Has Anyone Played "The Dark Eye"?

TristramEvans · November 15, 2012, 02:17:23 PM

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;600194

Ha! Yes, that's the one I have. Great cover art. You don't see RPG books that look like that these days. And that subtitle still cracks me up. Very python-esque.

Age of Fable · November 15, 2012, 10:30:44 PM

From that picture, the average party in Midgard will have only one wizard, everyone will be human (unless the bearded man is a dwarf), and the heaviest armour that adventurers use is chainmail.

Does that reflect the actual rules?

Roderick · November 16, 2012, 12:57:46 AM

Quote from: Age of Fable;600268From that picture, the average party in Midgard will have only one wizard, everyone will be human (unless the bearded man is a dwarf), and the heaviest armour that adventurers use is chainmail.

Does that reflect the actual rules?

Yes, sort of. IIRC there were pretty harsh attribute requirements for playing a non-human character, and I seldom saw anyone wearing something heavier than platemail (one step above chainmail), because armor got really cumbersome beyond that point and wasn't worth the trouble.

Regarding the cover, there's a hitchhikers guide to galaxy joke hidden in there

Age of Fable · November 16, 2012, 02:14:28 AM

I might have found it - is it on the dwarf-like man?

Roderick · November 16, 2012, 05:12:15 AM

Quote from: Age of Fable;600291I might have found it - is it on the dwarf-like man?

Nope, the wizard is pointing at a group of trees that form the number 42. It's clearer to distinguish if you look on the cover at its original size.

Age of Fable · November 16, 2012, 11:32:48 AM

I can't find it in that picture.

By the way, is Midgard the one whose first edition was an unauthorised copy of Empire of the Petal Throne?

Age of Fable · November 16, 2012, 11:36:34 AM

Quote from: TristramEvans;600209Ha! Yes, that's the one I have. Great cover art. You don't see RPG books that look like that these days.

I think that's because nowdays 'game art' is it's own thing.

The Midgard cover looks like it's trying to appear like the cover of a fantasy novel of the time, or even an illustration from an old book of fairy tales.

Dirk Remmecke · November 17, 2012, 08:41:36 AM

Quote from: Age of Fable;600362By the way, is Midgard the one whose first edition was an unauthorised copy of Empire of the Petal Throne?

Yes, and, no, as I wrote upthread. The first edition of Midgard proper was as close to EPT as Palladium Fantasy was to AD&D. It showed certainly more than just traces of EPT's "DNA" but it had already evolved onto its own thing, thanks to having been used and house-ruled for four years before publication.
Proto-Midgard was a game called Empires of Magira (Magira being the setting of the cosim Armageddon I also mentioned upthread). Its "print run" is estimated as only about 20 copies.

Quote from: Age of Fable;600363I think that's because nowdays 'game art' is it's own thing.

The Midgard cover looks like it's trying to appear like the cover of a fantasy novel of the time, or even an illustration from an old book of fairy tales.

That's true. It's more about exploration than fighting and action and monsters.

And that's true for some (or even most?) of the old DSA covers as well that show adventurers around a campfire, on the road, in the wilderness.

RPGPundit · November 18, 2012, 02:04:22 AM

Never played either Midgard or DSA; I did see an english version of the latter, but reading it over quickly felt like I wasn't missing much.

RPGPundit

TristramEvans · November 18, 2012, 12:32:08 PM

Quote from: Age of Fable;600363I think that's because nowdays 'game art' is it's own thing.

It seems to be largely videogame-based from what I can tell.

Settembrini · November 19, 2012, 09:39:25 AM

I get the impression Videogames, CGI-effects and Fantasy-Art (incl. Sci-Fi) have all converged. The only common root I have found is the Warhammer-aethetic. Everything is grotesquely proportioned or at the very least grotesquely shaded and textured.

The Butcher · November 19, 2012, 10:08:08 AM

Quote from: Settembrini;600869I get the impression Videogames, CGI-effects and Fantasy-Art (incl. Sci-Fi) have all converged. The only common root I have found is the Warhammer-aethetic. Everything is grotesquely proportioned or at the very least grotesquely shaded and textured.

That's definitely the feeling I get, too. GW's aggressive marketing of the Warhammer franchise in the English-speaking world was probably key to this "hypertrophic" aesthetic that seems so prevalent.

Which is kind of ironic if you consider that its origins probably lie with the grim caricatural style of the same quasi-punk, fight-the-Man AD2000 comics that gave rise to old school WFRP's bleak outlook and gallows humour.

I want to say Asian pop art (anime, manga and their derivatives) also assisted with introducing an exaggerated aesthetic of its own, but I'm not sure.

TristramEvans · November 19, 2012, 01:17:38 PM

Quote from: Settembrini;600869I get the impression Videogames, CGI-effects and Fantasy-Art (incl. Sci-Fi) have all converged. The only common root I have found is the Warhammer-aethetic. Everything is grotesquely proportioned or at the very least grotesquely shaded and textured.

I would call it the anime-aesthetic myself.

Settembrini · November 19, 2012, 03:14:03 PM

No, decidedly not anime. Anime does not have texture, quite the opposite. Also shading is a miniatures thing in some ways.

Kaiu Keiichi · November 19, 2012, 05:20:21 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;110828So what I want to know is where does the "Swinishness" of DSA show up?

I know Sett hates the game, and blames germany's large swine-ratio on it. So any ideas as to what the game has that might create these swinish habits as seen by Sett?

RPGpundit

Heaven forbid if a game doesn't pass Pundit's swinish litmus test. When I flipped through it at NYC's Strat, it seemed pretty much another D&D clone a la 1983. Nothing Indy or Storygame RPGish at all.