New 7th Sea Rules For Lucian's Campaign

Here are the 'house rules' I'll be using during the campaign. This list might get updated as we go, and I find new things to make rulings about. Some are pretty basic, and in others, I'm trying to mitigate what I see as some deficiencies in the system, and to try out some cool ideas I read about. To wit:

  • Streetwise Knacks (new!): The rules say you're -2k0 if you're in an 'unfamiliar city'. So, how does a new city become familiar? Roll a normal Socializing+Wits roll, and consult the following chart to see how long it takes you to become familiar with it: 
    TN 30:	A few hours
TN 25:	A day
TN 20:  A few days
TN 15:  A week

    If the city is outside your home country, increase the TNs on that chart by 5. For capitols of foreign countries/provinces, increase the TNs by 10.

  • Roll/Keep: The standard rule for what you roll and what you keep is that you roll your trait plus your knack, and you keep your trait. This makes traits really, really, important, and makes knacks not very important past 2. The 'Legend of the Five Rings' system is 'roll your trait plus your knack, keep your knack'. This makes *knacks* important, and lessens the importance of traits. Other options are roll trait keep knack, or roll knack keep trait, or roll both keep lower.

    I have another idea: roll both, keep *higher*. This doesn't nerf anyone following the current optimal strategy of upping their traits, but it also allows a new strategy of upping the knacks you want to use more often. I haven't decided if I actually want to do this; the trick is to figure out if it'll help more than it will add unnecessary complications. Let me know what you think!

  • Apprentice/Journeyman/Master (new!): For both swordsman schools and sorcery, the book rules say you must get four knacks to rank 4 to become a Journeyman, and four knacks to rank 5 to become Master. This turns out to mean that it's more expensive (in terms of XP) to go from Apprentice to Journeyman than it is to go from Journeyman to Master. Therefore, I'm changing this to the point at which the XP balances: An apprentice starts with 1/1/1/1; you move to Journeyman at 4/4/3/3; and you become a Master at 5/5/5/5. (Both moves would take a total of 56 XP)

    Furthermore, if you want to distribute those 56 XP over more than 4 skills, you can do that as well. If you have at least one level-4 knack and have spent the equivalent of 56 XP (assuming a start of 1/1/1/1), you move to Journeyman. If you have at least one level-5 knack and one other level-4 or 5 knack and have spent the equivalent of another 56 XP, you move to Master. So, for example, 4/3/3/3/2/1 would work for Journeyman, and 5/5/3/3/3/3/3 would work for Master.

    Now, this doesn't help Swordsmen much, because they all get exactly four knacks. So the following knacks also count as 'swordsman knacks': Attack(main weapon), and any advanced knack in your 'Basic Curriculum'. This might get a bit weird for some schools/curricula, but hey.

  • Continuing the swordsman school theme: it seems clear that the 'Exploit Weakness' knack is broken as written: the only people you're likely to be able to use it on is your own compatriots--maybe that works for Vodaccians, but probably not Ussurans. So, we'll try this: if you defeat or help defeat a swordsman, you may take 'Exploit Weakness (his school)' if you are a swordsman. (You may either spend 2XP right then, or the next time you get a chance.) From there, you may increase in that knack as normal. If you meet and help defeat another swordsman of a different school, you may then take 'Exploit Weakness (that school)' as well. People have mentioned that they're interested in this, so you'll probably meet a few swordsmen in this adventure. You still start with Exploit Weakness (your school) at level 1, which you can increase if you want.

  • Disposing bad guys: 7th Sea is not really about killing people. However, sometimes as players, you really don't want someone following you. So, the general rule: when you beat a brute squad member, they are out of the story. They don't die, but they won't have any more effect, directly or indirectly, on you heroes (unless you want them to, to interrogate them, or whatever). If you beat a henchman, they are out of the story unless the GM spends a drama die at the time to allow them to come back at some point. You can counter by spending two drama dice (between the lot of you) to say, "No, GM, come up with a better idea, I'm sick of this guy," and the henchman is out for good. If you beat a villain, they are *not* necessarily out of the story unless the group spends a number of drama dice equal to the number of players present. The GM can counter this by giving everyone two drama dice. If the players later meet and re-defeat the villain, the same rules apply except that this time the GM must give everyone *four* drama dice, then six for the next time, etc.

    Obviously, there are easier ways for the GM to let the villain escape, but, you know, sometimes inspiration runs dry.

  • Level-0 knacks: There's no ruling in the books on these, I think, so we're going with a slightly modified version of house rules we've used on the MUD before, to wit:
  • Spending XP: You may spend XP to raise a knack or trait at any time. If we're in turn-based mode (as in during combat), it takes 6 sequential actions to do so, and you must be able to practice during that time. Out of turn-based mode, do it whenever. If you are learning a new skill, you must designate some game-time (not play-time, necessarily) to having a particular person (PC or NPC) teach you that new skill. If you are gaining a new advantage through GM fiat (learning a language is the most obvious choice here), the time it takes to do so is also under GM fiat. As a general rule, it takes 3X the amount of XP to gain an advantage as it would have with HP.

  • Drama dice: Everyone starts off with a number of drama dice equal to 2X their lowest stat or 1X their highest stat, whichever is higher. When drama dice are awarded during play, you do not get an XP along with it (this is a change from how I originally envisioned things). You can then save or squander it as you see fit. I'll try to keep drama dice flowing, especially since reading that John Wick used to give out about 10 per adventure. Any leftover drama dice at the end of an adventure do not gain you any XP.

    Note! Since I found that I would forget to hand out drama dice in the thick of things (mostly because there were too many other things to keep track of) Jota has kindly implemented a command that automatically whispers to the GM that you think so-and-so should gain a drama die for doing something cool. Type 'nominate [person]' (or 'yay [person]' and the GM will be told '[your character] nominates [person] for a drama die'. Spectators are welcome to do this as well.

  • Reputation dice: You get one reputation die for every five points of reputation, instead of 10. This does indeed carry over to Glamour. You can have *both* positive and negative reputation, but you can only use the reputation dice from one set in any one scene, and this fixes your reputation in the minds of the people you're intereacting with at that point. You can spend one positive repuation point to cancel one negative reputation point if you wish (to keep you from becoming a Scoundrel and therefore an NPC, for example.)

  • Story dice: This is an idea I'm stealing from 'The Pool', at http://www.randomordercreations.com/thepool.html

    Look up 'monologue of victory' (MOV) there. Basically, once it's determined that you are successful at something, you get to narrate the outcome and 'stretch the boundaries' a bit. To quote from the page:

    "Giving an MOV is like taking control of the game for a few moments. You can describe your character's actions, the actions of those around him, and the outcome of those actions. You can even focus on less direct elements of the conflict such as what's happening in the next room or who's entering the scene.

    You can do just about anything. In fact, these are the only real limitations you must observe:

    1. Don't make alterations to the characters of other players (such as killing them). You can add complications for them and affect the things around them, but don't intrude on the creation of a fellow player.

    2. Keep your narration in synch with the established facts and tone of the game. If you need to ask the GM questions or prompt the other players for responses during your MOV, do so.

    3. Keep your narration reasonably short."
    I'm importing this concept into 7th Sea via souped-up drama dice I'm calling 'story dice'. My idea is that everyone gets 1 story die at the beginning of the adventure, and you can use it at any time to perform a MOV for some action you really want to do, and don't want to leave to whims of dice/GM sadism. (See the Pool site for an example of a MOV in action; I've also mocked up a couple 7th Sea examples based on actual play.)

    If you're uncomfortable with this (and some are), think of it the same way you do when you successfully attack someone and the GM says, "OK, roleplay it out." Your action is successful; we're mostly interested in the 'color' of how it happened. In some sense, a story die is just like a drama die that always rolls a 10+.

    To get more story dice into the game, I'm trying the following very experimental rule: At the point when you are awarded a drama die, you may, if you wish, immediately give it to someone else. You give them the die, and say, "This is for doing <X>" where X is some in-game action their character has performed, presumably something you thought was cool. That die is now a story die instead of a normal drama die.

    As I say, this is highly experimental, and if it doesn't seem to be working, we might change it. But this whole game is somewhat experimental, so.

    (I will note that as written above, you never actually roll a story die. Maybe I'll come up with some mechanic for this, if it seems necessary.)

  • Hubris/Virtues: Virtues really seem to get the short shrift in the game. As one review put it, "I tried to tell one of my players that the book said that Virtues were cheap at the price. 'They lie,' he replied." So, to shore up the imbalance, if you take a Virtue, instead of taking the normal Virtue description, you may use this instead (decide upon character creation):

    Virtue: "When performing an act that the GM agrees falls within your Virtue, you may use any drama die as a story die."

    The reverse, hubris, will work pretty much as written in the Player's Guide, except that in this case, 'The GM may activate your Hubris to force you to do something' means,

    Hubris: 'The GM may spend a drama die to force you to perform an activity that falls within the scope of that Hubris, and things will go badly for your character as a result.'

    When no dice are spent, but your character takes dramatic action in a way consistent with their virtue or hubris, you're somewhat more likely to receive a drama die than a different character who didn't have that trait would for the same action. I thought of trying to formalize this (a la disadvantages in Nobilis), but scrapped the idea.

    If you would like both a hubris and a virtue (or if you already have both from inky's campaign), this is fine. A hubris still gives you 10 HP, and a virtue costs 10 HP, so if you take both, that's a net zero.

  • Esploding dice: This hit home with me when I was calculating die-rolling probabilities: Exploding dice help you exactly when you don't need it. 7th Sea is supposed to be a 'roll over X' system, and exploding dice explode only when you've already *rolled* a 10 or two, so you probably already succeeded. This isn't so bad for single explosions (which do often help) but becomes more and more true for multiple explosions. So: if you roll a 30+ on any one die for any one action, and you can think of a way to logically tie a success on that action to your *next* action, you get a free raise for that second action.

  • Magic: The basic systems are cool, but I don't like tying drama dice to magic. Drama dice should be more of an OOC thing for use to let your character accomplish tasks you feel strongly about than a mechanic to allow your character to live up to its basic premise. Hence, see the sorcery rules.

    (But remember that 'bargain' magic will make you an unhappy-Matushka magnet. Plus, it's illegal.)

    This line last updated January 16th, AD 2003
    lpsmith @rice.edu