I've never GM'd 7th Sea before so I've decided to use the adventure in the Quickstart (Long Live the Prince).
Will this work with the full rules 'as is' or is it slightly different? If it's different I'm concerned it'll confuse me
Sorry to keep banging this drum but this example on page 179 still looks wrong to me:
"And the powder room will explode at 2 Raises and everyone takes 5 Wounds.”
Ok the above part is fine because it clearly says that the room explodes at 2 Raises. Nothing ambiguous there.
The problem for me is in the very next sentence:
"That means, as soon as all of the Heroes have fewer than 2 Raises, the powder room explodes and everyone takes 5 Wounds."
So by that reading, the calamity is going to occur at 2 Raises when all the Heroes have fewer than 2 Raises.
Is this right, does it mean exactly what it says, that the room starts to explode at 2 Raises, but doesn't actually explode until all heroes have less than 2 Raises?
If that's true, is it also true for the rest of the examples on page 179?
"If the Heroes don’t grab it [the necklace] by Raise 3, it falls off into the night, down onto the city streets, into the fire, or into the ocean."
By Raise 3, meaning it starts to fall at Raise 3 but doesn't actually fall until all heroes are at fewer than 3 Raises?
“The cannons below explode on Raise 3. Everyone will take 3 Wounds. And, on Raise 1, the ship goes down, dragging you all down into the deep!”
So the cannons start to explode on Raise 3, but do not actually explode until all heroes are at fewer than 3 Raises and the ship drags the heroes to the seabed at Raise 1 but doesn't actually drag them down until all heroes have fewer than 1 Raise?
"For example, if the room’s ceiling will collapse on 2, a Hero who wishes to dive out of the way must spend Raises to do so before the ceiling collapses."
Again then, the room's ceiling begins its collapse on 2 Raises but doesn't actually collapse until all heroes have fewer than 2 Raises?
It looks odd to me.
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo
@Sparky, your post may vanish if the thread is made unstable with too many cut and pastes.
QUESTION by Sparky UK
ANSWER: Quoting Kevin Krupp's comment (that did not migrate to this new thread).
Just to clarify, because the Quickstart seems different to the Core rules, you (a) set the scene (b) have the players tell you their approach (c) tell the players which traits and skills to use (d) gather dice (e) announce complications and opportunities (f) count raises use raises to succeed at certain things
More or less. There's some additional bits in there, such as changing approach, unskilled actions, adding opportunities, Pressure, etc. Personally, I don't always tell the opportunities up front unless it's an opportunity that's available for anyone in the room, as sometimes they become available throughout the Round due to another person's actions. Also, sometimes I WILL add consequences mid-Round, but it's because an additional action the hero takes mis-round really warrents its own set of consequences. The QS does away with the "bidding" system since you need to declare how many Raises you're investing into your intent up front, but there's still some of that there.
Here's my advice:
Tell them up front that the game is meant to go fast and that in Action scenes they're not going to have a lot of time to think and strategize. Then introduce the mechanices to them in bites, kicking things off with an Action Scene.
TAJ-07: Technopriest And Justicar Of 7thSea2e
Think of it like those slow motion scenes in movies, after all, actions happening almost simultaneously on each turn. As soon as the first hero reaches 2 or less raises the room explodes, flames start running wild and debris hits the heroes, but they are heros, so they still get to jump through the window in the last moment flames licking on their backs.
Before 2 raises, the room is safe, at 2 raises the room explodes and the heroes receive damage (they can spend raises to mitigate it), after 2 raises the room has already exploded. If the heroes leave Before 2 raises, they receive no damage, if they leave at 2 raises they receive the damage but have a chance to avoid it, if they didn't leave at 2 raises they don't get to avoid damage and the get blown away by the explosion or need to crawl out of the debris after the explosion.
Same thing with that sliding necklace, it falls at 3 raises but, in that moment it's still close to the roof so, a quick hero can slide down the roof, extend his hand and grab the necklace with one hand while he hangs out the railings with his other hand. But, if none of the heroes did anything to catch it, at the end of that turn the necklace has already fallen into the dark.
Cannons explode at 3 raises unless a hero goes throwing them out before they get to that point, they can jump out and into the water before that to avoid all the damage without needing to spend extra raises or they can stay and suffer the damage.
Same with the ship sinking, they get to jump out before that or during that moment. If a hero didn't manage to scape on time (he has 0 raises), he'll go down with the ship unless any other hero dives down (spends a raises) to save him from drowning.
Imagine that ship scene, you say: there are 10 brutes going for the map, the poder kegs explode at 3 raises dealing 5 wounds to each of you and the ship goes down at 1 raise. There are 3 heroes: Françoise, Elza and Jane, they rolled 5, 6 and 4 raises each for this round.
Elza has the most raises so she goes first and charges against the brute squad to slow them down spending an extra raise for damage, she spends 2 raises an now has 4. She takes down 2 brutes, so there are sill 8 brutes who attack her dealing 8 damage.
Next goes Françoise, he rushes through the deck and snatches the map jumping into the water. He spends one raise to snatch the map and another to scape, he's down to 3 raises so the kegs explode. As Françoise is already in the water he doesn't get any damage but neither can he aid his friends on board.
The explosion raises dealing damage to all on board, Elza and Jane have both 4 raises and decide Elza acts first. As she has already taken 8 wounds, she spends all her raises negating damage so that she doesn't get her second dramatic wound. She's got no raises so the ship starts sinking while she recovers from the explosion.
Jane is up the mast when the kegs explode and the ship sinks with four raises in her pool, so she grabs a rope and jumps down reaching for Elza and balancing herself out of the way of the debris and flames from the explosion. She spends one raise to start the action cuting the rope, another to grab the stunned Elza and propel both of them safely into the water while the ship sinks and uses her remaining 2 raises to negate 2 wounds from the explosion.
But the rules say "...as soon as all of the Heroes have fewer than 2 Raises, the powder room explodes and everyone takes 5 Wounds."
I read that as all the heroes have to be on 3 (because you used an example of 3 Raises) or fewer Raises before the powder room explodes and does damage. So in your example, Elza and Jane don't take any damage yet because they both have 4 Raises each. Also, even though Francois has 3 Raises left he wouldn't take damage either, because not all of the heroes are on 3 Raises yet.
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo
Page 187: Dramatic Sequences
The GM tells each player what the circumstances of the Sequence are in general terms and what they can expect. This should include the scope of the Sequence, any dangers that the Heroes are aware of...
Step 4: Actions
The GM narrates the Sequence, describing details, presenting challenges and circumstances.
Page 188: Red Box
Dramatic Sequences are open sandboxes and not just a series of challenges set up by the GM. The GM isn’t supposed to give the players a list of problems to overcome; that kind of thing happens in Action Sequences!
Are GMs supposed to present problems/challenges in a Dramatic Sequence or not? The above rules seem a little contradictory
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo
So the reason it says "at 2 Raises" and then "fewer than 2 Raises" is because when you have fewer than 2 Raises, you can't do anything because you no longer have the required 2 Raises?
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo
Thank you Salamanca
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo
This is my first scene so I was hoping someone might run the rule over it. I've used the trusty old burning building to kick things off.
Starting Scene: Flee a burning room to the courtyard below
The pcs are in Monsignor Blanc’s house (Note: a Parish consists of ten churches in close proximity and a Parish is governed by a Monsignor,) collecting their payment for transporting goods for him. Their last buyer ripped them off and so Monsignor Blanc has decided to take the money that was lost out of the pcs’ payment.
Naturally the pcs did not like this, got into a fist fight with some of Blanc’s guards, and accidentally knocked over an oil lamp that caused a tapestry to catch fire. Before anyone noticed the fire was out of control…
The scene opens with the pcs amidst a room rapidly burning out of control.
Consequences
2 wounds from the flames
Window to courtyard is locked
Courtyard is 20’ below
Opportunities
Blanc’s money chest is on a nearby table (wealth 2 each)
I have a few questions. Let's say a character gets 3 Raises. He uses 1 Raise to avoid 1 Wound, and 1 Raise to dance past the flames and get to the window, where he says - "I open the window."
But the window is locked.
How would I narrate/work this into the scene because the player thinks the window is unlocked but is surprised by it being locked?
* Do I just allow him to spend a Raise to unlock the window, and if I do, does he roll dice to unlock the window? Or does he just unlock it as part of the Raise?
* Do I tell him the window is locked but that even though he has 1 Raise left he cannot use it this turn and must make another check on his next turn?
* Do I tell him the window is locked when he gets to it and attempts to open it, or should I have mentioned it earlier when I was revealing the Consequences? If when revealing the Consequences, how would the pc even know the window was locked?
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo
You don't tell them the window is locked untill one of the tries to open it. If the first hero wants to open it you should allow it for one raise if they chose the finesse+theft approach, if that's not the case he must spend 2 raises to unlock it or trigger an advantage (dinamic approach).
But the hero could also use a different approach and say he wants to charge out of the window bursting it open (maybe brawn+brawl), in wich case he wouldn't have to spend extra raises to open the window but you could add 1 extra damage from crashing against it.
Thank you Catalina
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo
Great to hear that @SparkyUK
Also Donovan here upgraded the quickstart Character Sheets to final character rules from 2nd Edition so maybe you could trying them out instead of the stats in the quickstart.
Quickstart Characters with 2e Core Rules
TAJ-07: Technopriest And Justicar Of 7thSea2e
Would it break anything if I raised the traits and skills cap to a 6, a 7 or an 8 even?
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die..." ~ Inigo