Well, maybe that's what I was seeing. These guys were big on wanting to be led by the nose, making intricate background stories for themselves that they felt they had to share, spending inordinate amounts of time in social roleplaying, poo-pooing combat, and going to great lengths to explain their character's feelings and motivations.

RPGPundit

Yeah, that's familiar. Fortunately, the D&D crowd, although much smaller, tends to be better, or at least more open to different playstyles.

Quote from: RPGPundit;607355Well, maybe that's what I was seeing. These guys were big on wanting to be led by the nose, making intricate background stories for themselves that they felt they had to share, spending inordinate amounts of time in social roleplaying, poo-pooing combat, and going to great lengths to explain their character's feelings and motivations.

That sounds very familiar.

But don't underestimate the lure of Aventuria. The setting is the key to TDE.

To "get" TDE simply imagine this scenario:

• AD&D2 was the first RPG in the US
• Forgotten Realms were tied intricately to each and every rule mechanism (the spells, the classes, the weapon lists...)
• RPGA Ren-faire style character play is the default style (Living City)
• There were relatively free stand alone adventure modules, and multi-volume central metaplot campaigns written in Dragonlance style (and not in the original, DL1+ style with dungeons and hexcrawls, but the more scenic rehash that was the double statted, single volume, Silver Anniversary edition)
  
• One new novel per month published by the major SF/fantasy book publisher
• A newspaper-like bi-monthly magazine (think: 90's Polyhedron) devoted solely to TDE, with the major section being an in-game newspaper detailing the metaplot events as characters would hear of them (the smaller part of the magazine was short adventures and background info for GMs, and stuff related to the pbm "barony" game)

Because the magazine was so central to in-game knowledge the ratio of subscriptions vs. shop distribution was stellar. (I don't know about today's status of the mag - it is a color mag by now.)

• The barony game: Imagine that Forgotten Realms DMs could send character sheets of their own PCs to TSR (with an account of their deeds), and TSR chooses several hundred of them and bestows them with small fiefs. The small nobles are now officially part of the setting and take part in their own, free-form, pbm simulation game, choosing sides in political conflicts and directing (within limits) the metaplot.

The result of one succession war was decided by the barons. (One of the GMs of the barony game was an employee of my game store.)

• Semi-official TDE LARPing going on, with political councils or similar events that feed back into the metaplot (I believe there are now players that don't play the p&p game anymore but are still active in the LARP version)

For TDE GMs there was never the lure to design their own settings because it was relatively easy to become part of the official writing team, getting published (via the newspaper first) and adding official content to the setting.

That's the reason why there is no Old School Renaissance concerning TDE1. TDE players are not playing the system - they play the setting. For some of them it doesn't even matter what the current edition is. There is no edition war despite the fact that 2e and 4.1 are radically different. (I'm not even counting 1e which would be the White Box equivalent, the not-canon-anymore version of Aventuria.)

And now imagine the real TSR trying to break into the market against that kind of game, and competition. With their "control freak" behavior and "we are the world leader in RPGs" attitude.
I wonder if TSR ever understood what they were up against, and why D&D failed for so long in the German market. (It was WotC with their MtG-learned understanding of international distribution that led AD&D2 and 3e to success in Germany.)

Pondering the question of a structural rules-element that had WIDE repercussions:

In the explanation of what RPGs actually are and how they worked, DSA HAMMERED it into Germans that: "What you say is what you get". or directly translated "Said->Done!".

This means, than whatever the player says, is the action of the character, no backsies or discussions. Discussions and questions about a scene or situation are portrayed as bad roleplaying or even really, really against the basic rule of RPGs "Said->Done [Gesagt-Getan!]"* and to be avoided.
Think about that for a while.

*like the chess rule! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch-move_rule

And you will see that the touch-move rule and the many examples making fun of players asking questions in the "middle of scenes" lead directly to passive players, who only act when they are sure of how to do it.

Sidethought: When I review my own 2007ish definition of RPGs, we can now see that DSA at its core is violating the right of Ps to partake in the verbal exchange that is actually the method of roleplaying.
As in the US, the devaluation of Player's discourse entries nicely explains the frontal loading with big character backstories and introspection, as emotions and backstory are usually non-debatable...

Really? Wow, that's... just wow. :jaw-dropping:

There is one supplement/box that indeed is a bona fide sandbox, that would be a valuable addition to any fantasy gamer's collection:

Havena
http://www.wiki-aventurica.de/wiki/Havena_%28Spielhilfe%29

it even talks about converting and using it for other RPGs such as D&D! it is not considered "real" DSA by most fans, ofc.

It has a map booklet with dozens of nice floor plans and too sturdy maps of the whole city, in a much more realistic layout for a quasi-medieval city than nearly all US-based offerings. As such even if you speak not one word German, you can use 60% of the content.

Quote from: Settembrini;607854Havena
http://www.wiki-aventurica.de/wiki/Havena_%28Spielhilfe%29

What a nice cover. I only know the second edition.


Three quotes from the "demise of D&D" thread apply to DSA/TDE as well:

Quote from: JRT;607394People forget that in the 90s, storytelling was what was selling.  It was a good strategy--Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms were really popular.  And other Tabletop RPGs were focused on novel lines and better story--White Wolf, Battletech/Mechwarrior, etc.  This is what the fans wanted.  It's a trend that changed over time, but it was what many fans wanted at the time.

The thing people need to realize is that writing trends, styles, and fads occur over time, D&D has just been reflective of the marketplace in that regard.

Quote from: The Were-Grognard;607474I think adoption of the game by non-wargamers, especially those who had absolutely no experience with wargaming (like myself), was key to this.  Much of the (A)D&D game makes better sense in a wargaming context.
(...)
By the time folks like me got around to learning about D&D (1991), the prevailing notion was that dungeons were, at best, the "basic" form of the game (somewhat true*), and plot-based adventures were for more "advanced" players (not so true*).
* In hindsight

Quote from: Benoist;607495That's an opinion that's actually super-common in France, this idea that dungeons are for kids, that you "grow out of it" once "you really learn how to role play", you know. That D&D is kind of a proto-role playing game, not a "real game for real role players", etc etc, ad nauseam.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;607911What a nice cover.

Reminds me of Kharé.

The "barony game" thing sounds impressive, in any case.  Most other games that even attempted to get something like that to happen didn't have it work out.

RPGPundit

Maybe that was because the aventurian nobilty had (more or less) real power. Many were involved in the writing process and most were at least consulted before books about their domain were published.

I can understand and follow many of the statements in this thread. The rules of DSA are simply a nightmare, old adventures often are horrible railroading- and Mary-Sue-overkills, the attitude of many DSA-developers as well players is not very appealing etc. I also agree that DSA has retained quite an impressive fanbase over the last 25 years for having a really strong setting. In my opinion, this post here sums it up very well:

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;607378But don't underestimate the lure of Aventuria. The setting is the key to TDE.

To "get" TDE simply imagine this scenario:

• AD&D2 was the first RPG in the US
• Forgotten Realms were tied intricately to each and every rule mechanism (the spells, the classes, the weapon lists...)
• RPGA Ren-faire style character play is the default style (Living City)
• There were relatively free stand alone adventure modules, and multi-volume central metaplot campaigns written in Dragonlance style (and not in the original, DL1+ style with dungeons and hexcrawls, but the more scenic rehash that was the double statted, single volume, Silver Anniversary edition)
  
• One new novel per month published by the major SF/fantasy book publisher
• A newspaper-like bi-monthly magazine (think: 90's Polyhedron) devoted solely to TDE, with the major section being an in-game newspaper detailing the metaplot events as characters would hear of them (the smaller part of the magazine was short adventures and background info for GMs, and stuff related to the pbm "barony" game)

Because the magazine was so central to in-game knowledge the ratio of subscriptions vs. shop distribution was stellar. (I don't know about today's status of the mag - it is a color mag by now.)

• The barony game: Imagine that Forgotten Realms DMs could send character sheets of their own PCs to TSR (with an account of their deeds), and TSR chooses several hundred of them and bestows them with small fiefs. The small nobles are now officially part of the setting and take part in their own, free-form, pbm simulation game, choosing sides in political conflicts and directing (within limits) the metaplot.

The result of one succession war was decided by the barons. (One of the GMs of the barony game was an employee of my game store.)

• Semi-official TDE LARPing going on, with political councils or similar events that feed back into the metaplot (I believe there are now players that don't play the p&p game anymore but are still active in the LARP version)

For TDE GMs there was never the lure to design their own settings because it was relatively easy to become part of the official writing team, getting published (via the newspaper first) and adding official content to the setting.

That's the reason why there is no Old School Renaissance concerning TDE1. TDE players are not playing the system - they play the setting. For some of them it doesn't even matter what the current edition is. There is no edition war despite the fact that 2e and 4.1 are radically different. (I'm not even counting 1e which would be the White Box equivalent, the not-canon-anymore version of Aventuria.)

And now imagine the real TSR trying to break into the market against that kind of game, and competition. With their "control freak" behavior and "we are the world leader in RPGs" attitude.
I wonder if TSR ever understood what they were up against, and why D&D failed for so long in the German market. (It was WotC with their MtG-learned understanding of international distribution that led AD&D2 and 3e to success in Germany.)

Two further comments:

1. The survey linked above. It is true that DSA-gamers own significantly less rpg-books and have less rpg-experience than non-DSA-gamers (http://rollenspielstatistiker.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/dsaler-unerfahren/).
As DSA is the standard starting point into the hobby in Germany, DSA-players obviously have less experience and fewer rpg-books on average. The mentioned data supports nothing beyond that supposition - and nobody ever questioned that.

2. Most people in this thread don´t seem to know (m)any DSA-publications from the last couple of years. Such a statement, for example, is simply incorrect and outdated:

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;607185There are virtually no sandbox details in DSA modules. Worse (and that is my personal criticism of DSA, not the metaplot or railroad per se), the introduction of each module lists a slew of other publications that a GM needs to cross-reference; from the regional source book the module is set in, to other modules that have events that lead up to the current situation, to other modules that feature a major NPC, to magazine articles or even novels that have background info, some of that not even in print anymore!
You have to have a master degree in Aventurica to use those modules

The current DSA-publisher opened itself to various gaming interests. Sure, the old fashioned stuff is still being published: "Donner & Sturm" for example is one huge railroading-manifesto, metaplot-wank, and Mary-Sue-parade. There are entire sourcebooks purely appealing to the "detail-oriented" setting-fans, e.g. various books full of liturgies for the major gods of the setting (no rules, just the prayers, mind you), descriptions of magic universities (likewise, no rules, just descriptions) or one particularly far-off publication on trade and commerce within the setting including various pages on cultivating potatoes.

Nevertheless, there are many new DSA-resources who would most likely also appeal to the favorite flavors of the rpgsite´s usual members:
"Gareth", for example, is a brand new, huge sandbox covering the capital city of the setting sporting many reverences to the Havena boxed set mentioned above. There are no reviews available yet, but I expect a very positive resonance. You do not need to have any background info to play with it. A recent campaign series, "Splitterdämmerung", features many very open parts in its first two available chapters and was critically acclaimed by the community. One of those, "Bahamuths Ruf", has many sandboxy elements and builds on an older module with a sandbox touch ("Blutige See"). You will need some background info to play anything from "Splitterdämmerung", though. Another interesting newcomer is "Rabenblut", a political campaign in the slavepit-city of the setting, Al´Anfa. The campaign is very open, too, and I would see it easily at eye level with a classic like "Power Behind The Throne" in terms of its quality. You won´t need a lot of setting knowledge to play that campaign.

Summing up, there are various publications which obviously escaped the notice of the gathered audience. In my opinion, it would be wiser to constructively support and actively welcome those new tendencies rather than to bash DSA based on (supposedly) outdated information. Things ARE changing.

tafkakb's observations are correct. DSA has relatively more inexperienced and casual players than most other RPGs, because of it's greater market penetration and Ulisses is shaking things up a bit, but they were never as bleak as some people here make it sound.

DSA's great boon, which is also it's greatest flaw, is that it has always tried to find a common ground for as many gamers a possible. They cater to players who want straightforward adventuring modules, to those who simply like to watch Aventuria change and evolve (or just read about their favourite NPC), to setting nerds and customers who just want to spend a nice evening with their friends playing DSA.

To keep the metaplot enthusiasts happy, the adventures with impact on the gaming world always have scripted endings, which also works well for casual GMs and casual gamers who can follow a plot. Unfortunately these modules tend to be the more prestigious ones, because of the greater sales potential they receive more resources and as a result more publicity.
There have always been mediocre to good DSA adventures playable without much knowledge of Aventuria and the need for railroading. Modules equivalent to those published by TSR, FASA and many other companies.  It's just that these aren't the controversial items the internet loves to argue about.

Quote from: tafkakb;610839It is true that DSA-gamers own significantly less rpg-books and have less rpg-experience than non-DSA-gamers.
As DSA is the standard starting point into the hobby in Germany, DSA-players obviously have less experience and fewer rpg-books on average. The mentioned data supports nothing beyond that supposition - and nobody ever questioned that.

But it is enforced by the Aventuria focus of DSA. If a publisher ties his customers to the product the way DSA did there is even less enticement for DSA players to look into other systems. It's a bit like turning Warhammer Fantasy Battle into "The Games Workshop Hobby".

But it also the nature of the market leader. The same I encountered in the States when talking to AD&D players. If you play the market leading brand and have a hard time following up on the releases of one game alone there's no time and money (and reason...) to try competing brands.

QuoteMost people in this thread don´t seem to know (m)any DSA-publications from the last couple of years. (...)
The current DSA-publisher opened itself to various gaming interests. (...)
Summing up, there are various publications which obviously escaped the notice of the gathered audience.

This is also true. My information on DSA products is out-dated. When I still owned my game store I had the privilege to be able to see and sample any release that was arriving at my store. I miss that very much.

It's no wonder that DSA changes, with a new crew at its helm. I expected that.

It's the biggest irony that the current DSA publisher has inherited both Das Schwarze Auge and Dungeons & Dragons (in the guise of Pathfinder). The current publishing manager is Mario Truant who is a known D&D fan. He was very active in the publication of multisystem modules (of which I wrote more on this board before) with a focus on AD&D. I'd hazard the guess that his personal outlook on RPGs is very, very Old School (capital O and S).
(Actually, this is something that I was missing in the whole discussion when Ulisses let go the original editorial team - a public outcry by DSA fans that their game and setting was being "usurped" by D&D.)

QuoteIn my opinion, it would be wiser to constructively support and actively welcome those new tendencies rather than to bash DSA based on (supposedly) outdated information. Things ARE changing.

In part you are right.

But that this thread only had negative portrayals and experiences of DSA is understandable. Players that are deeply into DSA and Aventuria (and thus happy with the game as it is) don't feel the need to try other games (and foreign games, to boot) and talk about them on theRPGsite.
The chances are much higher to find players who are dissatisfied with DSA around here.

And still, in the context of the OP question all answers were and are still valid, Nebelherr's as well as Settembrini's, because they stated their experiences with DSA and Aventuria.
As are your and Roland's statement that things are changing.

But for these changes to have any impact on the way DSA is played and viewed we need a few more years, a fifth edition, and an influx of players that is not raised on "Auf ein Wort".



Btw, welcome on this board, Roland!

(Are you Sphärenmeister?)

Man, what a dark strange trip this has been into the seedy underbelly of the central european RPG scene.\

I betcha the Poles aren't into any of this bullshit.  At least, I want to believe my countrymen are into some serious hack-and-slash dark fantasy stuff.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;611226Man, what a dark strange trip this has been into the seedy underbelly of the central european RPG scene.\

I betcha the Poles aren't into any of this bullshit.  At least, I want to believe my countrymen are into some serious hack-and-slash dark fantasy stuff.

RPGPundit

Poles would be 1E WHFR all the way!