Review: 17th Century Minimalist

 

 

The Age of Sail is one of my favorite time periods in history and one of my favorite eras to game in. That era can have the supernatural and weirdness cranked up to 10 and beyond or be a more down to earth Three Musketeers swashbuckler style. So, with that being said, I am always on the look out for games set in this era. To be honest, I do not even know how I came across this game but it looks like a gem. It is produced by Games Omnivorous.

Disclaimer: I was given a physical copy for review purposes. 

 

Presentation: 17th Century Minimalist presents itself in a 40 page, full color, saddle stitched (with red thread), booklet form. The cover is made of thick cardboard style paper and the rest of the book is printed on a cream paper. What really catches my eye about this game is the art style. It is very unique and heavily reminds me of the type art that could be found in Veins of the Earth, etc. 

Character Creation: Below are the various steps for character creation;

1. Roll 3d4 for each ability: Charisma, Dexterity, Strength, Intelligence, and Luck. Then re-roll all the abilities with a score of 5 or less using 1d4+12.
2. If the character ends up with no ability above 10, return to the step above and re-roll all the abilities again. 
3. Choose a Class: Cutthroat, Illusionist, Plague Doctor, Soldier, or Swashbuckler. 
4. Register the Maximum Hit points listed in the respective class section. Hit points are static in this game. PCs do not gain more when advancing level.
5. Note down the starting equipment in your inventory. 
6. Read and study the special abilities of the class chosen. 

Resolution: The core mechanic is rolling a d20 and comparing it to the appropriate attribute. If the result is on or below the attribute the action succeeds and if it is above the attribute the action fails. This single mechanic governs all non routine actions, saves, combat, and just about everything else.

Speaking of combat, it is player facing and the sequence is below;

1. Determine Initiative: Each PC puts a different colored die in a bag. Add another die for the adversaries, and a neutral colored die. The GM takes one of these in turn from the bag. The "owner" can perform his or her turn (all adversaries act when their dice is pulled). If the neutral die is pulled, the round is over a new initiative bag is assembled. 
2. When a character wants to attack, the player rolls a normal attribute check for their Strength (if melee) or Dexterity if ranged. A critical fumble is on a 20 and a critical success is on a 1. 
3. When it is the adversaries turn, the GM narrates the action and the character attempts to avoid the attack with a successful attribute check. If the check fails, the character is hit and takes damage. 

In the combat section, there is a mechanic called fight back. It states that if a character is being attacked but the attack misses, the character can fight back, RIPOSTE! The player rolls for bonus attack but with disadvantage.  

Crunch: To be honest, most of the crunch has already been explained but there are some additional aspects to the system that I Think are very important to discuss.

• Luck: This attribute is kind of a jack of all trades. Though, one point of luck can be spent to re-roll the dice (except for fumbles because a fumble is a fumble). At the end of each of adventure (or whenever the GM deems fitting) 1d3 luck is regained up to the characters maximum
• Weapon Damage: Small d4/Medium d6/Large d8
• Out of Action Table: When a PC reaches zero hp, they roll a d6 to see if they survive
• Firearms: Take 18-a character's Dexterity to reload 
  
• Misfiring: There is a d10 table to see if the characters weapon misfires or backfires. It has a 80% chance to fire normally and a result of a 9 or 10 dictate a misfire or a backfire. There is optional rules for damp places
  
• Alcohol and Drugs: Tables and rules for these
• Disease: Tables and rules for these
• Poison: Tables and rules plus antidotes for these
• Advantage/Disadvantage: If a character has advantage, the player rolls two d20s and chooses one. If a character has disadvantage, the player rolls two d20s and the GM chooses one
• Armor: Armor provides a number of d6s in armor protection. Players can remove one of these d6's to completely ignore a hit. During downtime, the lost d6's are rolled and if they are above the original armor rating the armor regains an armor dice
• Reputation: Normal Reputation starts at 6. When the characters do virtuous deeds it goes up and when they vicious stuff, their reputation goes down. As 12 the characters are considered famous and at 1 they are considered infamous. Both of these comes with pros and cons. Once characters are famous or in famous they gain tokens for further deeds and these tokens can be spent for various effects (most of these are story driven and players can only hold a maximum of two tokens)
• Advancement: Characters earn XP as they move around in the world. Every 10 XP the go up a level to a maximum of 5. When a character levels up, they gain a chance to increase their attributes and their class abilities increase
  

Final Thoughts: This is a very well put together and thought out game using the Black Hack 2e as the skeleton for its system with various bits and pieces from other system added in to cover various aspects of the era. I think this all works very well and you end up with a great game to play in the age of sail. The game also provides a quick two pages of advice and tips to running the game which are helpful and some rules about converting AC and monsters are also included.

I also feel like  roll under systems and player facing combat are the way to go. It just makes things feel so much smoother and allows the GM to easily decide what needs to be rolled on the fly if one of their players does something the GM was not prepared for. In a swashbuckling world, this is just perfect. 

Two of my favorite things about the system is the Reputation system and the classes. The reputation system really helps allow GM's to enact the classic cause and effect axis to the characters actions - whether good or bad. I wish a lot more games had a system like this baked in.  My second favorite thing is the classes. Each class really speaks volumes about the setting of the age of sail. In addition, the classes are front loaded and have a lot of unique abilities that are full of flavor. To be honest, I think calling them classes is a disservice to them because they feel more like professions and using the word class brings certain D&D connotations to mind. 

With that being said, I think there are two things that I wish would have been included (one of them being more of personal preference) the other being an oversight which is surprising to me because there was a lot of care and effort put into this game. The oversight is there is no type of adversary/monster section or rule to create your own. This would be easy enough use the Black Hack 2e and make adjustments due to damage restrictions, etc. 

As for the issue that is probably more my personal preference is that the game is designed around one shots or short campaigns. This is due to the fact the most of the PC's hit points is locked around 12 and it can lead to deadly games. In the authors tips this is discussed and reasons are given. It is true that there are ways to burn to luck, armor, and other things to avoid taking damage but I still think it is to deadly for long term play. Again, this is easily fixed by upping the HP to 20-24 (I like the static HP idea) but I think it should have been a side note or something like that. 

Regardless, 17th Century Minimalist is a great game and can easily replace a lot of the more crunchier age of sail games out there. You can find it here:

• drivethrurpg 
• direct from Games Omnivorous