I was at the V-Con in Villingen this weekend. I arrived Saturday around 17:00 and stayed until Sunday 17:00. It’s interesting to note that most Germans play Das Schwarze Auge (DSA), aka. The Dark Eye.
No Dungeons & Dragons… 🙂 Strange to think that many German-speaking players have no idea who Monte Cook is, who have never heard of Eberron, Greyhawk, and the Forgotten Realms.
I took along the German translation of the M20 rules, empty character sheets, equipment list, and two adventures.
Here’s how the session went, from the EN World thread:
There were about 20 adventurers present in the hall where the baron announced the prize, and the baron’s hunter offered a little map showing the are north of the Rinau river with of the four farms and two lodges burnt. While travelling, getting lost, fighting woodland creatures, and trying to storm the castle, the other adventurers offered a convenient means of getting help & healing.
My three level 1 players (two fighters and a mage) finally found the help of another party of four including a cleric, but even with their help, fighting stick-men in the forest, dire rats, and small monstrous spiders proved to be too much. When the goblins finally fought back, throwing javelins from the walls and with a sortie on wolf-back, the party managed to shoot down a wolf rider, fight back the others, bandage the fallen goblin, and retreat back into the forest. When threatened, the goblin mentioned the drow hiding beneath the castle, and access to a large city underground.
At this point, my party had been hit too hard, and felt their doom approaching in large strides. They returned to the baron, told him what they knew, handed over the goblin, got a reward of 50gp for their pains, and gave up.
I think the straw that broke their back was the goblin cook evading all attacks and striking them with his pan while calling for help…
Here’s what I wrote on the EN World M20 thread regarding the M20 rules:
Some people wanted to play Das Schwarze Auge exclusively and gave M20 a pass. Other’s liked the idea of a homebrew. One of the D&D properties that is part of M20 made little sense to some of the players: Weak mages at low levels. Tied to that, loosing hit-points for spell casting was not well received. Even the one player who knew D&D in and out felt somehow constrained by it, always wondering whether spending those hit-points was actually worth it. This same player also wondered about warriors and claimed that magic users wearing armor and fighting would be much better off. (But he played a fighter anyway.) I remained unconvinced and continue to believe that the system works well.
The simple character creation was well received. Combat and skill checks were well received.
We had no fighter with multiple attacks or STR ≥ 17 with a two-handed weapon, so there was no discussion of lower-level fighters being overpowered.
As a DM, I think the party was too weak without any healing powers, and fighting against rats (even dire rats) and having to retreat was frustrating for players. Similarly, the party lost its bearing in the alluvial forest and I wanted to take the opportunity to have them meet stick men, angry stone-throwing trees and finally the wicker king. If played well, I thought those woodland creatures might make good allies against the goblins. But the players did not want to move to the west when the stick men tried to prevent them from moving north towards the heart of the forest. Instead, they pulled out torches and fought them with fire. Even when they later found the friendly party of four to help them out, they didn’t think of finding more friends, and were thus unable to make significant progress.
Unfortunately, the low-key end of the game was entirely my fault and had nothing to do with the rules used.
Things to remember:
#RPG #Con #Villingen #V-Con
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Strange. I’ve never heard of The Dark Eye until now. The wikipedia entry makes it sound great; I’m going to have to track down an English copy now.
– GreyWulf 2007-02-05 13:09 UTC