So I recently ran a one-shot for my group with the Witcher RPG...


I'm a big Witcher fan (Books). I really, really, wanted to like this game.

But The Witcher RPG is as if someone set out to design an Interlock Fantasy RPG; but they had only ever played Interlock RPG's, and the Witcher video games. (It is clearly more closely modeled on the Video game than the books...)

There are some ideas I actually like. It's just that it seems that they chose to implement them in the most clunky way that they could think of. There is a game in there; it just has too much fiddly clutter to be ready for prime time.

Don't even get me started on the pagecount devoted to crafting in the game...


In my opinion; Keeping things more in-line with the crunch level of the Quickstart was the way they should have gone.

Cut the skill list in half, keep crits at just +10 over defense. And honestly, defenses could be made static, speeding up combat by a lot.

I also think that hit locations should only be rolled when you score a crit, with the locations SP affecting the potential crit. The 'armor stacking rules' from the main book could be used to work out a general SP for what you are wearing overall. Similar with the weapon damage rules - stuff that should only come into play on a crit or fumble.

The spells do need actual casting rolls to a TN though. For most of them you are just rolling to see if you hit a fumble, which I found a bit odd.


The Witcher RPG was a missed opportunity for R.Tal. They could have distilled Interlock into a tight fantasy system, that played fast at the table, and delivered a solid Witcher RPG fix. Instead you get a game that has all needless fiddly bits of previous R.Tal games brought forward to today.

R.Tal just has sloppy game design these days. Even CPRed has known system issues from the jump. Seth Skorkowsky did a good breakdown of it's issues on his youtube channel. (And he's a fan...)

It's just inexcusable. When you say that you have worked on a game for 3 years; Why must I still Un-Bork your system when it hits my table?

Sad really, as there is nothing inherently broken with the underlying the Stat+Skill+die roll system. It just seems that they just can't help themselves but to bork it up if given half a chance...

Both Witcher RPGs are commonly hated in Poland.

Cyberpunk 2020, Mekton, and Castle Falkestein were all products developed by Maximum Mike where as both Cyberpunk Red and The Witcher are products largely developed by his daughter in law, Lisa Pondsmith.  On one hand, she steered R. Talsorian games away from the rocks and made the old games very available and on the other, she's a shit game designer.  The only reason that The Witcher and Cyberpunk Red are playable at all is that Fuzion, designed by Mike, is a good core game system.

I don't take quite your negative view on it all though, I think the right collection of homebrew solutions could make this game a true top notch game experience.  What Interlock Unlimited did for Cyberpunk 2020 could be done by a similar project for The Witcher.  I agree that a game should be shipped ready to play rather than a beta level proof for the GM to tweak and fix.  I'm doing reviews of games I own and I find a lot of attempts to make crunchy games are far worse.  (Dark Stars, Altered Carbon, Katana-Ra, and Deal are all examples of flat out broken games sold as finished products.)

Mike himself is semi retired from all of it and really only comes out for PR reasons.  (I think the failure of Cyberpunk 3.0 broke his will.  The books were trash though and as I look at them I can't believe they were thought ready for print.)

Quote from: Jaeger on December 02, 2023, 06:49:17 PM

But The Witcher RPG is as if someone set out to design an Interlock Fantasy RPG; but they had only ever played Interlock RPG's, and the Witcher video games. (It is clearly more closely modeled on the Video game than the books...)

What a surprise, an RPG made by a company that has a business deal with the software house who made Cyberpunk 2077 and the Witcher series and whose in-house system is Interlock has made an Interlock game based on the Witcher videogames.
I'm really shocked.

Quote from: BadApple on December 03, 2023, 02:09:35 AM
Cyberpunk 2020, Mekton, and Castle Falkestein were all products developed by Maximum Mike where as both Cyberpunk Red and The Witcher are products largely developed by his daughter in law, Lisa Pondsmith.  On one hand, she steered R. Talsorian games away from the rocks and made the old games very available and on the other, she's a shit game designer.  The only reason that The Witcher and Cyberpunk Red are playable at all is that Fuzion, designed by Mike, is a good core game system.

Let me do a mild correction: Lisa Pondsmith is Maximum Mike's *wife*. She's been with the company since before it was an actual company. While she's never been a mainline designer, she's always been part of the design process. I can confirm personally. Mike's son, Cody, is the primary designer in this case... and yeah, I'm not impressed. The CDRed book had/has elements that are good. BUT... I can see where his instincts steered the mechanics away from the grittiness of the original (which really required very little changing outside of the mainline Netrunning sub-systems which were always shitty in implementation, cool in conception). All I can say is as someone that has run CP2020 for decades... I don't use CPRed *at all*. Nor do I use the Witcher, due to the odd design choices.

Quote from: BadApple on December 03, 2023, 02:09:35 AMI don't take quite your negative view on it all though, I think the right collection of homebrew solutions could make this game a true top notch game experience.  What Interlock Unlimited did for Cyberpunk 2020 could be done by a similar project for The Witcher.  I agree that a game should be shipped ready to play rather than a beta level proof for the GM to tweak and fix.  I'm doing reviews of games I own and I find a lot of attempts to make crunchy games are far worse.  (Dark Stars, Altered Carbon, Katana-Ra, and Deal are all examples of flat out broken games sold as finished products.)

Mike himself is semi retired from all of it and really only comes out for PR reasons.  (I think the failure of Cyberpunk 3.0 broke his will.  The books were trash though and as I look at them I can't believe they were thought ready for print.)

I generally agree with you here. I think it's all fixable. The tragedy is it shouldn't have required as much effort as it does to fix it. Ahh well.

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on December 03, 2023, 04:27:12 AM

Quote from: Jaeger on December 02, 2023, 06:49:17 PM

But The Witcher RPG is as if someone set out to design an Interlock Fantasy RPG; but they had only ever played Interlock RPG's, and the Witcher video games. (It is clearly more closely modeled on the Video game than the books...)

What a surprise, an RPG made by a company that has a business deal with the software house who made Cyberpunk 2077 and the Witcher series and whose in-house system is Interlock has made an Interlock game based on the Witcher videogames.
I'm really shocked.

You really should not have been. Interlock is R.Tal's house system.

Quote from: BadApple on December 03, 2023, 02:09:35 AM
...
I don't take quite your negative view on it all though, I think the right collection of homebrew solutions could make this game a true top notch game experience.  What Interlock Unlimited did for Cyberpunk 2020 could be done by a similar project for The Witcher.  I agree that a game should be shipped ready to play rather than a beta level proof for the GM to tweak and fix...

My main gripe is that it shouldn't even be necessary. It's not like R.Tal doesn't have a vibrant fan community?

"Hey, doing an Interlock version of the Witcher, need solid dude's to help me playtest the shit out of it to make it the best Witcher RPG it can be..."

He would get plenty of replies. There's just no excuse. Cody said he worked on it for three years...

I've played tighter designed homebrew games in the past few years than what we got in the Witcher RPG.

Personally, I still think that going with the level of crunch in the Quickstart rules, with the corrections I suggested, would have been the way to go. It still would have been a solid mid-crunch game, played faster at the table, and we might have gotten something worthy of the Witcher IP.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2023, 08:30:32 PM
Both Witcher RPGs are commonly hated in Poland.

Curious if you know: Last time I looked around, WHFRP 2e was really popular in Poland. Has that changed much?

Quote from: tenbones on December 04, 2023, 05:21:01 PM
... The CDRed book had/has elements that are good. BUT... I can see where his instincts steered the mechanics away from the grittiness of the original (which really required very little changing outside of the mainline Netrunning sub-systems which were always shitty in implementation, cool in conception). All I can say is as someone that has run CP2020 for decades... I don't use CPRed *at all*. Nor do I use the Witcher, due to the odd design choices.

Ran the CPRed quickstart as well for my group.

A lot of the same complaints that I have about the Witcher RPG. Granted, for the Witcher I have the main rulebook to compare the QS to. For CPRed I only have the CP2020 rules...

Afterwards I was still left scratching my head: "How many years spent in development, and this is what you came up with as an improvement!?"

Quote from: Jaeger on December 04, 2023, 08:26:23 PM
You really should not have been. Interlock is R.Tal's house system.

No. Really ? I didn't know (looks sideways at his collection of Talsorian games dating back to the 90s).

tenbones, thanks for clarifying for me.  I don't mean any disrespect to the Pondsmith family by getting the nature of their relationship wrong.  I am embarrassed by that mistake.

Jaeger, I fully agree that a book should be ready to play as is.  Sadly, this is rarely the case.  I'm going through games to review and finding many of them are just not playable.  This includes some really high end production level stuff that just fails.  Altered Carbon was my biggest disappointment.  In an attempt to protect their IPs, many games are released without a lot of the needed play testing and feedback.

Cyberpunk Red and The Witcher both use Fuzion as a core, not Interlock.  It's a somewhat simpler version of Interlock and I was first aware of it with the introduction of Cyberpunk 3.0.  I am a much bigger fan of Interlock than I am Fuzion by a long shot.  My only complaint with Interlock is that crits and fumbles happen way too frequently.

I wish that R, Talsorian Games had published an SRD for Cyberpunk 2020/Interlock and released it under an open license.  That would have give a few really awesome concepts a chance to flourish and I think it would have made R. Talsorian stronger as well.  Ah well, we can all cry for the losses we suffer at the hands of those afraid to loose control of their IPs.

Quote from: NotFromAroundHere on December 05, 2023, 03:04:28 AM

Quote from: Jaeger on December 04, 2023, 08:26:23 PM
You really should not have been. Interlock is R.Tal's house system.

No. Really ? I didn't know (looks sideways at his collection of Talsorian games dating back to the 90s).

That does make being shocked that Interlock was used quite shocking, given that you should not have been shocked.

Quote from: BadApple on December 05, 2023, 03:56:57 AM
...
Jaeger, I fully agree that a book should be ready to play as is.  Sadly, this is rarely the case.  I'm going through games to review and finding many of them are just not playable.  This includes some really high end production level stuff that just fails.  Altered Carbon was my biggest disappointment.  In an attempt to protect their IPs, many games are released without a lot of the needed play testing and feedback.

This is true. The average state of game design out there is actually quite poor. Which is rather inexplicable as you only need a few gaming groups playtesting to catch most issues.

Quote from: BadApple on December 05, 2023, 03:56:57 AM
Cyberpunk Red and The Witcher both use Fuzion as a core, not Interlock.  It's a somewhat simpler version of Interlock and I was first aware of it with the introduction of Cyberpunk 3.0.  I am a much bigger fan of Interlock than I am Fuzion by a long shot.  My only complaint with Interlock is that crits and fumbles happen way too frequently.

This is truth. The Witcher and CPRed are swingy as fuck.

After playing the QS sessions I went back to the boxed sets to see if any ankle bracelets with pineapple motifs came with the set. If you think a d20 or d100 can be swingy, pffttt... they got nothing on Interlock/fuzion.

At any given time you are one good roll away from being one-shotted dead.

Granted, that can work in the players favor as well: The PC's in the Witcher game only survived because they got a great series of rolls that did a 180 on what was virtually a guaranteed TPK situation.

And in R.Tals defense; they do tell you straight-up that these are deadly games.

But there is good reason that I have seen at least one variant that used a d12 in place of the d10 to try and tame some of the madness.

Quote from: BadApple on December 05, 2023, 03:56:57 AM
I wish that R, Talsorian Games had published an SRD for Cyberpunk 2020/Interlock and released it under an open license.  That would have give a few really awesome concepts a chance to flourish and I think it would have made R. Talsorian stronger as well.  Ah well, we can all cry for the losses we suffer at the hands of those afraid to loose control of their IPs.

Given the current level of their design skills, they might have good reason not to...

A shame really, as I have been wanting to find a good skill based fantasy RPG that was not d100 roll-under based.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 05, 2023, 06:04:02 PM
A shame really, as I have been wanting to find a good skill based fantasy RPG that was not d100 roll-under based.

You might want to give Sword of Cepheus a look.  It's based on Traveller.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/304840/the-sword-of-cepheus

QuoteCurious if you know: Last time I looked around, WHFRP 2e was really popular in Poland. Has that changed much?

It's popularity is both blessing and curse, especially due to certain abberant ways to run WH invented in Poland (Autumn Tale).
But generally all three standard editions - 1, 2, 4 were very popular in Poland, and still are, though of course with expansion of market its dominance faltered.
Is it - even taken all 3 together most played system - I'm not sure honestly. It's between Warhammer, D&D-family and CoC.

I guess Cody was the main developer for The Witcher, and he's working on another title. I can't remember the name, but I've heard a lot of people saying it's gonna be a RIFTS clone. I have no idea what that is, but I genuinely hope Cody can tap into his father's talent and do something good. It be nice to see him be able to pick up the flag.

That being said, I gotta agree with tenbones too: after I bought the Cyberpunk RED book, I didn't feel the need to switch to it. 2020 has its issues, but it didn't feel like enough of a change to justify migrating to the new version. On top of that, the two sourcebooks they released seemed to have fallen pretty flat too.

Quote from: BadApple on December 05, 2023, 06:52:16 PM
You might want to give Sword of Cepheus a look.  It's based on Traveller.
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/304840/the-sword-of-cepheus

I actually have it. It doesn't quite hit the vibe I'm looking for - still very much high fantasy.

My disappointment with the Witcher is compounded by the fact that I really like some elements of the system.

Skill based, one polyhedral for action rolls, d6'd for everything else. It ticks a lot of boxes for me. To the point that in spite of my opinion of the game as is; I'm still internally debating if it would be worth my while to homebrew it into something worthy.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 05, 2023, 08:12:32 PM

QuoteCurious if you know: Last time I looked around, WHFRP 2e was really popular in Poland. Has that changed much?

It's popularity is both blessing and curse, especially due to certain abberant ways to run WH invented in Poland (Autumn Tale).
But generally all three standard editions - 1, 2, 4 were very popular in Poland, and still are, though of course with expansion of market its dominance faltered.
Is it - even taken all 3 together most played system - I'm not sure honestly. It's between Warhammer, D&D-family and CoC.

Holy crap. I was able to find a guy reading through some of those articles (talking about them in english) on TBP. There is some "interesting" stuff there to say the least...

Nobody ever did a proper Polish language retro-Clone of WHFRP 2e over there? It seems that is an untapped market if properly supported...

Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on December 06, 2023, 10:12:22 AM
...
That being said, I gotta agree with tenbones too: after I bought the Cyberpunk RED book, I didn't feel the need to switch to it. 2020 has its issues, but it didn't feel like enough of a change to justify migrating to the new version. On top of that, the two sourcebooks they released seemed to have fallen pretty flat too.

It's a shame as R.Tal has a great back catalogue to re-vamp for a proper new edition.

I dunno - I just can't help but think that with CPRed, and the Witcher, that there was a lot of opportunity left on the table.

QuoteIt's a shame as R.Tal has a great back catalogue to re-vamp for a proper new edition.

I dunno - I just can't help but think that with CPRed, and the Witcher, that there was a lot of opportunity left on the table.

There was a bit of mixed messaging too. When I got my copy of Cyberpunk 2077 for Christmas, I found out there was a bunch of free stuff with it. One of those freebies was a PDF copy of the 2020 rules labeled, "Cyberpunk 2020 Guidebook." I don't know why R. Talsorian didn't coordinate with CPRed to put in a slimmed down copy of the RED rules like you'd find in the starter set.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great R. Talsorian supports their older systems. But if someone just played 2077 they're likely gonna be more interested in the RED setting of 2045. That would've been the perfect opportunity to give 2077 players a way to look into the tabletop game.