TDE - The Dark Eye (German System)

[Ellye]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye

Has anyone here read or played this system? I didn't knew about it until recently, when I started playing Drakensang: The River of Time, a computer RPG that uses it.

From the wikipedia description and from my experience in said computer game, it seems like a decent system with a pretty interesting, if cliche, game world.

[DeltaEmil]

It's a nice quaint if average setting. The rules on the other hand have taken a sharp turn towards far more complicated and unnecessary details since TDE went 4th edition. It's like they tried to combine Shadowrun, Rulemaster and D&D 3rd edition at once in a non-intuitive way. You'll have to look at an xp-chart all the time if you want to increase any stats, the rules aren't balanced even amongst "professions" of the same type, magic-users rule, alll others without magical or divine powers drool, and the skill system is of course the "roll 3d20, compare each roll with the appropriate attribute, how many points are still left at the end".

However, that does not mean that the game is unplayable. You just have to be prepared for the increased complexity, and know that the rules are wedged together with the game setting.

[Zombimode]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye

Has anyone here read or played this system? I didn't knew about it until recently, when I started playing Drakensang: The River of Time, a computer RPG that uses it.

From the wikipedia description and from my experience in said computer game, it seems like a decent system with a pretty interesting, if cliche, game world.

Also, dont take the Drakensang series as an accrurate representation of the setting.

But it depends on what you mean with "cliche".
If you mean "stereotyped", thats a "feature" of the Drakensang series, not of the setting per se.

If you think its cliche because it features Humans as the dominant civilized race, gruff and mining dwarfs, woodsy and aloof elves, dragons, orks etc. ... well while you can characterize Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms with the same simple terms as above, Aventurien (sorry, I dont know if its called this way in the english version) is vastly different in its feel and dynamics.

[Winterwind]

Used to play it way back in the 3rd edition for a while (before me and my friends came up with a system of our own for our fantasy RPG purposes). But then, I think it would be pretty difficult to find German roleplayers who are not familiar with it to at least some degree; it is the biggest RPG in Germany by far, completely overshadowing D&D and any other game.

[Morty]

The only contact I've had with the system was the Drakensang video game, which left me decidedly underwhelmed. Then again, it was the writing, or lack thereof, that disappointed me, not the system which looked decent. And from what I've heard about it on these forums both the setting and the system sould pretty good. Getting those books in Poland would probably prove impossible, though...

[Winterwind]

Well, you could order it from Amazon; I think in order to have it deliver to Poland you have to have a credit card though, direct bank transfer is, by my understanding, available only to the residents of the country of the respective Amazon branch.

[Eldan]

Eh.

I tried it once, and utterly disliked it, though I think a lot of that was the DMs fault.

Two problems mainly:

"Your character can't act that way! The book says character class X always acts in way Y in situation Z!"

and

"No, you can't do that. The adventure says the players can't go that way."

After the adventure ended with some high level super story important character coming in and solving all the problems, I quit.

[DeltaEmil]

Must have been a really really old adventure module from the earliest days of TDE. But then again, weren't most adventures of whatever game system rail-roady as that?

By the way, who or what was the uberimportant NPC? Was it the "hot" lesbian/bisexual sorceress chick, Nahema? She was the favorite DMPC of the game's creator, sort of like a female Mordenkainen or a female Elminster, who sometimes shapechanges into a male form, just because...