7th Sea Second Edition - Villainous Intent

Memorable heroes need memorable villains to battle. What are Batman with out the Joker, Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader or, closer to the genre point, the Musketeers without Richelieu? The first edition of 7th Sea was no slouch in the villain department. Richelieu got a worthy mirror on Esteban Verdugo, the arrogant L'Emperuer is just itching to lose his head and Reis terrorizes the sea with his murdery band of pirates and his tricked out Syrneth scythe. I'm putting together a one shot for some friends soon and I was a little surprised at just how streamlined villain design was in the game. Two stats? That's it? (I know there's a bit more, like Villainy Rank and Advantages, but this was my gut reaction.)

7th Sea Second Edition - Story Options

I was inspired by +Rob Donoghue 's excellent hacks for incorporating Dracheneisen back into 7th Sea as a noble trait and using the Sorte Deck to develop 13th Age Icon-like relationships with the big names of the setting. (Rob also did a thorough review post on the game that echo most of my feelings as I read the book.)

7th Sea has always been a game of hacks, tweaks and house rules for me. Now that I'm a game designer, that hasn't changed. I offer a trio of hacks for the player stories after the jump.

A Strange Encounter at Half-Price Books

Every few months or so, I get a link to an out of print RPG book on Amazon with a ridiculous price. The third-party seller usually wants something like  a couple grand or so. This is usually caused by the pricing algorithm getting bad info and ballooning the price up in a vacuum.

Half-Price Books has gotten a bit smarter with their pricing of OOP RPG stuff. Gone are the days where you could find a pristine copy of Keep on the Borderlands for a couple bucks. Hard-to-find stuff is now usually at least cover and, if you've got a knowledgeable member of the staff who pays attention to eBay, more.

I was in a Half-Price today and came across some 7th Sea books in their collectors case. Most of them were cover or more. They had a copy of a very rare 7th Sea book: Swordsman Guild. The price reflected the rarity - $200.

The Swordsman Guild tied for the most expensive book they had in the store. The other $200 book? A copy of Mein Kampf from the 1930's in the original German, complete with Nazi Germany symbol stamped on the front.

Fate Accelerated - 7th Sea

I was happy to see folks interested in both a Core and Accelerated hack of 7th Sea. This one will be much shorter, since I'm less concerned with modeling system elements here.

Thanks to +Ryan Macklin for inspiring me on the Approaches. The hack hits after the jump!

Fate Core Hack - 7th Sea

Many years ago, my first published work was for Alderac's 7th Sea shortly after it became Swashbuckling Adventures. 7th Sea holds a special place in my heart for a variety of reasons. It was my first published work. It was the game I ran for almost everyone in college. It gave me a life long love of swashbuckling movies long before Johnny Depp brought them back into vogue.

I've eyed a Fate hack for 7th Sea for a while. I originally set out to do one with Spirit of the Century to allow PCs that were on the same level as the influential characters in the setting. I wanted to be able to have PCs that could match wits with Cardinal Verdugo and trade blows with Captain Reis. I wanted the sorceries to reflect the fiction. I want this rich setting to live on.

This hack also works for The Three Musketeers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Princess Bride.
All hands on deck! The hack begins after the jump!

Honor and Intrigue - Escape from Castle Island

I love pirates. 7th Sea was my first professional writing gig, but I loved that game long before I got a chance to work on it. For all the pirate movies I've made other people watch, I've watched dozens more.

I happened upon Honor and Intrigue on the web. I liked what I saw, especially since I was looking for different system to run 7th Sea as well as other swashbucklers like Regime Diabolique. I got into a conversation with the creator who mentioned he was a huge fan of 7th Sea. We chatted for a little bit about games, swashbuckling movies and swordfighting mechanics. Then he asked me if I wanted to produce something for his game. I was honored and said yes.

So here's a short little adventure/setting about a Spanish prison island featuring a mystery on the mainland, a treacherous knife wielder and quite a few names you may recognizes. I present Escape From Castle Island.

For those of you looking for a good set of conversion notes to run 7th Sea using Honor and Intrigue, I recommend El Vago's conversion rules.