Introduction

News!
Method to the Madness
Observations to Date

To use this site's material you obviously need to be familiar with, or have access to, the 7th Sea rules and the Fading Suns setting.  I do not intend to write down in minute detail every single piece of rules or setting adaptation, although I will no doubt add to the material as time goes.  For example, I'm not going to detail the cybernetics rules until I need them in my game, although I can scale the occasional effect.  I also want to avoid copyright infringement associated with posting official material that might hurt Holistic or AEG's sales.

Unless otherwise specified, I use all the house rules from my husband's 7th Sea campaign.

I would really appreciate any comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism readers might have.  My e-mail address is on the front page.  So far as I know there have been few attempts to convert 7th Sea to other settings posted on the Web (the only one I can think of is Mark Manlapas' Sabres and Steam), and I sure would like to hear what people think of the idea.

The various tables are available upon in request in Excel 97 format (or tab-delimited text, etc.) for easier use. 
 

News!

October 26, 2002: After five months of neglect, I'm finally scrounging some time to update this page.  First, I cleaned up the format a bit; then I posted Jason Lorenzetti's many recent contributions.  Apologies for the long delay.  I hope to continue adding new material over the next few days.

May 21, 2002: I'm back in Seattle!  Because there is a lot going on here (returning to three games: Legends of the Five Rings, 7th Sea, and Deadlands - Hell on Earth), I will take a breather but I hope to get players and start a "real" game of Fading Suns/7th Sea here soon.  In the mean time, Jason Lorenzetti has been coming up with cool stuff such as race packages for character creation, new rules for energy shields, and various house rules which I need to post ASAP. 

March 25, 2002: This is cool: I now have help writing these rules.  Jason Lorenzetti has been supplying new material for the Psionic Paths and Theurgic Rituals.  We've been tossing ideas back and forth, and I find it so much more interesting when I can trade ideas like that.  Thank you, Jason!

February 12, 2002: I am looking for additional players in the Vancouver, BC area (Canada.)  The game runs on alternate weekends, and I can run either Saturday or Sunday, no preference for day or time.  Drop me a line if you are interested.  

Method to the Madness

• In closed-end scales, just a simple rule of three, round to closest (e.g., Fading Suns Characteristics' range of values is from 1-10 instead of 1-6 so scale by 0.6.)
   
• For equipment and advantage point cost during character creation when open-ended, multiply the Fading Suns Benefice cost by 2/3 and round to closest.
   
• For prices on common items, the exchange rate seems to be roughly 2 firebirds for 3 guilders.  All bets are off for rare items like Second Republic technology.

The most difficult part was not, as one might believe, converting Theurgy and Psionics; it was determining the simple point-balance issues such as what freebies does one get with various advantages tailored to the specific setting.  For example, unlike in Théah, having noble blood has no correlation to a talent for Theurgy or Psionics.

Another tricky balance issue is the offensive capacity of weapons versus the defensive capacity of armour.  As has been pointed out by some folks, the Fading Suns combat system is like a duel to the death armed with sewing needles; the defensive capacity is too high.  I tried to tone that down in this version, but I don't know yet how I fared.  I did use nice probability tables for the progressive scaling in weapon strength, but I didn't run a simulation to balance that versus armour – I just eyeballed it.  The nerd in me was clamouring about running the numbers, but the engineer in me answered that it would be more productive to run a pilot study, a.k.a. "playtesting"!  So as playtest progresses, I will probably tinker with numbers.

Observations to Date

The big question remains the balance of armour versus firepower.  I have had a chance to test it a bit, and I made a new series of adjustments.  I also created groups of related weapon skills, so that someone who has the skill Fencing, for example, isn't completely clueless when picking up a Flux Sword.

In creating the Psionics, I decided to combine the Paths of Omen and Sixth Sense because they were close in many ways.  Similarly, Jason combined the Paths of Cloaking and Turning into a single one.

Thanks to Jason, there's been good progress on the Theurgy rules; after that, I need to finish the Knack descriptions for the Fighting Schools.  I also need to write a bunch more NPC stats in this system.  I don't intend on posting most of them, but they will be available upon request.  Right now I have a good number of Brutes and Henchmen, and a couple of Villains.  Finally, I figured out I need vehicle rules, and possibly new chase rules.  Sigh.

Most of the new material to date is usable directly in 7th Sea if you have a generous GM, except for a few adjustments when speaking of technology or setting-specific details.  In fact, it might be rather cool (and very scary) to have Vaticine Theurges running around in Théah (I don't want to think about facing a Cardinal Verdugo using Master-level Avestite or Brother Battle rituals, no God no!)