FYI: AEG Postpones Swashbuckling Adventures/7th Sea RPG Line

Rob Vaux of Alderac Entertainment Group posted this Friday on the 7th Sea Mailing List:

Dear Friends,

The following letter is from Nancy Berman, Mark Woodward, and myself on
behalf of AEG. In 1999, AEG launched 7th Sea and here we are now, five
years, over 30 books, and a card game later! The richly detailed world
of Théah has enthralled players all over the world with its unique
combination of swashbuckling adventure, sorcery, and romance.
With the release of The Rapier’s Edge in March 2004, our first full
book of scenarios, we believe that the line will benefit from a change
of focus which entails doing as full an Errata as possible, publishing
some of the oldest out-of-date material online, and most importantly,
providing players with an opportunity to showcase their characters and
house rules on AEG’s official 7th Sea/SBA website.
Publication of new sourcebooks has been indefinitely postponed; for
all the passion and enthusiasm of the game's fans, sales are simply not
what they need to be. However, the 7th Sea/SBA line will be continued
and supported through the electronic publication of some of the oldest
out-of-print items and a regular series of new material on the AEG
website and selected fan-created sites. We will also continue to post
Errata, and an official 7th Sea forum has been created in the Alderac
forums site.
We have a busy convention schedule in 2004, which includes three
different LARPs by three different teams planned for Origins,
Gencon-Indy, and Gencon-SoCal. Over the past few months, we have seen
an increase in player-based websites. We encourage that development and
will continue to post links to them on the official 7th Sea site.

Upcoming features:
New website links
New official forum for questions and resource submission
New characters and historical data from the Novus Group
Errata for previously published books, beginning with the most recently
published
Reference articles on things like alternate noble titles and movies for
visual reference
Player-generated fiction

At this time, we also bid Nancy Berman (Lady Yu Ying Lei) a fond
farewell and thank her for her service over the past three years as
author, editor, and most recently Brand Manager. We are pleased to
announce that Mark Woodward will be assuming that responsibility for
the 7th Sea/SBA line. Mark has been involved with the line since its
inception both as a member of the Novus Group, a freelance writer, and
the creator of the Rose & Cross website
(http://www.shakaar.demon.co.uk/7thsea.htm). In addition to his
expertise, Mark gives the line a presence in Europe (he lives in
England). Welcome aboard, Sir Marcus!
AEG has been very fortunate to have an amazing group of people work on
this line throughout its life to date. While we focus our efforts some
of the less exciting aspects of cleaning up the game, we look to you
for help with the “cool” things like developing new characters and new
areas in the world. We think that this collaborative approach between
you and AEG will enable us to continue building Théah in a way that
truly reflects the actions of those who spend the most time in it – the
players.

If anyone has any questions or wishes to discuss things further, feel
free to contact AEG Customer Support or Rob Vaux at the AEG offices.

First Shadowforce Archer, and now Swashbuckling Adventures. It seems as if AEG's doing some house-cleaning, getting rid of also-rans so they can make room for more new stuff.

Dual-statting never works, I tell you. Still - it's a shame. The 7th Sea RPG and world are top notch. Perhaps it will make a comeback?

I just hope this doesn't happen to Rokugan.

I will miss Theah. I never played the game but I loved to read the books, top notch writing.

I personally liked the feel (combo of layout and art) of the pre D20 books better, same as for L5R, i never felt it was an improvement...

The dual statting was a very good idea (bigger audience), but i think not optimally executed. It now felt to much like the D20 stats where the most important, and non D20 players felt that they where paying for D20 material. If a company decides to dual stat a book, it shouldn't be the customer who 'pays' for it. What i mean by that is that dual statting means a bigger customer base, and that's an advantage to the publisher, but when customers are paying for material they can't or won't use it sure to get them rilled. $25 for 96 pages is a bit on the high side, especially if your a 7th Sea player only and 20% of the book is dedicated to D20 players...

I just bought the 7th Sea RPG last week. I've heard good things about it and I wanted to check out a RPG system that is not a Storyteller or D20 variant. From what I've read I must say I like the system. At least certain aspects of it. Perfect for swashbuckling adventures. The setting seems pretty interesting as well.

Sad to see it go right when I am getting to know the product. I am sure I'll be playing it somewhere down the line... perhaps as a one-off, perhaps as a full fledged campaign.

Never cared for the game or it's dice mechanics. The d20 implemetation was a little slipshod, too. Multiple noble classes, new ways to backstab and assassinate... buh?

That said, in the original game, the disadvantage mechanics were one of the few I could stomach.

I didn't care much for the roll and keep-system and the d20-version of the game was chokful of glaring errors. Nevertheless the d20-version was among the better settings released under the OGL. It was full of flavor and the fluff was almost as good as the stuff from Games Workshop!

It's kind of sad...

I really liked the 7th Sea setting although I didnt much care for the ruleset (I am refering to 7th sea's game mechanics). I had a ton of the books and I enjoyed reading them.