Has anyone played the Wheel of Time

[Charwoman Gene]

I've read a few of Robert Jordan's books, and those from which he got most of his ideas *Dune: the works by Frank Herbet*

He didn't steal most of his ideas from Dune. Just two big ones.
He also stole from Tolkien and a few other places.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Our game was pretty fun. We had one male channler and an Aes Sedi NPC we were escorting around.

We actually adventured around the Great Hunt for the horn. We were looking for something else and used that as a rouse so nobody would be suspicious as to what we were really after. It lasted like 5 games when the DM ran out of ideas. (Like they all do when I get to play)

Holy cow, that sounds exactly like the year+ long WHEEL OF TIME campaign I played in back in 2001/2002. Except the Aes Sedi wasn't an NPC (she was played by my wife).

All in all it was stupid fun; I've never read/don't want to read the books, but we had a lot of fun.

 

[Jhaelen]

So....what happened? Tell me the good, the bad and the ugly? How did you set the plot?

Well, I played it. Once. It was the shortest campaign I ever played. In other words, it didn't go well at all

How did you control the male casters?

We didn't have any male casters. Trouble was, noone wanted to play a female caster, either...

What did you do about the lack of magical healing?

We died.

And offter any advice you have, thanks.

Unless your players are die-hard fans of the setting: Choose a different one.
Now honestly: The setting MIGHT work for a different rpg system, but using the standard d20 ruleset it's pretty awful.

About the books: I've read the first three. It started quite promising until the author realized he'd struck a rich vein and decided not to advance the story by more than a chapter per book to ensure he wouldn't have to think about another story as long as he lived.

 

[William drake]

He didn't steal most of his ideas from Dune. Just two big ones.
He also stole from Tolkien and a few other places.

What didn't he rip off? And what were the Two you spoke of?

And to prove that he stole from Dune, here are some points:
Aes Sedi-Beni Jesirit
Aiel-Fremen
Onepower-Weirding Way
All Women, men go nuts-All women, men go nuts
Rand Al`thor, one man, becomes prophet: male Aes Sedi-Paul Atreties, one man, becomes prophet: the Suprem Being.
Trollocs-Sardukar
Blademasters-Sword Master of the Noble House
Aiel born- "knew their ways as if born to them"
father killed-father killed

and there are others.


Also, both stories take place after a time where both men and women could do the same power, but after a horrible period in history, only women continued because men went MAD.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

Owen K.C. Stephens isn't your name on that book lol

Well, yeah. That's one of the main reasons I've run a few games with it. first came playtesting, and then there were a lot of people who wanted me to run a game since I was "so familiar" with the rules. :-D

The book itself is wonderful. of all the Book to Game experiances I had it was the best. You have to use the social constraints on channelers or they do dominate the game, when they do Gholams and people with Fox head medallions are good to throw in. Also be very careful if you make a mistake, you don't get to ressurect a character, he is just plain dead, or worse balefired and never existed.

All good points. The game is both greatly aided, and hindered, by efforts to stay close to the source material. I have found it works best for people who are excited by the Books, and want to play in that world. It's less successful (though I've been involved in some great games like this) when the rules are used for something different than the original source.

The WotC board peps all moved to www.callofthehorn.com and still play the game and write material for the game.

Obviously fan material can be a huge help to a game of this type, and I think it's a great resource for anyone actually looking at playing this still.

 

[Voadam]

Algai'd'siswai won't feel book-correct unless you assume they're all several levels higher than local warriors. I now beleive the class to be slightly underpowered even just compared to the armsman and woodsman.

Looking back on this now, do you think Aiel should be an LA race and made tougher, or just be higher level characters in general.

 

[FreyaCuladin]

I played in a Wheel of Time game on-and-off for 7 years. We used multiple different systems before settling on a conversion of Earthdawn. (for the record, Ars Magica, Earthdawn, d20, then back to Earthdawn) To us, d20 just didn't lend itself to heroic, yet somewhat realistic fantasy.

Our core party consisted of 4 players (2 female channelers, a wolfbrother, and a lucky roguish fellow) and some NPCs (a warder/swordmaster, a female wolfbrother, and eventually a barbarian horseman). Our characters came from an original society isolated from the main Randland...as such, the need to avoid Aes Sedai notice was even more important which worked nicely to limit outrageous behavior and massive displays of channeling might. Compound that with the fact that our channelers were not Aes Sedai; they had no oaths to check their behavior. The world has plenty of built in stigmas, traditions, and so forth to cause your players headaches if they don't obey them, so as a GM, make sure to enforce them. Maybe not enough so nothing can get done, but enough so channelers (and other troublemakers) are held to good behavior.

The thing I hear most when people talk about WoT games is that the channelers dominate combats...this was rarely the case in our games. Not that channelers weren't powerful, but it could be a slow process to first embrace the source and then get a weave off, while the other folks might already be on their second attacks. Not to mention GM tools like combat ranging through multiple rooms, the plot causing the party to be forcably separated, and so forth. I keep forgetting as well, in our Earthdawn conversion, opposing weave tests were not uncommon (trying to shield, trying to cut a weave, etc). So, while two channelers were engaged in a One Power contest of Wills, they were effectively out of the combat until one succeeded or some outside force acted on either participant.

Damage and healing are handled a little differently in Earthdawn, allowing for penalties when wounds are taken (instead of d20's system of being 100% effective until you are down and dying). Add in herbalism-aided mundane healing, recovery tests (think rolled recovery of hp 1-2 per day), and Healing weaves...so while combats could be deadly, there were plenty of healing options available to characters. Granted, a decent amount of rest was also needed after bad fights to rest up and heal normally. (we also kept true to the books and channelers could not Heal themselves) And keep in mind that things like Balefire are exceedingly rare and should not be a standard concern for your characters, nor should it be a part of their arsenal.

FYI, I also helped edit one of the netbooks Quillion mentioned.

Sidenote: if you still play d20 WoT, considering incorporating the new Luck feats in Complete Scoundrel for Lucky-type characters.

 

[Aaron L]

We played for a while. I was a male Channeler, and as we were all big fans the books, we enjoyed it a lot (and my portrayal of going slightly mad was understood by everyone.)

Overall we liked it a lot.

 

[Ron]

I played for about an year and I enjoyed it greatly. However, our DM housed ruled the inclusion of a seventh ability, Power, to take care of One Power manipulation and saves (any weave against a person would be resist with the Power stat bonus, instead of the appropriated Con, Wis, or Dex bonuses).

Wizards also released an adventure, Prophecies of the Dragon, but I found it rather weak.

 

[Desdichado]

I've become very disillusioned with the novel series, but I'd love to use the book and mechanics with a homebrew setting.