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7th Sea is an attempt by John and Jennifer Wick and others on the AEG staff to emulate the swashbuckling genre, complete with over-the-top heroics and a romantic view of 17th-century Europe. I believe they succeeded brilliantly. 7th Sea does for the swashbuckling genre what Feng Shui did for Hong Kong action movies. In fact, if you liked Feng Shui, you will probably enjoy this game, as it shares a similar attitude towards gaming in that it writes the game rules around genre conventions (for example, it is easy for a hero to dispatch "faceless hordes" bad guys, and an action can be executed with greater effect or aplomb by raising the difficulty rating of an action) and expects the players to behave heroically, despite any shortcomings or scoundrelly tendencies. Yes, the book suggests that people create characters that are very "good" and that they go out of their way to create and play characters in such a way as to promote teamwork and group harmony. I think that recommendation suits the genre and intent of the game very well, but if you want to create lone wolf anti-heroes or a party full of antagonistic members of warring factions, 7th Sea may not be your cup of tea.

I'll summarise and review the book by section:

Primer: This is an introduction to the game, and is essentially a miniature version of the book itself. It begins with the obligatory explanation of the genre and setting and the "What is an RPG" section, which is good without being too long. Next is a section about the setting, which I thought was strange because it focused on "Cabals, Cults, and Secret Societies" and didn't mention much about the major countries at all. In fact, the things they chose to mention in this section seemed rather random to me. However, it's only two pages, so no harm done. The character creation and rules summaries are actually pretty good, so I guess my only gripe is that it strikes me as a little redundant, since everything is described in greater detail later. Perhaps I'm biased because I'm an experienced gamer, and this section is a boon to beginners, but I think the book could easily have started with the next section.

Theah: This section covers the setting. The setting is unashamedly a simplified version of Europe, (there are apparently two more powers analagous to the Ottoman Empire and China, but we learn basically nothing about them in the Player's Guide) but I think the world history and other fun stuff added to the world are sufficient to make it exciting and unique. The major nations of Theah are as follows:

Avalon: Avalon consists of three islands northwest of Montaigne and is a blend of Elizabethan and Arthurian Britain. Queen Elaine has broken away from the Vaticine Church. Notable in the isles of Avalon is the influence of the sidhe (faerie folk) who remain mysterious, but provide Avalons with their national magic, Glamour, which gives sorcerers powers based on various Avalonian legends. (the nobility of each nation posess a certain type of inherited sorcery) The national style of swordplay is Donovan, which emphasizes the use of a buckler and a combination of slashing and thrusting attacks.

Castille: Castille is much like Spain, and is known for education and concern for public welfare. About half of the country is occupied by Montaigne, and it was once ruled by the Crescent (presumably a pseudo-Ottoman) Empire. It is very religious, and is the current home of the Vaticine Church. The Castillians are proud that their noblility is free of sorcery, and their national style of swordplay is Aldana, which is an unpredictable, intense style.

Eisen: Eisen is like Germany back before it was unified. It consists of warring kingdoms who are recovering from "The War of the Cross," a war of religion. (Vaticine vs. Objectionists) The Eisen are tough, stubborn people who eschew the use of sorcery. The national style of swordplay is Eisenfaust, which uses a specialized glove weapon (a "Panzerhand") to grab an opponents weapon while using a sword in the other hand. The Eisen nobility also possess the only suits of armor that are useful against modern weaponry, called "Dracheneisen."

Montaigne: This nation is basically a lot like France under Louis 14th. The nobility indulge in excess and lots of lying and fawning over one another while the peasants struggle to survive. Naturally, there are Musketeer equivalents. Montaigne invaded Avalon in the past, has driven the Vaticine Church outside of its borders, and currently occupies a lot of Castille. The national sorcery is "Porte," teleportation magic. The national style of swordplay is Valroux, which is based on speed and taunting of foes.

Ussura: Ussura is a lot like Russia. It is a large, hard, backwards country that does not mingle with the other nations very much. However, "Matushka," a sort of Earth Mother, watches over this land and protects he children, making Ussura difficult to invade. There is no national style of swordplay, but the national style of sorcery is Pyeryem, which involves shapeshifting and invoking the abilities of totem animals.

Vendel/Vestenmannavnjar: Imagine if a bunch of Vikings on islands north of Germany decided to turn into the Dutch and you get the basic idea. =) Half of these islands are populated by enterprising bourgeoise with a good Objectionist work ethic, the other half is ruled by those who cling to the old ways and old gods. The Vendel control trade and the economy of Theah, and the Vestenmannavanjar are fearsome pirates and marauders. The Vestenmannavanjar fighting style is Leegstra, which involves endurance, patience, and the use of heavy weapons. The Vestenmannavanjar sorcery is Laerdom, which uses runes to achieve a wide variety of effects. There is also an implication that the old gods are real...

Vodacce: Vodacce is ruled by seven merchant princes and is thoroughly Vaticine. The female nobility includes powerful Fate Witches, which are ironically oppressed and prevented from learning or becoming literate so the men can keep the balance of power. This leads to the odd situation where "professional courtesans" are more educated and literate than the noblewomen. The national style of swordplay is Ambrogia, (created by a woman) and specializes in using the sword left-handed and a main gauche on the right. The national sorcery, Sorte, is posessed only by certain noblewomen, and it allows them to percieve and effect fate and destiny. (Which is why everyone is so afraid of them...even at low levels they can basically Read Auras and See The Plot.))

Miscellaneous: There is too much other stuff to cover in detail. There are many powerful guilds, dashing and/or mysterious secret societies, an evil Inquisition, and other factions at work in Theah. Pirates, while not the focus of the game as lots of people seem to expect, are common and important. (Many reviewers complain that they bought it for the pirates and were disappointed...was there an ad campaign I missed that really played up the pirate aspect? I never really followed AEG before this.) There is also no shortage of mysteries and unanswered questions. (some of which I assume are in the GMs Guide, which my GM will, obviously, not let me look at) For example, the lost peple of "Syrneth" once ruled Theah (way back before the counterpart to our Roman Empire) and left many mysterious caverns (some of which are described) and artifacts, one of which appears to be an energy rifle! Several of the 6 known seas are bizarre and dangerous (one contains a labyrinth of flaming walls) and the mysterious 7th Sea is...well, a mystery. The existence of some monsters (mostly undead) is hinted at, but it doesn't come across as a monster-intensive game. (I wouldn't be surprised if the Eisen's "drachens" were real, though.) Another mystery is what dangerous force lurks between the Porte sorcerer's telportation portals and why shouldn't you open your eyes in transit? I'm actually quite glad that AEG decided to put out the GMs Guide separately because I'm anxious to play the game and discover a few of these secrets.

Hero: This section covers character creation. One can use 100 "hero points" to buy Traits, which include Brawn (Strength/Toughness), Finesse (Agility), Wits (Intelligence/Perception, and...well, wits), Resolve (Willpower/Endurance/Hit Points), Panache ("Coolness Factor"/Charisma/number of attacks per round). The designers were very clever in that they made all of the Traits very important in combat. I wouldn't recommend having any Trait lower than 2, and I would reccomend that your most important trait be at least a 3. (3 or 4 is the highest you can start with) Hero points are also used to buy things like "Swordsman School" (which is very expensive but allows one to take one of the exclusive fighting arts) or Sorcery (which is even more expensive), as well as "Advantages" (like Nobility, Keen Senses, Ordained, Academy Education, etc.), "Backgrounds" (cool plot hooks and backstories), and skills. The skill system is very good, it allows you to buy a skill package for 2 points and purchase either Basic or Advanced Knacks within the skill. Most skill packages include all of the Basic Skills at rank 1. There are no "Disadvantages" per se, but there are Arcana, which include Virtues and Hubrises. Virtues cost 10 points and allow the character to use a Drama Die (explained later) to activate a very useful trait. Hubrises give you 10 more points for character creation, but the GM can use a Drama Die to activate it to your disadvantage. (For example, my character is Hedonistic. My GM could use a Drama Die to distract my character from an important mission with an excellent party.)

Drama: This section covers the rules, which are great. The basic mechanic is this: Roll as many ten-sided dice as your Trait (Brawn, Finesse, Resolve, Wits, or Panache) + your Rank for a task, and keep a number of dice equal to your Trait. Count 10s and then reroll them, adding the reroll value. (if you roll another 10, you can roll it again, etc.) The result is compared to a Target Number, which gauges the difficulty of an action and ranges from 5 (easy) to 40 ("Never to be done again") in increments of 5. For example:

Eduardo has a Finesse of 3 and a Fencing (Attack) of 3. He wants to dispatch a guard. (which, if he is a "Brute," requires merely a successful attack) The guards' defence knack ("Footwork," a general purpose "bobbing and weaving and dodging" skill) is 3. That makes the difficulty to hit him = "Defense Knack X 5" = 15. (15 is average difficulty) To strike, Pierre rolls 6 10-sided dice and gets to keep 3. He rolls a 2, 8, 3, 4, 10, and a 6. He keeps the three highest rolls (8+10+6= 24) and rerolls the 10, getting a 6, which brings the total to 30. 30 is very high, so Pierre takes the guard out without a hitch.

One very cool feature is that a character can make a "Raise," increasing the difficulty of an action in order to achieve a better or just plain more stylish effect. For example, the difficulty of hitting the Brute above was 15, but the difficulty of hitting each additional Brute above 1 is only 5. So concievably, Pierre could have tried to take out 4 Brutes with a single attack and succeeded because 15+5+5+5 = 30. Pretty cool, huh? Yes, this means that a good swordsman with a Panache of 3 could make three attacks in a combat round and have a fairly decent chance of taking out multiple Brutes with each attack, but it's that sort of game. The GM can make somewhat tougher Brutes, and Henchmen are a sort of "super-Brute." Villians, of course, are as tough as heroes. (Analagous to "Named Characters" in Feng Shui.) There are a few exceptions to these rules when doing specific actions, and you can get bonus "unkept dice" to various actions, but that elegant and fun mechanic is the meat of the system.

Another prominent feature is the "Drama Die." A character starts a session with as many Drama Dice as his lowest Trait (which is why it's good not to have any Traits lower than 2). Drama Dice can be used as an extra kept die on any action, or to get up immediately after being Knocked Out, or to activate Virtues, or to attempt to prevent the GM from activiating your hubris. Drama Dice are also earned by doing exceptionally dramatic or cool things, and unspent Drama Dice become experience points at the end of a session. The GM, of course, has her own Drama Dice, and a lot more than any one player. Drama Dice are a lot of fun without being unbalancing.

Player: This is a section full of advice for Beginning and Advanced Players. It is actually rather insightful as well as practical, dispensing advice about being Heroic and working well in a group (because the game really works best that way, and that's the way it was intended) and advice about not focusing entirely on either Combat, Sorcery, or Non-Combat skills because all Traits and areas of expertise are very useful. Indeed, this game makes Explorers, Priests, and Courtiers as appealing as Pirates, Swordsmen and Sorcerers, (I can't wait to start playing my foppish, Hedonistic courtier with ridiculously good charm and looks...and servicable skill with a rapier, of course) and that is one of its major strengths.

Miscellaneous Good and Bad Things: The art and style of the book is superb. Perhaps I'm biased because Ramon Perez is one of my favorite RPG artists, but the rest of the art is excllent as well, including the cover painting. The background watermark is classy and not intrusive, as are the headers and footers on each page. (which are two rapiers and a scroll) I really like touches like that in RPG books. The glossy color paintings are also excellent. (Even if the King of Castille bears an uncanny resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio. I would have thought that making him the King of Montaigne would be the obvious choice, seeing as how he was in the Man in the Iron Mask...) The prose story that runs throughout the book is also fun, and gives readers an idea for the feel of the game and how things work. As I said earlier, I also appreciate all of the hints at secrets and mysteries which are presumably answered in the GMs Guide. The difference between "Flesh Wounds" and "Dramatic Wounds" is nice, and fits the "cinematic" feel of the game. The game is also well-balanced...one feels hard-pressed to shortchange any aspect of the character in favor of another. A character who lacks either servicable social/intellectual skills or servicable physical/combat skills is in big trouble, and it is pretty clear that the game is designed that way. Basically, the "Game Balance" is well-maintained. (Though I did manage to make a character who rolls 7 dice and keeps 4 in order to successfully convince someone of a lie...pretty powerful since I can rather handily roll a 40 or above. However, it was expensive to buy that much Panache and Appearance. His Seduction is even better...)

Yes, there are some things I didn't like. For example, a several scattered editing errors are noticeable. Sometimes, different point values for things are given on different pages. Page 233 says the Ambush Knack is available under the Spy Skill. It's not. A few game mechanics things are a little odd. For example, the Parry knack is almost useless, because the Footwork knack allows you to defend against anything, (under normal conditions) including melee weapons, and the Parry Knack only lets you defend against melee weapons when you have a weapon. Why use the Parry knack? Well, a nifty Swordsman Knack or two that only Swordsmen can have requires a good Parry skill. However, that's about the only other real game mechanics reason to have Parry instead of or in addition to Footwork. That having been said, my character has Footwork 3 (so he can defend against ranged attacks, too) and Parry 3 (for no other reason than it is cool for characters to Parry in swordfights. Perhaps a waste of points, but I can't let them go.)

Another example is that "Castillian Education" costs 10 points and only Castillians can have it, and "University" costs 4 points for most and 2 points for Castillians. Both provide pretty much the same benefits, except "Castillian Education" knocks the cost of "Nobility" down from 10 to 5 points, so the cost of a Castillian Education and Nobility is 15 points. However, buying "University" costs 4 points and Nobility then costs 10 points...for a total of only 14 points. Castillians could buy both for 12 points. Therefore, it is kind of silly to get "Castillian Education" unless one really, really wants the added benefit of a "connection of some kind to the royalty of the nation," which will not be important for all character concepts. Maybe these "connections" are more useful than they let on, or maybe it was a slip-up. In any case, these errors and oddities are noticeable, but don't significantly detract from the game.

A more important problem is the high costs of Swordsman and Sorcery. While these are very powerful benefits, they cost so many points that it is difficult to use them to their fullest extent at first and extremely difficult to advance them during the campaign. Perhaps that is a game balance descision, but it seems that advancing from Apprentice to Journeyman Swordsman would take a year or two of gameplay even if the character never used experience points for anything else. In general, advancing Traits and Knacks after character creation is very expensive. However, this problem is easily fixed. The GM can either opt to keep the costs of advancing Traits and Knacks the same as it is during character creation (which is what my GM is doing) or just give out more experience points. Neither is hard to do if you want to have PCs advance more rapidly.

It also seems that there are never enough points to do what you want with the character even when you start. Though this is a complaint of all players in a all point-based games, everyone I know who has made a 7th Sea character so far has been forced to take a Hubris, and nobody can afford a Virtue. Maybe we're all just greedy, but you'd think that somebody could afford a Virtue or at least could afford to not buy a Hubris.

Oh, another personal gripe of mine is that only two Swordsman Schools teach "Disarm," and only one doesn't use a big metal glove to do it. Knocking the other guy's sword out of his hand with your sword is a classic swashbuckler move, but only very accomplished Swordsmen of the Donovan school can ever do it. Boo!

***

All things considered, this is an excellent game. The art, production, writing, and "feel" of the game merits a 5 for Style. The few minor bad points I mentioned are actually not very significant, but I'll use them to knock Substance down to a 4 lest you think I have been blinded by my exuberance. I haven't played a proper game yet, (just tested out some game mechanics and dice rolling) but I and everyone else I know who has read the book have been immediately smitten by it and are excited to play. The only people who shouldn't play this game are those who don't like swashbuckling, alternate history quasi-Earths, or rules systems (like Feng Shui's) designed to emulate "cinematic" genre conventions and plot-device as opposed to "realism."

PS- I was just informed by my GM that Brute Squads attack more or less as a single entity...which makes the GMs life easier and makes it so Brutes can't "gang up" on the PCs effectively....just like in the movies! Cool.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

7th Sea Player's Guide
Author: John Wick & others Category: game Company/Publisher: AEG Line: 7th Sea Cost: $30 Page count: 252 Capsule Review by Mike Holmes on 09/28/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Historical Espionage	7th Sea is an attempt by John and Jennifer Wick and others on the AEG staff to emulate the swashbuckling genre, complete with over-the-top heroics and a romantic view of 17th-century Europe. I believe they succeeded brilliantly. 7th Sea does for the swashbuckling genre what Feng Shui did for Hong Kong action movies. In fact, if you liked Feng Shui, you will probably enjoy this game, as it shares a similar attitude towards gaming in that it writes the game rules around genre conventions (for example, it is easy for a hero to dispatch "faceless hordes" bad guys, and an action can be executed with greater effect or aplomb by raising the difficulty rating of an action) and expects the players to behave heroically, despite any shortcomings or scoundrelly tendencies. Yes, the book suggests that people create characters that are very "good" and that they go out of their way to create and play characters in such a way as to promote teamwork and group harmony. I think that recommendation suits the genre and intent of the game very well, but if you want to create lone wolf anti-heroes or a party full of antagonistic members of warring factions, 7th Sea may not be your cup of tea. I'll summarise and review the book by section: Primer: This is an introduction to the game, and is essentially a miniature version of the book itself. It begins with the obligatory explanation of the genre and setting and the "What is an RPG" section, which is good without being too long. Next is a section about the setting, which I thought was strange because it focused on "Cabals, Cults, and Secret Societies" and didn't mention much about the major countries at all. In fact, the things they chose to mention in this section seemed rather random to me. However, it's only two pages, so no harm done. The character creation and rules summaries are actually pretty good, so I guess my only gripe is that it strikes me as a little redundant, since everything is described in greater detail later. Perhaps I'm biased because I'm an experienced gamer, and this section is a boon to beginners, but I think the book could easily have started with the next section. Theah: This section covers the setting. The setting is unashamedly a simplified version of Europe, (there are apparently two more powers analagous to the Ottoman Empire and China, but we learn basically nothing about them in the Player's Guide) but I think the world history and other fun stuff added to the world are sufficient to make it exciting and unique. The major nations of Theah are as follows: Avalon: Avalon consists of three islands northwest of Montaigne and is a blend of Elizabethan and Arthurian Britain. Queen Elaine has broken away from the Vaticine Church. Notable in the isles of Avalon is the influence of the sidhe (faerie folk) who remain mysterious, but provide Avalons with their national magic, Glamour, which gives sorcerers powers based on various Avalonian legends. (the nobility of each nation posess a certain type of inherited sorcery) The national style of swordplay is Donovan, which emphasizes the use of a buckler and a combination of slashing and thrusting attacks. Castille: Castille is much like Spain, and is known for education and concern for public welfare. About half of the country is occupied by Montaigne, and it was once ruled by the Crescent (presumably a pseudo-Ottoman) Empire. It is very religious, and is the current home of the Vaticine Church. The Castillians are proud that their noblility is free of sorcery, and their national style of swordplay is Aldana, which is an unpredictable, intense style. Eisen: Eisen is like Germany back before it was unified. It consists of warring kingdoms who are recovering from "The War of the Cross," a war of religion. (Vaticine vs. Objectionists) The Eisen are tough, stubborn people who eschew the use of sorcery. The national style of swordplay is Eisenfaust, which uses a specialized glove weapon (a "Panzerhand") to grab an opponents weapon while using a sword in the other hand. The Eisen nobility also possess the only suits of armor that are useful against modern weaponry, called "Dracheneisen." Montaigne: This nation is basically a lot like France under Louis 14th. The nobility indulge in excess and lots of lying and fawning over one another while the peasants struggle to survive. Naturally, there are Musketeer equivalents. Montaigne invaded Avalon in the past, has driven the Vaticine Church outside of its borders, and currently occupies a lot of Castille. The national sorcery is "Porte," teleportation magic. The national style of swordplay is Valroux, which is based on speed and taunting of foes. Ussura: Ussura is a lot like Russia. It is a large, hard, backwards country that does not mingle with the other nations very much. However, "Matushka," a sort of Earth Mother, watches over this land and protects he children, making Ussura difficult to invade. There is no national style of swordplay, but the national style of sorcery is Pyeryem, which involves shapeshifting and invoking the abilities of totem animals. Vendel/Vestenmannavnjar: Imagine if a bunch of Vikings on islands north of Germany decided to turn into the Dutch and you get the basic idea. =) Half of these islands are populated by enterprising bourgeoise with a good Objectionist work ethic, the other half is ruled by those who cling to the old ways and old gods. The Vendel control trade and the economy of Theah, and the Vestenmannavanjar are fearsome pirates and marauders. The Vestenmannavanjar fighting style is Leegstra, which involves endurance, patience, and the use of heavy weapons. The Vestenmannavanjar sorcery is Laerdom, which uses runes to achieve a wide variety of effects. There is also an implication that the old gods are real... Vodacce: Vodacce is ruled by seven merchant princes and is thoroughly Vaticine. The female nobility includes powerful Fate Witches, which are ironically oppressed and prevented from learning or becoming literate so the men can keep the balance of power. This leads to the odd situation where "professional courtesans" are more educated and literate than the noblewomen. The national style of swordplay is Ambrogia, (created by a woman) and specializes in using the sword left-handed and a main gauche on the right. The national sorcery, Sorte, is posessed only by certain noblewomen, and it allows them to percieve and effect fate and destiny. (Which is why everyone is so afraid of them...even at low levels they can basically Read Auras and See The Plot.)) Miscellaneous: There is too much other stuff to cover in detail. There are many powerful guilds, dashing and/or mysterious secret societies, an evil Inquisition, and other factions at work in Theah. Pirates, while not the focus of the game as lots of people seem to expect, are common and important. (Many reviewers complain that they bought it for the pirates and were disappointed...was there an ad campaign I missed that really played up the pirate aspect? I never really followed AEG before this.) There is also no shortage of mysteries and unanswered questions. (some of which I assume are in the GMs Guide, which my GM will, obviously, not let me look at) For example, the lost peple of "Syrneth" once ruled Theah (way back before the counterpart to our Roman Empire) and left many mysterious caverns (some of which are described) and artifacts, one of which appears to be an energy rifle! Several of the 6 known seas are bizarre and dangerous (one contains a labyrinth of flaming walls) and the mysterious 7th Sea is...well, a mystery. The existence of some monsters (mostly undead) is hinted at, but it doesn't come across as a monster-intensive game. (I wouldn't be surprised if the Eisen's "drachens" were real, though.) Another mystery is what dangerous force lurks between the Porte sorcerer's telportation portals and why shouldn't you open your eyes in transit? I'm actually quite glad that AEG decided to put out the GMs Guide separately because I'm anxious to play the game and discover a few of these secrets. Hero: This section covers character creation. One can use 100 "hero points" to buy Traits, which include Brawn (Strength/Toughness), Finesse (Agility), Wits (Intelligence/Perception, and...well, wits), Resolve (Willpower/Endurance/Hit Points), Panache ("Coolness Factor"/Charisma/number of attacks per round). The designers were very clever in that they made all of the Traits very important in combat. I wouldn't recommend having any Trait lower than 2, and I would reccomend that your most important trait be at least a 3. (3 or 4 is the highest you can start with) Hero points are also used to buy things like "Swordsman School" (which is very expensive but allows one to take one of the exclusive fighting arts) or Sorcery (which is even more expensive), as well as "Advantages" (like Nobility, Keen Senses, Ordained, Academy Education, etc.), "Backgrounds" (cool plot hooks and backstories), and skills. The skill system is very good, it allows you to buy a skill package for 2 points and purchase either Basic or Advanced Knacks within the skill. Most skill packages include all of the Basic Skills at rank 1. There are no "Disadvantages" per se, but there are Arcana, which include Virtues and Hubrises. Virtues cost 10 points and allow the character to use a Drama Die (explained later) to activate a very useful trait. Hubrises give you 10 more points for character creation, but the GM can use a Drama Die to activate it to your disadvantage. (For example, my character is Hedonistic. My GM could use a Drama Die to distract my character from an important mission with an excellent party.) Drama: This section covers the rules, which are great. The basic mechanic is this: Roll as many ten-sided dice as your Trait (Brawn, Finesse, Resolve, Wits, or Panache) + your Rank for a task, and keep a number of dice equal to your Trait. Count 10s and then reroll them, adding the reroll value. (if you roll another 10, you can roll it again, etc.) The result is compared to a Target Number, which gauges the difficulty of an action and ranges from 5 (easy) to 40 ("Never to be done again") in increments of 5. For example: Eduardo has a Finesse of 3 and a Fencing (Attack) of 3. He wants to dispatch a guard. (which, if he is a "Brute," requires merely a successful attack) The guards' defence knack ("Footwork," a general purpose "bobbing and weaving and dodging" skill) is 3. That makes the difficulty to hit him = "Defense Knack X 5" = 15. (15 is average difficulty) To strike, Pierre rolls 6 10-sided dice and gets to keep 3. He rolls a 2, 8, 3, 4, 10, and a 6. He keeps the three highest rolls (8+10+6= 24) and rerolls the 10, getting a 6, which brings the total to 30. 30 is very high, so Pierre takes the guard out without a hitch. One very cool feature is that a character can make a "Raise," increasing the difficulty of an action in order to achieve a better or just plain more stylish effect. For example, the difficulty of hitting the Brute above was 15, but the difficulty of hitting each additional Brute above 1 is only 5. So concievably, Pierre could have tried to take out 4 Brutes with a single attack and succeeded because 15+5+5+5 = 30. Pretty cool, huh? Yes, this means that a good swordsman with a Panache of 3 could make three attacks in a combat round and have a fairly decent chance of taking out multiple Brutes with each attack, but it's that sort of game. The GM can make somewhat tougher Brutes, and Henchmen are a sort of "super-Brute." Villians, of course, are as tough as heroes. (Analagous to "Named Characters" in Feng Shui.) There are a few exceptions to these rules when doing specific actions, and you can get bonus "unkept dice" to various actions, but that elegant and fun mechanic is the meat of the system. Another prominent feature is the "Drama Die." A character starts a session with as many Drama Dice as his lowest Trait (which is why it's good not to have any Traits lower than 2). Drama Dice can be used as an extra kept die on any action, or to get up immediately after being Knocked Out, or to activate Virtues, or to attempt to prevent the GM from activiating your hubris. Drama Dice are also earned by doing exceptionally dramatic or cool things, and unspent Drama Dice become experience points at the end of a session. The GM, of course, has her own Drama Dice, and a lot more than any one player. Drama Dice are a lot of fun without being unbalancing. Player: This is a section full of advice for Beginning and Advanced Players. It is actually rather insightful as well as practical, dispensing advice about being Heroic and working well in a group (because the game really works best that way, and that's the way it was intended) and advice about not focusing entirely on either Combat, Sorcery, or Non-Combat skills because all Traits and areas of expertise are very useful. Indeed, this game makes Explorers, Priests, and Courtiers as appealing as Pirates, Swordsmen and Sorcerers, (I can't wait to start playing my foppish, Hedonistic courtier with ridiculously good charm and looks...and servicable skill with a rapier, of course) and that is one of its major strengths. Miscellaneous Good and Bad Things: The art and style of the book is superb. Perhaps I'm biased because Ramon Perez is one of my favorite RPG artists, but the rest of the art is excllent as well, including the cover painting. The background watermark is classy and not intrusive, as are the headers and footers on each page. (which are two rapiers and a scroll) I really like touches like that in RPG books. The glossy color paintings are also excellent. (Even if the King of Castille bears an uncanny resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio. I would have thought that making him the King of Montaigne would be the obvious choice, seeing as how he was in the Man in the Iron Mask...) The prose story that runs throughout the book is also fun, and gives readers an idea for the feel of the game and how things work. As I said earlier, I also appreciate all of the hints at secrets and mysteries which are presumably answered in the GMs Guide. The difference between "Flesh Wounds" and "Dramatic Wounds" is nice, and fits the "cinematic" feel of the game. The game is also well-balanced...one feels hard-pressed to shortchange any aspect of the character in favor of another. A character who lacks either servicable social/intellectual skills or servicable physical/combat skills is in big trouble, and it is pretty clear that the game is designed that way. Basically, the "Game Balance" is well-maintained. (Though I did manage to make a character who rolls 7 dice and keeps 4 in order to successfully convince someone of a lie...pretty powerful since I can rather handily roll a 40 or above. However, it was expensive to buy that much Panache and Appearance. His Seduction is even better...) Yes, there are some things I didn't like. For example, a several scattered editing errors are noticeable. Sometimes, different point values for things are given on different pages. Page 233 says the Ambush Knack is available under the Spy Skill. It's not. A few game mechanics things are a little odd. For example, the Parry knack is almost useless, because the Footwork knack allows you to defend against anything, (under normal conditions) including melee weapons, and the Parry Knack only lets you defend against melee weapons when you have a weapon. Why use the Parry knack? Well, a nifty Swordsman Knack or two that only Swordsmen can have requires a good Parry skill. However, that's about the only other real game mechanics reason to have Parry instead of or in addition to Footwork. That having been said, my character has Footwork 3 (so he can defend against ranged attacks, too) and Parry 3 (for no other reason than it is cool for characters to Parry in swordfights. Perhaps a waste of points, but I can't let them go.) Another example is that "Castillian Education" costs 10 points and only Castillians can have it, and "University" costs 4 points for most and 2 points for Castillians. Both provide pretty much the same benefits, except "Castillian Education" knocks the cost of "Nobility" down from 10 to 5 points, so the cost of a Castillian Education and Nobility is 15 points. However, buying "University" costs 4 points and Nobility then costs 10 points...for a total of only 14 points. Castillians could buy both for 12 points. Therefore, it is kind of silly to get "Castillian Education" unless one really, really wants the added benefit of a "connection of some kind to the royalty of the nation," which will not be important for all character concepts. Maybe these "connections" are more useful than they let on, or maybe it was a slip-up. In any case, these errors and oddities are noticeable, but don't significantly detract from the game. A more important problem is the high costs of Swordsman and Sorcery. While these are very powerful benefits, they cost so many points that it is difficult to use them to their fullest extent at first and extremely difficult to advance them during the campaign. Perhaps that is a game balance descision, but it seems that advancing from Apprentice to Journeyman Swordsman would take a year or two of gameplay even if the character never used experience points for anything else. In general, advancing Traits and Knacks after character creation is very expensive. However, this problem is easily fixed. The GM can either opt to keep the costs of advancing Traits and Knacks the same as it is during character creation (which is what my GM is doing) or just give out more experience points. Neither is hard to do if you want to have PCs advance more rapidly. It also seems that there are never enough points to do what you want with the character even when you start. Though this is a complaint of all players in a all point-based games, everyone I know who has made a 7th Sea character so far has been forced to take a Hubris, and nobody can afford a Virtue. Maybe we're all just greedy, but you'd think that somebody could afford a Virtue or at least could afford to not buy a Hubris. Oh, another personal gripe of mine is that only two Swordsman Schools teach "Disarm," and only one doesn't use a big metal glove to do it. Knocking the other guy's sword out of his hand with your sword is a classic swashbuckler move, but only very accomplished Swordsmen of the Donovan school can ever do it. Boo! *** All things considered, this is an excellent game. The art, production, writing, and "feel" of the game merits a 5 for Style. The few minor bad points I mentioned are actually not very significant, but I'll use them to knock Substance down to a 4 lest you think I have been blinded by my exuberance. I haven't played a proper game yet, (just tested out some game mechanics and dice rolling) but I and everyone else I know who has read the book have been immediately smitten by it and are excited to play. The only people who shouldn't play this game are those who don't like swashbuckling, alternate history quasi-Earths, or rules systems (like Feng Shui's) designed to emulate "cinematic" genre conventions and plot-device as opposed to "realism." PS- I was just informed by my GM that Brute Squads attack more or less as a single entity...which makes the GMs life easier and makes it so Brutes can't "gang up" on the PCs effectively....just like in the movies! Cool. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

7th Sea Player's Guide