A friend of mine is looking to start a swashbucking RPG campaign, and I am doing my best to convince him to not use 7th Sea. What he really likes about 7th Sea is the wide variety of maneuvers for the different schools of swashbuckling. Specifically, he likes that in a group of a half dozen players, each playing a swordsman, there will often be different actions being taken in a round, and these different actions are each supported by their own game mechanics. He likes that these different mechanics make each of the schools of swordsmanship feel different in play.

I don't like 7th Sea's roll and keep system (I feel it far too strongly emphasizes stats over skills), I'm not real fond of its damage system (flesh wounds vs dramatic injuries), and I'm not fond of its action economy (a PC group's worth of panache ranks of attacks means enemies likewise have to be groups. A single large enemy often far too quickly withers under the number of attacks a PC group can bring to bear).

With his preferences and my issues in mind, can any of you suggest a game that might suit our swashbuckling interests?

"All for One: Regime Diabolique"

I haven't tried it yet but it looks interesting. It comes in an "Ubiquity" engine version and a "Savage Worlds" engine version.

Yaquinto's Swashbuckler, if you can find a copy.  Ditto Crimson Cutlass.  You might also have a look at GURPS Swashbuckler.

Note Crimson Cutlass is available as a .pdf from Amazon for $5.

Quote from: ArtemisAlpha;824879With his preferences and my issues in mind, can any of you suggest a game that might suit our swashbuckling interests?

I'm using Honor+Intrigue for swashbuckling action.

H+I has a very nice dueling system. It is fairly simple, very flexible, and appropriately flavorful for the genre. The moves or maneuvers used vary by both character and circumstance and the dueling styles lead characters to naturally specialize in different moves. I've never seen the same moves repeatedly used by a group of different characters.

• It allows all characters to do all the regular moves so no one is gimped.
• Characters can master a move which increases their chance to succeed, increases the effect when they succeed, or gives them some other bonus like a free action.
• Different Qualities (stats) are used for the chance for success for different moves so characters who are Mighty, Daring, Savvy, or have Flair may choose different moves from each other based on which stats they are best at or one what they think their opponent is good at.
• Different maneuvers use different combat abilities, so a character good at Brawling will naturally choose different maneuvers, even in a sword fight, than will a character who is better at Melee.
• There are different dueling styles, e.g. Italian, French, Spanish, Old Style, Eastern or Cavalry style, etc. Knowledge of a dueling style gives a minor advantage when you fight in that style.
• Characters can master a style which allows them to learn a final secret for that style giving them a unique style advantage.

Here's how rolls work in H+I. Roll 2d6 add appropriate Quality (varies by move), add appropriate combat ability (varies by move), subtract opponents defending attribute (varies by move and may be a Quality or Combat Ability or the sum of a Quality and a Combat Ability).

Two examples will clarify.

• A normal attack is called Bladework. The attacker rolls 2d6+Daring+Melee and subtracts the target's Defense trying to roll 9+. From this we can see that characters who are Daring and skilled at Melee combat will have a good chance to stab or slash people. Characters who have a good Defense will be harder to hit.
• A Disarm is an attack that...well disarms the opponent. Typically you have to first Bind the opponent's weapon before you can disarm. So the attacker tries Bind rolling 2d6+Might+Melee and subtracting the opponent's Might (9+succeeds). If that succeeds the attacker can try to Disarm. Roll 2d6+Might+Melee subtracting the targets Might and Melee.

Right away we can see that two characters one who has a high Daring and an average Might and the other who has a high Might and an average Daring are going to be well served by choosing different moves. The Daring character should avoid Bind and Disarm . Otherwise, unless his Melee is a lot higher he will likely fail. On the other hand, the character with the high Might is well served to try to Disarm.

Now for the negative. Lifeblood (i.e. hit points) in H+I are fixed as are (with certain exceptions) the number of attacks. What this means is that 4 Heroes ganging up on a single Villain are going to defeat the Villain unless there is a huge discrepancy in Qualities and Combat abilities between the PCs and the Villain. While this can be the case, H+I characters start out as very competent. All starting characters are at least OK in combat and some are very competent from day 1. Thus there usually aren't huge discrepancies between human Heroes and Villains. Of course there is nothing stopping the GM from creating an extremely deadly Villain, but that is a bit counter to the swashbuckling motif of duels and one on one combat.

Of course this may well be different if the opponent is not human and that goes double for some of the supernatural creatures.

But in general, a climactic battle will probably have some heroes fighting multiple Pawns (guards and what not), some heroes fighting one or more lieutenants, and one or maybe two heroes fighting the Villain (assuming the Villain is even actually combat capable).

Here's a thread with some Q&As about H+I.

Quote from: Gwarh;824941"All for One: Regime Diabolique"

I haven't tried it yet but it looks interesting. It comes in an "Ubiquity" engine version and a "Savage Worlds" engine version.

Cool. I hadn't seen that Regime Diabolique was out in English. And it appears to be on sale. I'll have to check that out.

Chaosium has Blood Tide for BRP... a swashbuckling pirate setting with magic and horror elements. It has rules for Stunts, voodou, ship battles and such. It's a sourcebook though, so core BRP or the BRP quickstart would be an additional requirement.

Flashing Blades is still available at '80s prices from FGU's web site in print and pdf too. Also a bunch of cool adventure modules and an expansion for pirates and privateers called High Seas. Still the best of its kind as far as I have seen.  Easy to learn, fast to play, cool maneuvers for sword fights.

RuneQuest 6 has a ton of maneuvers you could isolate to certain styles, or if you find the unofficial RQ6 Star Wars hack, there are examples of how to create Jedi Styles using special spot rules to grant differences in the rules.

A pity about 7th Sea's system. Its setting hit a lot of the right notes for me. Tried it twice, the second time with a massive rules overhaul. Just didn't gel.

Quote from: Matt;824979Flashing Blades is still available at '80s prices from FGU's web site in print and pdf too. Also a bunch of cool adventure modules and an expansion for pirates and privateers called High Seas. Still the best of its kind as far as I have seen.  Easy to learn, fast to play, cool maneuvers for sword fights.

Matts already nailed this in my opinion.

I would probably go Honor + Intrigue or Savage Worlds (using Pirates of the Caribbean, or Regime Diabolique, or both).

Quote from: Simlasa;824964Chaosium has Blood Tide for BRP... a swashbuckling pirate setting with magic and horror elements. It has rules for Stunts, voodou, ship battles and such. It's a sourcebook though, so core BRP or the BRP quickstart would be an additional requirement.

I picked up this and Mythic Iceland last week...both look like great books and I am looking forward to trying them out.

Flashing Blades for me

Thanks, everybody, for the great recommendations. I'll certainly be checking out Crimson Cutlass, Flashing Blades, Honor and Intrigue, and Regime Diabolique.

As it turns out, I own Blood Tide, and our gaming group has a experience with long campaigns in BRP, so I can probably pitch that, as well.

And, because this might just be the best place to ask, is there a best place to look for an old out of print game like Yaquinto's swashbuckler, or is the good answer "get thee to google"

I'd go with Flashing Blades or BRP/RQ.