Age of Ravens: 21 Seas & Lazy Hacking (Gauntlet Blog)

#1

Today on the Gauntlet Blog I talk a little about 7th Sea: what I dig, what doesn’t work for me, and some thoughts on lazy, lazy hacking to get a version I’d actually be decent at running.

Age of Ravens: 21 Seas & Lazy Hacking

I put this together for a couple of reasons, not least of which is the discussion about Gaming Goals for 2019. One of those goals for me is to find a way to use what I like from 7th Sea, which turns out to be quite a bit. I’ve also been thinking about fast hacks and reskins-- getting cool ideas on to the calendar without writing a whole new system or doing a major retooling. I’ve come to realize that’s a solid way to see if the concept has legs and discover points of friction. I have a couple of fantasy-based reskins I’ve been working on. I suspect I’ll be posting some version of 7th Sea “Remixed” on the calendar in the near future.

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#2

This article is great! As one of the folks tangentially involved in the 7th Sea: 2nd Ed design space, I think that it’s clear that there’s room for a system that was more task focused instead of the broad narrative work that the game currently employs. (I have many, many thoughts.)

Hit me up if you want to talk more about this. I think that actually something that makes use of a Burning Wheel-style d6 system might actually work great to get the right numbers of successes without needing to retool the rest of the system.

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#3

Of course I naturally typed up a comment for the blog post before finding this post.

Long story short: I long for finding a simple system to play around in Theah with, closest I’ve found that works pretty well is Fate. But love of fate is fickle at best, and often dependent upon who’s running fate, and how much they care about the RAW.

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#4

Mark-- Yeah, I might hit you up on that. I’d be curious about your thoughts. I hadn’t considered BW, but I’ve only had tangential experience with that via Mouse Guard and a Torchbearer hack. BW and MYZ have the appeal of being close in dice scale. I suspect I’m going to try out MYZ to see if the success curve feels right.

Joe-- Yeah, I’m one of the small contingent on the Gauntlet who digs Fate. It would be pretty easy to do a Fate Accelerated version using the stats as approaches. Special abilities would easily translate as well. I can imagine just building a simple translation rubric for that. That might be the way to go, if I want something lighter-- less granular.

Sherri and I have this ongoing discussion about games which seem to be in reaction to other games. Like Blades obviously has its premise, but the mechanics feel like someone said let’s take PbtA and make it about the group rather than individuals running around and instead of the game banking everything on dice whims, they’ll have some control of that. 7th Sea almost feels like a reaction to trad games-- like, if that’s the way trad would handle it, we’re going the other direction.

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#5

@edige23 if you dig fate, then it’s super easy, both fate core’s base skills translate well, and accelerated’s approaches.

I was even working on a hack that also brought back the fanmail mechanic from 1e, which was one of my fave parts of 1e, but I haven’t worked on it in a while.

The major problem was players never remembering to give out fanmail to other players.

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#6

I think the way I think about stuff like this is in the relationship between the GM, the players, and the ficiton. MYZ works great for GenLab Alpha because the characters feel fragile but capable, enmeshed in a world that is at war with them that they might defeat. That’s the same world that Forbidden Lands and MYZ put forward, and the system reflects that reality in all cases.

But for 7th Sea, we’ve got really capable heroes doing stuff that’s awesome and paying costs. I’m not sure they are vulnerable in the way MYZ heroes are vulnerable, and that would push me away from MYZ and toward something like Fate. But Fate is very procedural and authorial; I’m not sure people want to author their success when they take on a brute squad. I think they might want some risk!

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#8

Yeah-- my hope is that the larger dice pool (from assistance, relatively higher stats, boosts for dramatic wounds, and special abilities) will increase the success so the characters feel competent. Late campaign MYZ started to feel that way. I may steal some tech from Forbidden Lands, like the epic dice. But it may prove to be a blind alley.

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#9

Yes, yes tell me more. My next post is on hacking things into my beloved fantasy genre…

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#10

I guess a good question might be: what determines what success is in the mechanics? What does adding more dice add to the game, other than the fun sensation of rolling a bunch of dice?

Is the idea of “raises” needed for 7th Sea? Or is it just still a thing cause it was in 1e?

If a higher number denotes more impressive success, then if using fate, you can’t just add more fate dice, but if help from others, and “drama dice” start replacing fate dice with d3’s or d6’s, that could lead towards the over the top heroics prevalent in much musketeer/swashbuckler fiction.

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#11

Yeah, I think I’ll probably put to the test in May or June and see what it feels like. I like the Mutant system enough I’m willing to give it a try. I suspect play at the table will clear me of any misplaced enthusiasms. At home I’d go with our Fate hack, but that has a substantial card component. I may have to break down and really read through Torchbearer to see if BW games appeal to me today.

My only wish was that there was a shared online roller for Mutant-style games. The version in Roll20 requires weird syntax and constant cutting and pasting; there’s an online one for Forbidden Lands which is really nice, but solely player facing.

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#12

Another great article @edige23. It really puts my brain in “design-mode”.

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#13

I share your joy about the setting of 7th Sea. There is so much to love in there.

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#15

I can’t wait to see your Masks hack, Darren. I unabashedly love Masks, and I’d love to see how that plays out.

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#17

I’d make the outsider a Gnoll, just to break more fantasy tropes.

#19

I figured. But the idea of a happy, curious Outsider gnoll does intrigue me.

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