7th Sea Retrospective and Dungeon23 Update

2023 is off like a bullet and the challenges are flying left and right. And between those, I’m doing my best to make time for gaming and creative expression. But sometimes it ain’t easy. I totally understand why so many people take long breaks from gaming at this stage of their family.

This month, we bid farewell to the Atabean Sea and the world of Terra once again. So lets talk about that first.

7th Sea Retrospective (once more, with feeling!)

I wasn’t ready to leave. And neither were my players. There was so much left to see, to explore, to get to the bottom of. We had pretty much wrapped up everyone’s first big story arcs, but the stage was set for even bigger things on the horizon.

But we had to go. I had to leave. The journey wasn’t over, but my tour of Terra needed to come to an end.

But at this stage in my life, I just cannot juggle too many different game systems. It’s very hard to compartmentalize and find a good creative balance that doesn’t also consume my work and family life. At work, I’m blessed with the opportunity to not only run RPGs for students during their lunch break, but last year I started managing an after-school D&D club with five other teachers! My role in the equation has been creating content. Lots of content. At this point, I can no longer count the 5-room dungeons I’ve built on both hands. Meanwhile, during the lunch break, we are playing Pirate Borg, an OSR-adjacent game of grimdark pirates. Right now, all my creative juices are steeped in D&D-esque fantasy. I just don’t have the energy to do that all day and then shift gears to 7th Sea, no matter how much I love it.

And let me stress that I love this game. I love it more than I did when we first started playing back during the release phase in 2016. It’s still a challenge to run, and that may be why I love it. I think stepping away from the game for two years was very helpful in figuring out what it did well and how to lean into those things. I love the depth and breadth of the setting, but I also feel the system does things no other game I’ve played does in such an engaging way. I want to keep playing it, to get better at it, to feel that synergy between creativity and play. But sometimes, when you love something, you have to let it go.

And so, for now, we are leaving distant shores of the Atabean for something more conventional. But I will be back.

It’s funny, I don’t revisit a lot of rpgs. When I run games, I tend to run one for 1-2 years in a stretch, then set it aside and move on to something else. That’s what I did with 7th Sea 1st edition. And as much as I loved that game, I really had no desire to go back to it (though I did attempt to adapt it to Savage Worlds a few times). But 7th Sea 2nd edition is different. Maybe because the game works and plays so differently from everything else in my collection. Plus there is so much of the setting that I want to explore! I WANT to run clash-of-cultures game set in Vestenmannavenjar. I WANT to play a game of swashbuckling intrigue set in Iskandar. I think it might even be fun (and educational) to run a monster hunting game set in Eisen (yes, I think I have enough distance from Witch Hunter to enjoy that now).

So one day, the sirens’ call of Terra will lure me to its distant shores again. And I think my players have enjoyed their visits to go along with me for the ride. But for now, we have other fantastic vistas to explore.

Dungeon23 Update

Today is January 31, and Dallas is consumed by successive waves of ice storms. School is closed, and I have completed the last entry of the first dungeon of Alhamra, my Dungeon23 project. The Under Gardens (aka “the Green Hell”) is complete. Tomorrow, I’ll be shifting gears to the Cistern level (aka “the Night Waters”).

What are the Under Gardens? Here’s a really simple boilerplate I wrote for someone on Reddit:

The Under Gardens lie amongst the old underground cisterns that were the lifeblood of Alhamra. They are sort of a dark mirror of the ceremonial gardens that once decorated the heart of the city and the processional to the temple district. They have their own eco-system at this point, full of giant/strange insects and such. They were originally home to the custodians (giant leaf-cutter ants with a sort of intelligent “hive mind”) and the nox (a dim witted neutral goblin variant). But then came Ditty May Knucklebones, a green hag, who had her own ideas about how to run the place. Then, a goblin tribe took refuge here from another adjacent dungeon. Together, they’ve managed to run off the nox and wrest control of the place.

So far, this has been a fun project. I’ve been able to keep up pretty well once, only having a few days were I’ve had to back fill entries. I’m fortunate that my job allows the occasional 10 minutes of calm to scribble something down that’s vaguely coherent. I started with a vague idea of what the level was going to be and let it evolve organically from there. Here are a couple of things I think have helped me succeed, in case any of you want to know:

• I haven’t worried about mapping. I just expect that I’ll go back through at some point and draw a map and reorganize the entries.
• Each week, I try to focus on a “sub-theme”, usually built around a faction.
• I try to keep my entries short. The shorter the better. I usually fit 4-5 entries per page. When I have time and space to creative, I’ll embellish.
• I let the dungeon reveal itself to me one day at a time. I started with a very vague plan and built on it with each entry. If I had a good idea, I’d either put it on my cover sheet or grab a post it note and slap it in there.
• I didn’t really worry about writing every single day. Again, a quick slap dash on a post-it note gave me something I could go back to and fill in later.
• I found that I had fewer days in the month than I rooms I wanted to explore.
• I think the structure of the garden level helped a lot this time around. I didn’t have to worry about empty rooms or mapping because most of this level is a vast, open cavern. The next level is going to be much more challenging.
• I don’t feel any pressure to post every entry I make to social media, nor keep up with everything post on the subject. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some beautiful work from some people, and gotten a spark of inspiration from a post or two, but I just don’t have the time or energy to get involved in that too much. I’m glad other people do, but that is not my situation.

So what’s next? What are the Night Waters? According to my mad scribblings, these are four partially submerged dungeon zones accessible via a few passages in the Under Gardens (including one very macabre sinkhole that goblins use). Three of the zones are accessible, but one is sealed. It must be “opened” to be explored (not exactly sure how that’s going to work yet, but I have some ideas). One thing I’ve already discovered is that D&D (all editions) are absolute crap for aquatic dungeon environments that aren’t sunken cities in the middle of the ocean. Oh, you can find sprawling lists of aquatic monsters, but none of these are broken down for more specific environments (like, say, partially submerged subterranean sub-levels of a larger dungeon complex). And these dumb, click-baity Top 10 lists aren’t helping. So I’m having to invent my eco-system almost from scratch. Also this level will require more mapping. It’s also going to need some cool treasure or rewards for exploring it, because otherwise it would be easy to ignore.

I’ll report back at the end of the month with another update. Maybe.

#dungeon23 and 7th Sea

While I am going the traditional route for the dungeon23 challenge, the thought did occur to me: why? Why not 7th Sea? Hell, why not really challenge myself and do Talislanta?! But no, the challenge of writing something thematic every single day is going to be challenge enough. And besides, as I’ve stated previously, I have an agenda for this project.

But what about 7th Sea? I mean, this IS a blog about *swashbuckling* fantasy. I know a lot of my friends in the 7th Sea community are (still) reading. This is not really a game that lends itself to dungeons, especially not megadungeons. But as so many people have expanded upon the concept of the #dungeon23 challenge (#hex23, #city23, #facility23, etc.), if a dedicated (and obsessive) 7th Sea GM (not unlike myself) were to take up the challenge in the world of Terra, how might one do that?

Of course, I’ve thought about it. And yes, I have some ideas.

Now, if you are completely lacking in imagination, I suppose you could go with #Sea23, and produce an island each week with 7 points of interest on each. That’s a lot of islands. Might be fun for a Atabean-centric game. But if you want to take your skills up a notch, you could do this approach set in THE 7th Sea. Now we have a license to get weird, and to stretch our imagination.

But okay, no really. How could you do it. How would I do it.

See, where D&D is a game about exploring unknown places, 7th Sea is about exploring stories: the players’ stories. And so we need something that can easily socket into that framework. We need something the players are going to be able to interact with, fall in love with, and ultimately have to choose between breaking it irreparably or sacrificing a part of themselves to save it. How do we do that with #dungeon23?

The Alternate Method

I see two ways to approach the challenge. Both are simple and will net you useable, gameable material. The first is a riff on the #city23 variant of the challenge. The second is slightly more 7th Sea-centric.

For the modified #city23 challenge, choose a city in the world. This could be Five Sails, or Aragosta, or the Painted City. Any place you would want to base a game. I would either go with war-torn Altamira in Castille/Montaigne or Vendel in Vestenmannavnjar. But instead of focusing on the locations in the city, I would focus on the people.

Each month, a new faction. Each week, a new cell within the faction. These cells could be rivals or allies. They may not even be on friendly terms with one another.

We are going to follow the alternative schedule for our weekly output, with some changes, of course:

• Monday: Leader (within the faction)
• Tuesday: Location (a place in the city that is important to the faction)
• Wednesday: Lackey (someone loyal to the Leader)
• Thursday: Device (a thing that helps the faction get things done; could be just about anything from
• Friday: Lackey (someone else loyal to the leader, but maybe not to Lackey #1)
• Saturday: Foil (someone who opposes the aims of the faction, maybe tied to another faction you’ve created or will create in the future)
• Sunday: Rumor (about the faction)

So each week, you’ll be creating four NPCs, a location, a thing, and a rumor. By the end of the year, that’ll give you a full city of agendas for the players to interact with.

Alternate-Alternate Method

If that feels a bit too ambitious for you, you could stick a bit closer to the #city23 design (still with the alternate schedule):

Each month, a new district. Each week, a new neighborhood.

• Monday: Location
• Tuesday: Person (someone important/influential who operates out of this neighborhood)
• Wednesday: Location
• Thursday: Person (someone important/influential who operates out of this neighborhood)
• Friday: Location
• Saturday: Faction (that operates out of this neighborhood; tie one of the persons and locations into it)
• Sunday: Rumor (about one of the locations you’ve created this week)

Easy enough and recognizable. You won’t be a island onto yourself with this approach. But I don’t think it creates as satisfying a result…for 7th Sea anyway. But either approach is going to give you something you can use at the end of the year.

As with the other challenge variants, lean into random generators to help you out. Every person needs a name, a background, a personality, plus a physical quirk and an agenda. Locations could have physical description, a history, maybe a secret. Keep things brief. Just a few lines. Don’t put too much thought into it. Don’t worry if everything makes sense or follows some grand design. Just write something. You can always clean things up in 2024.

Shining a Light on Stories

Hey everyone. I know it’s been awhile (something I really hope to remedy at some point) but I wanted to drop in to highlight a little gem for 7th Sea players and GMs.

Now, if you’ve been anywhere near the 7th Sea social media channels (FB, Discord, etc.) then you’ve heard about the Writer’s Room podcast. If you haven’t, you have some catching up to do. I’ll put it up there with the Essential NPC’s 7th Sea series as ESSENTIAL LISTENING to anyone who is currently playing or interested in playing this game.

Earlier this month, the Writer’s Room dropped a new “Notes with the Narrator” episode. These are deep dives with the Hostess and GM of the AP about various mechanics and approaches in to running the game. Just like Essentials “Words with the GM”, these provide marvelous little windows into how to run the game that are worth a listen regardless of your experience with the game. This particular episode was about the Story System, 7th Sea’s wildly wonky Advancement system.

My own experience with the Story System was a mixed bag. In concept, as a GM, I LOVE IT! In play…well…as with so many things it really depends on how your players wrangle with it. In reflection, I feel it was one of the less understood and ignored aspect of the game when it came to my players. And even I had a hard time using it as a guidepost in play. I want it to work so badly, though. Because it’s a really cool spin on milestone Advancement.

All of this is what makes this particular deep dive by two people who not only grok the story system, but have actual play experience in where the pitfalls are and how to avoid them. This 40+ minute conversation really highlights what makes the story system both interesting and frustrating. It also breaks everything down in ways to really make the system work in ways the core rules scarcely touch on (dead horse to Chaosium: a 7th Sea GM’s Companion would be a great addition to the line!).

When my band of players get ready to jump aboard this game again (soon, I’m hoping), this is going to be required listening for them. As I think it really clarifies how the system works and how the players are expected to use it in play. I encourage everyone else to do the same. Especially if, like me, you fell in love with the Story System at first blush but didn’t really feel like it ever loved you back.

So do you have any tricks of the trade to make stories sing at your table? Any player aids you use? Feel free to drop some wisdom in the comments!

An Unholy Union?

What’s that you say?  You’re intrigued by the world of 7th Sea, but balk at the game system?  It’s too handwavy?  Too diceless?  Too narrative?  Too Wick?  Besides, your players’ eyes glaze over anytime someone mentions a game that doesn’t have “Dungeons and Dragons” on the cover.  Let’s just cut to the quick: you want to run a D&D game, but you want to use the 7th Sea setting. 

Sacrilege?!?  Heresy?!?  Maybe, but it could also be a lot of fun.  Hell, I’d play!  I’ve even devoted some brainpower to it.  I’ve long been considering a blog post on this topic but a post on reddit forced my hand.

Dungeons & Dragons: 7th Sea

Let me say this upfront: if you are looking to run a 7th Sea game using the 5e rules, this post is not going to be very helpful.  In fact, I think you are just setting yourself up for a lot of work without much of a payoff.  But if you want to run a Dungeons and Dragons game set in the world of 7th Sea, well there I can help you.  There is a difference.  And it’s easy.  So easy, in fact, you could be playing tomorrow night!

The trick is in finding a compromise between the 7th Sea setting (a vast pastiche of 17th century earth) and the implied setting of D&D.  If you are okay with that, then here is my very simple (but untested) recipe for doing so:

• Ditch the 7th Sea national sorceries. Instead, use the D&D magic system. Each nation specializes in one or two schools of magic. (ie, Montaigne, Conjuration (which includes Teleportation); Vodacce, Divination; etc.). Likewise, certain magical classes fit those styles of magic better (Montaigne and Vodacce magic users are Sorcerers, since their magic is inherent to bloodlines. Avalon, Ussura, and the Commonwealth would all be Warlocks. Castille, Eisen, and Vestenmanavenjar would all be wizards.).  Here is the list I sketched out some time ago in my handy GM Notebook:

Nationality	Class	School
Avalon, et al.	Warlock	Enchantment, Illusion
Montaigne	Sorcerer	Conjuration
Castille	Wizard (Alchemist)	Transmutation
Eisen	Wizard (Alchemist)	Necromancy
Sarmatia	Warlock	Conjuration, Evocation
Ussura	Warlock	Abjuration
Vestenmennavenjar	Wizard	Evocation, Transmutation
Vodacce	Sorcerer	Divination

• You’ll need to make a decision about the priest class. The priest class doesn’t really make sense in 7th Sea, but has an important role in D&D. You can ditch the class by moving some of its “turn undead” capabilities to the wizard’s necromancy school for Hexenwerk. But it would be easier (and less abrasive to players) to just keep it as is.
• No non-human races.  If you are feeling ambitious, you can use the National Trait bonuses from the 7th Sea rules to create similar National Attribute bonuses, or you can just ignore that and just use the standard human racial template easily enough.

• Use the Firearms and Explosives rules from the DMG (pg. 267-268).

• Use the Hero Point option from the DMG (pg. 264).

• You’ll want to disassociate armor worn from Armor Class. While there isn’t an option in the DMG, I believe there are house ruled variants available.  Some easy options would be to allow classes to add their Proficiency bonus to AC, and/or perhaps double to Dex bonus as it applies to AC.

• If you have the 4th edition, you could do worse than adapt the Minion rules (for brute squads). This is a nice option to keep in your toolbox, but easily ignored.

• Magical weapons and armor are Dracheneisen, Zahmeireen, or even Nacht, (if you want to bring those back into play). Potions are alchemy or hexenwerk (Castille, Eisen).  Anything that doesn’t fit these concepts should be reskinned as syrneth artifacts or something else entirely (fey or devai crafted items?  Gifts from the Jok, Bonsam, or a living god?).

• A copy of Ghosts of Saltmarsh will be a must for the naval combat rules!  Alternatively, you can grab a copy of the playtest rules or your favorite variant of the DM’s Guild.

And there you have it. Your conversion work is done. You’ll probably need to fine tune a few things (add Backgrounds, Feats, maybe adapt some subclasses), but you can start playing tomorrow!  And if you do—or if you see something obvious that I missed—be sure to drop a message in the comments!

Quick update: Reading some of the initial responses over on the Explorers of Théah facebook group, I feel the need to clarify the objective here.  This is not a blueprint for running 7th Sea with 5e rules.  It isn’t about shoehorning all the conventions of 7th Sea into 5e mechanical terms — the duelist academies, the sorceries, etc.  What I’m proposing is that you can use the themes in 7th Sea to alter the trappings of your 5e game. It’s going to feel like playing D&D. It’s going to look like playing D&D. You WILL be playing D&D. But that dungeon you are about to explore is in Montaigne, and the Fate Witch in your party is a creepy, veiled divination sorceress from Vodacce.

Got it?

Or maybe you just need more rum!

Or maybe I do.

New Horizons for 7th Sea

Let’s have some more music for this one.

If you weren’t paying attention on Tuesday, you may have missed the news that Chaosium, publishers of the Runequest and Call of Cthulhu roleplaying games, had reached an agreement with John Wick Presents to acquire the 7th Sea line and fulfill the stymied 7th Sea and 7th Sea: Khitai kickstarters.  Here is the press release Chaosium issued.

Quick recap: In November last year, John Wick announced that he had laid off all staff from JWP due to financial difficulties.  The search had begun for a partner to help fulfill the obligations of the kickstarters.  In the meantime, John was pursuing the goal of finishing the books himself.  Much of the material had been written, but there were still outstanding debts to the writers and no money for purchasing art.

Naturally, many people are left to wonder how a company that raised nearly $2 million between two kickstarters could run aground.  No answers have been forthcoming but most of us agree that, in hindsight, the kickstarters were too generous in what they offered for the price.  Let’s face it, a one time investment of $40 got you the whole store in PDF format.  That’s a pretty sweet deal no matter how you look at it.

Back to the present.  I think it’s telling that the agreement between Chaosium and John Wick includes John Wick himself!  Both as the creative director and lead writer of 7th Sea (which makes sense) and his contributions to the company’s other game lines.  If you have followed John Wick for any time at all, you know that he has a deep seated love for the Call of Cthulhu and Pendragon game lines, and was a contributor to the Prince Valiant kickstarter.  So in that sense, this seems like a match made in heaven.

I can only speculate in terms of the negotiations, but it makes sense that Wick, who bought the 7th Sea property from AEG (Wick was one of the co-creaters of the game during his tenure at that company), would want to maintain some control of the property he has clearly invested so much in.  It also makes sense that Chaosium would want more than what would otherwise have been a tax write off at best, a charitable donation at worst, to get the game back on its feet.  As a player, fan, and follower of the game, I think it’s safe to say that it has not set the RPG community on fire.  On Chaosium’s part, I suspect that John Wick was the prize, moreso than the 7th Sea property.  I could be wrong about that: before the November announcement, the game had a pretty deep lineup of unpublished material: including a LARP, a third novel, and four major sourcebooks, plus steady income from the Explorer’s Society Community Content program.  None of that includes the Khitai line or 7th Sea 1889, which were also well into development by August (in fact, the core book had been originally slated for release that September).

The trick for Chaosium now is how to monetize the new property while still fulfilling the KS obligations.  That’s where the marketing department kicks in.  Say what you will about JWP, the marketing arm never felt very energetic.  There was very little attempt, outside of a handful of Facebook posts to really galvanize and cultivate a community around the game.  Because of the terms of the two KS, Chaosium needs to turn PDF obligations in to physical book SALES.  They will also need to navigate the choppy waters of entitled backers if they seek to pivot from the established publication schedule.

While I think the majority of us fans would be pretty forgiving of this strategy, one only has to look at the KS comments section to find a few who would rather see the whole line go down in flames than not get everything they invested in two months ago.  Such is the devil’s bargain that is kickstarter.  John Wick once joked, “its as though the mob showed up with a bag of money and said, ‘ya bettah make a game, Wick.'”  He may have been more prescient than he could have expected.  To his credit, I’ve yet to him be anything but gracious to these backers, when he’s responded to them publicly at all.

Anyhow, I think the move will be a good one.  JWP was always a small company built around two people: John Wick (the writer/idea guy) and Mark Diaz Truman (the money guy).  7th Sea turned it into something different, and maybe something it was never intended to be.  It’s really hard to build a large company around a single property without some sort of zeitgeist (TSR, Wizards of the Coast, and White Wolf ALL come to mind).  This merger brings 7th Sea under the umbrella of a company where it doesn’t have to be the main breadwinner, or count on a stable of small indie products to buttress it during lean times.  Plus, it gives Chaosium something it doesn’t have (a narrative RPG line) that fits the overarching philosophy of its other properties (mythology and immersive stories).

What to watch for?  Here’s my list:

• for Chaosium to break out of the KS release cycle, probably with small PDFs and monographs.  Maybe with something bigger.  (Hey guys!  If you are listening.  I still think a GM Companion is a good idea!  Play Dirty: 7th Sea edition.)
• for a strong push for physical product.
• for a reorganization of the KS fulfillment timeline.
• more social media presence.

How will we know if Chaosium is serious:

• 7th Sea Khitai is given a 2020 GenCon release date.
• Chaosium announces a new game using the 7th Sea game system (something small and niche, maybe PDF only).

How will we know Chaosium has lost their damn minds:

• 7th Sea Khitai is give a 2019 GenCon release date.
• New edition of the game (2.5?) is announced.
• John Wick is announced to be the writer of a John Wick licensed RPG.

How will we know the ship is going down:

• 7th Sea 1889 is announced, but is going to use a different game system. (Either a BRP or Prince Valiant variant).

How much should you trust these lists?  About as much as these people are paying me to post them.

Until next time!

Roll the Bones

First, some music!

Sometimes you just wanna throw some dice.

That’s not a thing 7th Sea really excels at.  That’s a feature, not a bug.  Risks are supposed to be big deals.  When it comes to routine actions, even those other RPGs might call for more challenging tests, GMs are encouraged to let the players succeed and move on with the game.  As I’ve said here and elsewhere, if you can’t think of at least two Consequences to a course of action, it’s not a Risk.

But sometimes. Sometimes you just wanna throw some dice.

Some 7th Sea GMs do this.  But the game isn’t really built for it.  The dice mechanic has a very steep curve.  This has been well documented here, here, and here.  So if you are just pulling numbers out of the air for task difficulty, odds are you are just wasting your time.

Sometimes you just wanna throw some dice.

I include myself in this.  Sometimes, I just want to call for a roll for a binary chance.  It’s late, time is of the essence, and I just too damn tired don’t want to conjure up a bunch of consequences.  But I don’t want to just let the players succeed either.  I need something.  And my players?  They just wanna throw some dice.

(Ok, I’ll stop with that now.)

A while back I started playing around with mixing the mechanics from Modiphius’ 2d20 system and 7th Sea.  While I’ve long advocated the Ubiquity RPG (via All for One Regime Diabolique) as a rosetta stone between 1st and 2nd edition 7th Sea, I also believe that the new 2d20 Lite, used in John Carter of Mars, is a nearly perfect vehicle for folks who find 7th Sea 2nd edition TOO hand-wavy.  In fact, I’m convinced that you can run the games interchangeably just by dropping skills and changing a few names in 2d20 Lite.  But I digress.  This experiment has led me to what I think is a nearly perfect way to call for binary dice tests in 7th Sea.  You wanna throw some dice?  Lemme tell ya how.

So statistically, 7th Sea almost guarantees 1 Raise for every 3 dice rolled.  I believe I’ve seen the figure 0.75 Raises per 2 dice.  Not quite Ubiquities 50/50 split, but pretty darn close.  So let’s assume that’s correct. Let’s use the figures in one of the links above:

on 6 dice I saw the following results:

71% of the results were 3 successes

14% of the results were 4 successes

12.5% of the results were 2 successes

1% of the results were 5 successes

1% of the results were 1 success

.5% of the results were 0 successes

The reroll of one die improved a roll about 9% of the time.

Going by those figures, here is what I propose:

To make a binary (yes/no) roll in 7th Sea, roll your dice pool against a Target Number equal to HALF of your pool.  So if you are rolling 6 dice, your TN would be 3 Raises.  4 dice? 2 Raises.  Got it?  This is a ROUTINE test (71% +/- chance of success, 80% with a reroll—skill rank 3+).

Want to make it more difficult?  Increase the TN by 1 (14% +/- chance of success, 25% with a reroll).  This is a CHALLENGING test. (This is what MOST of your tests are going to be.)

More?  Increase the TN by 2 (1% +/- chance of success, 10% with a reroll).  This is a DAUNTING test.  Not quite a Hail Mary, but close.

You can twist this to a non-binary result very easily too.  Assume a TN of half your dice pool for base (partial) success.  By every Raise you miss the target by, you suffer one Consequence.  Likewise, for every Raise you score beyond the target, you can create an Opportunity for an ally in the scene.

And the best part?  It works with the Danger Point mechanic.

Need a table for that?  Here you go.

Task Difficulty	Raises Req.
Routine	+0
Challenging	+1
Daunting	+2
Impossible	+3

Now, remember, this is a crutch.  It’s a little clunky, but it’ll get you there.  I wouldn’t ditch the core Risk mechanic for this.  But there are certain scenarios where I can see this being a useful tool to keep in your toolbox.  I think it can also be useful for players and GMs new to 7th Sea who are coming from more traditional backgrounds (like myself) — though we are perhaps the most susceptible to over exploiting this crutch.

Please do not complain the game is broken when you use this trick as your main mechanic and your game falls apart.  This is a crutch, remember?  When was the last time anyone ran a marathon with a crutch?  Never.  Right.

But hey.  You know what?  Sometimes…

Curses, Disease, and Poison: Lasting Afflictions in 7th Sea

Consequences in 7th Sea are relatively straightforward.  Either something happens to you RIGHT NOW, or you take wounds.  But what about more lasting afflictions?  How can we reflect those in play? With very few exceptions, the rules are silent on these.  There’s the VENOMOUS Monstrous Quality (Core rulebook, pg 198).  But that isn’t a very satisfying way to replicate the effects of the vast myriad of Vodacce poisons, some strange disease your Avalonian explorer picks up in the jungles of Aztlan or while delving into the ancient tomb of a Khemetic Pharoah.

After this question was posed on the Explorer’s of Théah Discord server (yes, there is one—and if you are a fan of 7th Sea, you need to be on it), I gave the prospect some thought.  What sort of conditions and penalties work for lasting afflictions?  How long should they last?  Here is what I came up with.

CURSES

A curse is a supernatural affliction.  How you end up on the receiving end of one is a matter for your game.  Beating one could be a Story to itself.

There are three Grades of Curses.

• Minor Curses last 1 scene (ie. the evil eye, a jinx)
• Major Curses last 1 episode
• Epic Curses last 1 season (or require a 3-5 Step story to Remove) (ex. the gypsy curse in Stephen King’s Thinner, Lycanthrope, etc)

Curse Effects

Choose one effect from the following list that best reflects the condition the curse imparts on the victim.  Some effects are more suited to certain ranks than others, but that is left to your discretion as the GM.

1. Lose your highest raise
2. the curse prevents you from acting a certain way. Certain actions require 2 raises to perform. (Threat like Pressure.)
3. Reputation (people tend to avoid you if they know you are “cursed”)
4. Gain an extra Hubris
5. Gain the Foul Weather Jack Advantage (player gets an extra story that must be resolved or bad thing happens) (3-point advantage, core rulebook pg 151)
6. Player cannot activate her Virtue while under the effects of the curse.
7. Player cannot spend/earn Hero Points while under the effects of the curse. (Not recommended for Epic curses!)
8. The cursed hero acts normally, its his companions that suffer the curse effect.
9. The hero is pursued by a sending/phantom thing. Roll d10 at the beginning of any scene, on a 1 the thing shows up to complicate matters.  (Alternative: the GM may spend a DP to have the sending appear on the scene.)
10. Gain the Dark Gift Advantage (Nations of Théah, vol 2, pg 206) AND a second 5-step story to remove it)
11. Gain a point of Corruption.

Once a hero is under the effects of a curse, future applications of the same curse have no affect.  The hero can be cursed again for a different effect, or can be RE-cursed once the effect has been voided (even through a Story—because villains suck!).

POISONS

Like curses, there are three grades of poisons.

• Minor Poison effects last 1 scene
• Major Poison effects last 1 episode
• Epic Poisons last 1 season (or require a 3-5 Step story to remove) (ex. the poison from the movie, D.O.A.)

Poison Effects

Choose one effect from the following list that best reflects the condition the poison imparts on the victim.  Some effects are more suited to certain ranks than others, but that is left to your discretion as the GM.

1. Lose your highest raise (just like the Venomous Monstrous Quality; this condition may cost a Danger Point).
2. The victim is immediately rendered helpless!
3. The poison’s antidote must be administered before the end of the scene or the victim becomes helpless until applied (plus X number of hours, usually 24).
4. While the victim is poisoned, she suffers 2 wounds for every 1 she would normally take (and yes, that means she must still spend 1 raise to counter each wound).
5. The hero suffers an immediate dramatic wound, plus X additional wounds (just like being hit by a firearm)
6. The victim rolls 2 fewer dice (1 from trait and 1 from skill) for all Approaches while under effects of the poison.
7. Villains roll +2 dice against the victim (exactly as though the hero had 2 Dramatic Wounds—and yes, this penalty stacks with that one).
8. The victim must spend a HP to act (make approach, gather dice pool, etc) in the scene (just as if rendered helpless).
9. Treat as a Hubris—the victim gains a Hero Point when his poisoned condition causes him trouble.
10. The player receive a (3-5) step story that MUST be resolved or your hero dies (usually involves finding a special healer/antidote/etc.).  At the GM’s discretion, this may be resolved at the same time as the hero’s current storyline, but it must be resolved FIRST.  If the hero’s primary storyline is solved before the poison storyline, the hero dies.

Once a hero is under the effects of a poison, future applications of the same poison may no affect, depending on the condition.  The hero can be poisoned again for a different effect, or once the effect has been voided.

Disease

Disease works just like curses and poisons.  They grade effects are identical.  Pick the effect from either list that best suits the effect you want and go with it.

Once a hero is under the effects of a disease, future applications of the same disease have no affect.  The hero can be afflicted with multiple diseases, and voiding an effect is not the same as gaining an immunity (unless the GM says so—in which case, get it in writing!).

Curses, Poison, and Disease as a Consequence

All three of these conditions are can be presented as consequences.  There are a few slight differences between them.

• Curses attached to an item (say, a stolen Khemetic relic) can only be avoided by ridding oneself of the item.  It must be destroyed, given away (and freely accepted, lest Corruption!), or returned to its original resting place.  As long as the item is in the Hero’s possession, he is subject to the curse.
• Curses laid by an individual (the stereotypical “gypsy curse”) are generally applied with Pressure, and as such should require two Raises to avoid in an Action or Dramatic sequence.
• Poison can be attached to Dramatic Wounds.  Drinking a vial of poison should have a consequence of 10+ wounds.  If the hero does not spend raises to avoid all resulting dramatic wounds (so 6+ Raises), the affliction is applied.
• Avoiding drinking a poison may have social consequences, and villains will often apply Pressure to this effect.
• Poisoned weapons might work like firearms.
• Disease can either be a group consequence, with Pressure from the environment (so 2 raises per hero to avoid or everyone gets it).
• Weaponized diseases (like D&D’s Mummy Rot) can be attached to wounds.  Epic Diseases should require at least a dramatic wound to administer.
• Diseases can also be the result of Hazards (The New World, pg 199-200).  This is a good alternative with the Treacherous Element (instead of a Dramatic Wound).

Dungeoncrawls in 7th Sea

This started out as a response to Matt Wandcow’s post on the 7th Sea Reddit where he was gracious enough to convey his experience with running a “dungeon adventure” in 7th Sea 2nd edition.  The most I wrote, the more I realized that this really belonged on the blog.  So hang on tight!  It’s going to be a bumpy, slightly disjointed ride.  I’m sure someone is going to disagree with me.  I may disagree with me in a couple of months.  But as of right now, this very moment, here are my (barely coherent) thoughts on how to run a satisfying dungeon adventure with the 7th Sea game system.

Let’s be clear—all of this is just theory.  I haven’t run a 7th Sea styled dungeon crawl, though I have outlined one.  So treat this like everything else you read on the internet: with extreme skepticism!  Be prepared to discard or modify things that don’t work.  And when you do, don’t hesitate to post about it in the comments section.

First, let’s make sure we define what a “dungeon” is.  A “dungeon” is a closed (or self-contained) adventure environment with limited entrance/exit points. 

Traditional D&D-style dungeons do not work well in 7th Sea.  7th Sea really shines as a “scene-driven” game, where the players jump from scene to scene as opposed to moving methodically through a pre-planned labyrinth.  In fact, much as was stated in that oft-derided passage from the Vatican City sourcebook, a 7th Sea dungeon may work better WITHOUT a map.  (::gasp::shock:: swoon::) 

Instead, a 7th Sea dungeon is built on the follow two foundations: zones and set pieces.

• A zone is an area of a dungeon tied together by a theme of some sort.  In old school dungeon design terms, a zone is kind of like a dungeon “level”.  The theme could be a monster, a feature, or a hazard.  The haunted mines could be a zone, as could the lava vents, or the eldritch machines.  Likewise, the kobold warrens or the troll lair could also be a zone.
• A set piece is a big ticket feature, room, encounter, risk, or challenge in the zone.  The Throne Room of Asmodeus could be a set piece. 

Set Pieces exist within zones, but not all zones need to have a set piece.  A zone without a set piece is a good candidate for a Dramatic Sequence or a Hazard, as it is likely meant as an obstacle that must be passed through to get from one Zone to another.

Note: if you have been using Fate-style zones in play already, the use of zones here may lead to confusion.  In that case, simply substitute a similar word (sector, region, node, etc) and run with it. 

The 5 Room Dungeon

A good resource for set pieces is to have a look at the 5-Room Dungeon model.  The five room dungeon is made up of combinations of the same five components:

1. entrance (guardian)
2. puzzle/roleplaying challenge
3. trick or setback
4. climax
5. reward/revelation

Each of these components make ideal set piece models.  In fact, each zone could be considered a single 5-Room Dungeon, with each “room” being a standout scene that can occur within.  This shouldn’t be taken as a hard and fast rule, there are always exceptions.  But if you are desperate for a model to hang these concepts on, you can do a lot worse.

It it helps, it might be worth thinking in terms of the Encounters outlined in Green Ronin’s AGE books — there are three types of encounters: combat, roleplaying, and exploration (or combinations of the three).

Exploration

One of Matt’s initial concerns was which skills interact with dungeon exploration.  This is faulty thinking in my opinion.  The real question is not “how do the players use skills to navigate the dungeon,” but “how do the players use skills to circumvent the Risks they encounter while navigating the dungeon.”  After all, O/A/BXD&D had only a handful of inferred skills (open doors, find secret door, etc.) for exploring dungeons.  The characters were assumed to have a certain level of competency for such things, as are 7th Sea heroes.

Players get to decide how they want to apply their skills and traits (their Approach), so the GM really doesn’t have to concern himself with such things.

In D&D and similar FRPGs, the players would carefully explore the twisting labyrinth between set piece encounters.  In 7th Sea, I would suggest letting the players give shape to this connective tissue.  This is where Hazards come in.

Hazards

Hazards share a lot in common with Dungeon World’s dungeon moves, so let’s treat them that way.  A zone can be a Hazard and thus work to thwart the heroes.  It can spend raises to activate elements or to pressure the group to go astray.  If Dark Things lurk in the zone, you should set a clock to forecast their arrival.  And when they arrive, it should trigger a set piece encounter.  In many cases, it should be the players’ goal to reach the set piece before time runs out—if they don’t, the set piece becomes considerably more challenging.  This gives them an incentive to keep moving.

All of this could be handled as an action sequence (a running fight against those lurking things, or running a gauntlet of traps), a dramatic sequence (a countdown before something terrible happens), or even a chase sequence (if time is of paramount essence).  The Dramatic Sequence is probably most accurately replicates that “old school dungeon” feel, but each method has its advantages. 

The Mountains of Madness

This HP Lovecraft story involves the protagonists making their way through a vast, primordial “dungeon” beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica.  The ruins of Moria in Fellowship of the Ring also feels like this.  It’s really just a big travel montage when you break it down.  Nothing really happens beyond bucket loads of descriptive text thrown at the reader. This will probably be less satisfying for the players, but may feel appropriate to set the tone for particularly alien environments.  If you want to replicate this “mountains of madness” fee, there are three ways to do it:

• establish the scene, then ask each of the players to describe one strange sight or occurrence.  This gives the players some agency and keeps the scene from becoming one massive scene of boxed text.
• establish the scene and just let the players wander.  Embrace your inner boxed text writer.  Own it.  Throw in an occasional Risk to keep things interesting for the players.
• Establish the scene and set a clock (at least 1 for each player—4 or 5 steps should do).  Let the players wander around.  Each time they ask a question or establish a detail, tick one step off the clock.  When the clock runs out, it triggers a set piece. 

Use this approach sparingly.  If you are using a dungeon with multiple zones, for instance, you might just use this method on the entrance zone.

Traps

As gamers, many of us have become conditioned to think of traps in terms of D&D.  A concealed pit trap here, a poisoned dart trap there, a falling portcullis, you get the idea.  In D&D, these isolated traps are meant to slowly drain the party’s resources (HP, spells, hirelings, equipment).  These sorts of traps do not work in 7th Sea.  So don’t even bother with it.

Traps in 7th Sea should come in three forms: obstacles (risks), grand death traps (hazards as villains), and complications (the room is on fire!).

• Obstacles: obstacles are simply a risk that must be circumvented or navigated to get from one location to the next.  These should be treated as a simple Group Risk.  They should cause enough wounds to give them teeth (2-5 per hero) and a few related consequences and opportunities to keep the choices interesting.
• Grand Death Traps: unleash your inner James Bond villain here.  A death trap should always be a hazard, but the encounter should be played out as an action sequence.  Think the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  The Death Trap is triggered when the idol is stolen, followed by an action sequence where Indy has to run a gauntlet of smaller traps to avoid being crushed by a giant boulder.  Death traps are intricate, multi-part devices that fill entire rooms, halls, even zones.  A death trap is ALWAYS a set piece.
• Complications: These traps work in tandem with another adversary in an action sequence.  A good example of this is the conveyor belt seen in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, where the heroes are fighting flying adversaries while dealing with the pitfalls of traveling on a moving conveyor belt.  While these traps can be treated as hazards, they can also simply be a collection of consequences (or group consequences).

Disarming Traps

Another fallacy that has come from modern incarnations of D&D is that all traps may be disarmed somehow.  This is simply wrong.  In fact, there is evidence that in the earliest form of the D&D game, the only traps that were meant to be disarmed were treasure traps (there is a poison needle in the lock).  Other traps (pits, snares, etc.) could be avoided but not disarmed.  In 7th Sea, disarming a trap should ALWAYS be a group opportunity, and available only where it makes sense or if you are feeling particularly generous.  As the GM, you have the option of saying “no, but…”

But Aren’t Traps Hazards?

The answer is no. 7th Sea actually distinguishes between Hazards (The New World) and Traps (Vaticine City).  Of course, both of them work almost the same way.  But you can choose between them in terms of what is a better fit for the scene.  Traps make for better Obstacles and simple Risks while Hazards make better Death Traps.  Either one can be used to generate Complications in a scene.  It really depends on how much flexibility you want as a GM.

Monsters

Another complaint of Matt’s is that Théah is a 99% human world, which makes it difficult to set up a Keep on the Borderlands-style dungeon adventure.  I would argue this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Granted, D&D is full of tiered monsters designed to challenge PCs from level 1-14/20/36/??, which 7th Sea doesn’t need.  But monsters (and we’re talking weird Clarke Aston Smith-style monsters) have always been part of the setting.  And not just weird folklore monsters (faeries, djinn, oni) but weird science fantasy ones too (Thalusi, et al.).  Here’s the thing, don’t follow the eco-diversity model of D&D when making your weird dungeons.  Get weird, subvert tropes, add color and surprises.

In 7th Sea, the Caves of Chaos could potentially be found pretty much anywhere in Théah.  The themes of the region simply add color.  In Avalon, you have to deal with the politics of the sidhe, who might not take kindly to you wiping out an enclave of the unseelie host.  In Eisen, this ravaging horde takes on a more horrific quality.  In the Commonwealth, the cult of chaos could be a cabal of rogue Losejai and the monsters a sort of weird, sub-demonic host.  Truth is, almost every region of europe has its own folklore about goblins, kobolds, and dangerous fey.  A half hour of research online should net you plenty of redressing possibilities.

A word of warning: 7th Sea isn’t meant to be D&D.  So if you start littering the countryside with dungeon crawls, don’t come complaining to me when your game goes off the rails. 

Treasure

Monetary treasure can be helpful in 7th Sea, but it’s not a focus of play.  So the purpose of your dungeon adventure shouldn’t hinge on it (unless your heroes are all pirates!).  So here again, we need to unlearn what we have learned from generations of D&D play and go back to the pulps that inspired it.  In the pulps, these sorts of adventures usually culminate in a single, massive horde, or the search for a particular treasure (the crown jewels, or a chest of cursed aztec gold).  So think big.  Tie the players stories into these treasures.  Send them on recovery missions for patrons and secret societies, not as rogue freebooters who are out for themselves (unless, again, they are pirates!).

Here’s a thought: borrow a page from Barbarians of Lemuria.  In that RPG, treasure is simply a means to earn experience.  After an adventure, the players take turns explaining how they spent their share of the treasure, and that nets them experience for advancing their characters.  You could easily do the same thing with 7th Sea.  If treasure hunting IS the point of the adventure, require each player to describe how she spends her share as the final step in their Story.  OR offer up a handful of strange, exotic treasures as keystones for new, short stories (1-2 Steps only unless a player has something bigger in mind for a reward).  Earthdawn is another good source of inspiration here: where each treasure has new powers that need to be studied and explored to be unlocked. 

Stories Hooks

The real magic to running a successful dungeon in 7th Sea are stories.  Tie the factions, villains, and treasures into the players’ character stories.  Give them a reason to be there, to find someone or something, to prevent an event, or stop a villain for completing a scheme.  Don’t just drop a bunch of goblins in the middle of the forest and expect greatness.  Stories (and Story Steps) are the real currency of the real when it comes to 7th Sea, so give your players a reason to invest in the adventure.

For good examples of tying your dungeon environment into your players stories, look to the Vaticine City sourcebook.  The lists on page 3-5 are pure gold and easily repurposed to this effort.

In Closing

So there you have it, my recipe for running successful “dungeon” adventures with the 7th Sea rules.  Perfect for syrneth dig sites, Montaigne catacombs, extensive Sarmatian cave systems, and lost cities in Aztlan.  Be flexible, and be prepared to experiment and improvise—not everything I’ve recommended is going to work, and some of it is going to require fine tuning.  As of this writing, there are very few published models of what can be considered dungeon crawls in the 7th Sea sense.  Until we get a few of those, its really hard to say what works and what doesn’t.  But don’t let that stand in your way!

And be sure to report in the comments what works and what doesn’t.  I’m eager to hear about it.

Resources and Inspiration

6 Methods for Making Dungeons More Interesting (Roleplaying Tips)

The Nine Forms of the Five Room Dungeon (Gnome Stew)

How Making Up A Dungeon On The Fly Is As Simple As Counting To 5 (Nerds on Earth)

Crawling without Hexes (Hill Cantons)

Pointcrawl Series Index (Hill Cantons)

Encounters vs Scenes (What’s He On About Now?)

Dungeons in FATE: Scenes and Scenarios (RPG Stuff)

Node-based Dungeon Design (The Alexandrian)

Episode Recap: Good Knight

Our Heroes are…

• Edward Kenway, Son of Avalon and Captain of the Jackdaw
• Carmena Elena de Ibarra de la Luz, disgraced Castillian Naval officer and bosun of the Jackdaw
• Milaria Beaufort, Knight Arrant of Avalon and loyal servant of Queen Elaine
• Sebastian Valmont, wayward Montaignese aristocrat and porté mage
• Modestas Radvilas Kelrus (Mohai), Sarmatian Expatriate and former Dragoman to the court of the Empress of the Crescent Moon.

(Captain Kenway, Carmena, and Mohai are absent tonight)

Tonight’s Spotlight Hero is…

Milaria Beaufort

Part One: Shadow of Avalon

The Three Queens tavern in La Bucca is named for the three queens of the Glamour Isles: Elaine, Titania, and Mab.  For many wayward Avalonians, it is a glimmer of home in this forsaken place.  The tavern is known for its briny stews, spicy sausages, and its barrels of ale imported from the Glamour Isles (but mostly Inishmore).  A crowd of jovial displace Avalonians can usually be found here, singing merrily along to the traditional songs of their homeland played lovingly by Candice and Richard, two minstrels who never found their way off the island.

This is why Milaria Beaufort, Knight Errant of Avalon and Queen Elaine’s Champion, has grown to love this place so much since she came to the Pirate Republic.

But tonight is different.  Tonight, most of the local patrons have fled as a gang of raucous, carousing Maghrebis have settled in.  They are no fans of the music or the musicians, but the spirits and stew seem to be to their liking.

Milaria and Sebastian Valmont sit in their cups, doing their best to ignore the obnoxious carrying on of these foreign pirates when a young, wide-eyed man in official looking dress stumbles through the front door.  He quickly surveys the room and, spying Milaria, clumsily smiles and hastens to her table.

As the young man approaches, Milaria’s eye wanders to a table set in the back corner of the bar.  A table that is always reserved for an honored guest who never comes.  But tonight, a man sits there.  Tall, broad-shouldered, with shaggy gray hair and an unkept beard.  His piercing blue eyes do not shy away when Milaria’s meet them.

The young envoy is clueless of this exchange.  He tells Milaria that Ambassador Zorita wishes to meet with her about her…problem.  Tomorrow morning, in the embassy gardens, after morning prayers.

Milaria listens, but watches the old man.  She says she will meet with the ambassador and gives the young man leave of the place.

One of the Maghrebi turns and sizes up Sebastian, then turns and makes a rude remark about the Montaignese man’s breeding and his mother to his companions.  He thinks Sebastian could not possibly understand but he is wrong.  Immediately, Sebastian’s blood runs hot.  He stands and returns the insult.  Immediately, half the pirates are on their feet, including a massive man with a large cutlass and a whip at his side.

Milaria quickly looks back to the table, but the old man is gone.

Steel is drawn.  Milaria moves to protect Candice and Richard and tells them to go fetch the proprietress! Sebastian takes to his work with glee and satisfaction.  The pirates fall before him, all but the big man with the whip.  Skilled in the Mantovani style of Vodacce, the big pirate makes the fight interesting.

As Milaria confronts her share of the pirates, the old shaggy man reappears.  He clubs two pirates heads together, gives her a wink, and is gone.

When Myrna Byrne, all 100 pounds of her, bursts furiously through the kitchen doors brandishing her cudgel, the battle is already won.  The big pirate, now sporting a wicked “SV” slashed across his chest, is carried away by his companions.  Sebastian has claimed his whip, a nice one of Vodacce make, as his own.  One last straggler stops at the door to tell the heroes in broken Avalonian: “Your Queen will soon know the taste of Maghrebi steel!  A thousand ship will be launched against her!”

His soliloquy is cut short by a sharp crack of the whip by Sebastian.

“If that lot is any indication,” Myrna chuckles, “I’ll sleep like a babe.  I’ll take one Jeremiah Berek for every hundred of those devils!”

Milaria scans the tavern for the old man, but he is nowhere to be seen.

“What man?  What are you talking about,” Sebastian says.  “That table has been empty all night.  Are you sure you’re okay?”  Indeed, no one seems to remember seeing a man matching Milaria’s description.  Tonight, or ever.

“That table,” Myrna says, “is reserved for the O’Bannon, should he ever wander to these shores to grace us with his presence.  Only he may sit there.”

“Remind me. What does the O’Bannon look like?” Milaria says.

Part Two: The More You Know

Milaria is walking through a dense tropical forest.  It is night.  Stars peek out from breaks in the canopy above.  In the distance, a voice is chanting.  Derwyddon, certainly, but his words are too distant to be known.

A thin trail winds through the foliage, leading to…a small clearing.  At the far side of it is a massive tree, about which is set a small, ramshackle cottage.  Firelight glimmers from within.  Milaria knows something terrible lives there.  And yet, she approaches the door.  Something moves within.  She touches the door and it swings open, revealing the stern face of Godric, the Pious.

Milaria sits upright in her bed.  She is soaked with sweat.  Outside the window, the first lights of dawn are spreading out across the harbor.

She remembers her dream perfectly.  Every detail.

* * *

The surgeon of the Jackdaw, a big Ussuran man named Deiman Ruikov, introduces Sebastian to two of the luminaries of La Bucca: Wynne Lynch, a Natural Philosopher, and Doctor Carlos Matez, a Castillain Boticario.  Sebastian hopes these two men can shed some light on the bottle of Falisci wine that was connected to the massacre aboard the Jackdaw some weeks back.

Unfortunately, the two men can agree on nothing, leaving Sebastian to wonder if some unorthodox form of sorcery has been employed.  To that, Josette, Lynch’s young assistant, suggests the duelist seek out Nazaret, a Castillian witch who lives in the Jenny’s Jungle near the old Syrneth ruins.  “She knows many things that are unnatural,” Josette confides.  “Bring her a gift.  Something pretty.”

* * *

Milaria is waiting in the gardens of the Castillian Embassy when the chapel bells begin to chime.  The congregation emerges ahead of the Ambassador.  Zorita smiles when he spies Milaria.  He introduces her to his chaplain Narciso Saravia.

“Tell me senorita,” Saravia says to Milaria, “are you among the faithful?”

“I serve Avalon and her church faithfully, if that is what you mean,” Milaria answers.

“Alas, but then our faith only ever reveals part of the whole.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Actually,” she responds, “I think faith can reveal the full measure of anyone.”

Zorita indicates it is time for the chaplain to leave, that he would speak with Milaria in private.  Saravia smiles and nods, then says to the Knight Errant, “remember, Theus loves all of us, even his lost sheep.”  Then he turns and walks back towards the chapel.

Sure they are alone, the Ambassador turns excitedly to Milaria.  “I have news,” he says. “Does the name, Baca Salazar, have any meaning to you?”  Milaria recognizes this as the name of a Castillian spy she met in Horchillo, before she and the heroes discovered that they were being played by agents of the Montaigne to perpetuate hostilities between that country and Castille.

Zorita tells her that trusted confidants from Castille have confirmed that Senior Salazar, an agent of the Atabean Trading Company, has been hosting meetings between Castillian dignitaries and certain, less reputable captains of the Maghreb.  While the details are still somewhat vague, the Ambassador tells Milaria that he has arranged a dinner meeting with an old friend who he believes can shed more light on this arrangement.  He asks her to meet him again, in the gardens, on the morrow after morning prayers.

“I hope this begins to make up for the trouble that befell you and your companions in Horchillo,” Zorita says.  “I have not forgiven myself for the part I played in putting your lives at risk.  Please tell Carmena that I hope to make things right by this.”

“Are you sure this place is safe to talk,” she asks him.

“I do not know,” he replies, “but certainly we can see anyone who might seek to listen in, don’t you think?”

Milaria agrees to meet again and the two part ways.

In the darkened shadow of the open chapel, Saravia watchs the two of them.  His eyes narrow, his mouth tight.  Knowing what must be done, he slowly closes the door.

Part Three: The Witch of La Bucca

Sebastian decides to pay a visit to Nazaret, the witch Josette told him about.  He has purchased a fine, silver mirror, tastefully encrusted with precious gems, as a gift for her services.  Together, he and Milaria set off from Sunset Haven into the Jenny’s Jungle to find her abode.

Despite a few mishaps along the way, the pair find their way through the thick jungle thanks in no small part to recollections from Milaria’s dream.  And there it was, a ramshackled, disjointed cottage at the base of a massive tree in a clearing.  The sun is low against the jungle canopy and a light flickers in the window of the cottage.  Milaria is about to touch the door when it swings open, revealing a tall, lean woman with black hair.  She smiles warmly, revealing half her face slack from palsy.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she says.  “Come in.”

Sebastian gives her the mirror and she tucks it away.  He beings produces a sample of the wine and the bottle as well, upon request.  Nazaret sticks a finger in the mouth of the bottle and sample a taste of the residue therein and spits it out on the floor.  She knows.  She knows about the demon hidden away within the vessel.  She knows its taste for blood and memory.  But these are not the things she wants to talk about.  She wants to talk about Milaria.  About the knight’s mantle she wears.  About the power residing within her — sorcerous power as old as legend.  Pure.  Intoxicating.

When Milaria expresses her desire to protect Avalon, she sees her opportunity.

“I can give you everything you need to protect your homeland from these foreign invaders,” she tells the Knight Errant.  She can.  But there is a price.  An unspoken price.  A price Milaria seems yet willing to pay.  Nazaret produces a small knife from her robes.

The sound of trees scratching at the walls of the cottage seems to punctuate the moment.

“A price must be paid willingly,” she says.  Foolish child.

Milaria takes the knife and looks to Sebastian.

“Where I am from,” he says, “blood must be paid.” Yes, blood.  And so much more, fools!

Milaria takes the blade of the knife and presses it tight to the flesh of her arm.

“I will do anything to protect Avalon,” she says, reassuring herself.

The witch’s eyes grow wide  She is so close.

The door to the cottage explodes open suddenly and a shaggy, lean, gray haired man bursts into the room.

“Don’t do it!” he shouts!

To be continued…

Expertimentation

This last session of 7th Sea was marked by two experiments I wanted to try out.  I had no idea how well either of them would work.  Turns out neither of them worked out nearly as well as I’d hoped, but both provided a learning opportunity for me.  Post-game/post-morning shower reflections revealed a lot (as they are want to do).  So rather than share the usual episode recap with you this week, I thought I’d share the results of these experiments instead.

Run Riot!

The opening scene involved the Heroes at the heart of a massive riot in La Bucca.  But how do you create that sort of epic narrative in a way that doesn’t turn into just a big melee encounter?

I ran a few of the ideas past one of my co-conspirators, Kevin Krupp, how provided some excellent feedback – only some of which I could really grasp.  You see, Kevin is very well versed in narrative RPGs.  So when I told him what I was trying to do, he immediately took it to 11 where I was really only comfortable taking it to..seven, maybe.  In the end, it was only kinda successful.

Here’s how it played out:

The scene opened in the Yellow Fin Tavern with Captain Kenway sitting in Allende’s office.  Among the stacks of papers, scrolls, and charts on her desk was a local broadsheet, the Albatross, with a headline about grift and corruption in the Scale (one of the city’s government chapters).

I asked Chris, Kenway’s player, who was in the office with him.  Naturally, he named both of the two other players at the table.  Good.  We don’t have to split the party.

Behind the closed office door, they hear a door slam.  Heavy footsteps, followed by shouting in another room.  Two women.  The voices grow louder as they approach the office door.  Allende throws open the door, her fury evident even with her mask.  She throws a fresh copy of the Albatross at Captain Ed and demands, “Can you explain this?” The headline reads: Presidential reelection festivities spark riot!.

The scene then jumps back hours earlier, to mid morning, with Kenway and the other Heroes among a small crowd in front of the Betting Barnacle.  The new owner, an old rival of Kenway’s named Matthew Hague, is preparing a pre-election victory party for Allende and rechristening the place the Fancy Lad (much to the chagrin of its old patrons who no longer feel welcome).  Hague sees Kenway in the crowd and makes some mocking overtures to his “friend,” which immediately puts the Captain in a bad light among the other old patrons.  Couple that with a gang of bravos from a local duelist academy sizing up Carmena and Sebastian (both duelists) and a bunch of Allende supporters who know Kenway to be supporting the other team, and you have a powder keg primed and lit.

The scene snaps back to Allende’s office.

“So what happened then?” she asks.

So here’s where things get experimental.  I had each of the players state and roll an Approach for what they would be doing in the riot.  Beyond that, I gave them carte blanche with the only instruction being: make things awesome.  In my mind, my goal was to reach the heights of the riot scene in Police Academy.  We never quite hit that mark.

I had each of them go one at a time and allowed them to spend all their raises, which in hindsight was a mistake.  Each player did better than the one before, but the whole thing lacked any real cohesive skeleton.  At the end of each turn, I asked them to “stage a challenge” for the next Hero, but that never really happened.  And so, despite feeling cool and different, it didn’t quite reach the heights I was hoping it would.

Reflection

In hindsight, I should have treated the Riot as a Hazard (see 7th Sea: The New World sourcebook), along with a threat rating and raises to spend.  Then play it out more as a traditional action sequence.

Instead of asking each player to “stage a challenge” for the next Hero at the end of their turn, I believe I should have led with that, asking each to “stage a challenge” right off the bat with the reward being a Hero Point.  The challenged player could have turned down the challenge, at the risk of adding a Danger Point to the pool.

Meanwhile, the Hazard would have been able to push its own agenda with its own raises, allowing me a more participatory roll in the melee.  This would have allowed me to help create a more cohesive structure for the Heroes stunts, making the whole thing hang together better.

Schemes

Schemes, schemes, villainous schemes!  So simple and yet, when you start overthinking them they can cause problems.

At the beginning of the game session, I laid out three “schemes” that the players could discover and disrupt this game session.  I used the Captain Wheel method outlined by Rob Donoghue on his Walking Mind blog.  So the players could see the number of steps involved, but not the nature of the scheme.

And that, dear readers, is where I failed.

The biggest problem is I set up a “Door 1, Door 2, or Door 3” scenario where none of the choices had any real weight.  They were simply these detached curiosities the players could pick up and examine before putting them back down.  So while the schemes themselves were the active operations of villains the group knows about, there was no real urgency in the choice or any real tension even once the scheme was revealed.

In our chase, Kenway’s player choice to examine scheme #3 (or the Embassy Row Riots as I was calling it behind the scene).  I set it up as a Dramatic Sequence, but since he was acting alone, it played out more like a Risk (which it should have just been dammit!).  A gang of thugs discussing plans to stage a riot on Embassy Row within a few days – paid under the table by the Magnus Skaar for President campaign – led to a quick scene where Kenway appealed to their better angels.  Decent, but not great.  And that still left 2 schemes on the table untouched and untended.

Reflections

Again, I feel the problem here is that none of these choices were ever properly grounded or created any real sense of urgency.  It occurs to me in hindsight that I may well have approached them entirely backwards.

The next time I do this, I’m going to instead lead with single detail: either the target or the tool.  This sort of follows the philosophy that Robin Law’s espouses in Gumshoe RPG: the first clue is free.  The first clue in this case is THE HOOK.  Who cares about the number of steps at this stage anyway.

So in the case of the Embassy Row Riots, a card reading Embassy Row (the target), Embassy Row Riots (target+tool), or simply Riots (tool) should have been presented.  At least that creates a sense of curiosity and urgency that “Scheme 3” decidedly does not.  Once the players have investigated the scheme and decided to do something about it, THEN reveal the clock to them.

As for whether it is a Risk or a Dramatic Sequence, that’s a numbers game.  For one player, a Risk seems to be the way to go.  It keeps the pacing fast and lets you play things out without worrying about structure.  If the investigation involves 3 or more players though, the scene will probably benefit from structure (kinda like the riots earlier) and so a Dramatic Sequence should be used.

And there you have it!

I hope you’ll forgive this article of naval gazing, experimentation, and failing forward.  I polled my players afterwards, and they all enjoyed the session.  So maybe it was just me who felt it was lacking.  But I try to learn from these things and put those new ideas into practice and make the next game closer to that special experience every GM chases.

Have you failed at some grand experiment as a GM only to realize on reflection why things didn’t work and what you should have done differently?  If so, please share your experience in the comments so we can all learn from your mistakes.