7 Things to love about 7th Sea

[jdcash]

I am intrigued. What would I need to buy/get in order to learn and then run a game?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I don't think I'll ever understand why swashbuckling or cape-and-sword games don't just completely dominate the roleplaying game market.

DnD (and related games, like Pathfinder) dominate the market, and until 4e it has never done swashbuckling right. Never.

4e (and d20 Modern) lets you play a decent swashbuckler. It's too bad 4e doesn't actually have a swashbuckling class, but certain takes on the rogue and ranger can pull it off. (Not quite the same thing as an entire system based on swashbuckling, which would have lots of flavorful rules. d20 Modern did that way better.)

Incidentally, my own observations show that fighting on ships is something that seems cool until your players actually try it. Not that you need to have ships when you're swashbuckling.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I am intrigued. What would I need to buy/get in order to learn and then run a game?

At the very basic level you'd need the 7th Sea Player's Guide and the 7th Sea Game Master's Guide.

Although to be honest... you'd be missing out on a WHOLE lot of awesome stuff if you just stopped there, because the game is chock full of mysteries, conspiracies, and plots, and has NPCs with all sorts of secret missions, dreams, and skills. And unfortunately for your pocketbook these are all detailed in the splatbooks that were written for all seven nations (plus the Pirate Nations), and all six Secret Societies. And because of the MASSIVE metaplot of the gameworld... your GM doesn't get most of the details of these big mysteries of the world without having all these books.

Now granted, some GMs would just create their own plot of the world based upon the basic points offered up the GM's Guide... but trust me when I tell you that it'd be nothing compared to what the fully written metaplot has established. Throw in a whole heaping pile of additional character generation stuff... and you really find you WANT to play the game with all the splatbooks at your disposal.

Best of luck if you do decide to jump in feet-first. It's not going to be cheap, since everything is out of print.

 

[Hackmaster]

I am intrigued. What would I need to buy/get in order to learn and then run a game?

Start off with the Players' Guide and the GMs' guide.

If you like what you read, move on to picking up some of the nation books.

All the books are available on PDF from RPGnow.com. The files are high quality and reasonably priced.