A thread for House Rules and general game information.

Setting details...

Placeholder for any changes I make to the general 7th Sea lore (most likely bringing back some of my preferred locations/characters/themes from 1st Ed).

Posting Rules

General

I don't tend to set a firm posting rate as I appreciate that life can be up and down and sometimes you can post twice per day and sometimes it's twice per week. For my part I can pretty much always post every other day and often once per day. Rarely can I do more than once a day.

Posts should be in third person to keep everything easy to follow. Ideally put speech in a colour to make it stand out but not the end of the world if you don't. When in doubt feel free to add details, background characters etc. to a scene for flavour and to make posts more interesting and situations more memorable.

Action Scenes

When it comes to action scenes I'll post setting out the general situation and what's happening.

If players can then post setting out their action and then, in an OOC bit at the end, put the approach (trait-skill) they are using and roll the dice right off. If you can work out how many raises you can make and include that then that certainly assists. Given the nature of the medium you can pretty much always assume that you get the bonus die for Flair. Don't also forget the other bonus die for Flair if it's your first use of that skill that scene.

Then I'll post to develop the situation and put a list of raises in order. I'll set out any risks which present themselves as well as the consequences for not resolving those risks. I'll note any obvious opportunities which present themselves as well but never feel limited by that.

No need to worry about then posting in order – that is likely just to slow things down - so it's just about whether you act before or after any villains in the scene. I see this edition of 7th Sea almost like collaborative storytelling so always feel free to add interesting details to the scene and, especially, to come up with opportunities to spend raises on. Worst case scenario if I don't like I can always edit the post and refund you the raise.

In terms of preventing wounds through raises just mention that's what you're doing at the start of the next post if that makes sense.

Dramatic Scenes

Much the same as with action scenes but, obviously, less structured. When in doubt if you want to do something pick an approach and roll the appropriate dice and then start saying what you want to spend raises on.

Generally speaking best to roll dice when not needed than to not roll when it would be useful to do so as that will keep things moving along.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:45, Thu 30 Mar 2023.

I like to use the chase rules from 'Cut to the Chase' a fanmade supplement from the Explorers Society just because I think they fit better than the normal system for this kind of scene.

A per normal you pick an 'approach' (Trait + Skill) for the scene and the normal rules for flair additional dice and the like apply.

The scene is then given a Momentum score (a target the players need to pend raises to hit) and a time limit in rounds by which the Momentum score must be met or the players lose (they could be caught or their quarry escapes). To score a point of Momentum costs a player (any player) a raise per PC involved in the chase and in addition there will be obstacles (risks) and opportunities which can either be ignored at a cost or raises can be spent to mitigate.

So if two Heroes were chasing someone on a pretty standard chase they would need to score 4 Momentum (so spend 8 raises on it) within 3 rounds. Sounds pretty easy? Well that depends on just what you hit by way of obstacles!

When a player spends a Raise to build Momentum, they should describe what happens in the scene to aid the Heroes in the chase. This could be an action his Hero takes (“I kick over a stack of barrels to create an obstacle…”) or some misstep or stumble on the part of the opposition (“The villain’s henchmen get tangled up in a crowd of pilgrims…”).Building Momentum really takes to heart the “change the scene” aspect of Raises.

There's additional rules for proper 'Villains' in chases and the like but we don't need those right now so I'll stop here.