Quote from: Fiasco;611363Poles would be 1E WHFR all the way!

I can confirm this, although they also seem to show an unhealthy interest in historical minutiae in their gaming.

Quote from: Melan;611387I can confirm this, although they also seem to show an unhealthy interest in historical minutiae in their gaming.

So that's where I get it from!!

RPGPundit

I've been reading through this thread with much interest and I wanted to bring up some news on TDE, which is in it's Beta-Phase for the 5th Edition right now.

They are trying to streamline the rules, making them simpler, going for more balance and a completely free character creation system.

Many fans however dislike those changes and see their system becoming "soulless" and fear lots of retcons.

It seems "The Dark Eye" will soon start it's Edition Wars.

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About Me: I really like TDE, though I still tend to play more 3.PF. However I have to admit the flaws pointed out in this thread are mostly true(Many Railroaded Modules, Mary Suish NPCs, many groups are slaves to the metaplot etc.).

A few points are missing however:
-There are lots of readers, who don't play at all among TDE fans. Guys, who once played in their teen lost contact to their groups/don't have time anymore, keep buying the books and read them for entertainment and to keep up with the metaplot.

-TDE-players complain about railroaded adventures all the time in the forums. (They keep buying them though to keep up with the metaplot.)

-The original Ulrich Kiesow-DSA Modules having some nice humor was already mentioned. The problem occurs when those gag NPCs stay part of the canon for 35 years and everyone slowly forgets what was supposed to be taken humorously.

Here is the translation of the basic rules of the 1st edition of DSA, for the curious: http://www.apolitical.info/webgame/eye/

Quote from: Fiasco;611363Poles would be 1E WHFR all the way!

I remember that Warhammer 1st had a Polish version, and that it was quite popular over there, at least in 2000-2002.

The differences between TDE and early D&D, by reading upon both their histories, through extensive play and quotes of their authors can be boiled down to this:

Early D&D:


TDE:

Why aren't you comparing early D&D to early TDE?

Quote from: MatteoN;787760Why aren't you comparing early D&D to early TDE?

Because Early TDE has sadly almost completely vanished from the scene (unlike Early D&D and its simulacra) and is usually frowned upon by "serious" TDE players for its simplicity/non-realism and "stupid" dungeon adventures.

TDE -- from its 2nd edition on (early 90ies) -- was basically becoming what it is today anyway. And the 1st edition, while still a viable alternative to early D&D in my eyes, already had a lot of the cringeworthy GM advice of the later editions. Also the system had not deviated from its spiritual ancestors (D&D, T&T, RQ) so much at that point in time.

EDIT: Let it also be known, that the heyday of TDE was in the late 90ies to early 2000s. Shadowrun and Pathfinder (of all games!) give TDE a serious run for its money these days.

Furthermore I will get back to the Pundit's question about the Austrian scene, of which I have special knowledge. There are some, if subtle, differences to the Germans.

As I've already written, only 1st edition was translated into Italian, and is still quite fondly remembered by grognards like me.

BTW, how popular is Dungeonslayers in German-speaking countries? It seems a very fun old-school inspired RPG.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;787761EDIT: Let it also be known, that the heyday of TDE was in the late 90ies to early 2000s.

I would very strongly disagree. The heyday was 1984-1997, while it was published by Schmidt Spiele and had a distribution network including toy stores and department stores, which has since been undreamed of in German-speaking countries.

After Schmidt Spiele's bankruptcy in 1997 and the change to Fanpro (which could only distribute over the hobby store network), sales and player numbers took a nosedive.

Quote from: MatteoN;787762BTW, how popular is Dungeonslayers in German-speaking countries? It seems a very fun old-school inspired RPG.

It's mostly an internet thing (although one of the more talked about internet things).
I have yet to witness a Dungeonslayers game in the wild.

early d&d and tde have a strong connection. there probably would be no tde today if tsr hadn't been too greedy with licensing fees. schmidt spiele originally wanted to publish d&d in german, but the deal fell through. so they turned to ulrich kiesow, werner fuchs and joachim alpers, who had done translating work for d&d before (and also t&t, if i am not mistaken), to create a new system from scratch. they turned their homebrew-system into what became tde.

while the current rules are widely regarded as terrible the world that was created in 30 years is what keeps most players from turning elsewhere. i can attest to that, i play in 2 different campaign atm.

early d&d and early tde share many similarities and i think old school gamers could find a lot to like in early tde (while later editions would most likely give them a brain aneurysm).

Quote from: Skyrock;787769I would very strongly disagree. The heyday was 1984-1997, while it was published by Schmidt Spiele and had a distribution network including toy stores and department stores, which has since been undreamed of in German-speaking countries.

This is a widely held belief, but has it ever actually been backed up by numbers? I know the crappy boardgames were really popular in the early 90ies.

The game was available in the same stores even after Schmidt Spiele. It is only in the 2000s that the game slowly started to be seen exclusively in hobby stores.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;787803This is a widely held belief, but has it ever actually been backed up by numbers?
The game was available in the same stores even after Schmidt Spiele. It is only in the 2000s that the game slowly started to be seen exclusively in hobby stores.

Maybe that is one of those cases where Austria and Germany differed as well?

Losing the Schmidt distribution was a severe blow to DSA/TDE.
FanPro tried to find another road into mainstream department and toy store chains, via card game and dice distributor King Cards (who even had delusions of a German Gen Con...) but that partnership didn't last. And a few years later the license went from FanPro to Ulisses.

Quote from: Settembrini;607439Pondering 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

I always sat on my hands when playing chess to avoid this. This sounds like a really, really bad rule. This game is actually popular in the lowlands as well. I never quite got that. It's pretty run of the mill fantasy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;605156Jesus fucking christ.  Its like an entire country decided to run a WW-style game and didn't realize that all that hype about it being a "storytelling game" was just bullshit.

RPGPundit

Funny thing is that WW games are actually a lot better to be played as political sandboxes with all those faction running around. A lot of people do actually sandbox them. The rules don't support storytelling that much either. At least Fate supports that kind of play. WoD rules are pretty conventional.

I did play some railroaded prefab adventures from WW called SAS. While they were not terribly fun to GM, it was pretty linear and at the same time not very cohesive. At least all problems had multiple ways to solve them. And you could skip certain parts of the story or switch them around chronologically.