Sell me on The Dark Eye. What does it do that D&D doesn't, besides "be popular in Europe"?

>I heard that it's the most popular tabletop RPG in Germany
It's only popular in Germany, because it's written in fucking German.
It might come to you as a surprise but the Witcher RPG written is Polish also happens to be predominantly popular in Poland.

Never heard of it before now. It also has 5 editions. Is it like D&D where 2nd edition is the best and 3rd is the worst?

Surely thou jests.

I've seen enough Krauts in my life to be sour about it.
But to be more precise, it should spell "originally written in fucking German", I'm aware there's translations.

Exactly, and its local popularity allows it to exist in the same niche usually occupied by D&D, without doing anything especially different from D&D

Sorry, but the official D&D standing according to the overwhelming majority of gamers is-

5>3>2>4>1

>tfw 1>2>4>5>3

The "majority of gamers" loves 3, 3.5, and pathfinder
Obviously what the majority likes doesn't mean anything

Okie doke. Keep trying to convince people of your hot opinions on this mongolian throat-singing echo chamber.

I'm sure one day you'll be able to one day get everyone to accept your opinion as their own.

thanks

So...did you do her?

Does "1" mean AD&D 1st ed., or all basic D&D, or white box only, final destination?

Chainmail

Mate I'm a balding manlet hanging out on a roleplaying subforum of Veeky Forums at 3 (now 6) in the morning. She's sporty, good looking, and intelligent, with a bf that could probably break me in half. What do you think?

But you're also honest and earnest in an age of lies, deceptions, and self delusions. So at least you got that going for you.

it's more simulationist and less gamist. characters aren't necessarily professional adventurers per se.

the world is closer to mythical europe instead of being a weird hodgepodge of all kinds of shit.

You will have more creation points left for attributes and advantages. And in 5th edition i think you no longer get discounts on all the things like skills and abilities you get with a profession pack like soldier or warrior.
So you can basically do the whole farmboy destined for greatness stick ( farming starting skill +4, or whatever). Or confectioneer destined for greatness( cooking: speciality baking +4 ...) . It is pretty flexibel.

Where's the final category for things that aren't DnD?

Make you roll thrice for everything.

AD&D 1e. Basic is referred to by letter/name (Holmes, B/X, BECMI, RC) and OD&D is 0e.

between the fourth and fifth brains

Germany does not equal the whole of Europe. Sorry!

There are four countries in Europe: The German Hegemony, the Empire of the Atlantic Archipelago, Scandinavia, and the Russian Federation.

Well, okay then, so Germany is 25% of Europe, but still not all!

It uses a 3d20 based system.

If that's not enough to dissuade you, may as well give it a read.

It's all I've got left my man.

>borderline autistic rule system
>lore for every friggin village (not kidding)
>all over the place worldbuilding were vikings exist next to renissance france
>magic had no real impact on the development of the society

>in the early 2000s developers decided some action was needed
>literal demonic half god invades
>ebic campaign is sold to defeat him (most groups don't finish it and the ones that do take 5+ years)
>afterwards his heirs rule some weird demonic countries in the wake of his power grab ( a literal bdsm country included)
>far to edgy for most players who prefer playing low magic basic shit
>now all of this is slowly reversed

Yeah. Thats about it. "Das Schwarze Auge" is high grade rpg autism.

And no DD is nowhere as popular as DSA in germany. DSA, Vampire etc. are far more popular than DD, DD is more of a niche system here.

>high grade rpg autism
It's German, what did you expect?

>And no DD is nowhere as popular as DSA in germany. DSA, Vampire etc. are far more popular than DD, DD is more of a niche system here.

Not according to sales figures. D&D is plenty popular in Germany.

There is a minority of retrowave players with a lot of money to spend. Most people i have met weren't into DnD, this includes Fb groups and whatnot.

>It's German, what did you expect?

I am german famalam. The stereotype is quit stupid. We just don't have the same liking for idle and vapid shattering most anglos seem to have.

* idle and vapid babbling not shattering

No idea what i was thinking there.

>Bümficken
Kek

I think it's fair to discount that as largely just your limited personal experience. Far more fair than trying to dismiss sales figures as a few people buying the same books again and again because they hate holding on to money.

source pls? no troll, really interested.

anecdotal evidence of mine: there's at least one group of DSA players in every second village, even in rural areas. I haven't once been invited to a D&D group although I own every player's handbook since 3.5 and have more or less actively tried to get a group together, but I have - at times - been a member of three parallel DSA groups even though I hadn't searched for yet another one.

ok this depressed the shit out of me

Not for lack of trying.

The Thorwals aren't next to the Horasian Empire, there is the Mittelreich between.

This should shed some light:
>The RPG industry is divided into 2 camps: On the one hand, there are japanese games which characteristically feature a manga style. On the other hand, there are the RPGs of the West - centered around the american taste. These games focus on action-laden plotlines and usually represent an exaggerated fantasy world. These are way different from the history-inspired medieval scenarios of The Dark Eye. "As a European, you have a completely take on the Middle Ages than the American gamers," as TDE chief editor Thomas Römer once had to admit to himself.
Source:
>zeit.de/digital/games/2011-09/das-schwarze-auge-online

So for any American gamer who wants to be closer to mythical medieval (+renaissance) Europe rather than the overblown US version of it, Aventurien is the superior choice over Faerun. Those who like the US-style of fantasy are advised to stay away.

> On the other hand, there are the RPGs of the West - centered around the american taste. These games focus on action-laden plotlines and usually represent an exaggerated fantasy world. These are way different from the history-inspired medieval scenarios of The Dark Eye.

>Elf PC's
>Dwarf PC's
>"Aventuria"

>muh Tolkien
Britain is a part of Europe desu.

>for any American gamer who wants to be closer to mythical medieval (+renaissance) Europe rather than the overblown US version of it, Aventurien is the superior choice over Faerun
That's 100% bullshit.

DSA is as much generic fantasy bullshit as D&D is, and the few token attempts at historical accuracy it makes do nothing but highlight how utterly retarded the whole setting is. Aventuria has less internal consistency and worse worldbuilding than Faerun in literally every way.

And I'm saying this as someone whose first RPG was DSA (though it's called "Het Oog des Meesters" over here). I dislike D&D, but DSA is just worse in practically every way that matters.

As an 1E gamer, let me tell you that it's spot on. Römer isn't a slob, he knows exactly what he's talking about.

And since a pic says more than a 1000 words, there you go.

Considering that Ironclaw is a solid, well put-together system and Eoris is a dumpster fire, I'm inclined to think you're trying to pull one over by distracting people with the art. You wouldn't try to deceive people like that, would you, user? You're not just using the art as a cover for a bad system or setting, right?

>Aventuria

You tapped dat ass Rasputin style and moved out of the way before any negative fallback.
Way to go, it always works like magic.

I am also a balding manlet hanging out in a rpg forum and I get fucking tail nigga. I'm even kinda fat. It's all about confidence and how you sell yourself. Me? I sell myself as a Satan worshipper who wear nice clothes, chicks with daddy issues like dick.

I am supporting the claim made in the article:
>On the other hand, there are the RPGs of the West - centered around the american taste. These games focus on action-laden plotlines and usually represent an exaggerated fantasy world. These are way different from the history-inspired medieval scenarios of The Dark Eye.

Says nothing about the quality of either game. That said, I am not a gamist player and therefore DSA appeals to me more than D&D. (I am no DSA gamer anymore nonetheless.)

You realize that not every RPG has a skill system as boring as D&D's, right?

Nice deflection, m8. Is system used to play a tradesman in DSA interesting or not? Better yet, perhaps you could tell us about it and point out the parts you like.

It will be when the 4th Reich rises.

Looks like somebody read my post in the other thread.

I like this answer.

>it's more simulationist and less gamist.
While 5th edition has much more game than earlier editions, it's still more simulationist than most other systems, so that's true.

>the world is closer to mythical europe instead of being a weird hodgepodge of all kinds of shit.
Nice choice of words.

Your choice of course.

The reason for that is: the official sheet wastes a lot of space and tries to give room for everything a character could have, not what every character needs.
I make my personl sheets for nearly all games anyway so I couldn't care less...

>And no DD is nowhere as popular as DSA in germany. DSA, Vampire etc. are far more popular than DD, DD is more of a niche system here.
Sales dropped A LOT with 4th edition in Germany afaik, yeah. Still remained one of the biggest systems, but actual games were rar to find. With DnD5 that's easier again, though the development is slow.

imho both are kinda right in the "generic fantasy or not" question. Both sytems are based on Tolkien's fantasy style, so they are bound to be similar in many ways. They "feel" differently when run vanilla though. But every GM can change the atmosphere quite quick and make DnD more grounded and DSA/TDE more over the top, so personal experience may vary.
Since it seems like I was the one who inspired this thread: OP of the other thread asked for a generic fantasy setting, but wanted something other than DnD. So I thought TDE/DSA may be something he wants to look into.

I personally play it occasionally. As said in the other thread, older editions were a clusterfuck of rules and due to that I havn't played them. I Guess that's the reason for some of the posts here. 5th ed is fine imho.
My current main system is Splittermond and I would have recommended it over TDE/DSA but it's only available in german, so that's no use for the OP.

not him but you don't pick a tradesman PC because a game has an itneresting subsystem regarding trade. if a GM wants to make that interesting, it takes more than that.

>Both sytems are based on Tolkien's fantasy style

I feel like almost nobody on here has any idea of what "Tolkien's fantasy style" actually is, because it sure as hell isn't anything seen in any D&D setting, and though I'm not familiar with it, from what I can tell, it definitely isn't DSA either.

>(most groups don't finish it and the ones that do take 5+ years)

It's only as interesting as the DM makes it, same as D&D.

Not that user, but I may b able to give some insight.

It's a big sandpit for GMs. A lot to play with.

For players it's at least a way to implement the character's past into their stats, instead of just being mentioned in background text.

It can be fun if your GM/group presents opportunities for those abilities to come into play and/or gives you room to act on them yourself.

Example: You were a merchants lackey, learned a lot about the trade busines, had to protect your trade caravans from bandits and found that you're talented with both. When you finally were old enough you started to work as a merc/adventurer to collect enough money to start your own business.
Over the course of several adventures you took care to collect favors from many different peoples... mine owners, smiths/craftsmen, traveling merchants and city guards.

When you start to build your own business you get the best deals for ore, take it to the best smiths you know who craft quality weapons to a lower price for you, when production becomes to big (or you don't want to do it yourself anymore) you hire taveling merhants to carry the ore/weapos through the land and when you sell it to the military/guards you trump other businesses with lower prices for equal quality or get more revenue but have to call in some favor from the guards. Voila - you've become the adventuring merchant king! I leave to your imagination how much adventuring for collecting favors, haggling dals, amass reputation, etc. is necessary to pull this off, let's just say what I discribed can span a whole campaign.

This hole tradesman thing would make use of trade, metalwork, persuade, insight and possibly more non-combat skills.

Sure, you could wing something like that with RP only in any system, but many players prefer to have some rules to guide their actions instead of freeform.

So.... basically as with any more complex system you need people who can (and want to) operate those. Otherwise there is no point.

>4th Reich

If only, they're too de-nutted and strangled by social justice at this point.

>the good ol' GM skill is all that matters meme
A good system will provide a GM with means by which it can be made interesting, and provide means by which player decision and action can impact the outcomes. A bad one is deliberately cut off from the rest of the game and makes it harder for the GM to create interesting stories with it. Certainly, if you have a perfect GM it will be good regardless, and if you have an abysmal GM it will be bad, but most people don't fall into one of these extremes.

So it's basically a lot of skill rolls with no further structure? Because that's what you make it seem like, although if you could provide examples with more details I'd love to be proven wrong.

It's the best comparison I can come up with which I know will be understood. It refers more to some prominent (though superficial) tropes.

>So it's basically a lot of skill rolls with no further structure? Because that's what you make it seem like, although if you could provide examples with more details I'd love to be proven wrong.
I'm a bit unsure what exactly you would like to hear... It is like you said yourself, a good system will provide the means to create interesting possibilitis in-game. TDE does that much more than e.g. DnD, but without going overboard like universal systems (HERO system, GURPS I guess but I don't know this one)
But I'll give it another try, maybe this times with a more simple example.

You want to play a bard. Not the DnD kind of "i suck" bard, but a musician who fights like anyone else too. So you take whatever combat abilities and the musician talent. This talent allows you to play instruments well and improve from a street musician, to giving concerts, to playing sagas in royal courts. Nothing fancy so far, this resolves just around skill checks. But in TDE you can build up on this. You could specialize in a specific type of instrument your good with. You want to build your own instruments? Improve your metal/woodwork to unlock a "professional secret" which is unavailable to others and allows you to do that.

Every talent/skill has multiple
specializations and also gives you accss to unique abilities (often in tandem with other talents). This allows characters, even if they follow the same basic concept, to be different because they can choose different paths to develop. While one bard could become a decent musician and great instrument builder another one could become a mozart with his instrument with contacts to royal courts (great musician). All that just from ~2 talents and some of their improvements and therefore on top of whatever adventuring/combat abilities you choose.

I hope this helped you more.

Look into the pdf archive threads, you should find it there. Just make sure you get the latest edition.

Made me smile.

I checked and only found an english PDF of the quick play rules. I sorta was hoping for a full set. Eh, I'll bother my german friend when he gets up.

http:// boards.Veeky Forums.org/tg/thread/52901437

use the last link under the "The Dark Eye" categorie
open "001. Regelwerke"
open "008. The Dark Eye"

There you'll find the core rules and world guide for one continent. Maybe your friend can help with the other source books and/or adventures.

look up dwarves and elves pre-Tolkien

>A good system will provide a GM with means by which it can be made interesting
no, a good system will not provide a mini-game for each possible character background

>So it's basically a lot of skill rolls with no further structure?
that is wholly sufficient for handling the background story of one of the adventurers.

>In europe.
IN Germany perhaps, is too autistic for anyone else.
For what I seen (than ain't much) old grognards prefer d100 based games, normal fags DnD and World of Darkness and the hipsters kinda gravitate towards indie games with lots of free form.

>My current main system is Splittermond and I would have recommended it over TDE/DSA but it's only available in german, so that's no use for the OP.

Why would you?

Because I'm aware that the main issue for players who don't like TSA is its tendency to be more simulationist than many other systems.
Splittermond copied many aspects of TSA, but also took care to still keep a "gamey"stile and to run even faster than 5th ed TDE.
Also I like its combat system which doesn't use rounds but is tick-based, although I admit that's personal preference.

>Splittermond
Oh, I read that one. Never got to play it though.

Reminded me very strongly of DSA, but seemed far more approachable. Though I'm not quite sure whether that reminiscence is because Splittermond is actually similar to DSA or because it's the only other RPG I have actually read in German rather than English.

How is this different from D&D apart from adding more skill checks?

There's nothing in D&D preventing you from being a Fighter who just happens to be able to play music.

>Also I like its combat system which doesn't use rounds but is tick-based
>tick-based

Expand on this, please.

Put it this way: when I play Ars Magica I can have fun with a tradesman character because there are rules for making cool gear for the rest of the party as well as good guidelines for how much work I need to put in to make improvements to my workshop, source better materials, find better clients, and improve earnings enough that I can move to a higher social class.

When I play WFRP I can make a character whose class is "artisan" and what that means for gameplay purposes is that he has access to more strength and fellowship advances than characters from more sedentary backgrounds. He has skills that say he knows a trade, but there's no rules text associated with pursuing that trade since it's not what the game is expected to be about. If we want to play through stories about his business it comes down to RP and the GM's ad hoc adjudication.

Which of these approaches would DSA take to a craftsman/tradesman/merchant character?

On the face of it it seems like DSA requires you to sink more experience into things that probably won't be tested in play.

I find the skill system strictly superior compared to the flat and chancy d20 distribution. You can actually get reliably good at something and outcomes scale with skill.
Spells as skills is also much better than the snowballing power collection of Vancian spellbooks - unlike in D&D, you can specialize, and you must specialize.
Combat is also more interactive; a skilled fighter can actually parry, an armored fighter can actually take blows (rather than avoid them by the same mechanic as an agile one) etc.

The only real downside is that the system is unwieldy. It takes serious system mastery to not get bogged down in choices, tables and rolls. Shortly, it's more simulationist than D&D. It's not for everyone, but by that same token, it certainly is *for* some people.

Neither. There are mechanics for just about everything, but there is no focus on any one thing. It's all about simulation in an obsessively detailed setting.

So it neither has nor lacks mechanics? Nigger, what?

>There are mechanics for just about everything
Are there though?

Let's go back to the musician character. I get that there are lots of available specialities for someone who knows how to play the lute, but if I choose to be an instrument maker, or a madrigal composer, or whatever, what does the system give you to work with beyond the ability to buy a skill called that thing and have it on your sheet doing nothing?

It has mechanics, but they don't have a discernible purpose or direction. They're just there for the purpose of being there.

Oh, that. No, nothing really.
If you can play music, you can play music.

Back again. First I have to say that while I looked into both Ars Magica and WHFR, I don't have detailed knowlge about both systems, so I'll go from what you descibed and general impression I had.

I think TDE5 covers a ground somewhere between, but is much closer to Ars Magica. What you described is possible by taking different corresponding talents (+upgrades if wanted). Detailed rules for crafting/trading/etc. can be found in the World of Aventuria book.

Social standing is quite open for interpretation though, as it depends on the setting if/how you can raise it.

>Oh, that. No, nothing really.
>If you can play music, you can play music.

That's wrong. You obviously don't have a clue about the system.

From the top of my hat I can say that you could simply earn money, use it to gather an audience (e.g. if you want many pople to listen to a speech) or you could distract people so your party's thief has an easier time stealing stuff.

As can you in D&D.

Your impression is corect, it has many similarities with DSA but was designed to b faster to play. Skill checks e.g. aren't tests up to 3xD20 for different attributes, but always just one dice throw (with modifiers from the skill + 2 attributes).
The internal layout structure of the rules are also easier to read imho.

Well, most RPGs give an character one turn per round to act. Sometimes character can get additional actions to perform during their turn.

A tick based system uses timeframes for the actions a character performs. Attacking with a dagger would need 6 ticks, while attacking with a two-handed sword would take 12 ticks. The dagger user can therefore perform 2 attacks while a character with a two-handed weapon can perform only 1 attack in the same time.

It is a bit slower to learn, as you need to know how many ticks your attacks, spells an other actions need, but combat beomes mor dynamic and engagic, because you have shorter downtimes when other PCs/NPCs act.

Frankly, the whole 3d20 idea is the only thing I like about DSA. The rest of the system is just... blegh.
Except for the spell names. Those are actively horrible.

>action points

Gotcha, figured it was something like that. Thanks for answering.

>That's 100% bullshit.

Most European nations have their own fantasy RPG that is almost exact copy of some old edition of D&D, generally with less dicetypes and more insanity (Czech one for exmple ynly uses d6 and d10 and considering the EXP per session is caped, it is impossible to go from first to 36th level if you only play once a week because humans don’t live long enough)

This post was about Splittemond because I was asked. Went a bit off-topic there.

Don't know about the spell names in the english version, read only the german rulebook. If they copied some of the more latin-inspired ones I can see why you say that.

I mean the German version. That mix of faux Latin and German just makes me cringe.

And what I was trying to say is that 3d20 is something I wouldn't mind in Splittermond.