Note: I received a copy of The Seventh Seal: Roleplaying Game of Prophetic Revelation in exchange for this review.
The light is fading. A trumpet sounds through ash and blood. The armies of Heaven raise a final banner as the Antichrist ascends his throne. Gird thyself well, Sentinel, and charge the line…
The Seventh Seal: Roleplaying Game of Prophetic Revelation pits player characters in the service of the light against the Legions of Hell in the Biblical endgame.
Appearance, Layout, and Organization
Seventh Seal is a soft cover release. It is 204 pages in length. It has a full color cover and a black and white interior.
The art of Seventh Seal ranges from just below average to just above average. It is generally evocative and helps set the tone of the game, but could often be cleaner and less crowded. The front cover depicts the seals mentioned in the Book of Revelation on purple background.
The game is fairly well organized. Information could have been better placed in a few instances, but Seventh Seal is untroubled by the kind of chaos often exhibited in other basement games.
Seventh Seal is laid out in a two column format. It is printed in a small font and the game’s pages are almost always full of art and type. The background chapter features faux missives which, unlike those in some other games, are mercifully legible.
The game is written in a clear, intelligent and generally interesting style.
Although the typeface of the index is larger than that of the rest of the book, it is well detailed and fills out eight pages. Seventh Seal also has a single page table of content. It’s entries are as follows:
Introduction
Chapter One, Sinners and Saints
Chapter Two, Signs & Portents
Chapter Three, The Chosen
Chapter Four, State of Grace
Chapter Five, Guidelines
Chapter Six, Revelations
Chapter Seven, We are Legion!
Appendix
Index
Setting
Seventh Seal takes the Book of Revelations from the Bible, mixes in a fair dose of Judeo-Christian mythology and small touches that make the game more interesting and playable (specifically supernatural powers for player characters), then crafts a game out of them.
Although it is up to the game moderator (termed a Prophet in Seventh Seal) to determine the full extent and the specifics of the ultimate truths of the setting, it generally follows the expected route: God created the world. Lucifer grew jealous, rebelled, and fell. Lucifer and his minions began to corrupt humanity. The corruption spread and now the end is near. The pitch of the battle between good and evil is on the rise as all of creation swings toward the apocalypse…
The players take on the roles of soldiers in the army of Heaven. These soldiers, termed Sentinels, are called from the rank and file of humanity into a battle beyond their understanding. Note that Sentinels to be are not necessarily good, moral folks – the Lord moves in mysterious ways after all.
The process which turns an ordinary mortal into a Sentinel is fraught with angelic visitations, trials by fire, tests of resolve, and danger. The potential Sentinel is first visited by an archangel, then shown a vision of a wrong to be righted. Candidates who rise to the challenge are visited a second time, provided with answers, and invested with divine abilities. They become Sentinels –
And their lives fall apart. The appointment of a Sentinel sends a pulse through the ether and it isn’t long before minions of Satan destroy the Sentinel’s personal life by closing bank accounts, canceling credit cards, framing the Sentinel for crimes and other similar acts of mischief. The Sentinel’s new life – one full of paranoia and constant travel – begins.
Although there are supernatural entities beyond good and evil, Seventh Seal focuses on the conflict between Heaven and Hell. Sentinels can expect to face all manner of human evil, the Marked (the evil counterpart to Sentinels), corrupted clergy, cultists, those who practice the debased magicks of Sorcery, and, of course, demons.
Hell is status-conscious. Demon vie for position within an ever changing hierarchy that begins with the Deceitful Trinity – Satan, the Antichrist and Tiamat, the Whore of Babylon – and continues with demon lords, Nephilim (ancient progeny of mortal women and demonkind), demons, lesser demons, and, finally, the human fodder who serve evil. Demon whose plans come to fruition rise in the hierarchy while those whose plans are crushed by Heaven and circumstance fall yet again.
The infernal hierarchy is forgiving enough to accept corrupted Sentinels, however. Soldiers of God who stray too far from the path, who misuse their gifts, and become immoral lose their divine attributes and gain infernal ones. Although the archangels are not shy with visions, symbolic warnings and hints, Sentinels do lose their way and can only turn from their dark path via acts of sacrifice.
Seventh Seal is about prophetic revelation – not just those which appear in the Book of Revelations, but also visions granted to the player characters by the archangels whom they serve. Player characters often receive direction and warnings in the form of visions. These serve as marching orders of a sort and warn the character when he is straying from the path of righteousness.
The Seventh Seal also has elements of horror woven into the setting. The servants of Hell are neither attractive nor particularly neat. They use their twisted forms to carve flesh in ways beyond imagining, and the rule book provides both mechanics and advice for dealing with the effect of such mind-bending sights on Sentinels.
Finally, Seventh Seal can be played in three different time periods: before the conflict has risen in pitch; in the time before the rise of the Antichrist but after a marked rise in activity; or after the Antichrist has ascended his throne and creation stands a hairsbreadth away from the apocalypse.
Character Creation and Character Roles
Character creation in Seventh Seal begins with a character concept. The divine plan allows for all types of characters, so concepts which are decidedly not wholesome in nature may be used.
Next players assign a priority to groups of attributes and divide points among them based on those priorities. These categories are called Trinities. The Body Trinity includes Agility, Attractiveness, Might and Vigor. Mind includes Logic (analytical thought), Reason (social interaction), Senses, and Willpower. The Spirit Trinity consists of Aura (charisma and emotional empathy), Faith, Inspiration (creativity and motivation) and Soul (a measure of the power of the character’s soul).
Each attribute begins with one point and can reach a maximum score of seven. The player divides eight points up among the attributes in the Trinity she ranks most important, four points in the second most important Trinity, and three points in the last. No attribute may be raised above five during character creation.
Next a Background is chosen for the character. The Background works hand in hand with the character concept and provides the character with starting skills (called Proficiencies in Seventh Seal) and free resources. Thirty one Background templates appear in the rule book (players and the GM can, of course, create their own). They include Ambulance Paramedic, Cat Burglar, Cop, Hacker, Investigator, Monster Hunter, Neo-Activist, Professional Athlete, Secret Agent, and Student.
The Monster Hunter Background, for example, provides the character with skills in Awareness, Evasion, Melee or Munitions, Occult and Stealth. It also provides the character with a Library Pass, an Occult Network (minor contact), a Cross, Holy Water, a Stake, a Silver Tipped Knife, and a Small Firearm.
Fourteen points are divided up among the skills provided by a character’s Background. One point must be put into every skilled listed in the character’s Background. Characters also receive their Willpower plus Logic in bonus points which can be spent on any skill.
There are forty four skills that appear in Seventh Seal. Each can eventually be raised to a score of seven, but not beyond five during character creation.
Each Sentinel serves an archangel (either Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, or Uriel). The followers of the archangels form Celestial Orders (one per archangel) and a character’s Celestial Order provides not only a role within the group but also a bonus to one attribute and different divine abilities as well. Each Order also has a Creed, a set of commandments which they strive to follow.
Those who follow the Celestial Order of Michael, for example, are leaders. They wear the mantle of authority about them. Sentinels of the Order of Michael receive a 1 to Senses and the Watcher’s Warning (the ability to sense danger) and Compel (the ability to command others) divine abilities.
In addition to the special abilities provided by Celestial Orders, characters may learn three different sets of divine abilities. Each of these – and most other divine abilities – are divided into seven different Echelons and each Echelon takes the basic ability to new heights.
Characters also possess two divine attributes: Insight and Grace. Insight is a measure of the character’s ability to channel divine energy. The Insight point pool begins equal to the character’s Vigor plus Willpower plus Soul. Grace measures the character’s understanding of the divine plan. A character’s starting Grace is equal to her Faith score. Both Insight and Grace are used to fuel special abilities, but Grace points also provide re-rolls and more.
Note: Evil characters lack Insight and Grace. Instead, they have Ko’ach (the Hebrew word for “power) and Taint respectively. Ko’ach and Taint work in a fashion similar to their divine counterparts.
And optional advantage/disadvantage system is included in Seventh Seal. Characters may take up to six points worth of advantages, but they must be balanced with an equal number of points of disadvantages. There are forty advantages presented in the rule book, including Blessed Blade, Chastity, Cult Ties and Double Jointed. There are fifty disadvantages in the book, including Atheist, Deaf, Demonic Concubine, Homeless and Stigmata.
The System
Seventh Seal uses dice pools and an attribute plus skill versus a difficulty number system.
A number of six sided dice equal to both the attribute and skill which governs the task are rolled for task resolution and compared to a difficulty. Any combination of an attribute and a skill may be used.
The typical target number for a roll is four. An easy roll might have a difficulty of two while an impossible task might have a difficulty as high as eight.
As most rolls are not open ended (only rolls involving skills with scores above four are open ended), multiple sixes are needed to reach difficulties above six. Two sixes combine to equal one seven and three sixes combine to form one eight.
The number of successes achieved in a roll is important in Seventh Seal. One success results in minimal completion of a task. Three successes are required for a completely successful outcome and seven successes are an “unearthly” result.
Opposed checks compare successes.
Initiative is an Agility plus Senses roll. The character with the most successes acts first and so on. Initiative is rolled each round.
Agility plus the appropriate skill is used to attack. The difficulty for most attack rolls is four. The defender gets a free check to avoid the attack by rolling Agility plus the appropriate skill (even gunfire may be avoided in this fashion), but the difficulty for this roll is five.
If the attacker gets more successes than the defender, not only does the attack lands but the attacker adds an extra die to damage for each success above the defender’s. The base number of dice rolled for damage is determined by the weapon (which appear in generic categories such as Small Handgun and Large Bludgeon). The target number for a damage roll is four.
The defender may attempt to soak the damage by rolling Vigor plus the character’s Armor rating versus a difficulty of four. Each success negates a success from the damage roll.
Remaining damage roll successes are applied to the character’s Life Levels. Characters have eight Life Levels that range from Bruised to Dead. Damage comes in three different types – Banal (non-lethal), Lethal and Incorporeal (spiritual damage that takes time to heal) – and is marked accordingly. Each level imposes a cumulative dice pool penalty to actions.
More serious damage pushes lesser types of damage down the life track. For example, two Banal wounds would be pushed from the first two levels to the third and fourth level by two Lethal wounds. An additional Lethal wound would shift all the previous wounds down one more level (the Banal wounds would end up in the fourth and fifth levels).
A character receives a number of Grace points equal to her Faith at character creation. These can be used to power divine abilities, re-roll the entire dice pool for an action, and to pierce the seemings and guises of demons.
Grace can be lost if the character performs immoral acts or loses a Spiritual Conflict. It is regained through attending to matters of faith and through acts of sacrifice.
A Spiritual Conflict is a struggle of wills that is initiated and resolved in an eye blink. Sentinels can only invoke such a contest through the use of a specific divine ability, but all demons merely need touch their victims to begin the struggle.
A Spiritual Conflict is an opposed roll using the character’s permanent Grace score and the Demon’s permanent Taint score. It occurs over multiple rounds (all of which take just but a moment of game time). The winner of each round forces her opponent to lose a number of temporary Grace or Taint points equal to the difference in the combatant’s successes. The conflict is over when one side has exhausted the other’s supply of Grace or Taint.
Temporary Grace and Taint lost in the battle returns once it has run its course, but the loser of the Spiritual Conflict forfeits a point of either Grace or Taint from her current score. If this take a Sentinel’s last point of Grace, the demon could potentially corrupt the Sentinel and replace the now exhausted Grace pool with Taint instead!
Experience is called Free Will in Seventh Seal. Players are automatically awarded one point of Free Will at the end of each session, but can gain between one and six more points if they meet certain criteria.
The cost to raise an attribute is four times the current rating in Free Will. Purchasing a new skill is three points and the cost to raise an existing skill is two times the current rating. The cost to purchase new divine abilities is between four and six points of Free Will. Either seven or nine points to raise an existing ability an Echelon (depending on the type of ability).
Overall
Seventh Seal is a fine example of a small press game. Although its production values are not on par with the glossy hard covers that stick up from game store shelves like technicolor teeth, it is well crafted and cohesive enough to carry its vision to the reader.
The game is flawed in a few areas.
The cover could have told a story to draw in potential buyers. Instead it has Roman numerals, seals, and a ring of fire.
Seventh Seal indulges in bouts of “term-itis.” It has Prophets, Sentinels, Proficiencies, Trinities, Free Will and the like. Luckily, the first chapter contains a glossary.
The section which describes Proficiencies is tucked away in the chapter about basic mechanics and combat. It should have appeared just after the information about character creation. The divine abilities should be more clearly marked with subheads and broken up a bit.
There are also a few mechanical blemishes in Seventh Seal. As the basis for both offensive and defensive rolls in a game about fighting demons, Agility is a very attractive buy for players. The small skill sets associated with Backgrounds, the requirement to place a point in each of those skills, and the limited number of points available tends to produce characters that are more alike than different respective to skills. It also seems as if Spiritual Conflicts result in a rather sharp downward spiral for the losing side.
The flaws in terms of setting include falls from Grace that are as not quite as difficult to recover from as they perhaps should be. Lost Grace can be recovered via acts of sacrifice, but unfortunately the acts listed in the book tend to be light on sacrifice. Instead, characters are required to be, in short, better people and better Sentinels.
Also, the horror elements of the game could be more sharply drawn. There are interesting observations about horror and advice in chapter six, but more concrete examples of where players might encounter such elements in the game would be useful.
The above, however, are small concerns and should not outweigh the accomplishments of the game. Although the ideas and themes of Seventh Seal are not fully realized, it is tighter, more interesting and more cohesive than many other small press games.
Seventh Seal’s mechanics support its vision.
Seventh Seal is both readable and playable. Although it subject matter may be off-putting for some, the game should manage to appeal to a wide audience.
The issue of religion needs to be addressed. Seventh Seal’s authors have included disclaimers which state that the game is neither a theological document nor a piece of Christian propaganda. They claim that Seventh Seal is entirely a work of fiction that uses Judeo-Christian mythology as a basis for its setting, themes, and ideals – and the game appears to be just that. Seventh Seal does not denigrate or promote Christianity or Christian belief.
Seventh Seal may appeal to World of Darkness fans, Christian gamers, and those interested in exploring morality in a modern day setting. The game’s low cover price makes it all the more attractive…
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