Hello,
I may have been a bit too generous with the story step and now one of my players have finesse 5, Weaponry 5, legendary traits (finesse) and a Signature sword.
Obviously, this player wants swordfights. However, it is kinda tricky to give him some challenge since he gets an average of 7 raises per round.
What is bugging me the most however is, what if instead of swordfight, he had choosen to invest in tempt or notice.
How do I make rolling relevant ? I can find most of the time 2 meaningfull consequences, 1 or 2 opportunities but it quickly becomes a burden.
Do you guys have characters built to roll a lot of raises on your table? How do you make these raises relevant? How do you help players with less raise to participate in the scene?
Thanks for your insights ,)
How long have you been playing? I'm assuming quite a while since to get Finesse 5, Weaponry 5, and Legendary Trait requires at least 23 Story Steps to be completed. If you play weekly, then that character has completed a story step towards only those 3 things roughly every week? What are the other characters doing in that same amount of time?
Don't forget to use your Danger Points to require 15's for Raises.
Sometimes, a character will just roll a lot of Raises, which means they get to do everything they want in that round. Raises don't carry over and unspent ones are lost. You might also encourage the characters with multiple Raises to start creating opportunities for other characters.
Perhaps have more 'dramatic sequences' where fighting isn't required to allow the other players/characters to shine with their skills?
We started before september and played something between 20 and 25 games of 7th sea since then.
I have messed up with xp, but the other character invested in building a good hero ( a stregha) has bought " trusted companion", "rich", "brush pass", "valiant spirit" among others. At the begining he had "come hither" and "we're not so different", so she is quite a social animal. The main difference is she is so good with hero point, but she actually has to make interesting things (followin bakground&hubris) to gain them, so it's funnier for everyone.
However my complaint is not so much that he is better than the other (it's due to the fact that before the first game, the player had an algorythm to calcultate how to get the most raises with the less story step).
My main problem any player with the same kind of build will be that good in every games sooner or later. That mean this player is going to get that much raises every time he rolls. And creating opportunities and conseqences to make these raises relevant (outside combat situation) is a pain in the a**, for the GM and the players. I don't know how yours are doing, but mine are often losing raises on good rolls due to not having cool ideas to spend them and I think it's really uncool. If they roll 9 raises, I should be able to make them feel over 9000 :P . During play, they are barely over 4000 (One for the intent, 2 for consequences and one for an opportunity). I find this dis-satisfaying.
I use DP when I think it's relevant to the fiction, but it often let the others players with really few raises, and they feel powerless instead of being the slighlty less awesome sidekicks.
We're already having lots of non combat situation because I like that, and the other players are having fun. We're mostly using risk because Dramatic Sequences feel... stranges, whereas Risks are lot like AW's moves and make sens to us.
Since I am complaining, I also feel really constrained by the raise mecanic. It felt fun at first but now I feel like I'm only hiding the fact that the one with the most raise gets wins (in fight, in chases, in arguments...). Anybody have something to correct that?
Heng
I understand your frustration at having to have tons of Consequences and Opportunities. Another solution is that perhaps if you're having fights, the fights need to be more epic in scale. It sounds like your characters are advancing quite rapidly (My group has maybe earned 10 XP so far). If you're going to have Action Sequences, perhaps those need to be 'special' and involve multiple Villains (of varying levels), several brute squads, and dynamically changing environments.
As an example, if the group would get into a bar brawl, just have each player narrate how his character defeats some portion of the combatants rather than going into an Action Sequence.
Another suggestion is if it's possible, separate your characters during an Action Sequence...maybe one or two have to chase a villain, two more need to clear out the townsfolk from a dangerous situation, and the others are engaging the multitude of the villain's guards. This way it's not necessarily a competition of all the characters in one area and hopefully those without all the raises aren't feeling inadequate.
Finally, challenge your players to have their characters create opportunities for the others.
John