The Dark Eye
|
|
The Dark Eye (German: Das Schwarze Auge (DSA), literally "the black eye", but without its idiomatic sense), is a German role-playing game launched by "Schmidt Spiele" in 1983.
It has become the most successful role-playing game in the German scene, even ahead of Dungeons and Dragons. The many years of editorial work on the game's background has made it extremely detailed and extensive. After the bankruptcy of the company it was taken over by Fantasy Productions. The fourth edition of DSA appeared in 2002. It was the first edition to be published in English in October 2003.
The continent in which the game is set, called Aventuria (German Aventurien), was first introduced to the English-language market through a series of computer games and some novels, then under the name Realms of Arkania.
In the game, the Dark Eye is one of the most powerful magic item: a black sphere that allows to see anything anywhere in Aventuria, in the present, or past, but which is magically tied to its location (it cannot be moved). (If one tries to see into the future, the Eye will overload and show its own destruction, which promptly occurs.)
| Contents |
First edition
The first edition (1983) was not translated in English. It is a very simple class and level system.
The character
The character is defined by five attributes (qualities): courage, intelligence, charism, agility and strength. They are determined by 1d6+7 (8–13). The weight the character can carry is equal to force × 100 ounces (1 aventurian ounce weights 25 g).
The player can choose five different character types (classes): adventurer, warrior, dwarf, elf and mage. All characters can be adventurers, there are attributes conditions to access the other types (e.g. a warrior must have at least 12 in courage and in strength).
During the adventures, the character gains adventure points; with a sufficient amount of adventure points, he can go to the next level. When winning a new level, the character can increase one attribute by one point, and either the attack or parry value by one point; he also wins 1d6 vitality points, or for the elves and mages, 1d6 vitality points or astral energy points.
Health
The character type determines the starting value of vitality points (from 20 for a mage to 35 for a dwarf). This is to be compared with the 1d6+4 damage points inflicted by a sword.
Resolution of actions
The actions are resolved by testing the attributes; the action successes when
- 1d20 + modifier ≤ attribute
the modifier is positive when the action is difficult, and negative when it is easy.
For the fights, the characters act by decreasing order of courage (the character with the highest courage acts first). The initial attack value is 10 for every character, and the parry value is 8; these values can be modified by the agility and by the weapon. When the attack test of the attacker is successful and the defender misses the parry test, then the defender is hit and looses an amount of vitality points equal to the damage of the weapon reduced by the protection rating of the armour (a chainmail has a protection rating of 4, a knight armour has 6).
When the attacker rolls 1 or 2 with the die, he makes a master hit : the maximum damage are inflicted and the armour does not protect.
Magic
The elves and mages can cast spells and have astral energy points (starting value of 25 for the elves, 30 for the mages).
The system is based on the memory of the player; the player must speak the formula without reading it during the game. When the formula is correct, the spell is cast and the character looses astral energy points corresponding to the spell.
Fourth edition
The fourth Edition of DSA supports a great variety of character choices. Where the older editions forced the player to create a character along very strict lines, the fourth edition is extremely flexible and the player can choose from hundreds of different character classes and cultural backgrounds. In fact the rules creation rules are now somewhat similar to those of Shadowrun, also published by Fantasy Productions. One of the reasons for this development is surely the large community of professional authors and enthusiastic players, which have helped to describe the continent of Aventuria over the last 20 years.
External links
German
- [1] (http://www.fanpro.de) Official FantasyProductions Homepage
- Alveran.org (http://www.alveran.org) - News for DSA
- Vinsalt's DSA-Ticker (http://www.vinsalt.de) - Fan-Community for DSA
- Orkenspalter (http://www.orkenspalter.de) - Fan-Community for DSA
- Memoria Myrana (http://www.memoria.myrana.de) - First fanzine for DSA-add-on Myranor
English
- The Dark Eye rpg (http://www.TheDarkEyeRPG.com) - Official TDE website from Fast Forward Games
- Realms of Aventuria (http://www.TheDarkEye.net) - 1st TDE Resource Site on the Netde:Das Schwarze Auge