Rocks Fall. Everybody Dies.

The 7th Sea Golden Rule: Have Fun

Now, there's one thing we haven't told the players, and that there is a second golden rule, but it only applies to Game Masters.

The Second 7th Sea Golden Rule: If someone isn't having fun, fix it.

-- page 208, 7th Sea, Game Master's Guide

Being a GM (or HM or DM or Storyteller or whatever flavor of the month the GM is called in that particular gaming system) is HARD WORK.

A player has one thing to worry about - his character. Not that even being a character is simple, but that's not what I want to talk about right now.

A GM has multiple characters to worry about - bad guys, good guys, neutrals. An entire universe of situations. The rules. When to break the rules. (Some people think a good gm knows all the rules and never breaks them. We call these people rules lawyers and the phrase "first, let's kill all the lawyers" applies to them as well.) It is vital to know when to apply and when to break rules. When to fudge dice rolls.

A GM's job is simple and complex: Tell a story. Make sure everyone is having fun. (If you are NOT having fun, you'd better tell me. I can only fix what I can see. Sitting in the back being mad is not fun for you. Eventually you will make it not fun for the other players. If no one is having fun, what the FUCK are we wasting all this time on? You wanna be mad - go watch the debates.)

Let's get some things crystal clear here. I am a STORY GM. Do I fudge dice rolls? You bet your ass I do. In fact, there are some circumstances under which you have to bet your ass I do because the actual rules of the game are NOT going to let you live. But I will do my damnedest to make sure you do. I killed JD's character a few months back. No one was more surprised than I was. I'd shot at Marionette several times with a notable lack of success. I spent days thinking of ways to "save" the character. Death does not have to be a career-ending event.

Second thing. 7th Sea is, above all, supposed to be a dramatic game. Dra - Mah - Tic. When you do something dramatic, you get a drama die. When you need extra dice to succeed at something, you can spend them. Thus, being witty, impressive, brave, etc can help you actually be witty, impressive, and brave. To wit: Faced by 4 brute squads, the Hero decides that he's in a lot of trouble. He makes a brave quip - be off, fools, before I get warmed up - and calls 3 raises to try and Knock Out four Brutes at once. This gives him a target number of 30. He makes his roll without spending drama dice and gets a 32. Wow! Amazing. He gets a drama die! Same situation - rolls dice and gets a 27. Not quite good enough - however, he has a drama die to spend, which he does and gets a 6. Total, 33? Wow! Amazing! He gets a drama die. For an even net.

Addendum to Second thing: Cowardice will not benefit you. I know, it means you have to trust me. Please. Trust me. And god knows it took me a while to get it, too, when I was playing 7th Sea. With no balance and no swinging - the idea of swinging over to the enemy ship to fight seemed like sure-fire suicide. But not trying means no drama dice. If you're dramatic, I will help you. As much as possible.

Third. And this is the most important thing... There is a difference between screwing with your character and screwing over your character.

Roleplaying is never (or should never be) the GM vs. the Players. EVER. The GM will win, if that's ever the case. Hands down. The GM has more resources, more monsters, more spells, more villians. Rocks fall. Everybody dies. And honestly, what's the fun in that? (I've had a GM like that... in the last game, we had a 50-50 chance at opening a scroll that would destroy the world. Or the other one, which would destroy all the magic in the world. And there was no option to not open a scroll. Um. How fun is that? Not Very. Almost all of us were dead by the end of the game And with no magic, we couldn't get rezzed.)

Yes, as the GM, I will fuck with you. I will play mind games, I will wring emotions, I will throw you in jail, I will kill off your NPC allies. Yes, I want blood, sweat and tears. And laughs and triumphs and dramatic escapes.

I will not fuck you over. I will never, ever set up scenarios where there is no escape. Unfortunately, with most paper and dice games, there is the chance that you might die. But 7th Sea isn't one of those games. You can get Knocked Out. Which then leads to rescues (Three Musketteers, or escapes (Count of Monte Cristo), or waking up the next morning after getting hit over the head with a belaying pin (Pirates of the Carribean).

Perhaps it's a subtle difference. But critical. And I confess to being a little hurt that one of my players was unaware of the difference.

---

While I'm at it, perhaps I should clarify: Acts, scenes, story, epic.

Epic - the over-arching adventures of a group of heroes, think series of novels

Story - one main plot line, think one novel, one movie, or one play

Act - A part of a story, like acts in a play. For instance, in Pirates of the Carribean Act One would be the Battle at Port Royal and ends when the Black Pearl kidnaps Elizabeth Swan. Act Two would be The Curse and ends when The Interceptor is overtaken by the Pearl and Elizabeth and Jack are marooned on the island. Act three would be Escape of Captain Jack and run from the rescue by the British until the end of the movie. (In game mechanics, this is also when you get experience, your drama pool refreshes, and all Dramatic Wounds are healed.)

Scene - a bit of action - a fight, a conversation - usually seperated by a change of location. (At the end of a scene, all flesh wounds are healed)

These aren't necessarily very clear, and the book doesn't describe them very well. So if you need to keep it simple: The scene, act, story, and epic ends when I say so.

So... questions?

Posted by tisfan at October 14, 2004 11:10 AM