News

Hey there everyone. A lot of people have been asking when the PNP RPG is coming out. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to give a direct release date. We want to make sure that this is the best Witcher PNP RPG that we can produce so we’re putting as much time in as we need. I can say that things are progressing smoothly and it won’t be long before we can speak more on a release date. We thank you for your patience and support.

Hey there, everybody! It's been a productive week here at R.Talsorian Games! Things have been rolling along on Witcher and we were able to attend Gen Con in Indianapolis to gauge the market.

This week I'm working pretty heavily on the varied world states of the Witcher PNP RPG. As we all know, the number of choices that you make from the beginning of Witcher 1 to the end of Witcher 2 is pretty impressive. There are choices that mean very little in the grand scheme of things, but also choices that shape the course of history. This has to be taken into account when we write the PNP RPG. The way we've chosen to handle this is to leave things very vague in the general history of the world. Players will hear rumors of all options that are presented in the games. Some people say that Geralt sided with the Scoia'tael in Vizima, some say he sided with the Order, but nobody knows for sure. If the players interact with some part of this choice or the GM wants to solidify the choice there will be a section in the GM section devoted to what the options for these choices are and how they affect the world state. Since the game takes place months before the events of Witcher 3 most of the Witcher 3 events will be inapplicable but there will be a mention of how outcomes affect the world for the major decisions in case you want to play through them, such as the bloody Baron quests or deciding an heir in Skellige. Also since the game takes place before Nilfgaard has reached the Pontar, there will be some decisions the players get to make and influence that will be mentioned in the GM section that weren't offered in the video games. These will include things like, helping Saskia fight the Nilfgaardians in Vergen, fighting off the Nilfgaardians in Vizima or undermining the Temerian military.

I also wanted to make sure people know that comments written on these updates get logged on the site and I will be trying to respond, via email, to all of them.

As part of Witcher character creation we included the Life Path system that makes appearance in most of our games, (such as Cyberpunk 2020 and Mekton Zeta), a series of rolls or choices that help you flesh out your character before you play them. For Witcher, we decided to expand the Life Path to give a more detailed description of your character's background and how it affects you.

The first several rolls establish what your character's family and early life were like. All of these can be chosen instead of rolled though I've always liked to roll them. You first choose whether you are a Nordling or a Nilfgaardian. Then you make your rolls. Then you make the following rolls:

 

Where you were born:

This section tells you in which country you were born. It tells you a bit about what the people of your country are like and how the culture and environment affect them. This should tell you what you are probably like at a very basic level. From your place of birth you get a bonus to a skill based on what your country deems important.

 

What your family status was:

This will tell you what your parents did for a living. Your family's standing will tell you a lot about how you grew up. From this you gain a useful tool or object that you would have growing up in that family.

 

Whether your parents are alive and well:

If your parents are alive and well, you move on to family but if something happened to them you roll on this table. This is everything from fatal monster attacks to dreadful curses to assassinations. These events are assumed to have happened very early in your character's life and they give you a goal. Each event has a sub-quest. When your character completes this quest they receive a reward.

 

Whether your family is safe and sound:

Just like the state of your parent, you can have had a perfectly safe and happy family. But there's also a chance that your family had something wrong with it. This can be anything from crippling debt to long term familial rivalries and, just like with your parents, each one comes with a sub-quest that rewards you for solving it.

 

Who the most influential person in your life was:

This establishes the most influential person in your life and what they taught you. This is the person or group of people who contributed most to who you are today and who you remember the most fondly. These can be simple townsfolk or relatives all the way up to powerful mages or social outcasts and each one leaves you an object to remember them by. This is not necessarily a tremendously useful object but something of sentimental value to your character, that reminds them of better times.

 

How many siblings you have:

Lastly you roll how many siblings you have. This not only tells you how big the family you grew up in was but also allows you to play a brother or sister of your character if your character dies in the course of the adventure.

 

Once you know these basic things about your character you roll your life events. For every year after 16 you roll 1d10 and see what happened in that year of your life. This section of Life Path has remained the same as Cyberpunk 2020 but with changes to make sure that your characters life reflects the world of the witcher.

As we start filling in the descriptions and writing for the Witcher RPG, I thought it would be good to do an update on the feel of the Witcher RPG. After all, no one who's read the books or played the games can call Witcher “Standard Fantasy”.

Besides the dark fantasy elements of the Witcher, one of the most important parts of the setting is it's anachronistic touches. In the original set of stories Geralt is effectively a detective who happens to kill monsters as well. He solves mysteries, hunts down clues and does a fair bit of negotiating, only really drawing his blade when absolutely necessary. The games, especially Witcher 3, get this feeling across excellently. You just know that Geralt has his own internal narrator and it doesn't take much to imagine Geralt as a gritty film noir hero. Aside from Geralt we see mages who are effectively mad scientists, locking themselves away in towers and experimenting day and night on morally dubious experiments for the furthering of science. We see cross dressing boutique owners and collectable card games, on par with Magic the Gathering, sweeping the nation. But still the Witcher is heavily rooted in fantasy.

No matter how dark the world may get much of it still has this fractured fairy tale style to it that lends to the atmosphere. While many classic fantasy plots still show up, many side quests and stories unfold like classical fairy tales and usually people, especially Geralt, tend to be fairly aware of this, making wry comments about princesses trapped in towers and young lads venturing off to defeat dreaded beasts. In fact the first collection of short stories reads almost like a book of fractured fairy tales with Geralt stumbling into stories very similar to Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and more.

As we sit down and write the descriptive and setting pieces for the Witcher RPG we are trying to keep these factors in mind. We want the Witcher RPG to be unique in it's field just like the Witcher games and books are.