7th Sea Hits Kickstarter

John Wick bought the rights to his 1999 7th Sea roleplaying game back last year with the intention of releasing a second edition of the game. That new edition has just hit Kickstarter with a bang - $66K in under an hour, more than double its funding goal. "John Wick brings 7th Sea back in a 300-page, full-color, hardbound book. Revised rules, revised Nations, updated for the 21st Century." John Wick is, of course, an international assassin who goes on a revenge spree after some Russian criminals kill his dog. No, wait, wrong John Wick.

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There's already a Quick Start PDF, which backers get free access to immediately. You get two PDFs - an adventure called Long Live the Prince!, and five pregenerated characters. The adventure is 33 pages long, and includes basic rules. The Kickstarter itself offers the hardback for $60, or the PDF for $20.

What's 7th Sea? Well, it's an RPG by John Wick, originally released in 1999. In Wick's own words, "7th Sea was a game inspired by the works of Alexandre Dumas, The Princess Bride, and other novels and movies of high adventure, and it played fast and furious, emulating the pace we've come to expect from movies such as Captain Blood, The Three Musketeers, and Pirates of the Caribbean." The setting, Theah, is very similar to 17th Century Europe.

The 2nd Edition of 7th Sea (the one being Kickstarted now) is the 3rd most anticipated RPG of 2016.

Wick himself is no stranger to controversy. He recently told us about how Tomb of Horrors is the "worst, &#@&$&@est, most disgusting piece of pig vomit ever published". A couple of years ago, he created widespread internet arguments when he stated that "The first four editions of D&D are not roleplaying games."

You can find the 7th Sea Kickstarter here.

 

[Zaran]

Guess it used to be like LotFR but now it's different.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Few questions if you don't mind.

Does this make combat rather long or does it resolve rather quickly?

Does the default setting use gunpowder or is it more about swashbuckling style action?

Class system or is it fairly open style?

Thanks.

- I'm presuming combat is faster than 1st edition, where each character had twice their Resolve in dramatic wounds before going unconscious so it meant high Resolve characters could withstand punishment for an hour plus of gametime during duels. Swordfights between a PC and NPC could literally take hours to finish. This new system looks at first blush to not be nearly as long.

- Yes, there are pistols and rifles in the setting, but they are usually one-and-done weapons you tend to drop after firing once rather than attempting to reload. Standard pirate setting use of gunpowder-- powerful weapons that take too long to reload and tend to break at inopportune moments.

- System is fairly open. 1st edition had three types of "classes" (if you could call them that): Sorcerers, Swordsman School members, and other folks. Buying a Sorcery or Swordsman School gave you great benefits but were really expensive in terms of build points. This new system seems to make Sorceries and Swordsman Schools into Advantages or Backgrounds you buy like any others, so they probably are much cheaper but won't give as powerful benefits as you got in 1st edition. Also, that really no longer makes them more like "Classes" in the traditional sense. Anyone can probably buy a sorcery or swordsman school.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Guess it used to be like LotFR but now it's different.

Indeed. Both Five Rings and 7th Sea used the 'Roll & Keep' game system in their original forms. This new edition of 7th Sea has changed the dice mechanic a bit.

 

[Canezar]

This is the same system that Legend of the Five Rings uses or am I thinking of another setting?

The first edition of 7th Sea was made after L5R but was very similar: Roll and Keep against a target number where Raises were called prior to rolling - they increased the TN but gave you bonus effects.

This second edition uses the familiar term of a Raise but they're more of a resource you gather and spend. The older edition also had you keeping less dice where this one lets you keep all of them.

 

[Nellisir]

$229,566

That's...impressive.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The biggest thing in this Kickstarter for those of us who played the original 7th Sea is the reward of all 39 1st edition sourcebooks in PDF form. Many of those, like Pirate Nations, had been out of print for years and would cost like a hundred bucks on Ebay when they came up. So to get all the nation books, all the secret society books, and everything else in between is just awesome. Even if they become "out of date" per se once the 2nd edition is released... they are all absolutely all crammed full of ideas and NPCs that I'm sure could be used in the new game too. More than $350 worth of game books all for a minimum of a $40 pledge. That is too good to be true.

 

[EthanSental]

I'd be curious to know the sales of popular kick starters like this after it is out and in stores. Is this funding so well due to the people backing it being 97% of the people who will buy and play the game or will sales in stores or online via stores be enough to keep it afloat? Im in the group that if I'd didn't know about the Kickstarter for whatever reason and saw it at my flgs might glance at it but wouldn't buy. Just curious to know.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Backed it last night.

It's evident there were lots of unspent fandollars accumulated after so many years without any 7th Sea!

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'd be curious to know the sales of popular kick starters like this after it is out and in stores. Is this funding so well due to the people backing it being 97% of the people who will buy and play the game or will sales in stores or online via stores be enough to keep it afloat? Im in the group that if I'd didn't know about the Kickstarter for whatever reason and saw it at my flgs might glance at it but wouldn't buy. Just curious to know.

I suspect that in this specific case... it's those of us who are backing the Kickstarter that are and would have been the ones who would have bought it in the stores. We're basically all pre-ordering a game we've wanted to get for years now. While there might be a small contingent of people who could buy the books in the store after the fact (maybe more impulse or "Hmm, that looks interesting!" purchases)... all the rest of us who fell in love with the first game have been waiting on the sidelines for something like this to come about. And once it was announced that Wick had reacquired the rights and was going to make a second edition... I doubt there were very few 7th Sea fans who didn't hear about it immediately. And the fact that the KS is now so far above its original asking level just goes to prove who much goodwill the original game built up that we've all come running back to get the new edition once its released (not to mention the almost 40 books of the previous edition as well.)

 

[sidonunspa]

Few questions if you don't mind.

Does this make combat rather long or does it resolve rather quickly?

Does the default setting use gunpowder or is it more about swashbuckling style action?

Class system or is it fairly open style?

Thanks.

If you join his email list you get the 7th Sea 2nd edition quickstart.... has the basic rules and and adventure

http://www.sailthe7thsea.com/

your welcome

also

http://johnwickpresents.com/games/7th-sea-2nd-edition-quickstart-faq/