I am trying to decide my next fantasy RPG between WFRP 4e vs. The Dark Eye 5e.
Which do you feel is the better game mechanically? Which is the best setting?
WFRP 4E is certainly the better game. Now I actually like TDE5E, but the skill system is definitely a lot clunkier than Warhammer and I can understand why a lot of people don't like it all that much.
Any additional opinions?
I can't really compare the two, having never played the second. That said, for the former just be a bit wary of advantage, in part because charging becomes always the default opener, and if advantage builds you can get some combat scenes that don't make sense relative to prior character capabilities, at least from our experience. Also, spellcasting is kinda meh, given the many ways to screw it up and its questionable validity as a combat option by comparison to advantage stacking tactics. I guess if you let spells get past dodge without a roll ala magic missile (I wouldn't), then dart becomes a spammable automatic advantage breaker, which can also be a problem the opposite way. Also, all the safe and easy spells like dart are forbidden because they aren't color magic, lol, which makes very little sense. Even if you allow casting them with channeling to be legal in setting, not a given, that's still a nerf and makes them less safe, ironically enough.
Still I do like Warhammer Fantasy's setting, how many adventures they have, and the fact that there are so many careers you might start out as, and some feel like they're just there because it makes sense someone would do that not because adventurers would want the skills, even if I feel the xp rewards for keeping what you roll could use a boost. I do also like occupation influencing status, and being the main class stand-in, with race also feeling properly differentiated. Of course, d100 rolls are pretty hit and miss, quite literally. And while advantage helps with maintaining momentum a bit it also makes each miss feel much heavier. Anyway, fun game, just some stuff to consider.
There's lots to like about WFRP 4e but it feels overly crunchy and complicated. I'd love to see a 2nd version.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on September 25, 2022, 04:24:39 PM
There's lots to like about WFRP 4e but it feels overly crunchy and complicated. I'd love to see a 2nd version.
That's because it is...
Quote from: KindaMeh on September 25, 2022, 12:17:32 PM
...
Still I do like Warhammer Fantasy's setting, how many adventures they have, and the fact that there are so many careers you might start out as, and some feel like they're just there because it makes sense someone would do that not because adventurers would want the skills, even if I feel the xp rewards for keeping what you roll could use a boost. I do also like occupation influencing status, and being the main class stand-in, with race also feeling properly differentiated. ...
4e is actually quite well supported - But it's increased complication really gets in the way. WFRP is essentially just selling to the existing fanbase and the few newbies they can pull in.
It is an absolute shame. WFRP has continued its role as the D&D alternative that's perpetually held back by a system that falls short in some manner.
yeah, that's true. Too many talents that do nothing that would justify their presence, too many sklills that never get used, some of them overlap. And rules concerning weapons seem fine at first glance, only to be forgotten in the heat of the battle or misused. The core principles are good (roll under, count successes) but there is too much added on top of that. And magic system seems pretty cool at first, but when a mage starts casting spells it's sometimes 3 rounds of adding successes only to cast one spell, when the rest of the group does somthing interesting every round.
My group had an overall good campaign using 4ed, but some shortcomings of the system were beginning to be very apparent pretty quickly
I'd suggest WFRP 2E above WFRP 4E, myself.
But the books are damned expensive when you can actually find a hard copy. The PDFs are readily available, and priced much better if you can stand to run a game solely off of digital content.
Yeah, 4E is currently the supported version but I don't really enjoy the rules set as much, personally. It adds way more complication than it needs to, and the designers and some fans made some claims that 4E has improved on the "swingy" combat rules of 2E... that aren't really any more swingy than 4E if you actually sit down and read the damned rules.
I've run a lot of WFRP 4e and while it was a lot of fun... I'm a very experienced GM who's run every edition of WFRP and knows a lot of systems beside that. I'm therefore not afraid to house-rule things where it's needed. Running WFRP 4e RAW would be another matter.
The best comparison I can think of is that it's like a PC game that's brimming with potential but bugged to hell, and the devs just don't do patches and focus on new DLC. I ran it with some fan-made mods that patch the game to a playable state. Most users won't even know to do that.
If they'd put WFRP 4e through another few rounds of playtesting and editing then it could have been great. As it is, it feels like they sent an unedited playtest document to the printers.
I can't comment on whether it's better than The Dark Eye, as I've never read let alone played that. But I run WFRP for the great adventures it's built up over the decades not the rules and so these days I just run it with whatever system I currently feel with work best with it.
Can you share your house rules for 4e?
Thanks for the suggestion. I own almost the entire line for 2e and enjoyed it immensely.
Quote from: Dropbear on September 28, 2022, 12:28:16 PM
I'd suggest WFRP 2E above WFRP 4E, myself.
But the books are damned expensive when you can actually find a hard copy. The PDFs are readily available, and priced much better if you can stand to run a game solely off of digital content.
Yeah, 4E is currently the supported version but I don't really enjoy the rules set as much, personally. It adds way more complication than it needs to, and the designers and some fans made some claims that 4E has improved on the "swingy" combat rules of 2E... that aren't really any more swingy than 4E if you actually sit down and read the damned rules.
I would like to see these as well.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on September 29, 2022, 05:09:23 PM
Can you share your house rules for 4e?
I know *Up in Arms* (the latest supplement) has rules that simplify advantage.
The house rules are unfortunately not in a state to share, or in many ways even use myself. I never sat down and wrote them in one place. Quite often I just decided to do things a certain way and never wrote it down at all. This worked fine in play, we had a game every week and everyone knew how things were being done.
Then the games club we played at shut for COVID lockdown and we didn't resume face to face games for two years. When I came to look at WFRP again I found myself thinking "Shit... What were all the house rules I used again?" and not recalling half of them.
Ones I can recall are either implementations of suggested optional rules (Blackjack rolls and Advantage capped at Initiative), using the suggestions from Andy Law (which I couldn't find last time I looked) on how to best manage Size differences in combat, a different Critical Hit system that was a homebrew someone else came up with, and a magic system adjustment. The new "Up in Arms" and "Winds of Magic" supplements apparently solve the same problems I found with magic and combat but I can't comment on how well they work.
So, I wanted to like WFRP 4e and I gave it a damn good try. But it comes down to whether you think it's worth the effort to get it functional or not. If you're after a new system, look elsewhere. If you want the WFRP setting, run adventures with a system that does it better.
I've started running the campaign again with Swords of the Serpentine. I wouldn't have believed that the Gumshoe system could be made to work for a fantasy campaign (the game claims the setting is Swords & Sorcery, I'm not convinced) but it does the chaotic hijinks that are both dangerous and comical people expect from WFRP very well in a rules-lite system.
I ran a very good 10 session campaign with SotS and really liked it (just had trouble with the sandbox part).
How is it working w/ WFRP?
It has 4 fairly rigid professions = do they fit? Did you make new ones corresponding to Warrior / Rogue / Scholar / Other Thing?
How did you handle careers?
I own SotS but something about it turns me off.
My sword & sorcery game of choice is Barbarians of Lemuria Mythic Edition.
SotS is a good game, but while it bills itself as Sword & Sorcery it very much isn't. Not the setting, and not the rules. Barbarians of Lemuria would still be the go-to S&S system for me as well purely because that's the one game whose magic system perfectly encapsulates what the Sorcery half of the name should feel like.
What I did with WFRP was to just completely re-work the Investigative Abilities. This is very easy to do because in general the mechanics for IAs are the same for each one- you're just using the fluff to determine if a player can spend that point in that way in this situation. I handled Careers by having the careers be IAs be Careers- Rat Catcher, Beggar and Stevedore are all IAs. Stevedore for instance would all for Investigative spends when asking questions and picking up rumours in dockside taverns, but also to give bonuses when physical strength or endurance are important.
I also made up other IAs as needed. Ever-popular WFRP staples like Flee! and Blather work very well as IAs. The hardest part was adapting the magic system, but that was pulled off in the end. The Wizard character was the one who ended up most resembling a SotS class in that it took several related IAs that work together to make things work.
Quote from: Batjon on September 24, 2022, 08:29:17 PM
I am trying to decide my next fantasy RPG between WFRP 4e vs. The Dark Eye 5e.
Which do you feel is the better game mechanically? Which is the best setting?
For me WFRP wins easily. 4E is a great return to form after the Chaos Spawn that was 3e. I do add some of the character creation rules from Zwiehander because even though I'm loath to give the obnoxious prat who made it credit I think he did do a decent job of cleaning up and adding to WFRP. Even if you're not all that interested in Warhammer I think WFRP is the best game for dark fantasy games in general. Although I want to try Shadow of the Demon Lord and Goblin Slayer RPG at one point. They sound interesting too.
If you want a grim/dark fantasy game the one that keeps coming up as a good substitute for Warhammer Fantasy is called Warlock!
The game is a lot simpler. It only uses the D20 and D6 dice. Characters are stated out with their skills, their stamina, and their luck.
It's got a neat character generation system where you start with four randomly chosen careers, and you pick one you like. None of them are powerful or cool, like footpad, or rat catcher. The cool class careers exist, but comes later as a prestige class. You also get two background details randomly rolled that the GM can use for adventure hooks.
Magic has some serious downsides. It can result in crippling and permanent mutations when miss cast. Have fun. I'll stick to swords.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/383512 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/383512)
To cover The Dark Eye 5e for a moment.
It has a lovely setting that is a lot like a less grimdark, less filthy version of the Warhammer setting. Power level is roughly similar, allthough TDE has more magic. Not more powerful, but more reliable, more diverse and more people who can do magic.
Character creation is a pain, but it plays surprisingly smoothly. The good thing about TDE's system of character creation is that compared to Warhammer it allows for the creation of really distinctive and extremely varied characters.
In the end it depends on the players. If they aren't gearheads and also don't like using premade characters, I'd discourage using TDE.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 02, 2022, 09:28:19 PM
If you want a grim/dark fantasy game the one that keeps coming up as a good substitute for Warhammer Fantasy is called Warlock!
The game is a lot simpler. It only uses the D20 and D6 dice. Characters are stated out with their skills, their stamina, and their luck.
It's got a neat character generation system where you start with four randomly chosen careers, and you pick one you like. None of them are powerful or cool, like footpad, or rat catcher. The cool class careers exist, but comes later as a prestige class. You also get two background details randomly rolled that the GM can use for adventure hooks.
Magic has some serious downsides. It can result in crippling and permanent mutations when miss cast. Have fun. I'll stick to swords.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/383512 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/383512)
I'm a fan of rules-lite games but this game was just too lite for me. I like a good array of attributes and a small but robust skill list usually.
Generally I agree with others here that WFRP's strong suit is its setting. The Old World gets a lot of grief for being derivative of the works of Tolkien and Michael Moorcock, but they've built on it over the years such that it is now a legitimately great fantasy setting (so of course Games Workshop nuked it). Can't speak for the adventures, personally. The only one I've played in was "Rough Nights and Hard Days", and I dropped out of it about 2/3 of the way through because I found it to be obnoxiously railroad-y. That may have been the GM, though. I never went back and read through the module.
As far as the system goes, it is by no means a bad game, but it is extremely crunchy, and has a few too many useless professions. Personally I don't care much for the whole "roll for chaos corruption" approach to magic, but it is kind of intrinsic to the setting.
I don't have any experience with Dark Eye, but based on some of the things said here, I'm going to get a hold of the pdf and give it a read-through.
Edit: If someone did want to run the WFRP setting in a different game, I would probably vote Shadow of the Demon Lord as the best substitute. It uses a similar occupation system, and is thematically almost identical, while being a substantially simpler game. I've also considered it for campaign set in the world of Demon's Souls, but that was just idle fancy.
Quote from: Batjon on October 03, 2022, 07:24:31 PM
Quote from: weirdguy564 on October 02, 2022, 09:28:19 PM
If you want a grim/dark fantasy game the one that keeps coming up as a good substitute for Warhammer Fantasy is called Warlock!
The game is a lot simpler. It only uses the D20 and D6 dice. Characters are stated out with their skills, their stamina, and their luck.
It's got a neat character generation system where you start with four randomly chosen careers, and you pick one you like. None of them are powerful or cool, like footpad, or rat catcher. The cool class careers exist, but comes later as a prestige class. You also get two background details randomly rolled that the GM can use for adventure hooks.
Magic has some serious downsides. It can result in crippling and permanent mutations when miss cast. Have fun. I'll stick to swords.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/383512 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/383512)
I'm a fan of rules-lite games but this game was just too lite for me. I like a good array of attributes and a small but robust skill list usually.
Agreed. I went back and forth on using Warlock! for a while, but I don't think I like a game without attributes.
Here is the crux, I think.
Warhammer fantasy rpg is great for playing traditional Warhammer style fantasy scenarios. It's a lot less great for anything else.
TDE and its setting are a bit more flexible. They are great at Game of Thrones* style stuff and The Hobbit style stuff and everything in between.
Both suck at D&D style high powered fantasy.
*The big difference between the GoT universe and Aventuria the TDE setting is, that the GoT go to solution of I'm cruel, treacherous and into incest, so I will always win, will get you into a lot of very painful trouble if applied in Aventuria.
Ok, so I did go and start flipping through the Dark Eye corebook, and....are they trolling? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of skill checks being tied to multiple attributes. (It's something I've included in my own homebrew rules.) But three dice rolls, with each one potentially having points spent on modifying it, just for a simple skill check?
To the people here that have played the game, am I missing something? That sounds like an atrocious rule which would lead to one of the slowest playing RPGs on the market.
You are supposed to roll 3d20's at once read them left to right.
Or possibly.
Roll 3d20's at once that are colour coded. Each attribute has an official colour, so you know which die goes with which attribute.
I totally agree that it is conceptually stupid, but it works pretty well in play and it allows very detailed determination of why and how well you succeed or fail.
In practice, I think the problem lies more inside the combat rules. Combat flows at roughly half the speed of traditional D&D combat. Also, getting hurt will impact your ability to function significantly.
So avoiding the D&D approach of: 'starting a fight is always an option' is the way to go.
We've been playing TDE 5 for the last year and a half and it's gone pretty well. We even enjoyed the character creation. That runs more like GURPS where you have points allocated and you can build whatever you like. Invariably, someone builds the rogue, the wizard, etc. but there's a lot more flexibility there.
The skills with the 3d20's really aren't so bad. I like the fact that it yields a Quality Level that allows me, as the GM, to bake in some, "You get it done, but there's this small (or large) consequence as a result." Sort of like the FFG Star Wars dice. That part actually flows pretty quickly.
Combat, as has been said, is a bit of a different animal and does tend to run slower. The spells, which I feel are kind of limited and underpowered, take a while to cast, but this actually creates decent balance between the casters and the martial types.
I like the armor soak, the chance to parry/dodge an attack, but it does get fiddly. Conceptually I really like those things but in practice it tends to slow things down. And nobody likes rolling high for a "hit" only to have their enemy deflect what was going to be a powered-up hit. So I've pretty much stopped giving that power to the baddies and just given them more hit points (as my own house rule).
TDE is a little different conceptually, as well. If your group likes fighting monsters you'll find that this game is really more focused on using your character skills to solve problems, investigate, etc. That's why you can literally roll up a chocolcatier, a dike engineer, a farmer, etc. Everyone brings their various skills together to do stuff. The VERY small and limited bestiary makes it plain that this game really isn't all about the hack and slash. My group was raised on D&D and Pathfinder, so I've converted a few monsters and brought those in and everyone seems to be having a good time.
I will say that I feel like the pantheon is a little uninspired. More could have been done with it, for sure, but it's serviceable. What I most dislike about it is that there's really only one "bad guy god" and a dozen demons running around. I like having a broader base of bad guys at work so there are competing agendas, etc.
Final thought as this may be an important decision point. A few years back they came in with Paizo's help, had a big kickstarter, and came in like gangbusters trying to really penetrate the American and English-speaking market. This game's origin is in Germany and it's apparently HUGE there. Over the next several years they had a Magic kickstarter and Gods kickstarter and I supported everything to the hilt, buying anything and everything they translated to English to show support, etc. Their presence and effort in the English segment has dropped off steeply over the last year. They lost Robert Adducci who kept their online presence going pretty well as their Community Manager and whoever they replaced him with must be in the witness protection program. All communication has evaporated. No new kickstarters or translations have been announced (and previously they had a few queued up). I asked the question point blank in their Discord server back on 9/21 - Do they have anything else coming out anytime soon and I've gotten crickets, even after a number of other people piped up and said, "Yeah, this!" So if you prefer to play a game that is actively supported, I've got a bad feeling about the future of TDE.
There is enough out there in the Core Rules, Aventuria Compendium, and Magic book to play a well-rounded game, no doubt. But I think they may be re-thinking their commitment to the English-speaking market.
Hope that helps. I can offer nothing on WFRP 4 as I've never played it, but if you have further questions on TDE I'd be happy to help. I've said it a couple of times but I'll repeat it once more: my group is having a great time with it, so that's all that really matter to me.
A lot of the setting including the basic 12 gods pantheon are designed to be generic and a recognizable mirror of a real world culture/religion.
There are a bunch of others who are more unusual. Like Swafnir who is basically the antagonist of Moby Dick as a deity, Rastullah, Aventuria's version of Allah who either doesn't actually exist in the setting or operates on very different principles to the other gods, or Rur and Gror, hermaphroditical twins one of whom created the world and is in the process of giving it to the other as a gift.
So I want to stress: These are sincere questions. I'm not trying to argue the mechanic, since I haven't played it. I don't have a general fantasy game that I really love, and part of me wants TDE to be it.
I get that the three dice roll is something you can quickly adjust to, especially as I play most of my games online these days, and the VTT will probably automate that. What gives me pause is the skill point system on top of it. The scene I picture in my head is of a player rolling his three dice, and then having to stop and go "ok, I need to add 3 points to that one, 4 to this one, the leaves me with three left; now I go to the quality level table...wait what page is that...oh ok, It's quality level 1" Doesn't sound like a lot, but If the game is heavily skill based, adding 20-30 seconds to each resolved roll might be an issue.
Am I reading the rule wrong, or does that not really happen, or are skill checks maybe just not as common as I'm assuming they would be?
You've read it exactly correctly. And skill checks are definitely a part of the game. In fact, they'd prefer that's where you roll most if I read their intentions correctly.
Yeah, it's a little more involved as the players usually say something like, "Ok, so that skill is a STR/STR/CON check, so I roll...13, 15, 10. So I can buy that one down, that one too, and that one's OK, so that leaves me with 5 points." And the GM replies (looking at the handy chart on the back of the high quality GM screen), "Cool. That's a QL 2. So you're able to lift the iron portcullis pretty cleanly, but not fully over your head. What do the rest of you want to do?" or something like that.
The tedious part is that there are many skills and each has its own formula of 3 checks to make. And unless it comes up often, the PCs are constantly checking to remind themselves which three their rolling. Yes, it takes about 30 seconds each time. You'd think it would be maddening, but I have to say, they do like rolling dice. So 3 times as many is fun somehow. As the GM, I'm just waiting to hear what their remaining points come out to be while I'm thinking over what I'll say if they fail, succeed a little, or succeed a lot.
That reminds me that I failed to mention how high-quality their production value is. Admittedly, their stuff is well built. Good art, good covers, heavy grade pages, and 1-2 ribbon bookmarks in every book. But it is super-crunchy and the learning curve means it gets a little slow at times.
That is a crunch fest. Definitely not what I'd want to run or play.
You could look at Death bringer by the YouTuber called Professor Dungeon master. It is essentially just the house rules that he uses in his old school D&D. B/X I think. It's not a complete game as you still need a bestiary and a spell list. His advice is to make your own, including spells.
It is grim dark. Spellcasters are hunted by inquisition in his setting, and have to tattoo their spells on their skin, so good luck lying that you're not a spell caster.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6r7Ntc2Es (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6r7Ntc2Es)
Another game to look at might also be the Witcher RPG. It's a known world, being based on Zapkowski's novels, and CD Project Red video games. It's often said the monsters are evil, but the people are way worse in this setting.
And third, there is Shadow of the Demonlord. It's main thing is customizing your character. Your racial ancestry, your novice class (classic four of warrior, rogue, cleric, and magician) and your expert class, then finally your master class. Those four combine together to create your level bonus table as you go from level-1 to level-10 max. You could have a goblin-warrior-ranger-bard, but I have a human-rogue-ranger-conjurer.
This is a grim dark game as it includes tables for going insane, as well as corrupting effects your soul whenever you do evil. Aka here is how the GM can exert a bit of control/punishment on players going extreme murder hobo. It also has 30 types of magic, like conjuring, songs, the four elements, life, death, destruction, and so on.
I only have the players guide, but the full game includes everything you need like monsters and GM advice. I'll add that this author loves tables.
On TDE being an epic crunch fest.
Oh God yes. ;D
Over the years a distinct TDE player culture approach to the game has grown up to deal with that.
1. Don't engage with the rules unless something significant happens.
2. Have the bits that you are going to use on hand, either carefully memorized, or carefully written down. The game's publisher even publishes boxes of notecards with bits and pieces of the rules set on it to help facilitate that. :o
Unfortunately I dont think TDE is ever going to make an inroads in North America imo.
The system just seems overly convoluted for the sake of it.
Insist on wanting to cater to their fanbase and only their fanbase. Not necessarily a bad thing yet will make sure they keep joining the likes of HARN and other similar publishers. With a fanbase that wants the level of D&D popularity yet wants nothing to change.
Worst they keep wanting to break into the other markets like North America and are too lazy to try and do more than a half-assed job of it. Its like they want the sales of D&D with 1/100 of the work and effort.
Before anyone says it even before D20 system spoiled gamers most were not interested in the system # rolls for the sake of it and to be different. Very hard pass.
Warhammer Fantasy has name recognition yet beyond the setting which I like is hampered a by a system in 1E and 2E that suffers from a whiff factor. "I swing and I miss" was too common at our tables and while realistic is not fun when the table suffers from poor dice rolls over the session.
The grim and gritty aspects of the setting which as I said I like are not a setting that many want to play in.
As TDE a fanabse that wants nothing to change yet expect the levels of popularity of D&D. While making excuses for the whiff factor of the system. I remember being told to get closer to the enemy while using a ranged weapon. Telling a player who is using a ranged weapon to get closer to the target kind of defeats the purpose of using a ranged weapon. Which they unfortunately they ported over to the 40K rpgs in first edition.
At least the publisher seems motivated to want it to succeed and actually putting the effort into making it successful.
Quote from: Abraxus on October 09, 2022, 11:44:59 AM
Unfortunately I dont think TDE is ever going to make an inroads in North America imo.
At least the publisher seems motivated to want it to succeed and actually putting the effort into making it successful.
I agree.
Quote from: Abraxus on October 09, 2022, 11:44:59 AM
Worst they keep wanting to break into the other markets like North America and are too lazy to try and do more than a half-assed job of it.
Disagree. The company Ulisses Spiele put in a lot of effort, censoring their artwork and changing the size of their books, it just was targeted at the wrong things.
Quote from: igor on October 09, 2022, 01:26:11 PM
Disagree. The company Ulisses Spiele put in a lot of effort, censoring their artwork and changing the size of their books, it just was targeted at the wrong things.
To be honest not sure if given they insist on keeping the system as is it will ever make a dent in North America. Too many existing rpgs that can do the same easier.
Instead of effort, they should have realized that there was no niche for their system in the US market and not bothered. (That insight required thought not effort)
Or,
They should have put in effort to design a different version of TDE 5e aiming at a niche in the US market. (redirecting effort into something more useful)
Ulisses Spiele weren't being lazy, they were being misguided.
Fading Suns is better.
Same can be said of Torg Eternity.
Since I'm used to complex systems, I've never had any problems with TDE. The game has an impressive amount of support here in Germany, but I agree that it probably will never be able to carve out a niche for itself in America. The core rules are pretty straightforward, but there are lots of supplements with optional rules that probably almost nobody uses. TDE 5e doesn't have levels and combat can be very deadly. As a result, even an experienced party can have a pretty tough time against orcs. Moreover, healing magic is generally harder to come by than in D&D 5e.
There is also an online game reference, but not all of it has been translated into English:
https://www.ulisses-regelwiki.de/home.html
Quote from: Brooding Paladin on October 06, 2022, 06:43:31 PM
You've read it exactly correctly. And skill checks are definitely a part of the game. In fact, they'd prefer that's where you roll most if I read their intentions correctly.
Yes and No. I think the intention is that you do NOT roll a skill check for every little thing as you might do in something like D&D 5e. I think the intention is to use skills in a manner more akin to Skill Challenges, where player skills can meaningfully have an impact on the story as a whole. The fact that it allows characters to use different skills to get an overall quality result for a task makes it a pretty useful tool. I imagine they use the more gamey drawn out procedure to add a little more tension to the situation which, while it works, isn't the direction I would have necessarily gone with it.
I seem to recall a couple pretty good examples of how to use the skill system were presented in the quickstart or one of the early adventures. I'll see if I can dig them up and reference them here in the thread for people to check out.
Yeah, I'll concede that. In using an economy of words I failed to be fully clear and you've said it better. What I should have said is that I feel like TDE really doesn't put combat as a centerpiece at all. There's plenty of rules for it and around it, but it feels more focused on skill challenges and social interactions saving combat only for the inevitable or climax points rather that aiming to support "kill lots of things and take their stuff."
Quote from: Abraxus on October 09, 2022, 11:44:59 AM
Unfortunately I dont think TDE is ever going to make an inroads in North America imo.
The system just seems overly convoluted for the sake of it.
Insist on wanting to cater to their fanbase and only their fanbase. Not necessarily a bad thing yet will make sure they keep joining the likes of HARN and other similar publishers. ...
...As TDE a fanabse that wants nothing to change yet expect the levels of popularity of D&D.
They can get away with all that in Germany because TDE was/is? the #1 RPG there for years.
If TDE wants to break into the US they need to do a top down redesign, streamlining the cruft out of it. But the fanbase probably wont tolerate that...
So Plan B:
Igor has it right, they
"...needed to do a different version of TDE 5e aiming at a niche in the US market. (redirecting effort into something more useful)"Quote from: Abraxus on October 09, 2022, 11:44:59 AM
Warhammer Fantasy has name recognition yet beyond the setting which I like is hampered a by a system in 1E and 2E that suffers from a whiff factor. "I swing and I miss" was too common at our tables and while realistic is not fun when the table suffers from poor dice rolls over the session.
The 'whiff' factor in WFRP is easily house ruled by starting off with slightly higher WS from the jump.
4e was a big step in the wrong direction. The added complexity brings nothing to the table. 4e is only selling to existing fans.
We did that too yet it's not a selling point where to remove the whiff factor one had to houserule.
Many players/DNS want to use RAW as much as possible imo. Not told to houserule any existing issue.