View Single Post
Old 01-17-2022, 09:29 PM   #4
sjard
Stick in the Mud
 
sjard's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Rural Utah
Default Re: Thoughts on The 7th Sea RPG

The setting is interesting enough if you want a slightly fantasy analog of mid 17th century Europe, where every nation's nobles have a different magic bloodline.

Mechanically, it's pretty much the same as Legend of the Five Rings roll and keep dice pool, with drama points to adjust things, and no death unless the player deems it dramatically appropriate. (Aside: It also oddly includes an NPC who's sole purpose is to punish players by temporarily removing their characters from play if they get too far out of the planned story narratively. Even shows up on one of the core book covers.)

Examples of the magic include:

Sorte: A 99.99% women only magic in Vodacce (Italy analog) that literally allows them to tug on the strings of fate to change events/people. Because of this, women are kept as uneducated as possible.

Porte: A portal magic bloodline among Montaigne (France analog), that lets users tear screaming and bleeding holes through space to fast travel.

Dracheneisen: Dragon Iron, found only in Eisen (Germany analog), is a clay type substance that when worked in a forge turns into the strongest metal analog in the world (and is quite literally ancient dragon droppings).

So, it has some interesting tidbits (the mechanics for Brute Squads (a mook system) was interesting), but some of the cringe inducing aspects were a turn off for me.

Edits: There are no equivalents to the Caribbean or other major island areas for traditional piratey games, it's much more focused on the sort of political situation among nations, and searching/fearing the aliens that also seem to exist (had existed?) in the setting. So plenty of alien artifacts that do whatever the GM wants them to do sort of thing.

Even the title 7th Sea refers not to an actual sea, but to some sort of supernatural ether type thing (can't recall exactly) that may or may not be real.

You can't get more than just barely into the Ottoman Empire analog as there is, as I recall, a literal wall of fire preventing anyone from the Europe analog form getting past to the larger world.

Edit 2: Note: my only exposure is through the handful of 1st edition books I've picked up. I cannot speak for how 2nd edition may have changed things.
__________________
MIB #1457

Last edited by sjard; 01-17-2022 at 09:36 PM.
sjard is offline   Reply With Quote