GURPS 7th Sea?
 

7th Sea was one of those settings I was vaguely aware of but didn't pay much attention to. However, when the Kickstarter for the second edition was announced, I decide to put down the money for the "all PDFs" level, which was (and is) a very good deal. I didn't actually read the PDFs that much, but then I did get involved as a "guest star" PC in my old group in my hometown currently running a 7th Sea campaign.

My impression is that 7th Sea is a fun and interesting setting I might be interested in doing more with, but I am not particularly a fan of its rules. However, it also occurs to me that it should be fairly easy to convert the setting to GURPS. It's primarily an Age of Exploration swashbuckling setting, which means you can use most TL4 stuff as is. The assorted fencing schools from GURPS Martial Arts are a good start, although they might require some adjustment for the individual schools of the setting. The magic of the setting would require more work, though - considering that each nation has its own unique style of doing magic. But their individual powers don't span as many different effects as more conventional magic systems, so even that should be manageable.

Therefore I am curious: Has anyone done any work in converting 7th Sea to GURPS? And if so, have they published their crib sheets somewhere? ;)

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

Apparently not.

Then a different question: What are your experiences with Swashbuckling campaigns - especially ones using the styles from GURPS Martial Arts? How interesting and how much fun are they in practice - especially if you are running a cinematic game?

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

Not ran a swashbuckiling campaign since Third Edition but it involved a lot of cheesy accents and stupid risk taking.
It was a musketeers campaign.

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

I've never tried my hands at it, but you'd get a lot of mileage from GURPS Classic: Swashbucklers, for basic Swashbuckling campaign information that can be applied to a 7th Sea campaign. I'd also look at Pyramid #64, "Pirates and Swashbucklers", for Dungeon Fantasy compatible templates.

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

Agreed. The third edition source book is very thorough.

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

Memory tells me that Bill Stoddard had a campaign involving rival French Fencing salons in the general era. I remember that him talking about it but am not sure it was truly swashbuckling or cinematic.

He probably isn't monitoring this thread due to a lack of 7th Sea involvement. You may need to PM him.

On my own I would mention that the Fencing material in the 3e Swashbucklers is utterly incompatible with 4e rules and that I consider the 4e rules to be generally superior.

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

I played in whswhs's fencing campaign. It was very good...it also was not cinematic. Swashbuckling is also one of my goto genres to GM in GURPS (that and Espionage) so I run it quite a lot. I, however, don't tend to go cinematic, rather heightened realism.

If you want cinematicism, I think I'd recommend using those mook rules where any hit on a mook automatically kills them. And I'd make sure the villains are pretty incompetent to make the heroes have that "I am badass feeling." Throw lots of points at them, give them all Weapon Master and turn on all the cinematic switches, make the opposition low skilled, not very tactical, and easily vanquished.

But I never run Swashbucklers that way, so maybe some people who run cinematic more often can chime in.

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

Ha! I'm not the only one who did that Kickstarter for ideas for a GURPS game.

Re: GURPS 7th Sea?
 

The latest books are super light in the system bits. TONS of material. I feel like you would have much leeway in customizing a GURPS port and tuning the game to your preferences; there would be little hand-wringing over getting any "rules" "just right".