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Five Things I Love About Shadow Of The Demon Lord
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<blockquote data-quote="DerKastellan" data-source="post: 8118124" data-attributes="member: 6902208"><p>We played SotDL for several levels, and the character build options seemed imbalanced and impractical, also counterintuitive for people with a d20 background. I have played many different kinds of RPGs, and I had great expectations for SotDL on its release, also had a Warhammer fan among the players, and we ditched it for 5e after several sessions/levels and didn't really look back.</p><p></p><p>Trying to remember how it was, the class system felt like building very narrow characters in spite of many choices that could do very little barely well. If I remember the class names wrong, it's been a few years... The fighter build needed to be min-maxed right away or would be worse than other classes at fighting (like it couldn't wear heavy armor unless going for one particular build). The rogue was OP. The cleric wasn't a good healer, the wizard or magician or what it was called could do it better - you were better off in general building a healing wizard. After a few sessions I tried to map out the magical options by class and these didn't feel like characters who could together comprise a broad set of problem-solving options. They seemed like two-trick ponies at best.</p><p></p><p>Also, some rules-as-written were ambiguous or poorly worded, I went and asked questions at the recommended channels. I never find it a good sign if people are recommending looking at the supposed intent of a rule for basic stuff, usually this is reserved for more complex rules interactions. And if the rules author intends something to be taken by its intent more than by its exact text, it would be good to write this explicitly - including the intent of a particular rules element - in the text. Given Schwalb's design chops and his involvement in 5e I was very surprised at this, actually. </p><p></p><p>Having had this experience, I had similar expectations with Numenera given the limited range of powers players get (and given how monotonous the Tides of Numenera video game was), but players were more pleased with what they had on average, nobody seemed to stick as OP or the opposite, and cyphers can keep the game fresh. </p><p></p><p>I've played Warhammer FRPG since in 2e and 4e and while I'm not a big fan, its character build system seems to fit better there than SotDL's does. (Just harping on this since SotDL claimed this as inspirations and got me interested because of its class system mostly.)</p><p></p><p>I also saw good in the game, maybe that's why I was so disappointed. I appreciate its relative simplicity, the fact that unlike other games it does not shy from providing a way to match challenges to the group (looking at DCC or Savage Worlds here where clearly all modules follow some guideline but they give us very little to work with as GMs), the atmospheric supplements, the pricing, and that it has for example a level 0. I would have preferred to stick with it had I not run into these stumbling blocks.</p><p></p><p>It's my belief that all of this is fixable and adjustable. The game might actually be a bit better if it had not had such a plethora of character options your campaign is unlikely to use from the outset. It certainly was an ambitious project. I will still check out Shadows of the Weird Wizard just in case.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DerKastellan, post: 8118124, member: 6902208"] We played SotDL for several levels, and the character build options seemed imbalanced and impractical, also counterintuitive for people with a d20 background. I have played many different kinds of RPGs, and I had great expectations for SotDL on its release, also had a Warhammer fan among the players, and we ditched it for 5e after several sessions/levels and didn't really look back. Trying to remember how it was, the class system felt like building very narrow characters in spite of many choices that could do very little barely well. If I remember the class names wrong, it's been a few years... The fighter build needed to be min-maxed right away or would be worse than other classes at fighting (like it couldn't wear heavy armor unless going for one particular build). The rogue was OP. The cleric wasn't a good healer, the wizard or magician or what it was called could do it better - you were better off in general building a healing wizard. After a few sessions I tried to map out the magical options by class and these didn't feel like characters who could together comprise a broad set of problem-solving options. They seemed like two-trick ponies at best. Also, some rules-as-written were ambiguous or poorly worded, I went and asked questions at the recommended channels. I never find it a good sign if people are recommending looking at the supposed intent of a rule for basic stuff, usually this is reserved for more complex rules interactions. And if the rules author intends something to be taken by its intent more than by its exact text, it would be good to write this explicitly - including the intent of a particular rules element - in the text. Given Schwalb's design chops and his involvement in 5e I was very surprised at this, actually. Having had this experience, I had similar expectations with Numenera given the limited range of powers players get (and given how monotonous the Tides of Numenera video game was), but players were more pleased with what they had on average, nobody seemed to stick as OP or the opposite, and cyphers can keep the game fresh. I've played Warhammer FRPG since in 2e and 4e and while I'm not a big fan, its character build system seems to fit better there than SotDL's does. (Just harping on this since SotDL claimed this as inspirations and got me interested because of its class system mostly.) I also saw good in the game, maybe that's why I was so disappointed. I appreciate its relative simplicity, the fact that unlike other games it does not shy from providing a way to match challenges to the group (looking at DCC or Savage Worlds here where clearly all modules follow some guideline but they give us very little to work with as GMs), the atmospheric supplements, the pricing, and that it has for example a level 0. I would have preferred to stick with it had I not run into these stumbling blocks. It's my belief that all of this is fixable and adjustable. The game might actually be a bit better if it had not had such a plethora of character options your campaign is unlikely to use from the outset. It certainly was an ambitious project. I will still check out Shadows of the Weird Wizard just in case. [/QUOTE]
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