Forked Thread: Das Schwarze Auge [The Dark Eye], your experiences?

[Jhaelen]

The monster question is a hard one because of this: there are not a lot real "monsters" in modern TDE left. Oh sure, you have a big book full of herbs, plants, animals, mystic creatures, complicated rules for fighting flying enemies and cooking up herbal poisons etc. But monsters?
Well, once upon a time, when TDE was heavily inspired by D&D, the creators decided that monsters were stupid without logic and backstory. So every race, creature, dragon, shambling thing, tentacled monstrosity etc. was changed and rewritten to become an organic part of the world. No longer "monsters" in the D&D sense, they became a part of the world as such. And sometimes you have to fight them.

Yep, the take on monsters really showcases the differences between D&D and DSA/TDE.

I recently borrowed 'Zoologica Botanica' and it's the complete opposite of a D&D Monster Manual. The 'monster' entries are more like D&D's ecology articles in Dragon magazine plus supplemental rules.

For example, there's about a dozen pages on horses: How to care for them, how to train them, personality traits(!), etc. There's descriptions for three different kinds of rabbits!

Some of the 4E critics who didn't like the monster manual should really have a look at this

 

[Thanee]

Some of the 4E critics who didn't like the monster manual should really have a look at this

Just avoid looking at the cover.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Heh, yes, the reprint cover was spectacularly bad - though it was one of the first products released under Ulisses, and they took a lot of flak for that. And you have to hand it to them: they are responsive to criticism. I mean, you can flame the boss of the company on their messageboard if you are angry about something: That´s what i call customer service.

To try a balanced approach again: It´s wonderful to know everything about the different kinds of trees on the whole continent and so on, but some of the rules in the book are problematic: simply too crunchy, too simulationist, getting on your nerves. And always following the basic tenet: if you´re inexperienced in TDE, prepare to fail a lot.
Just don´t make the mistake i did and play the game with a DM who insists to use ALL the rules ALL at once.
The fluff is top-notch.