The Dark Eye

Has anyone played this? How is it?

Other urls found in this thread:

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langes_Messer
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

I usually detest being hyperbolic, but it's overly contrived, Eastern European schlock.

Germany isn't eastern European (yet).

It used to be, but that's besides the point. I was referring more to the mentality that went into the game's creation.

I quite like it, 5th Edition is great so far.

Its quite nice. You have a lot of cultures/races to choose from and you can be basilcy whatever you want, be it a mage, a knight, a woodsmen, a artist or a hooker. The actual best part is that you can play lots of different styled sessions with it, it has many different country/settings. Only disadvantage is, that its a bit complex for beginners and nobody than krauts seem to play it.

>it has more than one type of human, which dillutes the white male MC class unnecessarily

I haven't played it, but the books are very nice, high production value.

In a group that plays it semi-regularly. I'm personally not the hugest fan, but it's a good system for people who aren't satisfied with the generally 'save or suck' skill checks present in other systems.

Also, if you have a group which loves character optimization, they will probably have a blast just creating characters and squeezing every last point into skills that they might not even end up using.

Quite neat, great freedom at character creation, but throwing weapons suck.

It's not that great, user.

It's an old system and like all oldschool systems it has been stagnant in some ways that I would describe as unfavourable.
DnD and Shadowrun also suffer from that though and if it doesn't bother you there, it won't here.

The setting could be described as pretty standard fantasy. You can find pretty much every classic fantasy trope in here.
Depending on which region you're playing in, it can feel like Conan with it's exotic tribesmen and pseudo-oriental cultures
or it can feel like Lord of the Rings with the orcish borderlands, rangers, pseudo-germanic tribes, dwarfs and elves
or it can feel like The Three Musketeers with late medieval swashbucklers and court intruiges.
There's even a small country that is dedicated to fill all your old england Robin Hood needs.

But you also have your fantasy schlock with magic schools all over the land, dragons, evil sorcerors, undead and demons causing trouble and all kinds of magic artifacts.

The world is extremely detailed and there are enough sourcebooks to fill more than one bookshelf.

The system is generally pretty complex and more simulationist than DnD.

If DnD isn't realistic enough for you, DSA might be your game.

So what is it with DSA and ridiculous pants? The guy on the top left has some juggling balls and so might be some kind of minimalist German clown, but the rest don't seem to have an excuse.

>he thinks anything medieval has to be brown and covered in dirt and shit
Contrary to popular belief the middle ages were pretty colourful user.

if you have a consistent group wich plays regulary, doesnt get discouraged by masive amounts of detailed rules and like a more low fantasy seeting, DSA (The Dark Eye) is your game.

I mean seriously its pretty detailed in every way, lots of map material, background stories on pretty much every corner of the World and a lot of NPCS and stuff you can do.

In the first few hours the masive amount of rules seem overloaded and crushing, but if you play as long as me (about 11 years now, twice a week) its more of a pluspoint then drawback, simply because theres "not much" room for missinterpretation and your always finding things you havent done yet.

If your groups more of a lose bunch hooking up sometimes and want to have quick and fast RPG fun, its propably not your type of game.

>but the rest don't seem to have an excuse
'Looking fly as fuck' is a reason not an excuse

How faithful are Blackguard (1 and 2) cRPG over DSA? I'm really digging the game, looked like what a D&D game with hexes would play.

You didn't pick a very good image for your argument, for a couple of reasons I can think of

I think you mean Middle Eastern.

Played yesterday will be master today. Currently still trying to learn the system and setting but it's definitely fun. The metaplot is great, the rules detailled and everything is down to earth instead of bs fantasy.

I wish I would have started with the older versions. Feels like missing out on so much fluff to start with 5e.

I like it more than D&D...

But it's still a convoluted mess and it's really easy to get bogged down in the rules. Also: don't do grappling. It will save you a lot of headache.

Sometimes I wish I had not changed my healer character to a murderhobo, because the last session we played, we had a veeery high risk of TPK.

Actually, they have made it a lot better in 5th Edtion, but grappling still sucks kinda, yes. But the have improved - The Enternity of the 4th Edtion Rules are longer as our german lawbook of financial laws, and as a kraut I can say, that means something.

I like it. As others pointed out, it has a less rigid class system and there are skills for almost everything. So if you want to play everything between chivalyrous knight with a hobby for pottery and a streetwhore that earns a bit on the side by tattooing, knock yourself out. Personaly I don't like many of the officially released adventures because the authors seem to be no fun allowed at times, but that can be remedied by writing your own. The metaplot ist great for that and it has always been encouraged to pick the parts of it you like and leave out ithers to make it "your" game.

Want to hear a little bit of how my sessions with DSA went, OP?

Pants are pretty colourfull user, the guy you reacted to is quite right.

More colourfull pant!

If that isn't the smugiest face ever...

...

>Eastern European schlock.
confirmed for never having opened a single DSA book

where is central europe in your delusional view of the planet?

>inb4 rules-lite
>inb4 narrative
other than that this post is good

this, otoh, is sadly korrekt

Das schwarze Auge is from West Germany. I bought it before the Wall of Berlin fell.

mandatory comparison

Anyone got a torrent or anything for it? I'm interested.

not sure what this pic is supposed to tell me

So clearly they both have autistic, fugly elves. And?

>autistic
That word lost all meaning, right?

it means that there is an alternative to WoW-style US fantasy

The Horasian Empire, the Swashbuckler Setting is awesome, but srsly those guys are fucking fabolous.

Those guys are all wearing solid colors. Much more tasteful and subdued than the striped clown suits from before. Also, there's a strong chance that the illustrators made things more colorful to make the people distinct from each other and more visually interesting.

Yes, landsknechts did dress like clown monsters. It was silly then and it's still silly.

Yeah, I bought a couple of the adventures on drivethruRPG and they're kind of all the same. The PCs are hired to meddle in a messy political situation with no good guys and no possible solution. The best they can do is the bare minimum of what they were hired for, get paid and leave just as big a mess behind. I guess it's supposed to be "realistic"? Like, this is what it would be like if you were actual hired muscle?

As a german the setting feels so overwhelmingly vanilla to me that I can't get interested.

That's precisely why my group is going full murderhobo, I suspect.

Literally full murderhobo too, our elf magician-archer included.

I kinda feel the same, but I really enjoy the german part when its so overdone as with in Warhammer Fantasy for example.

desu I don't see much difference though, admittedly, most of D&D art is LOT worse than thatstill, it got much better in the newest edition

And art aside, same goes for the system. It might be darker, more gritty and realistic on the surface but at it's core its the same kitchen-sink type of fantasy that d&d is. With similarly gamey mechanics.

Yeah, you are missing out on a SHIT TON of story, lore and fluff if you are starting with 5e.

5e is also casualized as fuck.

4.1 edition is the best and has the most adventures, lorebooks and rulebooks for it. It has the most flexible character creation out of any fantasy rpg I know, you can be pretty much anything.

here's the difference:

D&D: High fantasy bullshit WoW. You're an epic hero doing great things

DSA: What's that you want to be a hero? What's that you are running around with weapons inside a city? Fuck you, the guards take you and throw you into a cell, have fun shitting your bowels out because you are fed dirty food and water. The noblemen rule over you, you are just hired muscle. But if you survive and show endurance you may do truly legendary deeds at one point. That is, if the mobsters from the next alley don't gut you like a fish for looking at them the wrong way.

Look at them striped pant!

SPOTTED PANTS

Kraut living in Burger-land. Can confirm.

The people in this country are stupid.

I just picked up the book and read through it, and I have a couple of rules questions. You can be both Blessed and a Spellcaster, I know that, but can you choose the Witch spellcaster tradition and be blessed, since Witches are dedicated to Saturnalia or whatever the (goddess? unsure.) is called?

Nothing's stopping you except the GM. It's theoretically possible for someone to be trained as a witch, then convert to the faith of the Twelvegods and become a Blessed One while still using the magic they learned as a witch. Witch spells don't come from Saturnia; they come from inside you, and the tradition just teaches you how to shape it.

Mind you, this would be a very special snowflake character.

Also what edition? In DSA 4.1 it would be prretty expensive to be both magic and blessed.

Honestly all it kind of tells me is that their clothing production in the DSA world is behind the clothing production skills of the world on the left.

> What's that you are running around with weapons inside a city? Fuck you, the guards take you and throw you into a cell

The pure speed this would enrage the populace is amazing. In most crowded middle age style cities people will arm themselves because to do otherwise is a bad idea due to the ease at the time which people could escape the law.

All I'm getting from this is that this setting is pretentious bullshit made by people who want to stroke themselves off by saying how authentically middle age they are without knowing how the middle ages actually worked.

funny, that i exactly one of the few things that attracts me. I want a kitchen sink setting, so that the focus shifts to the plot at hand

>implying you didn't just get fucking stabbed

any comment about the hair per chance?

yeah i am sure you aren an expert on living in medieval cities where every peasant ran around with a sword.


stupid american.

>All I'm getting from this is that this setting is pretentious bullshit made by people who want to stroke themselves off by saying how authentically middle age they are without knowing how the middle ages actually worked.
it's not aiming at being historical, buddy. for us fantasy about recreating of a mythical europe, not the actual middle ages. that's why we have dragons and shit.

Kitchen sink is not the same as being vanilla in my opinion.
Kitchen sink is more of a big laundry list (or the proverbial sink) filled with all the fantasy staples to be covered.
And these things can be covered in different ways.
The way DSA chooses to cover things is by always choosing the most standard familiar feeling thing in every instance.
(At least for what I have seen)

Not him, and german but people were armed. For example:
>Da aber der Besitz verschiedener Waffen in Städten bei Strafe vorgeschrieben war und nur wenige Städte das Führen derselben eingeschränkt haben
>de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langes_Messer

Historians of medieval Europe are like philosophers: the only thing you can count on them to do is contradict each other. A lot of them (most famously Lindybeige) will make claims based on nothing more than personal opinions and thought experiments, and even when they do cite sources, the sources don't agree!

I was surprised how forgiving the diseases and poisons are in DSA. A disease hurts you at roughly the same speed that you regenerate LP, so a disease will never actually kill you, especially if you get even basic medical care. In a setting like this, mundane medicine should barely work at the best of times and should often be actively harmful, but instead it's really good. Even the great plague that's supposed to be so bad it was invented by the Nameless One to wipe out humanity will spare all but the most sickly victims, can be cured, and even gives you a lifetime immunity after you survive it.

Ah, the 2015 published English Edition, I think it is?

And I was just curious about it because I rather like final fantasy red mage/sage style characters, who dabble in multiple sorts of magic.

What you want is to be a white mage. They combine magic and swordplay anyway, and any spellcaster can heal as well as any other.

That's kind of a funny thing about DSA - all spellcasters have access to the main healing spell, but most Blessed Ones can only give one LP per player per day.

Ah, it's not just about having boht offensive and healing magic, but having magic of two different types that interests me. Dabbler sorts of characters.

Be a guild mage and a Blessed One of Hesinde, then. That's the most compatible combination.

well, yes, but lange messer were a thing just because of that, no? you could conceivably claim them to be a tool. plausible deniability, it's the bike lock of the middle ages.

>Historians of medieval Europe
>lindybeige
topkek

DSA isn't meant to be grim, overall. it's a romanticized version of mythical europe.

Calling someone a historian isn't a value judgment. Being a shitty historian isn't an oxymoron. Kind of like how people piss and moan about how bad art isn't "true" art. Yes it is; it's just bad.

>you could conceivably claim them to be a tool
Probably a myth.

this is factually wrong.
While you are diseased, regular regeneration is suspended. Therefore, many diseases are fucking serious. The common cold - while not killing you - will cripple you for days with its debuffs. And that is one of the more relaxed diseases.

Witches in General worship Satuaria.

There are many witches who recognize female members of the 12-god-pantheon as being aspects of Satuaria - Tsa, Hesinde, Rahja, Peraine all make alot of sense, even Travia for some witches.

So the answer is:
Having a witch be a blessed priest to one of the female gods is absolutely covered, lorewise

The descriptions of diseases I read don't say anything about being unable to regenerate while sick. Is this a difference in editions? Or is this a case of bad editing, where a general no-regeneration-while-sick rule is separated from the rest of the text on diseases?

I am speaking of 4th Edition,
WdS 151 in the introducing paragraph clearly says ( translated from german: )
" A Commonality for all diseases is that the Diseased does not naturally regenerate Health or Exhaustion, while Magic Users regenerate only 1 Manapoint per Night. Instead their Regeneration depends on the quality of the Care they receive. (i.e. the "Healing Crafts: Diseases" test a medic would roll with all applicable boni and mali)

I've got the translated 5th edition, and it turns out that yes, it's just bad editing. There is still a no-regeneration-while-sick rule, but it's tucked in with the rules on regeneration instead of with the diseases.

this is generally symptomatic for the contemporary editors of DSA. They've failed all the benchmarks they set out and promised for DSA5 as compared with DSA4.0 and 4.1:

> 4.0 and 4.1 both suffered from rules bloat, but generally you would get ALL the shit you needed for something in one book. Want to play a Wizard? Buy "Ways of the Sorcery", and you get ALL the rules, for magic, rituals, books, learning, invocations, demons, elementals, chimaeras etc pp, as well as a fuckton of lore (the book goes by the moniker of "chinese phonebook" in the german DSA community - for good reason, it is a fucking tome).

Now, they promised and wanted to do:
> the easiest DSA
> streamline it
> make it more accessible
> make rules mor consistent

instead rules are spread over half a dozen publications, with rules for magic users ( up to now ) being dispersed (albeit still incomplete) over 2 setting books, 2 rulebooks and a handful of adventures!

instead of having Karma and Otherworldlyness as two ( 2 ) pools of points any Priest would have to track, while having acces to one ( 1 ) type of special powers ( Liturgies, that is ), consequently they went into DSA 5 and have up to now:

> Powerpools to keep track of:
>> Karma
>> Otherworldlyness
>> Trance
>> Destiny Points

While instead of Liturgies they now have
> some rituals which use Destiny Points or Trance, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both
> some rituals which use otherworldlyness and or karma
> Liturgies which use Karma and Otherworldlyness
> Object Rituals which are divided up into arbitrary skilltrees
all of these have been assigned "Aspects" correlatving vaguely to the corresponding god, subdividing all that shit and adding an insane amount of rules.

DSA 5, in 2 years of publication history counting from 2015, has managed to become more of an opaque mess of publications, rulesbloat and CONTRADICTING Rules ( famously, one certain spell has contradicting descriptions in 3 subsequent publications!)

What is the difference between the different types of witch? They seem very, well... ill defined, in the core rulebook, what the difference is between, say, a beauty of the night witch verses a daughterhood of the earth witch?

I don't know what they translated Otherworldliness as, but in the book I have they just have Karma, and spending Karma automatically gives you Rapture, which means you're tripping balls and get bonuses to stuff your god likes but penalties to everything else. Rapture can't be spent and just goes away with time.

As far as bad placement of information goes, I did find it odd that the stats for humanoid enemies like orcs and goblins are in the world almanac instead of in the bestiary.

The one big difference mechanically is whether your familiar is a toad or not a toad. Take anything other than a toad and you miss out on some toad-exclusive content.

And yet we have lists of forbidden weapons inside some cities from a lot of cities in the HRE. We also have explicit laws stating that outsiders could not carry weapons. Freiburg allowed everybody to carry whatever the fuck they wanted though. Even pikes.
(Source: The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany: Civic Duty and the Right of Arms)

We also have them from medieval England in the 14th century by the way. You were allowed to wear weapons if you would march straight to the city gate, or to the place you were planning to stay.
(Source: Timetravellers guide to medieval England by Ian Mortimer)

Concluding: There were laws regulation carrying arms in the HRE, they differed from place to place though. Being strict in some places and lax in others.

I have played it a lot and enjoyed it, but yes that sums it quite up. Really sucks if the partys witch is more shaman style and her familar is a spider. Really sucks if your character has a severe arachnophopia.

This must suck for adventurers, having to know each city weapon restriction.

Wasn't D&D/AD&D Mystara like that? Each Barony in Karameikos have distinct restriction on weapon and spell usage inside the cities. Best D&D is best D&D

This could go wrong (or right) on so many levels (like different coinage or prices for the same item if you're in city A or B).

I don't mind, really. As a point-buy, classless system, the differences between the different kinds of adventurers are going to be less mechanical and more flavorful. Sure, a white mage and a gray mage may be built almost exactly the same, or a dwarf with an axe and a Thorwaler with an axe, but DSA isn't a rules opera. The important bit is in roleplaying the cultural differences between these people.

Is this in da archive? & if so could someone throw me a link?

>DSA
>Eastern European
Dafuq I've just read?

>There are people too young to remember fantasy before WoW took over aesthetics

thought not

It has the new edition in German and the old edition in English, but not the new edition in English.

Gotten bored of posting on tumblr?

I own it and I quite like it. It's a fantasy RPG that isn't based on D&D 3.5 which nets it two automatic gold stars. The reason I haven't played it yet is that the lore is too happy for my taste. I guess I'm too much of a Witcher/Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fan but I like a fair amount of grimdark in my Medieval Fantasy settings.

>low-powered (compared to D&D at least) RPG where death is permanent, healing is slow, and things like being outnumbered are much more serious
>nobody's 100% indisputably good or evil, not even the gods. The supreme being is canonically an idiot
>there's a whole country of necromancers and demon consorts all trying to out-evil each other
>there's a weapon called the Great Slave Death

I dunno, it's got a lot of potential for that kind of campaign if that's what you want. Or do you need it to be so grimdark that every corner of the world looks like a death metal album cover?

That only Counter or Christian burgers, who were also drafted for military and police duty and taxed. Adventurers and foreingers who did. Not have an official ghetto to their nation in the city were treated like negos with broken turn signals.

>This must suck for adventurers, having to know each city weapon restriction.
A smart DM might have the key statutes posted on the gate as the adventurers arrive. I think it's doable.

That´s the way it went in Real life as well. People knew about these restrictions because there were orders discovered that told people to hang up notices at the city gates about the restrictions.

Its a special type of fantasy.

Its much more down to earth than DnD and aims to have "fantastical realism" while having a lot of contradicitons. To name a few well known ones:

-a continent much smaller than Europe with a fuckton more of Climate Zones

- Le ebin super dangerous desert that you can Cross in a day or Two

-cultures don't Really influence each other, swashbucklers being raided by vikings? No Problemo its not like Technology spreads....)

If you like DnD but want the fantasy more at Low or Medium Level this could be just the thing for you.

>so grimdark that every corner of the world looks like a death metal album cover
Different user, but that sounds great.... Although you sold me with your description anyway. How old is this game?

DSA is pretty good if you enjoy immersive RPGs with a lotta fluff and lore in the background

About 30 years, but the new edition is only a couple of years old.

If it's too happy for you then play in the fringe lands. You know, play a campaign close to the ice witches, those will fuck up any happiness with their raiding. Or play on Maraskan, or in the southern Shadowlands, where every city state out competes each other in who is the most ruthless slaver and dark magic center.

Bump

Its in the archive English has 4th ED German is 5th ED