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Black Jester
2013-09-09, 04:05 PM
Have you ever asked yourself what kind of RPGs are there in other countries or languages? I mean, I have a pretty good idea of mainstream (and not so mainstream) English and German games (and in the latter ones, I could actually describe quite a few and praise or condemn them on their own merits) but I have no idea if there are any really good or at least unique games elsewhere, and I am actually kind of curious about other games from different countries, how they are like.

Tengu_temp
2013-09-09, 05:40 PM
There were quite a few RPGs made in Poland. The most famous ones seem to be:

Kryształy Czasu (The Crystals of Time) - DND for accountants. The setting is your typical DND-like fantasy game, but the mechanics require a lot of adding, substracting, multiplying and dividing very large numbers. Needless to say, it's not a very good game, and pretty much impossible to play without a calculator.

Dzikie Pola (Wild Fields) - you play as adventurous noblemen in XVII century Poland, and everyone who knows Polish literature can tell you that it was a very interesting time in our history. Very flavorful, but hard to get into if you know nothing about the setting, like many other period games. Uses a modified d100 mechanic.

The Witcher RPG - based on the books, I'm pretty sure there's at least 2 of those games. I never had much contact with them, but if you liked the books, or the video games, you can go worse than this.

Neuroshima - a post-apocalyptic setting, a bit similar to Fallout but grittier and filled with more black humour. Probably the most recognizable Polish game in other countries. The setting is interesting, but the mechanics leave something to be desired, it's very easy to break the game by accident or end up with a useless character.

Libertad
2013-09-09, 05:46 PM
Tormenta- A 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting popular in Brazil. It comes off a traditional fantasy setting, but with quite a lot of anime-inspired artwork.

Rhynn
2013-09-09, 06:06 PM
Praedor is a cool Finnish RPG based on a cool Finnish fantasy comic. It's set in a world that is, essentially, a circle a couple thousand miles across, centered around a city of ancient, immortal wizards, surrounded by the practically infinite ruins of a a great city from a bygone era (considered by many religions to be older than the birth of the world, and in a sense they may be right). These ruins are horrible and deadly: they are full of portals into other dimensions that impose their own laws of physics and reality on the world, which causes severe incompatibility issues. Living creatures are mutated; the water is poison; the air is often poison; the dead walk; etc. Professional adventurers, "praedors," enter these ruins to look for treasures both mundane and magical, and sometimes they make it back alive with incredible stories. It feels very much like fantasy Stalker, down to the anomalies.

The system is simple and not much to write home about, but very functional. You have skills (starting values based on ability scores), you roll Xd6 trying to get a total under your skill (X is determined by difficulty). Combat uses an attack/defense matrix similar to HârnMaster, and is relatively deadly and gritty. The game is all about the style and feel of the game. (It's worth noting that all the games I know people to have run with the game mostly ignore the "praedor" stuff and focus on more usual stories and intrigues, just in the particular setting.)

Incidentally, the same guy who did the Praedor RPG has done the only officially sanctioned Stalker/Roadside Picnic -based RPG, also called Stalker. It's a diceless game that puts the emphasis on roleplaying and storytelling.

The outfit is called Burger Games (http://www.burgergames.com/).

There was also Elhendi (originally Rapier), but I played that as a kid and remember very little about the mechanics. Basically, it's a game about playing elves in a fantasy world. All I remember is a cool two-page spread of random tables for generating random adventures when you feel lazy. I wish I had a copy of the game.

Mostly, everyone I know who plays RPGs in Finland got their start on one of the few games translated and published in Finnish during the golden age of Finnish roleplaying in the early 1990s. BECMI D&D's first four modules were translated (obviously good taste excluded Immortals), Cyberpunk 2020 was, RuneQuest was, Rolemaster, MERP, Traveller 2300 AD and probably a few others I forget just now. I think Paranoia was translated. Call of Cthulhu was, IIRC. Amazingly, my local library had copies of a lot of these Finnish translations and even supplements for them.


The Witcher RPG - based on the books, I'm pretty sure there's at least 2 of those games. I never had much contact with them, but if you liked the books, or the video games, you can go worse than this.

I would comment on the irony of creating a RPG about books obviously based on a D&D campaign if that was anything new. :smallbiggrin:

Black Jester
2013-09-09, 06:21 PM
THE German RPG (literally, it is basically synonymous with roleplaying games for many players) is Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye), a fantasy game set in the usual pseudo-medieval fantasy world (and according to the player base, it is the second best selling RPG in he world, right after D&D). Due to its 20+ years of ongoing metaplot (no timeskips or the like) the world is somewhat collapsing under its own weight, with literally hundreds of described NPCs, an ongoing more-or-less official political game as a side plot, to the point that it is actually difficult to find white spaces on the map where any own created adventures do not come into conflict with the official plot or description. It has also the tendency to copy about as many different setting elements from different genres or time eras into the same game, creating a very diversified (or cluttered, if you prefer the naysayer perspective).
The rules were originally very simple but overtime it became more and more complex. About now (in the revised 4th edition) it is about as bulky as Gurps or D&D 3.5, but not very streamlined or fast to play.
Oh, and everybody who doesn't play it, seems to love to hate it, but that is basically a result of its popularity.
The Good: If you are in Germany, it is really easy to find groups or players. The setting is enormous in sheer mass, and as such there are many elements that are actually quite good and the many different genre modules can actually be quite entertaining, if you have a Dumas' style swashbuckler, a Viking explorer and a 1001 Nights sorcerer in a Call of Cthulhu adventure. There are many, many adventure modules, some of which are actually quite good.
The Bad: Did I mention the huuuuge number of sourcebooks? Including some of the most pointless ones you will ever see? Like one supposedly in-game book of prayers and allegories for each major religion? Or a 200+ pages major sourcebook for each region? Or a collection of short stories about a number of random yet awkwardly detailed NPCs sold as a game aid (because you need some inspiration for the next time that plot-essential beggar or ratcatcher will appear, right? There are many, many adventure modules, some of which are actually utter rubbish.
The Ugly: The Metaplot. I have no idea if this is a general problem of metaplots as an element of roleplaying games or if it is a DSA-specific issue, but you have a huge number of plot lines which are abandoned for years, and more often than not you have a discrepancy between the often enormous built-up for stories and most disappointing resolutions.
There is also a character "class" that solely exists as comic relief and to annoy other characters, but for some, these pranksters/jesters are quite beloved (which for me, makes it worse, because someone might actually play one).

Tengu_temp
2013-09-09, 06:48 PM
I would comment on the irony of creating a RPG about books obviously based on a D&D campaign if that was anything new. :smallbiggrin:

Um, what? We talking about the same Witcher? Because not only are the books nothing like DND in their tone, story structure or setting, aside from being fantasy, but many of the Witcher stories were written before DND even came to Poland. RPGs reached us for the first time only in the nineties, and DND became the most popular system only in the early oughties.

Grinner
2013-09-09, 07:00 PM
This makes me sad. There are so many cool things I will never read, and all because of these stupid language barriers.

GolemsVoice
2013-09-09, 09:04 PM
The Bad: Did I mention the huuuuge number of sourcebooks? Including some of the most pointless ones you will ever see? Like one supposedly in-game book of prayers and allegories for each major religion? Or a 200+ pages major sourcebook for each region?

But damn, this is the BEST thing about DSA. The world is alive! Granted, much of that information is probably not exactly needed (you can find statistics for every bigger city, census, important places with small descriptions, important NPCs with statblocks, maps, and so on...)

You don't just get the standart D&D pantheon, but you get religions with all their idiosyncrasies. You don't just get a faux-medieval society, you get a thought-out (more or less) class system that actually accounts for the fantastic elements.

One thing that irks me is the weird sexual theme the writers have going on. It's one thing to be a very liberal RPG, and not shy away from things like prostitution, stances on sexuality in various cultures and so on. But it somehow seems that every second house they describe in their sourcebook on buildings has some erotic carvings or some spicy backstory to it's sample inhabitants.

Arbane
2013-09-09, 10:47 PM
Not only does Japan have some RPGs, it's got a manga about playing them. I won't post a link to a scanlation, since that might be against the rules, but it's called "Quick Start!!".

(I actually just bought a translated Japanese TRPG a while ago - it's called "Double Cross", and it's about people infected with a virus that gives them superpowers, but will eventually turn them into crazed monsters. Looks kind of neat.)

Kasanip
2013-09-10, 12:55 AM
We have many TRPG in Japan. Of course some popular Western TRPG like [DUNGEONS&DRAGONS] and [SHADOWRUN] are also known.

Maybe of Japanese TRPG, it seems [Sword World] maybe is most famous. However, it is because GROUP SNE is very famous also for works like [CRYSTANIA] and [Record of Lodoss War].

Maybe of Fantasy genre, it can be said most popular are [Sword World] [ArianrhodRPG] and [Alshard]. It can be said most TRPG system use 2D6.

However, recently my favorite TRPG is 『Ekimae Mahou Gakuen』 (Magic Academy in front of Station). It is the modern world setting, where magic and science exist and balance reality. However, 10 years ago (1999) the balance became so strong for science that magic was helped to be reintroduced, with academies. Players trying to become magic users, and use everyday magic to help. Of course there are shadows and darkness and heartwarming stories, too.

Maybe my favorite is [Modern Fantasy], and there are many TRPG such as [AlshardGaia] and [Shinobigami] and [NightWizard!], [DoubleCross] etc.

If there are any questions about Japanese TRPG, please send PM or ask freely. :smallredface:

Rhynn
2013-09-10, 03:47 AM
Um, what? We talking about the same Witcher? Because not only are the books nothing like DND in their tone, story structure or setting, aside from being fantasy, but many of the Witcher stories were written before DND even came to Poland. RPGs reached us for the first time only in the nineties, and DND became the most popular system only in the early oughties.

The Last Wish has gnomes, dwarves, and elves and D&D-style magicians (the rainbow fireworks -style magic felt bizarrely out of place next to all the cool twisted fairytales) - that pretty much cinched it for me. Talking about "tone" is a bit disingenuous; A Song of Ice and Fire isn't D&D-like in tone either, but is also pretty much based on playing D&D (the "ring mail" worn by the Night's Watch gives it away). The Riftwar Cycle (Midkemia, Krondor, etc.) is based on D&D, too. The Dark Eye RPG is based on D&D. Record of Lodoss War is D&D. All of these have very different tones, but obvious connections and shared roots.

I'm not sure how popularity enters it, either. You can't really pretend that nobody in Poland played D&D before 1992.

Yora
2013-09-10, 03:49 AM
DSA is the only German game I can think of. The other games that seem to be played the most here are D&D, Shadowrun, and Vampire.


I'm not sure how popularity enters it, either. You can't really pretend that nobody in Poland played D&D before 1992.
Really? With the cold war until 1989?

Black Jester
2013-09-10, 04:34 AM
But damn, this is the BEST thing about DSA. The world is alive!

Let's not discuss that here okay? It would be a gigantic sideline and not very interesting for those who are not German-speakers (btw, there was a pitiful try to publish an English version of The Dark Eye, but after the publication basic rules (which usually ignored by the German players because you never need them to play and (almost) everything in the basic book is made redundant in the more advanced rules) and the general setting description (which is likewise made redundant by the ongoing metaplot and the more detailed sourcebooks) the publisher never followed up on it.

Lorsa
2013-09-10, 04:51 AM
There are plenty of swedish games, almost every swedish roleplayer has heard of Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons) and Eon for example. None of the swedish games I have tried are what I'd consider good though.

Black Jester
2013-09-10, 05:19 AM
Midgard is actually the oldest (and thus longest running) German RPG. It tends to be vershadowed by DSA because it fills a similar niche, but it is basically a small cult game, where you have a small, but very devoted fanbase. For a fantasy game setting, Midgard is actually a lot more colourful than most of their kind, and has several sub-settings which are not that common, like a fantasy equivalent of medieval India, the Sassanid Empire or Subsaharan Africa which makes the game quite colourful and even exotic from a Western/European point of view without requiring huge supernatural powers. However, it is never just a carbon copy of historical events - for the fantasy India for instance, the conflict between humans and lizardmen is a central topic and both sides ride dinosaurs. For someone like me, who usually prefer more realistic, low fantasy/low magic stuff, the setting is really nice, but I know quite a few people who consider Midgard as ridiculously dull and placid, and they do have a point.
The rules are dysfunctional, but at least not nearly as bulky as the DSA rules, but again the real strength are the published adventures which are, for the most part, really good (not all of them, of course), and you even have quite a few spectacular ones).

The Good: As I mentioned before, I really like the setting, and the love for details put in the game, the fantasy counterpart cultures are made with an acceptable amount of respect for the source material and the various sub-settings are fun to explore. The published adventures help, as many are really good and clever (I would especially recommend the Di-Jung saga, a campaign where the PCs are the assistants of a local judge and are supposed to solve mysterious crimes in the equivalent of Imperial China).

The Bad: Oh, and the rules are horrible. Mechanics with a complete different dice mechanism for ability tests and skill tests, dozens of highly redundant skills (like "Balancing" and "Not falling over while walking on board of a moving ship"), three different types of XP, both a XP point buy and a Class/Level system... considering how bad these rules are, they remain somewhat playable though, since they generally not that detailed. A new rule edition has been announced to come out this year, but I am not holding my breath that it will make everything better (on the other hand, making the system *worse* would be more of a challenge).

The Ugly: There is no general source book for the setting. You have a few snippets about every realm (usually one paragraph) and you have full-sized sourcebooks, but nothing in between, so you either invest heavily in the game, or you are actually excluded from the better parts. Something like a Midgard Gateteer would be very helpful.
The game has also hilarious(ly bad) artwork. I wish I could show you the epic battle between the Viking Jarl and the bloodthirsty PENGUIN OF DOOM.

Rondodu
2013-09-10, 05:35 AM
I’m far from the expert on the topic (I tend to stick to a few games). But here are a few I know a little bit. Some of them a very little bit, so expect errors here and there.

But, on the French scene, I know of: In Nomisne Satanis/Magna Veritas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INS/MV) (probably the most successful french game to this day), where you play demons (In Nomine Satanis) or angels (Magna Veritas) (or possibly others) sent on Earth to participate in the Great Game of winning more souls than the other side. While long-term plans are generally left to NPC (campaigning and encouraging people to engage, say, Doctors without borders doesn’t make that exciting a game), players are generally expected to inquire of the other team plan and throw them apart; or, on the contrary, to prevent such things from happening, or, at least, to catch the literally goddamned (or blessed) people who did screw your team up. It’s very tongue in cheek, much more than the dating american adaptation.
COPS is a game where you play a member of a police elite squad (incredible!) in a (messed-up) 2030 Las Angeles. It’s more “TV police”- than “real-life police”-inspired, but I don’t really know much more about it.
Pavillon Noir (meaning Black Flag) is a recent pirate-themed RPG which reached nearly 2000% of its crowdfunding objective two days ago (i.e. sept. 8th, 2013). So, yeah! 2nd edition. The game encourages Swashbuckling cinematic combat, but is awfully deadly. E.g. the worst thing that can happen when you’re shot is a piece of your shirt staying in your wound and causing an infection. Losing an leg? Meh! You were lucky you came out intact from the previous sea battle scene.
Cadwallon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadwallon_(role-playing_game)) is a game by Rackham set in the same universe as the skirmish game Confrontation. You play mercenaries in the city of Cadwallon(!), where you’re paid do the most noble or vile things. But more likely vile. Unfortunately, Rackham (the editor) met their demise a few years ago.
Agone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agone) is a fantasy game based on Les Chroniques des Crépusculaires, a series of novels by Matthieu Gaborit (which is one of the author of the game). Every characters is an Inspired, i.e. a major actors to the fate of a the world among ~1000. But the world which is threatened: one of the its divine protector has turned upon it. As one of the Inspired you’re likely to run into its creations. Unfortunately out of print for a long time. I want this game and I need to replace the copy of a friend I damaged. Seriously, people, don’t put a book on the corner of a table if its somewhat valuable to you. Rêve de Dragon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rêve%3A_the_Dream_Ouroboros) (lit. Dream of Dragon, translated as Rêve: the Dream Ouroboros), by Denis Gerfaud, is the game I’ve played the most. It’s an classic, old-school game (ca 1990). Its world is said to be dreamed by dragons; in its current iteration, the world is split in different “dreams”, i.e. independent universes which ranges from continent size to very small. You can travel between them (through “dream rips”), but usually not in a reliable way. While almost every young people tend to Travel at some point in their life, most of them don’t make it far past the next village. But you play Travelers, i.e. people who keep Traveling; the reason why might (and often is) that you enjoy it. I think this is the most adventurous game I’ve played; i.e. more often than not, playing means discovering a new, unknown place, with large cultural differences (at least, “kill the magic-user!” is quite common) more than “kill the next batch of goblins” or “disturb the powerful lich plans”. This, of course, requires quite a bit of work from the GM. The central, skill-based system is very elegant in its principle, but can be a bit roll-heavy in some circumstances. The game in itself is a thinly-veiled metaphor for RPG itself, the players being the dragons. Lots of “tools” are offered to the GM to ensure the game revolves around living adventures — e.g., you jump from dreams to dreams through . The author retired and I doubt there will ever be a new version, but the game could still be found a few years back.
Hystoire de fou, by the same author, which I’ve never played, is a game of dementia: you’re characters are afflicted by some kind of crazy visions. You’re trying to get out of them, by finding common elements between your vision and reality, e.g.).
Nephilim (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim_(role-playing_game)) is a French game? I didn’t know that!

Radar
2013-09-10, 06:18 AM
Kryształy Czasu (The Crystals of Time) - DND for accountants. The setting is your typical DND-like fantasy game, but the mechanics require a lot of adding, substracting, multiplying and dividing very large numbers. Needless to say, it's not a very good game, and pretty much impossible to play without a calculator.
I might add, that the system had a few nice ideas (nothing says evil as a Sphere of Pain spell), but was horribly imbalanced and in a dire need of a mechanical overhaul. I still enjoyed the game, but I just didn't know anything else at the time.

Neuroshima - a post-apocalyptic setting, a bit similar to Fallout but grittier and filled with more black humour. Probably the most recognizable Polish game in other countries. The setting is interesting, but the mechanics leave something to be desired, it's very easy to break the game by accident or end up with a useless character.
This one was loads of fun. The most memorable was a hunt we did: we chased some giant mutant bison with a rusty pickup. My friend was driving, while I stood on top of the car and was throwing harpoons at the beast. Perfect blend of modern and ye olden days. Bonus points for a possible background summed up as "Came from nowhere and went away."

Aside from that, there were a few obscure ones, from which Władcy Losu (Lords of Fate) deserve a special mention. In this game the players weren't directly involved in the game world and the story - they were just overseeing the actions of pivotal characters and steer them in desired direction (using things as subtle as suggestions, directly controling people, creating things out of thin air, bestowing mundane or supernatural powers, or personaly dealing with problems through an avatar). The thing was, the players were divided into two groups with somewhat different goals, yet all of them had to make sure, the main character stays alive and sane (not as easy as it sounds considering the usual escalation of power abuse).

edit: totaly forgot about Arkona. It's a fantasy game set in the Middle Ages, with the difference being, that slavic countries weren't christianised and all the slavic myths are real. Mechanicaly it wasn't that good, but the world was interesting.

edit2:

The Last Wish has gnomes, dwarves, and elves and D&D-style magicians (the rainbow fireworks -style magic felt bizarrely out of place next to all the cool twisted fairytales) - that pretty much cinched it for me. Talking about "tone" is a bit disingenuous; A Song of Ice and Fire isn't D&D-like in tone either, but is also pretty much based on playing D&D (the "ring mail" worn by the Night's Watch gives it away). The Riftwar Cycle (Midkemia, Krondor, etc.) is based on D&D, too. The Dark Eye RPG is based on D&D. Record of Lodoss War is D&D. All of these have very different tones, but obvious connections and shared roots.

I'm not sure how popularity enters it, either. You can't really pretend that nobody in Poland played D&D before 1992.
In that vain, every single fantasy setting with flashy magic is based on D&D, which is a major overstatement. D&D didn't create fantasy and wasn't even the most influential in the genre. Moreover you assume, that all the fantasy writers play D&D, whereas I'd say that D&D creators were influenced by rich fantasy literature, which was already there.

Dwarves and elves as we know them were the invention of Tolkien way before D&D, powerful wizards were a thing for ages before they were codified in any rulebook, lone adventurers were a thing at the very least from the times before the rise of the sons of Arius, even the magic system of D&D was created earlier - there is a reason, it's called vancian casting.

Also: in Poland in 1992 D&D was at most known as an obscure cartoon. Besides, there is a vast gulf between saying, that someone was playing D&D at the time (I don't know - anything is possible) and saying that the author of the books surely played D&D.

Rizhail
2013-09-10, 06:41 AM
Tormenta- A 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting popular in Brazil. It comes off a traditional fantasy setting, but with quite a lot of anime-inspired artwork.

I actually got to play in a Tormenta campaign in the states. One of my best friends in high school was a Brazilian immigrant, so once our first major 3.5 campaign was over he started up one in Tormenta. It's been so long since we played that I can't remember all the specifics of the setting (too many years DMing too many other settings >.<) but I remember it being a lot of fun.

Yora
2013-09-10, 07:16 AM
Was Tormenta ever translated? All results on google are Portugese

GolemsVoice
2013-09-10, 07:22 AM
DSA is the only German game I can think of. The other games that seem to be played the most here are D&D, Shadowrun, and Vampire.

Call of Cthulhu also has a large following here, with their own editions that often contain more than just translations. The quality of the books is also better, in my opinion.

There's also Degenesis, a game set in a post-apocalyptic world with a mixture of Fallout and Warhammer 40K. The game is set in Europe and Africa. Big meteors have fallen and now their craters spit spores that change and despoil mankind. Also, a new ice age swallowed Nothern Europe New, pseudo-medieval cultures have arisen and battle for survival against each other and nature. The rest is the usual, strange cults, fanatical religions, lost tech, the works. Has a very strange and fascinating aesthetic that helps set it apart from the usual post-apocalyptic stuff.

Rizhail
2013-09-10, 08:23 AM
Was Tormenta ever translated? All results on google are Portugese

I don't think it was. In our case, our DM and his brother translated everything the English speakers in our group needed to know.

Beleriphon
2013-09-10, 08:42 AM
Also: in Poland in 1992 D&D was at most known as an obscure cartoon. Besides, there is a vast gulf between saying, that someone was playing D&D at the time (I don't know - anything is possible) and saying that the author of the books surely played D&D.

Especially since the first Witcher Saga short stories were published in 1986 in a Polish fiction mag.

nikolamat
2013-09-10, 11:14 AM
Pavillon Noir (meaning Black Flag) is a recent pirate-themed RPG which reached nearly 2000% of its crowdfunding objective two days ago (i.e. sept. 8th, 2013). So, yeah! 2nd edition. The game encourages Swashbuckling cinematic combat, but is awfully deadly. E.g. the worst thing that can happen when you’re shot is a piece of your shirt staying in your wound and cause an infection. Losing an leg? Meh! You were lucky you came out intact from the last sea battle scene.
That sounds f-ing awesome!!! Is there an English version of that game and if yes where can I find it?

Rondodu
2013-09-10, 11:49 AM
That sounds f-ing awesome!!! Is there an English version of that game and if yes where can I find it?Unfortunately, I doubt there is one.

Geostationary
2013-09-10, 04:49 PM
Some translated Japanese RPGs I can think of that look cool are Tenra Bansho Zero (http://www.tenra-rpg.com/index.shtml) and Golden Sky Stories (http://starlinepublishing.com/). Tenra Bansho Zero takes place in a 'hyper-asian' (their words, not mine) sci-fi/fantasy setting, while Golden Sky stories has you play as animal spirits in slice-of-life adventures. The bits and pieces I've seen have all looked pretty good, but I'm not an expert by any stretch so I'd recommend checking out the links.

Grinner
2013-09-10, 07:14 PM
But, on the French scene, I know of:

There's also Ombres d'Esteren. I had the opportunity to read portions of the quickstart and was quite impressed. Had sort of a gothic fantasy thing going for it. Also, gasoline cults.


There's also Degenesis, a game set in a post-apocalyptic world with a mixture of Fallout and Warhammer 40K. The game is set in Europe and Africa. Big meteors have fallen and now their craters spit spores that change and despoil mankind. Also, a new ice age swallowed Nothern Europe New, pseudo-medieval cultures have arisen and battle for survival against each other and nature. The rest is the usual, strange cults, fanatical religions, lost tech, the works. Has a very strange and fascinating aesthetic that helps set it apart from the usual post-apocalyptic stuff.

I have that book. Lovely setting, wonderful artwork, and such a horrid system. Are these sorts of games popular in Germany?

GolemsVoice
2013-09-10, 07:32 PM
A friend of mine said more or less exactly the same about the game, yes.

Hm, I wouldn't say they're popular, but I've noticed that most countries have some pretty whacky RPGs, maybe because they developed (somewhat) independently of the American D&D, or maybe because making another D&D-clone wouldn't work, so you have to, and can, get creative.

Far as I can judge, which is not very far, Germans love systems a little bit on the complicated side, as exemplified by DSA, where EVERYTHING is written down and accounted for by the rules.

Daer
2013-09-10, 09:07 PM
One that i always have wanted to try out is finnish Ikuisuuden laakso (valley of eternity.)

It is penguin rpg. havent tried it myself but description sounds interesting

"Ikuisuuden Laakso, "The Valley of Eternity," is a place where penguins go to die. The endless glacier of Antarctica is a merciless enemy. Only the bravest of penguin heroes and the most malicious anti-penguins can survive it.

A penguin hero lives his life in solitude. He has seen things a common penguin can't even dream of. His fate is to perish, abandoned by his own tribe. Anti-penguin lives in the embrace of the glacier, but as long as warm blood flows through his veins, he can never truly be one with it.

The valley of eternity is a roleplaying game about heroism and the price you have pay for it. It contains fierce battles, epic adventures and troublesome philosophical choices.

The glacier always wins. "

Black Jester
2013-09-11, 01:22 AM
I have that book. Lovely setting, wonderful artwork, and such a horrid system. Are these sorts of games popular in Germany?

They were common enough to be lumped together under one lable, namely 'Neue Deutsche Endzeit' (should I translate that?). Djurdjevic, the same artist that created the artwork for DeGen previously worked on a similarly themed game, Endland, which was one of the first 'indy games' in Germany (it is also not very good and revels in its supposed shock value). There are even a good one I know of: Ratten! (The game where you play a not too sentient , non-anthropomorphic rat in a world were there are apparently no humans) is quite recommendable. There is also Frostzone (a game I know mostly about, because some strangers on the internet mocked it, but I guess any game that tries to include Soviet Megacorporations deserve that to a degree).

And German game design will almost infallibly focus either on a) being needlessly complicated and usually very rule-heavy (including most, if not all of the more popular publisher-owned titles), or b) overtly simple, abstract, and focused on one very particular gameplay to the degree of utter narrow-mindedness and doses of pretentiousness (the indy game scene) as a counter-reaction to the rule-heavy more popular games. There is no middle ground, at least among non-imported games.
So you have basically two kinds of game designers: Those who grew up on the more rule-heavy games, and either really enjoy them or can't think out of their articular box, and the inevitable counter-movement, who will go out of their way to deny the more rule-heavy games any redeeming qualities and who quote Forge articles with the conviction of new converts.


Oh, and apparently the German player base can be really conservative when it comes to their games. They don't like change that much. There was a time, when Vampire (oWoD) was the second or third most popular game in pretty much all (usually not very representative) surveys. NWoD wasn't accepted at all by that player base and the translation and publication of that game was discontinued relatively early on. Shadowrun was similar, but as extreme due to the significant changes from 3rd to 4th edition; it is still published (including the hilariously over the top German-only sourcebooks), but it is nowhere near the popularity levels it once had; and D&D 4e was the most blatant example: D&D was never that popular in Germany (until the publication of Pathfinder), but 4th edition failed so miserably, that there were only ever the core books of the German translation published.

I am also really not someone to judge the [I]I[/ 'I don't like different' players, after having refused to play both Shadowrun 4th edition and any NWoD game more than once.

Black Jester
2013-09-11, 01:27 AM
One that i always have wanted to try out is finnish Ikuisuuden laakso (valley of eternity.)

It is penguin rpg. havent tried it myself but description sounds interesting

"Ikuisuuden Laakso, "The Valley of Eternity," is a place where penguins go to die. The endless glacier of Antarctica is a merciless enemy. Only the bravest of penguin heroes and the most malicious anti-penguins can survive it.


Apparently that one got an English translation (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/103305/Valley-of-Eternity-(English)). Now, A friend of mine will spend the next one and a half year on a base in Antarctica. This is either the best or the most horrible present I could give her. Either way, tempting...

Delta
2013-09-11, 03:09 AM
I have that book. Lovely setting, wonderful artwork, and such a horrid system. Are these sorts of games popular in Germany?

In a way, there are. Since the millennium, there has been a trend towards what has been called "Neue Deutsche Endzeit" (New German Endtimes") because for some reason, postapocalyptic "artgasm" settings in which everything is sooooo dark and broken have been pretty popular here (Degenesis being the most popular example, but there have been others, Engel comes to mind or Opus Anima as well)

Thankfully, that has changed at least somewhat, since many of those games, while looking absolutely beautiful, were a complete pain in the ass to play (thinking of Degenesis where the setting is so broken that most of the ingame factions are barely functional as described and almost all of them would rather kill than work with each other, which as you can imagine makes for a somewhat difficult setting to actually play in)

Yora
2013-09-11, 03:33 AM
So those people didn't like new world of darkness and made their own games? Though I never heard of any of those.

Far as I can judge, which is not very far, Germans love systems a little bit on the complicated side, as exemplified by DSA, where EVERYTHING is written down and accounted for by the rules.
Even though it's supposedly a nasty stereotype, Germans like everything on the complicated side. Management simulation video games have always been huge here, as have the most fiddly RTSs.
We love us some damn fine bookkeeping... :smallamused:

Delta
2013-09-11, 04:12 AM
So those people didn't like new world of darkness and made their own games? Though I never heard of any of those.

Yeah, basically most of those were religious fans of the World of Darkness translations (for the record, the german translations of oWoD had been terribad, incomplete and basically a rip-off by a german company called "Feder & Schwert" which has had the most arrogant attitude toward its customers this side of Games Workshop, the only way this company kept in business was by catering to an almost religiously devoted crowd of Vampire fans who didn't know enough english to buy the originals) who then of course had to hate all things nWoD because "They're doing it wrong! WRONG!!!" so they made their own systems with settings that sound cool but don't work and characters that are completely powerless to do anything meaningful within that setting.

Black Jester
2013-09-11, 05:07 AM
Actually, Endland (arguably the first of these games) and DeGenesis predate the end of the original World of Darkness.
However, I think DeGen was never considered to be actually played. It is a book you can read (the fluff texts at least) and shudder over all the mysterrriouus hints and built-up for vague conspiracies and conflicts, but that's it.

And in my experience, there is no special love for more complex games for the sake of complexity, there is a certain for immersive and atmospheric games with a strong focus on characters: the characters are central for the plot and you have *tons* of options for fiddling with your character, in form of his skills, abilities, powers, equipment etc. The complexity is a result of this large number of options and the large number of options are seen as necessary to build characters to fit in the overall world, but otherwise the rules should be very, very simple. This is *very* obvious for DSA, where you have one of the most needlessly complicated character creation systems I have ever seen, this huuuuge list of (pseudo-)options for weapons and armor (because, as everybody knows, a battleaxe used by orcs, a battleaxe used by vikings and a standard battleaxe are *totally* different and each and everyone requires an own write-up) while most rules for the actual game, i.e. the interaction of the super-detailed characters with the world are either relatively vague, or treated as mostly optional (and are usually ignored as soon as they are inconvenient). In the combination, you have characters for whom you can determine which secret forging techniques they know to create new and awesome swords, or you can individually adjust each and every spell you know, but even for the very, very popular "the players are now rulers of their small domain" adventures there are no rules or explanations whatsoever concerning how you would rule a household or how even the most basic economy works - which is okay, if you run around killing bandits, but if you are supposed to be a petty warlord and the ruler of a barony, some sort of referential framework would have been nice.

That sounds a lot more bitter than it was supposed to.

Delta
2013-09-11, 05:17 AM
However, I think DeGen was never considered to be actually played. It is a book you can read (the fluff texts at least) and shudder over all the mysterrriouus hints and built-up for vague conspiracies and conflicts, but that's it.

Unfortunately, it WAS supposed to be played. I've talked to some of the people involved in writing Degenesis and they were fairly convinced to have created the holy grail of roleplaying games.



That sounds a lot more bitter than it was supposed to.

I feel your pain, I've been running a lot of different DSA campaigns in the last decade. I absolutely love the game but the rules are a pain in the ass. I can only hope that 5th edition will fix some of that, but I'm not exactly holding my breath.

The main problem of DSA has always been that a solid part of the core writers for the game come from the school of RPGers who think rules should only be guidelines to be ignored by everyone whenever they feel like it. While there's nothing wrong with this style of play, it should be obvious why the people who follow it don't make for the best rule writers.

GolemsVoice
2013-09-11, 06:34 AM
Really? For a game with writers who think of rules as guidelines, it sure has a lot of very strict ones. Want to gather herbs? Better hope you make that check +7 to even KNOW how your herb looks like, let alone gather it.

However, you have to give the writers credit in that a lot of rules are designed to be optional. All weapons have stats that represent how easy it is to attack with them, and how easy to defend, so a heavy, slow weapon might be good for breaking through defenses, it's not as good for the parade, while daggers can't even parry bigger weapons. You don't have to play with these rules, however, and I figure it's a nice difference from D&D, where you can find out your ideal weapon and armor and will never have any reason to get another type of weapon.

Still, what can I say, I love DSA. The world, at least. Come to think about it, maybe "brilliant setting, horrible rules" seems to be a common theme for German RPGs. But maybe that's true for a lot of smaller, more indy games

Yora
2013-09-11, 06:37 AM
That seems to be what most people say. "The setting is great!"

However, I never understood why. It seems completely generic.

Delta
2013-09-11, 06:44 AM
However, I never understood why. It seems completely generic.

It's pretty generic on a large scale, but the sheer amount of details that has gone into the setting is amazing, as a late convert to DSA (I've played over a decade worth of Shadowrun and WoD before ever playing DSA) I can attest that it's been the main draw for me.

GolemsVoice
2013-09-11, 06:48 AM
Compared with D&D and the likes? Nah, not really. And that's what I like about it. Faerûn for example has all kinds of crazy things, floating cities, magical forests, dragons and all manner of other monsters, and I love that. And DSA has that, too, to some extent, but I feel it's more... grounded. Realistic, for lack of a better word. If you eat bread, you know where it is coming from, and unlike D&D's economy, you can actually more or less imagine that the world would work like described. The whole setting feels more solid and well thought-out. And that's maybe part of the genericness, because many aspects are just copy-pasted from real-world cultures. I still think, however, that this is a better way to do it then just saying that there is a king in this realm, because it's fantasy, you have to have kings, right?

Delta
2013-09-11, 06:49 AM
Really? For a game with writers who think of rules as guidelines, it sure has a lot of very strict ones. Want to gather herbs? Better hope you make that check +7 to even KNOW how your herb looks like, let alone gather it.

Actually that's kind of making my point. The guy who wrote that paragraph probably never cared to have his players actually make that roll, so you know where that +7 came from? The writer just made it up and never cared to think for even one minute about whether that number made any sense.

GolemsVoice
2013-09-11, 06:55 AM
Hm, true. I was actually wondering if the writers ever used their own rules.

BWR
2013-09-11, 07:34 AM
The most interesting Norwegian RPG would be Draug (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10604.phtml), set to 1800s Norwegian folk tales.

Fabula is a very minimalistic system that never appealed to me much. To hear the author talk you'd think he reinvented the wheel to its perfect form, but some of us prefer a wheel with stuff attached (like carts, barrows, automobiles, etc.)

My personal favorite is Ballerinaprinsessen (The Ballerina Princess), a work in progress game by a friend. Basically, you play princesses of the Disney type, and your goal is to marry the prince. You each get an appropriate magic power (you might command birds, but not bats. You might have firework powers, but not fireball, etc.) The object is to navigate complex socials situations, physical challenges, etc. and present yourself to the prince in the best possible light and ruthlessly sabotage your rivals (the other players). You don't stoop to actual deadly violence but you might command your birds to poop on the poor girl putting on a song and dance routine.
Very rules light, almost to the point of non-existence.

Frozen_Feet
2013-09-11, 07:45 AM
Melidian is a Finnish elfgame, a prequel to aforementioned RAPIER and Elhendi, with brand new mechanics. Recently published.

Myrskyn aika ("Time of Storm") is both a rules-light tabletop system as well as a LARP setting by Mike Pohjola. Don't remember much of it except it had Jedi Trodai knight and various demons that were born out from a hell of flesh. Myrskyn Sankarit ("Heroes of Storm") takes place in the same setting, but has new mechanics. It's a tabletop starter set aimed for young players new to the hobby. In it, the players are virtuous rebels fighting against an oppressive empire. Made its way to the shelves through crowdfunding. Also recently published.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a D&D retroclone with an attitude. It is currently bursting with new content as the guy behind the product line has made an art out of crowdfunding things. The rules are available online for free, as is the adventure "Better than Any Man". Prepare to face a lot of political incorrectness.

Tähti ("Star") is a game about teenage mutant girl pop idols in near-future Finland. It has near-zero actual rules, instead using fortune cookies or I Ching for deciding course of the game. Prepare for childish crushes and lecherous middle-age band managers.

Ikuisuuden laakso is about pen... of damn it, someone got here first. :smalltongue: Now the surprise is all gone.

Noitahovi ("Court of Witches") draws inspiration from iron age Finland as well as the mongol empire. The setting is a hardcore matriarchy, with women hold both social and mystical power, with men having been relegated to mostly manual labor. It is all about struggle of power and underlings, in realm both earthly and preternatural. It has a small but tight ruleset, dedicated more to resolving conflicts by deciding who gets to tell what happens, rather than deciding what happens. Very storytelling oriented.

Drascin
2013-09-11, 08:09 AM
I'm not really very proud of the games made in my country, which is Spain, but for completeness sake...

Anima: Beyond Fantasy is a roleplaying game created by Spanish publisher Edge Entertainment. It was later translated into English, though from what I'm told the translation has some issues. It's a sort of fantasy kitchen sink type of game, with a somewhat shounen-anime-esque aesthetic. If you ask me, it's not very good, though I won't elaborate unless someone wants me to because I don't think its really all that pertinent here. On the other hand, it has an actually pretty good summoning system, which is a damn rarity in my experience in RPGs.

Aquelarre is a dark fantasy type of game, that plays in an old Iberian Peninsula of the XIIIth century where all the scary folk myths are true. It's very much the "Middle Ages as an age of darkness and ignorance" type of deal, where even admitting you know magic exists gets you hanged or burned or whatever the authority of the day feels is most appropiate, and the characters are more trying to scrap by than be glorious adventurers. It's old as **** and somewhat based on the mechanics of RuneQuest, IIRC. I don't know if there's a translation.

And then of course there are the parody games based on the humorous comics of Cels Piñol: Fanhunter (a sort of "geek power" meets Fallout meets Cyberpunk) and Fanpiro. These are super-simple and more similar to stuff like a tongue in-cheek Risus than anything. Hell, since Piñol's style is characters with huge noses, you actually have a Nose stat in your character sheet (it's a sort of Luck), which probably tells you about the level of seriousness inherent in the games :smalltongue:.

There's also the Alatriste RPG, which I'm told is actually pretty good, but I've never really played it.

Yora
2013-09-11, 08:30 AM
Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a D&D retroclone with an attitude. It is currently bursting with new content as the guy behind the product line has made an art out of crowdfunding things. The rules are available online for free, as is the adventure "Better than Any Man". Prepare to face a lot of political incorrectness.
Oh yes... "F--- for Satan" is an actual adventure module.

Grim_Wicked
2013-09-11, 08:59 AM
There are only a handful of Dutch RPGs, and most are probably not really well-known. There is Vreemde Tijden (Strange Times), Schimmen en Schaduwen (Ghosts and Shadows (roughly)) and Monsters en Magiërs (Monsters and Mages). The last of these is very rules-light, the second is the typical D&D clone, I guess (although I haven’t played it, so hit me if I’m wrong), and the first one is being developed as we speak. It’s meant to cover a wider spectrum of genres than S&S, apparently. I don’t think the Netherlands is very big on Dutch games, though.

Frozen_Feet
2013-09-11, 09:33 AM
Oh yes... "F--- for Satan" is an actual adventure module.

I am a proud owner.:smallbiggrin: Now I'm just waiting to spring it and Death Love Doom on unsuspecting players!:smalltongue:

Yora
2013-09-11, 09:38 AM
The sad thing about LotFP modules is, that they are pure GM indulgence, but don't actually have anything to do for players. Death Love Doom and The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time simple have freaky moments, but don't allow the players to do anyting about them. Death Frost Doom has the great gimick of the players either not waking any undead at all or thousands of them at once, but otherwise it's wandering through empty halls seeing weird pehenomenons without any context or explaination.

They are fun reads for GMs to salvage for ideas, but I don't think you can actually run them for players.

Frozen_Feet
2013-09-11, 10:13 AM
As far as LotFP modules I have ran go, the players never had a problem coming up for things to do themselves. (Grinding Gear, Hammer of Gods, Weird New World, Tower of Stargazer.) Stylistically Death Love Doom is similar to Tower of the Stargazer, and that one I've succesfully run four times.

It's kind of part of the game's philosophy. It is not the referee's job to come up with things to do, it's the players. With proactive players, the modules run smoothly. (Though in case of Death Love Doom, the adventure might be very short if someone decides to burn the mansion. Would very much be like my players.) Without them, well...

Rhynn
2013-09-11, 12:19 PM
The sad thing about LotFP modules is, that they are pure GM indulgence, but don't actually have anything to do for players. Death Love Doom and The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time simple have freaky moments, but don't allow the players to do anyting about them.

[...]

They are fun reads for GMs to salvage for ideas, but I don't think you can actually run them for players.

That's exactly how I treat LotFP modules. The famous ones are hard to fit into a game, because they will not just TPK the party, they will wreck the campaign/setting to some degree. (Also, they're pretty completely childish, and I'm just not juvenile enough to, say, run Death Love Doom when one of my players is a parent.) But they are full of good ideas. Admittedly, I have no idea whether Death Frost Doom's idea was stolen from the Dwimmermount campaign or the other way around, but there's like an 80% correspondence.

I think it's a testament to the strength of the ideas, though, that despite an annoyingly defensive authorial tone, horrible graphic design, and frequent childishness (which would have enchanted teenage me, sure), the brilliance still shines through. :smallamused:

Also, LotFP is intentionally very different from many other RPGs: it's a D&D retroclone played like Call of Cthulhu.

Black Jester
2013-09-11, 12:55 PM
The sad thing about LotFP modules is, that they are pure GM indulgence

Okay, that actually sounds inappropriately interesting. I usually don't share the fascination for the 'good old games of the 80s' movement (says the guy with the extensive HarnMaster collection), but indulgence has its appeal.


Also, LotFP is intentionally very different from many other RPGs: it's a D&D retroclone played like Call of Cthulhu.

sooo... the rules are about as refreshing as an instruction manual for the repair of 8mm cameras, the game is heavily railroaded towards the creation of style over substance spooky scenes, and the players are expected to be slightly masochistic?
:smalltongue:


I know, I shouldn't say anything about the whole retroclone thing. I know that a lot of people really enjoy these games, and that alone makes them great. I just don't share the appeal. Or I am just jealous that there are no retroclones of the edition *I* am nostalgic about, take your pick.
Call of Cthulhu though is a style over substance game for masochist players with an extended tolerance for railroading nonsense. Just take a look at the Orient Express Campaign.

Frozen_Feet
2013-09-11, 02:45 PM
The rules are actually pretty light and trimmed. It's a retroclone, sure, but what it tries to capture is the feel of old games, not their complexity or idiosyncracies. They're simpler and cleaner than OD&D.

The modules are also not very railroady. Better than any man and Weird New World are pretty much the opposite, being wide open sandboxes. Even the more scripted scenarios are intended to work as locations in a campaign that the players have option to visit or not at their leisure.

You are however spot-on about style-over-substance spooky things and player masochism. Just cross over. "slightly":smallamused:

I mean, the rules call out adventurers for being sociopathic murder hobos and all but ask "Why are you playing this, you maniac?" And some modules explicitly tell the GM he's little form of Richard for using them.

Rhynn
2013-09-11, 03:14 PM
sooo... the rules are about as refreshing as an instruction manual for the repair of 8mm cameras, the game is heavily railroaded towards the creation of style over substance spooky scenes, and the players are expected to be slightly masochistic?
:smalltongue:

Well, kinda, kinda, and absolutely. The rules are more like next to nonexistent (a feature in OSR, and a big plus in my book), and most of the modules are style over substance. (Again, not that bad of a thing.)

Basically, it's "weird fantasy" based on e.g. Clark Ashton Smith (a first generation Lovecraft disciple, actually invoked by name in several of Lovecraft's stories as an artist of the macabre), so the adventures are supposed to be more like horror scenarios.


I know, I shouldn't say anything about the whole retroclone thing. I know that a lot of people really enjoy these games, and that alone makes them great. I just don't share the appeal. Or I am just jealous that there are no retroclones of the edition *I* am nostalgic about, take your pick.

Which edition is that, out of curiosity? I thought there's retroclones of all of the... OD&D, B/X, BECMI, 1E... I guess there's none of 2E?

Black Jester
2013-09-11, 03:21 PM
There is Hackmaster, but I have trouble taking a game seriously that doesn't take itself very seriously. hackmaster would be okay if not for the recurring theme of being a joke.
No, my actual favorite version of D&D is (and i think I am the only one who ever said this): The player's option version of 2nd edition, especially the Skills and Powers book. You know, the most broken one ever released.

Rhynn
2013-09-11, 03:24 PM
Yeah, there's a conspicuous absence of retroclones for Player's Option. (And I think HackMaster 4th edition is 1E, what with the cavaliers, etc. 5th edition is more its own game in the vein of Dungeon Crawl Classics...)

Radar
2013-09-11, 04:15 PM
(...) Call of Cthulhu though is a style over substance game for masochist players with an extended tolerance for railroading nonsense. Just take a look at the Orient Express Campaign.

With one glorious exception (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson). You either know, what I'm linking, or simply have to read it - it's legendary, hilarious and crazy on many levels.

Arbane
2013-09-11, 04:23 PM
That's exactly how I treat LotFP modules. The famous ones are hard to fit into a game, because they will not just TPK the party, they will wreck the campaign/setting to some degree.


And if the GM does the wrong thing, they lose the ability to GM anything ever again! (http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/discussion/topic/388/monolith-from-beyond-space-and-trolling-and-thoughts-on-the-module/)

I'm pretty certain LoFP's writer is just trolling all of gamerdom.

Grinner
2013-09-11, 04:29 PM
And if the GM does the wrong thing, they lose the ability to GM anything ever again! (http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/discussion/topic/388/monolith-from-beyond-space-and-trolling-and-thoughts-on-the-module/)

Hey...Now there's a new idea. King of the Mountain, D&D-style. :smallbiggrin:

Black Jester
2013-09-11, 04:38 PM
With one glorious exception (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson). You either know, what I'm linking, or simply have to read it - it's legendary, hilarious and crazy on many levels.


I never understood what's so funny about trolling your fellow players. Gleefully bragging about how you have ruined your fellow player's game just doesn't make you that sympathetic. It makes you look like a horrible person that don't deserve to be a part of any RPG group (or any other social event targeted at having fun as a group) in the first place.

I mean I understand the loathing for the 'oh look, it is seafood, and it is not quite fresh: -1 SAN' CoC gamemastering, especially when combined with the always popular 'you can't win' option, but - and that's the important part - that is what Call of Cthulhu is about for many players. It's the gallows humor "how are we gonna die this time" type of game. And you don't need to appreciate it (I don't), but if the group has agreed upon this style, you either make the compromise and go along, or you leave.

Rhynn
2013-09-11, 05:56 PM
And if the GM does the wrong thing, they lose the ability to GM anything ever again! (http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/discussion/topic/388/monolith-from-beyond-space-and-trolling-and-thoughts-on-the-module/)

Weirdly enough, that part was more juvenile, in my opinion, than the entirety of Death Love Doom. :smallconfused: