Has anyone played the Wheel of Time

[drothgery]

I ran a PBP game between here and an MSN group for a few years, which got through the first chapter of Prophecies of the Dragon. I ended up houseruling things a lot (mostly because the game made some distinctions where there wasn't a real difference -- the initiate/wilder break, much like the Jedi Consular/Jedi Guardian break, never made much sense to me, so I combined them into one class with a few paths within it).

Same deal, though -- channelers could really dominate things when they could use the Power effectively, and were always frustrated when they couldn't.

 

[Evilusion]

Well right now my DM is running us in the WoT world. So far it is fun. Basically all the characters are from Frogotten Realms and used a old portal stone to excape from 10,000 orc. That is where we ended up. Yes casters can dominate the scene if you let them. This is world where you really need to roleplay. As one poster said lots of travelling and down time. Plus having people who read the book helps a whole lot.

Evilusion

 

[Ealli]

I played a couple sessions via a message board. The GM played a little fast and loose with the channeling rules so the Wilder was a bit extra powerful. It didn't last long before the GM abandoned the game however.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Hrm...perhaps that's why our group didn't do so well, we had one channeler who was kind of random in his attendance.

We made it through Prophecies of the Dragon, with an over 100% casualty rate. (I.e., every single party member had died at least once, and been replaced.) The remaining characters promptly found a place to operate an inn, having a lot of money and nothing to spend it on.

Brad

 

[Wik]

We ran it for a bit, with two male channelers (one wilder, one initiate) and two warrior characters. It was pretty fun when I was running an ad-hoc campaign against whitecloaks, but it all disintegrated after I tried running Prophecies of the Dragon... one of the first encounters (against a swarm of rats!) wound up killing the group, and the game.

That being said, I love the rules of the game, especially in how it utilizes regional feats.

 

[Qwillion]

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

I ran a 2 year campaign, and wrote and edited one of the fan based netbooks after WotC did not pursue the licence, which was really sad, and I was supprised as I thought sales would have supported another go at it.

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.

Prophecies of the Dragon is junk, I hate to say it, but basicly it was too many hands in the cooking pot trying to cook too fast and when a cook does not do his part or does a lousy job, the best editor in the world with a deadline that is coming on way to soon cannot save it.; The book is what it is, Junk, It also completely goes against cannon, plus it has some of the worst stat blokcs ever. The fan community was working on a rewrite last I heard.

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

(shout out to Randy Madden, aka Eosin the Red, for still supporting it for so many years.)

I really recomend downloading the fan based netbooks, as there is too little within the one book (Under the Dragons Banner and Age of Illusion too name two of them.) from his websight.

It is one of the best character driven settings I have played in, Licence product designers don't get enough credit they did a hell of a job with this book, you have no idea how tough it is to design something that is already defined (and that definition is unbalancing) and you have to balance it.

Charles Ryan, Ross Isaacs, Christian Moore, Owen K.C. Stephens, Rateliff , and Steven Long
did something amazing with this book,

I wish Star Wars was not the only licenced product you were doing,

the only one that has been as close to this cool is The Game of Thrones and it's sad it went the way it did

Just like D20 Harry Potter went the way it did

 

[Thunderfoot]

Role-playing is a must. Combat is onthe light side but deadly when it happens (as it should be to keep the spirit of the books.) The monsters are stronger than the PCs and once 'named' monsters start appearing, things can go south in a fight very, very quickly.

All that being said, the story-telling aspect of the game can be very involving and I haven't been so attached to a single character the way this game kind of forces you to be for a long time (not since 1E AD&D). If you have read the books and know the quirks of the regional personea of your character, then it can be a riot. I enjoyed it, as a matter of fact everyone in our group enjoyed, except the one person that hadn't read the books, he was lost, all the time...

 

[Evilhalfling]

loved the setting book, the regional feats and skills formed the model for my Home brew game
only found one group to play it and they were rubish. hack and slash was just a waste of the setting, and the backstories/ personalities of the characters.

only played two games and so I never got a handle on the way channelers played.

 

[scourger]

We played some Wheel of Time. One of our group ran part of Propeshies of the Dragon for a few months. The channeler and the armsman were the dominant characters. The game felt a little broken in that respect--if your character wasn't a channeler or an armsman you were secondary--which was confirmed by some others at our FLGS. The adventure felt like a side story to something presented in the novels, too. I tried to get into the setting and even read the first book. I was on my third character and missed the last two sessions, though; so I don't really know why it didn't last. That DM won't bring it back.

If I were to attempt it, I would look at running the module as adapted to core D&D rules. Other ideas in this thread sound good, too, especially other limitations on channelers.

 

[Daebryn]

I was a player in an online IRC game for a while.

The actual game took place on one of the numerous Mirror Worlds accessible by portal stone.

In the version of the world we played in, the Trollocs were never fully pushed back to the Blight at the end of the Trolloc Wars. Instead, many Trolloc tribes were scattered throughout the Westlands and wandering bands continued to prey on villages, towns, and caravans.

Also, the Seal on the Dark One's prison was weaker, and though the Forsaken could not escape it yet, they were able to reach out and influence events and possess followers, though not at their full power. The Taint also affected both males and females but was slightly washed out and was only about half as affective as in the real world. Thus there were still both male and female Aes Sidai.

The game was set right before the Aiel War. It was actually a pretty fun game.