Lost decade of gaming and more
Had a long, boring, rambling entry, which I tossed for what I hope is tighter and less boring and certainly shorter. I think my thoughts have turned this way with the passing of Gary Gygax.
Over the last ten to fifteen years, although I have been an avid player of role playing games for most of my life, I have not had much opportunity or time to play since about 1995. In the past few years I have started to take notice where the gaming industry is. Many things have changed and games have come and gone, including many that were developed, released, and ended their run of significant success without me ever looking at them, let alone picking them up.
While many fall into this, one that I ran across and was intrigued with was 7th Sea. In reviewing its existence, I find that it is a fairly amazing creation. The premise appears to be an alternate Earth with analogs to Eurasian cultures, centered mainly on the dominant cultures of Europe in the 17th century. Then, the world is filled with all the situations and backdrops to play out every swashbuckling trope in literature (with magic thrown in). It handles musketeers, pirates, Zorro, a dash of Arthurian knights and legends, and even with the advancement of the "metaplot, a context for the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Now, I can't comment on the rules, although my impression is that they were designed to serve the setting, and certainly there were a lot of adherents to the game. Detractor's too, of course, because, gamers, like everyone, can't have a community that gets along. We have to have factions and cliques like we are in high school (and only some of them are) and fight and call each other names. The internet greatly facilitates this.
In any case, 7th Sea seems to take this central idea of playing through every swashbuckler ever written or filmed, cranks it up on steroids, adds magic and monsters and a complex fictional history, and goes to town with the fun. It looks like, at the right time, it would have been tremendous fun (and very expensive to buy comprehensively). I am sorry I missed it.
Not to say it could not be picked up, of course. With the advent of e-Bay and PDFs available through DrivethruRPG and others, games no longer die quite so absolutely as they seemed to in the past when they ended their print run. Of course, with the internet, a lot is kept going as well by fans, with sites and forums.
While I missed the boat on 7th Sea (couldn't resist), I am happy to see a relatively healthy community and industry still coming up with fun ideas and good products. Yes, there is also dreck out there, but, sorting through it all is actually fun, and one man's dreck is another's fun evening spent with friends, so I just hope to find my corner it it all.
And maybe, just maybe, the wife and kids will come along now, and we all will dive back into the stream after my "lost decade."