The Witcher Pen & Paper

[huber1989.365]

The Witcher Pen & Paper

Hi folks,

my fiancé and I have discovered our passion for pen & paper (the ancient AD&D 1st edition in our case) just recently and have done a few rounds with family & friends already. But we both came to the conclusion that we don't really enjoy the lore and world of AD&D and decided to try and do a semi-adaptation of the world of The Witcher using the AD&D rules.

For now we thought of avoiding witchers as an available player class altogether because that would require a lot of work and knowledge, as well as balancing which we probably wouldn't be able to do and right now aren't willing to invest the needed time for anyway. We're not sure how to deal with magic in general as of yet either, but since we haven't really touched the subject it might be easier than expected.

Okay, now to the real thing ...

First of all, I've read about a pen & paper adaptation of The Witcher which seems to haven been released in Polish only. My first question would be if anybody owns that and would potentially be willing to translate some stuff for us into English or help with problems we're coming up with. I don't know which kind of rule-set is used but it might be helpful to have some kind of established source if we try to do an adaptation.

Secondly I'm simply looking for advice, ideas and similar things. Right now we're mostly working on a "monster's manual" which relies heavily on the books as well as the wiki and the game's bestiarium and we'll try to simply adapt AD&D's monster statistics to similar monsters in the witcher world, which should hopefully make sure that the balancing won't be a mess. On the other hand we've started to create a first campaign which will take place in the southern parts of the northern kingdoms, probably just north/north east of Toussaint. Since my fiancé is doing the details for that one (she wants to be GM) I don't know to much about that to avoid spoilers, but it will most likely be some kind of treasure hunt in old Elvish ruins.

If anybody else has ever done something similar we'd appreciate any content input of cause, since this will most likely be an astonishing amount of work.

Most of all right now we could use somebody with an in-depth knowledge of the AD&D rule-sets, preferably 1st edition (although we'd be willing to adapt some parts of the 2nd edition if it makes sense - I've read somewhere that a lot of rules are better thought out) who would potentially be willing to help us keep our amateurish adaptation balanced and fun; basically some kind of proofreading, since we're not that deep into AD&D (yet).

Thanks in advance for any help, it will be much appreciated!

 

[jerf.674]

Bara_no_Hime from Escapist Magazine forums has done this kind of thing, you can read her retelling of the adventure she made in this thread: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.404351.19779445 (starting from post 478 ). Try to contact her, she might be able to give you advice/material. She used modified Pathfinder rules.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

I used to PnP, and I remember how much fun it was, so good luck to you with your quest hopefully you'll find the aid you seek, 'cos it sounds like great thing to do.
I'd help if I could, but I don't speak Polish and all I really recall of the rules is it usually all comes down to either:

 

[Blothulfur]

I'd go with second edition, it's basically just a round-up of all the rules and stuff that accumulated in the various optional rulebooks of first edition, you can pick and choose what you want to use from there. Personally before starting a campaign in your own world (or that of the Witcher) i'd start off with a few roughly linked together adventures in a gameworld that you do like.

The list here is massive:
Greyhawk (the original AD&D gameworld) and Forgotten Realms though different both represent the vanilla aspects of AD&D, powerful wizards, huge dungeons and evil gods etcetera.

Ravenloft is a gothic horror setting based on Frankenstein, Dracula and all those great old stories, personally I think a Witcher would work bloody well in this setting, constantly trying to avoid the attention of the dark powers.

Dragonlance is a romanticised low level gameworld of Dragons, Knights, Elves and religion.

Dark Sun is a very interesting setting, it is set on a dying world blasted by a massive sun and leached of its life by the Sorceror King's who rule most of the known world, there are many unusual and exotic monsters and races to interact with, and even the old races are strange and different from their counterparts in other realities.

Birthright was a great setting that mixed massive battles with the usual roleplaying of AD&D, the land was ruled over by ancient bloodlines that wielded fiercesome powers bestowed on their ancestors when they took part in a great battle between the gods, the setting was very well realised and realistic.

Last but not least is Planescape, an odd setting that revolves around Sigil, the city at the centre of the AD&D Multiverse (supposedly) and its enigmatic all powerful ruler, the Lady of Pain, who has power over gods and seemingly all creation, but remains silent and unworshipped. This City touches all things for an infinite number of doors lead from here to every point in reality. The above settings are merely backward little planes of existence to the native Sigillian, hardly worth mentioning, and up here in the Upper Planes it is not heroics or good and evil that define ones actions but more your personal philosophy and beliefs. Planescape: Torment the video game is a perfect introduction to this setting.

Once you've run through a half dozen adventures and grasped the quite simple rules of 1st or 2nd edition you'll have no problem expanding on them and changing what you like as you wish, it's all quite simple and very easy to alter.

 

[volsung]

I agree with everything Blothulfur said and would like to point out that learning the D&D setting and rules is exactly how it sounds like: you'll be studying D&D. There are a bunch of computer games based on Dungeons and Dragons but if you want an intensive course on AD&D 2nd Edition I'd say Baldur's Gate II is the best way to go. Play it a couple of times, try to understand most of what's going on, and you're set. Planescape: Torment is a little more flexible and a perfect introduction to the Planescape setting, and an extension of general D&D overall. It is better enjoyed with previous knowledge of D&D, as it references a whole lot of planes and creatures and things.

I actually really like AD&D 2nd Edition. In the words of a guy I know who is a total D&D dork, 2nd ed. plays more like a book, while 3rd Ed. and newer play more like a video game. After the 4th Ed. D&D apparently became highly streamlined and heavily modified, so many people switched to Pathfinder. Maybe that is another good pointer.

 

[SMiki55]

Yes, there is a cool old Witcher RPG, but only in Polish. It's called "Wiedźmin: Gra Wyobraźni" ("The Witcher: A Game of Imagination").

There was planed a 2nd edition of this game, but never released.

Some time ago I wrote e-mail to one of authors. I mentioned about possibility of finish up 2nd edition and translate it into other lanquages by CD Projekt Red. He was interested, but there is a lot of work with finish main rulebook. Unfortunelly, his mail adress does not work from two months

 

[Glaroug.531]

Ah graph paper maps, paper weight dragons and writing campaign prose instead of English papers I've just a mite of experience with AD&D when it comes to pen and paper. I played mostly Savage Worlds (great base system full rule book ~5 dollars to boot ) 3rd and some 4th edition.

Monster conversion should be pretty easy and fun, but making a witcher could be a bit tricky, but sounds incredibly awesome to make. How are you dealing with magic? Are you using AD&D rules?

For witchers, it might be kind of cool to do some mixed classes. Say, start off with some lowly level 1 fighter. When you mighty wife sees fight, have him go through some witcher training in the form of a test or quest earn some signs and take a level in sorcerer....or something. When he is ready let him go through the trail of the grasses. Perhaps this takes the form of a mini quest or other challenging test.

Or create the race "Mutant" sexy attribute modifiers and skills bonuses say...starting level....4ish. The Witcher class can prepare potions like spells before battle and use signs in melee range with little or no penalty depending. Armor restricted to leather since we know witchers really on speed.

Or whatever you want Potions can be treated like spell preparations and can also progress like spells (e.g. Swallow as a level 1 potion and Gadwall as a level 5 or something).

Or better still something completely different. I hope you have fun in your quests

Pro tip: If you place your dice with the highest numbers facing up, you will train them to roll those numbers.

 

[huber1989.365]

First of all, thanks for all your replies.

I've read through the campaign that Bara_no_Hime did - it's pretty interesting but things got kinda out of hand in my opinion. With continued progression it felt like a superhero marvel comic, which isn't exactly the kind of adventure I enjoy - five witchers holding a bridge is kinda ... well, not to my liking. It was still an interesting read but it definitely increased my skepticism towards the witcher class, because I'd prefer a game where it's not the only one worth playing anymore. And we decided to go for a more small-scale campaign, I'm just not that into world-saving stuff.

We've thought about trying 2nd edition, but our current GM started to game with AD&D 1st edition and still prefers to use that rule set. As far as I've read there's not to much difference between 1st and 2nd edition so I guess we could probably adapt it with relative ease if we wanted to - as of yet we'll stay with 1st edition because we both have somebody close by who knows them pretty well and we got quite some books and stuff already. It's actually pretty expensive to get into Pen&Paper I've gotta say. We're currently playing every one or two weekends and will continue to do so while adapting our witcher ideas, although we're not playing in one of the 'official' settings but a custom-made one that our current GM played with for nearly a decade by now. We're already a lot more familiar with the rules because the adaptation forces us to get to understand them better.

As of yet our two main concerns are:

a) the implementation of the witchers
b) the magic system

First we though of some special class to generate, considered dual-classing and in the end came to your approach Glaroug, to create a new race for game mechanic purposes (probably "Mutants"). We haven't yet done anything in that regard to be honest but we will probably start tweaking numbers and stuff this weekend.

We haven't really done anything regarding the magic system and we don't have a lot of expertise in that area in the original AD&D as of yet either, so that will probably be the last part of our adaptation. The only things I don't like about the original system (please keep my limited experience in mind) is the restriction of "spells per day" and the very harsh beginning mages seem to have. We don't know yet what will be done in that regard, but we will probably exchange the "spells per day" for something else and we might decide to easy the curve a bit for mages, increasing the initial number of spells and there base effects and, in exchange, potentially decreasing the rather steep power increase at higher levels - although I haven't witnessed that yet and only know of it by hear-say.

Currently we're mostly done with the Bestiarium, my fiancé has more or less finished the outline for our first adventure and we've started to gather up some background information (because our potential players don't know the witcher world that well as of yet). As of now we're also trying to decide how to implement the serious issues between non-humans and humans, considering different penalties and bonuses for some races.

Anyway guys, thanks again for your input, it's great to have some feedback and encouragement - right now it's actually quite fun trying to get a decent grip of the advanced rules of AD&D and how to implement those into our idea of a witcher AD&D.
And please, if you got any more ideas or just want to give us a shout-out "YOURE AWESOME" - feel free, we'll continue to read this thread for impressions and support.

EDIT: Don't you worry, my dice are all "highest-number-only"-die anyway.

 

[Blothulfur]

Suggested adaptation of 1st edition AD&D spells to be used as Witcher Signs:
Igni - Burning Hands.
Yrden - Hold Portal.
Axxi - Friends.
Quen - Shield or Armour.
Aard - Push.
Whether you want to set them as available at will abilities or give them a class based uses/day that increases with level is up to you. they might need some tweaking but from what I remember they're about right.

Personally i'd make a Witcher class as well as a Mutant species, d8 hit points because they're not huge armoured chaps like Fighters who take damage rather than avoid it, saving throws like a Thief as dexterity should be key to them, some armour class bonuses against monstrous foes yadda yadda. Probably restricted to Swords, knives, daggers and maybe whips and chains with specialisation being available to reflect their skill. Few acrobatic skills from Unearthed Arcana might be worth implementing.

Anyway good luck.

 

[huber1989.365]

Thanks for the suggested spells, that looks good at first glance. We might have to make sure they don't get to powerful, since we're regarding books as the most important source and the signs are a lot weaker there than in the games.

Regarding the witcher class that looks certainly good too. Dexterity should definitely be the most important attribute, although (with my limited knowledge) I'm not quite sure how that will potentially weaken them in terms of weapon's damage. We're considering constitution as one of the more important ones too, because of the famous strong metabolism thanks to the mutations - and it could be tied to the amount of potions the individual witcher can take before the toxicity becomes to much.

I'd probably add a bonus damage while using bastard swords (don't know if that term is used in English, it's what they're called in German), since that's what the witcher swords seem to be. Most of the bonus damage will probably be tied to the silver sword itself or we'll simply add a vulnerability: silver to all monsters. I'm not sure about restricting their choice of weapons, I think if we add bonuses to the appropriate ones it'll be fine.

Sadly we don't have Unearthed Arcana here, but I might take a look at it if you're saying there might be some interesting skills in there for witchers. Otherwise I'm sure a decent combination of saving throws, signs and potions and constitution should make sure they've got a decent survivability.

Thanks again for your input, much appreciated!

 

[huber1989.365]

Okay, we've got us a new challenge: how would you implement Clerics? As far as I know there's almost now Pantheon in the sources available, the only reasonably well described Goddess is Melitele. There's the Order of the Burning Rose, but there's not that much information about that one either to be honest and in our specific case it doesn't exist yet (it's founded after the 2nd War with Nilfgaard and our campaigns time line currently starts with Ciri's birth).

If everything else fails we'll have to invent a few gods ourselves I assume.

 

[SMiki55]

Well, we have some knowledge about religion.

 

[huber1989.365]

Thanks, that's basically what we knew already though - and to be honest, it definitely not enough to base some decent clerics or priests on, apart from Melitele. Guess we'll have to either invent some things or rethink the cleric/priest class.

 

[Blothulfur]

Personally i'd use Druid (for Melitele and various others) or maybe just a plain Wizard for other clergy, as there seems very little difference between the Mystic and the Mage. I'd say the devil is in the details there, the Mage's using scientific principles to manipulate supernatural laws while the Priest's leach off a divine or diabolic power source, just cater the spells they have to be appropriate.

 

[SMiki55]

Thanks, that's basically what we knew already though - and to be honest, it definitely not enough to base some decent clerics or priests on, apart from Melitele. Guess we'll have to either invent some things or rethink the cleric/priest class.

I can translate some descriptions of priests from old Witcher RPG.

 

[huber1989.365]

That would be great, might give us an idea how to do it!

 

[SMiki55]

Ok, so maybe tomorrow I'll do it

 

[huber1989.365]

If there's anything interesting regarding magic that would be great too - since TW3 is postponed to February I'm sure you have loads of free time. ;-)

 

[SMiki55]

Hi,
Unfortunelly, today I can't translate it
Wait for weekend

 

[huber1989.365]

No pressure, we probably won't be doing anything until the weekend anyway. Much appreciated!