent replica piece of eight and divide Consequences into two types: certain and uncertain. Certain Consequences will happen without fail unless the player spends a Raise to avert them; whether uncertain Consequences will come to pass will come down to a flip of the coin unless a Raise is spent to avert them. This changes the calculation that the player has to make and reintroduces the tension to a small degree without taking away from player choice: the player always has the chance to avert the Consequence, the question is whether she is willing to chance that Consequence if doing so allows for an Opportunity (which I think I will keep certain, though I could see doing the same).

Maybe this will be clunky and we'll abandon it quickly, but I think that coin will get a lot of attention as a player waits to see if his gamble pays off.  Maybe this undermines the "Roll and Move" vs "Move and Roll" distinction that John has indicated as important for this game, but I think it or something like it will work for my group, which is all that matters in the end. I think some "optional rule" or similar might encourage GMs to find their own ways to make Risks risky.

So, I've run a number of campaigns with 1st ed over the years.  In fact I'm running one now.  And one of the things I have found is that I every time i start off, I try to simplify the rules a bit more: cut out some of the skills, combine advantages into more generic ones etc.

Playing the QS with my current group of players we managed to get more done than normal due to less of a complex system getting in the way.  I think I'm going to like the new system, but what I'm really missing at the moment is how to make characters different.

I'm all for skill simplification. For those who don't know 1E (or who never counted), it ended up with 386* Knacks, spread beteen 89 Skills. That's a LOT of Knacks!

Ref: Skills list at http://silver-gateway.com/7sea/master-index/skills.html

Knack list at http://silver-gateway.com/7sea/master-index/knacks.html

There might we some spoilers in there for beginning 1E players, but it should be safe for GMs.

Edit: There's actually more than that, since when I counted I'd only included "Exploit Weapon (name of weapon)" once, because all but four styles included it. So, probably closer to 400.

But seriously, I never realized exactly how many skills and knacks there were. I suppose it is appropriate that we take a moment and remind ourselves that 1ed had big problems as well, so we shouldn't get too caught up in worrying about 2ed.

Also, anyone trying to build a 1.5 is in for a serious workout.

I've played 1e and I'm willing to give the new rules a shot, but I'm also dusting off my copy of Savage World's Pirates of the Spanish Main just in case. 

Personally I really like the new system. Having GMed the QS, it can seem to require a lot of imagination or preparation by the GM, but here are some simple ideas that might address some people's concerns:

Difficulty and Failure: there is a big difference between binary systems and the current QS system. Binary systems have less interest built in to them as it is a simple pass/fail mechanic, where there are degrees of success or failure inherent in this system. But some things are more difficult than others. In my opinion that should be represented in the number of consequences. A simple risk? 1-2 consequences. A hard risk? Load up on consequences, and make some bigger - not take a damage: take a dramatic wound (save this for hung finale events).

Planning and imagination: my idea for this is get the players to do the work for you. The player announces the intention. The GM sets the difficulty (number of consequences). The other players then have the opportunity so come up with the consequences for the first player. If they are good and interesting they earn a hero point. Everybody benefits.

Initiative: I see the point about same size dice pools and initiative. Simple fix: highest single dice breaks ties. Did you get a 10? You go first. Both got 10s? Either of you get 2x10? Or a 9? No more dice needed. This was inspired by Greg Stolze's One Roll Engine. 

Making weapons distinctive: I get why people want this, but I also get (and side more with) John's idea that the character is the dangerous thing not the weapon. Dungeon World (the Apocalypse world fantasy hack) has the same thing - your damage dice is determined by your class not your weapon. The weapons have 'tags' instead that can be used narratively. Forceful can push people back. Ensnaring can ensnare. Messy speaks for itself. A similar system could be used to make weapons feel more unique. I expect to see specific mechanics for puzzle swords and dracheneisen if those are still around, but this could cover the basics. Improvised weapons could be 'fragile'. This dovetails with the opportunity and consequence system perfectly. 

Off the top of my head here are some simple positive and negative attributes weapons could have:

Sharp, unwieldy, fragile, unreliable, crushing, impaling, showy, loud, complicated, clumsy, flailing, 

Villains: in the quick start, villains were defeated only through combat. There is a place for that, but I'd like to see mechanics for defeating villains by foiling schemes. You've saved the girl, destroyed the machine and ruined the public image of the villain? Sounds pretty defeated to me. No need to punch him up as well - unless he is keen for revenge (but that's a dramatic choice for the GM).

A final word - this is "Swashbuckling Movie: the RPG". You don't often see swashbucklers failing, except when it leads to drama. The system captures that perfectly. Some people have complained there is 'no realistic way to fail'. Yes there is - it's written right in to the mechanics. The players choose to fail and get a hero point for it. John has been open about the game he wants to make and he is making that game. If you want to play a different game that's a valid option, but this is the game John wants to make.