Help for Newbies and GMs | 7th Sea: 2nd Edition

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Fri, 09/09/2016 - 20:03

Mike Thorn

Help for Newbies and GMs

I have just returned to gaming after a new baby enforced hiatus. I love it, and my weekly gaming session is now, in essence, my social life. Unfortunately our GM has work issues, which meant he has just given up the comfy chair. No one else is really willing to step up, so I am on the verge of offering to run some 7th Sea. The problems being: I have never even played it before, and have barely skimmed the 2nd ed rule book; I have virtually no spare time in my life; the first session is about 54 hours away.

I am really hoping someone can list for me the absolute essentials I need to know going into the session, and point me in the direction of an intro adventure (I don't recall seeing one in the rule book).

I know this sounds a little madly ambitious, but I am dead keen that the gaming session is not cancelled. And I also figure that any first session will mostly involve character creation, which will cut down actual playing time and give me a bit more space to, you know, read rules and create adventures and all that stuff GMing should actually involve.

Any suggestions would be very warmly welcomed,

Fri, 09/09/2016 - 21:21

WookieeGunner

A PDF version of the character sheet is at http://7thsea.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/7thSea_Character-Sheet.pdf Obviously you need to read the character generation section. Pages 171-182 give a quick breakdown of how the system works. If you have time, the GM sections (after page 190 is GM info) onthe Duelist styles and Sorcery will give you the mechanics for those. One big thing is you may want to spend some time discussing what your players are looking for. Pages 159-163 of the character generation section goes into why.

Fri, 09/09/2016 - 23:32

(Reply to #2) #3

Mike Thorn

Great advice, thanks.

Sat, 09/10/2016 - 00:54

BluSponge blusp...

Yeah, for the first session you can simply make characters and talk about stories. If you have a rough idea for a plot (namely pick a nation and maybe a city or town you want to start in, whether or not it will involve sea travel or maybe any secret societies in particular) then you have enough to go with for now. Lay those out in the open for the players and then go round robin style around the table to generate starting stories for each hero. If you are feeling overwhelmed, ask that everyone keep their stories to 2-3 steps tops. Plan on focusing on one player completing a story step each session (or 2 if you have a lot of players). That alone should give you a session or two to dream stuff up in the background.

I wrote an article about how to keep the group on the same page with stories. You might find it useful.

Sat, 09/10/2016 - 08:42

Salamanca

You run a variation on the kickstarter quickstart adventure. Just commit players to helping the Prince instead of being his group. Outside of the mechanic, all you need to do this is a breakdown of the scenes you plan to run, the risks in those scenes that make it worth rolling dice to overcome and some consequences to serve as obstacles in the scene. Also, as you are all learning as you go, there is no harm in breaking the flow of things to literally stop, look up the rules for what is going on and learn them as you go. And if you open with the players in the middle of an unexplained fight, they won't question the plot too hard AND learn the combat system right off.

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