After the thorough diappointment that was 7th Seas Second Edition, I went searching for a set of rules that would give me and others the swashbuckling fun we wanted. We thought about homebrewed DnD5e but it wasn't exactly the kind of environment for that in the game's resume. I read a few Reddit threads mentioning using Honor + Intrigue's system in 7th Sea's world and decided to peek at it.
The system itself is pretty simplistic at first but broadens out. Unlike most systems where you're working from a broad list of stats and narrowing it down to skills, you're doing the inverse where stats are narrow but the skills are broad. The career system basically takes traditional rules and says they're more like guidelines really. Instead of a hard and fast skill system, you have a career where you can make an argument to the GM that your character would know how to do some basic smithing because you were a farm boy and sometimes farmboys have to know how to make and shoe a horse. If you successfully argue your position you can then use the career points to add towards the roll. If you don't have a crafting career at all though, you're likely not going to be able to justify your character being able to make a blackpowder rifle out of no where.
The GM is encouraged to work with the players in the rules which is a nice additive. I can say without a doubt there will be rule lawyers who fight this method but it will be an uphill battle for them.
The combat seems clunky at first, and the initiative system I feel could be handled better with just a traditional roll order, but ultimately I'm fine with it as is and just use RAW methods.
The 2d6 system keeps the flow simple and math light. Two base stats + 2d6 to equal 9 or more. Its that simple. Combat is two relevant stats versus 9 as well. If the enemy has a defense stat of 1, then that just gets added to the base 'versus' and it becomes 10 you have to beat. Most everything is like this.
Where I find things get interesting is the Advantage system where you can win a battle without either side ever drawing blood. The moments where the good guy manages to keep the enemy pushed back and back until they're on their butt with a sword at their throat? You can recreate that easily here and can give plenty of GM narrative opportunities and give players plenty of space to role play.
Some of the wording in the book gets a little confusing and it took me a few read-throughs to fully understand combat but once I did it was easy enough to explain to my players.
One spark of criticsm that I'm not sure is really criticsm is that I wish there was more content. I'm hoping for either an expansion or Honor + Intrigue 2 of sorts where it has a more fleshed out fantastical element, where there are magical pieces that could be suited. As it stands the book leaves a lot of that up to GM imagination. Its easy enough to have a Pirates of the Caribbean style epic but beyond that you're wandering into waters not yet charted. Even if its just another expansion, please give us more.
Ultimately its a great pick up and play game with lots of pirating fun to be had. Solid foundation with unique mechanics in the Advantage system. If the Dueling styles interest you, definitely check out the add-on Duelist's Guide where they go more in depth with each style and give more of a draw to them. Full package runs you about 24 dollars which for a good pirate feel, its done well at that price.
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