John Wick Sells 7th Sea to Chaosium

A couple of years ago, game designer John Wick acquired the rights to his 1999 roleplaying game, 7th Sea from publisher AEG, and launched a record-breaking Kickstarter for a 2nd Edition which sailed past a million dollars. Last year, the company ran into financial difficulties and laid off most of its staff. Now, Wick has sold the property to Chaosium, who will be fulfilling the remainder of the struggling Kickstarter. Here’s the press release.

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Chaosium, publishers of the award-winning tabletop roleplaying games Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and King Arthur Pendragon, has acquired John Wick’s acclaimed 7th Sea RPG , it was announced today.

7th Sea is John’s Wick’s swashbuckling and sorcery roleplaying game set set in the fictional world of Théah. The second edition of 7th Sea was crowdfunded by John Wick’s own company, John Wick Presents in 2016, setting a then-record on Kickstarter for a tabletop RPG, raising over $1.3 million dollars.

John Wick himself will be joining Chaosium as creative director for 7th Sea. He will continue to have creative oversight of his game, and will remain a principal author of 7th Sea material going forward. Beyond that, John Wick will also write for other Chaosium game lines, for which he has great affection.

“John is an extraordinarily talented designer and highly regarded figure in the world of tabletop rpgs. We are delighted to have him join our team”, said Chaosium President Rick Meints.

Following the death of Chaosium founder Greg Stafford in November last year, John’s memorial piece about Greg's titanic influence on the landscape of tabletop games was shared and quoted widely (The Gray Crane).

John Wick said,"My first RPG was a Chaosium game. My second RPG was a Chaosium game. My third RPG was a Chaosium game. Saying 'I'm excited to be joining the Chaosium team' just doesn't do it. I've respected and admired the company for over thirty years. I'm joining the same company who started me on this journey and I couldn't be prouder."

Upon acquiring this new game line, Chaosium’s paramount objective for 7th Sea is the fulfilment of the outstanding rewards from the 7th Sea Second Edition and 7th Sea Khitai Kickstarters. Coinciding with this announcement, John Wick has updated all Kickstarter backers with the new arrangements, which will see Chaosium overseeing the remaining fulfilment of the campaigns.

Over coming weeks, 7th Sea products and content will begin to be migrated to Chaosium.com and Chaosium’s page at DriveThruRPG. A 7th Sea discussion board will also be set up at BRP Central, Chaosium’s forums.

For media enquires about John Wick and 7th Sea contact: Michael O'Brien.

 

[LordEntrails]

Thing is, that's exactly what Kickstarter was meant for - creators, not businesspeople.

Absolutely. But it still takes management skills to handle a million dollar project, whether you are a creator or not.

My point was not to disparage anyone, or even KS in general, only to comment that "removing the middleman" doesn't mean creators will necessarily be able to get their 'products' to their consumers more successfully. Though I would love to see numbers from in-depth research.

 

[Morrus]

Absolutely. But it still takes management skills to handle a million dollar project, whether you are a creator or not.

My point was not to disparage anyone, or even KS in general, only to comment that "removing the middleman" doesn't mean creators will necessarily be able to get their 'products' to their consumers more successfully. Though I would love to see numbers from in-depth research.

Most Kickstarters aren’t million dollar products. They’re small projects to get a creator’s dream project made. Stretch goals, and all that stuff, were traditions invented by the users; they aren’t part of the Kickstarter infrastructure.

 

[LordEntrails]

Most Kickstarters aren’t million dollar products. They’re small projects to get a creator’s dream project made. Stretch goals, and all that stuff, were traditions invented by the users; they aren’t part of the Kickstarter infrastructure.

I know

And I think for many of those small project KS is awesome, and works really well. It's just that the same approach doesn't scale, or at least not as well. I suspect most KSs involve a few hundred hours and a small (~$1k?) of collateral or up front cost. But, we know when a KS hits some number ($100k?) they are starting to involve thousands of hours, half a dozen people, several other companies (printers, shipping, etc) and those project require a different process. (EDIT: which does not mean they can not be successful KSs!)

Anyone have any numbers on the distribution of KS amounts, fulfillment rates, etc?

 

[Baron Von Mandrick]

I'm new to the game. I am eager to play but so far have just been creating characters, and sampling some of the different types of Action and Drama sequences.

My history has been mostly with D&D, from 1st edition and all of the others. I also played Boot Hill, Sidewinder, Traveler, Gangbusters, the original RuneQuest, Bushido, Flashing Blades, and others. They are are all more or less traditional RPGs with various level of crunch and/or simulation.

This game is different than anything I've done before, but I'm very open to trying it. D&D was once a new concept to me as well. I just need to find other people to play the game with me. But I'm eager to try. I'll go into it with an open mind.

Since I'm new to the game and didn't back the KS, I don't have an opinion on all of that. I can see that a lot of work went into the game, and I applaud that, so I hope that it succeeds at Chaosium.

 

[aramis erak]

Well. 7th Sea 2e was a huge letdown for me, primarily because of its rules system. It seems nothing will change on that front, so, my stance will rmeain "not interested" about it, sadly, because I was initially very hyped about it, since I loved the first edition.

On the other hand, I hope Chaosium games will remain as they are. I have no need for, or interest in a CoC 8e with the kind of rules 7thS2e has.

2E was way too far mechanically out there for me. And I like Blood & Honor....

The dice mechanic is really not my style.

I found most of the 2E books unreadable as laid out... fortunately, I wasn't on the KS for those; I just wanted the back-catalogue of 1E material.

So, unless Chaosium goes somewhere else mechanically with it, I'm done with 7th Sea purchases.

And I'm not a BRP fan, per se.