The Wheel of Time RPG

[Tinker Gnome]

I picked this up along with the adventure "Prophecies of the Dragon" at a Used book store earlier today. I am on book seven of the Wheel of Time series and I am enjoying it thus far.

I have not gone over it too heavily, so I am just giving my first impression here. Looking through the book I find that it is well laid out, having the classes in the third chapter seemed odd to me, but no big deal.

One thing the Wheel of Time series has really done for me is open me up to the world of Humanocentic fantasy. I admit, before picking up these books, I did not really consider them the type of fantasy I would like to read because of the lack of other races in them like Elves and Dwarves, Gnomes etc. Of course there are the Ogier, but the world is mostly human.

I have heard that the Channelers are way overpowered compared to the rest of the classes, which fits with the flavor of the books, but I am not sure how that would work out in actual play.

The adventure "Prophecies of the Dragon" looks well laid out, I have not looked at it much, but I think it will be a pleasan read.

Overall, I think this is an interesting RPG that captures the flavor of the world.

 

[Wik]

It is a good book, and I really like how it was laid out. There were some class inbalances that suck, though. You mentioned channelers... the Algaidsiswai (is that what they're called? It's been awhile) were another. They were very weak compared to the other classes... considering the Aiel were supposed to be really tough...? I dunno.

Some of the book really misses out on important details. The Ajahs were barely mentioned... the Waygates? Not given a whole lot of detail. And many of the powers were worse.

 

[scourger]

We found the game to be a little broken. If you weren't a channeler or an armsman, you are very under-power. The module is good, but it is like many licensed properties and makes the player characters sort of bystanders to the events in the books. It would probably be very fun if all the players read the novels and all wanted to play through to get the feel of the setting. We did not finish it.

 

[El Mahdi]

I actually liked it quite a bit. However, I really only found it useful for running "Wheel of Time" games only. The mechanics didn't really feel amenable to use in other games, at least to me.

I think the best thing they did was with the mechanics for magic. I think the mechanical changes to the standard D&D magic system did a really good job of catching the feel of magic in the "Wheel of Time" world (and Balefire is just so coooool).

As far as a reference book for the "Wheel of Time" world, it's not too bad but it does have it's shortcomings. A better book for reference would be [ame="http://www.amazon.com/World-Robert-Jordans-Wheel-Time/dp/0312869363/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235788535&sr=8-1"]The_World_of_Robert_Jordan's_The_Wheel_Of_Time[/ame].

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The adventure "Prophecies of the Dragon" looks well laid out, I have not looked at it much, but I think it will be a pleasan read.

The group that I was in, at the end of that, decided to buy an inn, because adventuring just wasn't worth the 100% casualty rate we'd experienced.

Brad

 

[Wik]

The group that I was in, at the end of that, decided to buy an inn, because adventuring just wasn't worth the 100% casualty rate we'd experienced.

Brad

Yup. We had a similar experience. A group of well-made WoT time characters (I recall two male channelers, a wanderer "Thief-taker", and some men at arms) started that adventure. Within the first two or three encounters, they came across forty rats. This was before swarm rules. They were overrun, and killed. I hit the "reset", and changed the encounter around a bit, with better success. But every fight seemed to be one of "oh, god, the Trollocs have killed half our group!". After the second time of that, we said "Screw it. Let's play Halo."

I think the book's been on my shelf ever since. A friend of mine, who is hugely into Wheel of Time (and loves gaming, but never gets a chance to play with us), used to pressure me to run this game again, but I just didn't have the heart to get into it.

 

[Nymrohd]

I think 4E would be a great fit for Wheel of Time, with some changes ofc. The 3E iteration was weird in a lot of ways. Problem with trying to play a WoT game to me is that characters are supposed to be very much unbalanced. Channelers should be stronger than everyone and blademasters and algai'd'siswai should be stronger than the rest by the books after all.
Also I would never consider running a campaign during the book timeline. Trolloc Wars sound like the best time for heroic fantasy.

 

[The Lost Muse]

The Prophesies of the Dragon adventure was a good idea, but horrible in practice. Essentially the PC's get to run a side-quest to the plot of the first six or so novels. That is the essential problem with running games in the "present day" WoT setting. Rand and Co. are doing a lot of the important stuff.

As a setting guide, the book is somewhat lacking, but the guide to the world of wheel of time is a fantastic resource for this. The rules are definately broken, but they emulate the novels fairly well. The channellers are stronger, but there are restrictions that can be placed on them. Wilders have to overcome their blocks, and you can force anyone playing an initiate to be a member of the white tower; if they have to follow the Three Oaths, a good deal of their flexibility is gone.

4e is a good match for the feel of the setting; martial powers and stances can be used to emulate the bladeforms, and you could use the warlock with various "pact" powers to emulate the way the one power functions quite easily.

 

[Drowbane]

We (my group at the time) experimented with the WoTd20 book shortly after it came out... to little success. Only the DM and myself had any idea what the setting was about which made some of the character builds... painful (almost as bad as when Talath tried to get some of the group to come up with League of Extraordinary Gentleman PCs for M&M... peeps kept trying to be "too superheroic").

As someone above mentioned the Aiel felt underpowered... they're supposed to be all badass but their PrC (or is that a base class?) seemed rather gimp.

If I were to attempt to run some WoT, the Aiel would have access to the Swordsage (without the overtly magical abilities... mainly no desert wind and very little shadowhand) and/or Warblade. Also, I would not attempt to run it during the Novel's storyline. Too much focus on Rand and his peeps. Same issue I've seen and had with trying to run settings such as Dragonlance.

Semi-related note: I've been tempted to play an Ashaman-type using a Gestalt of Crusader | Wilder.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Floating around the web somewhere is a pretty decent D&D 3.5 upgrade for the WoT system.

As far as Aiel being better than their class, I always assumed that the average Aiel was simply higher level than people from other areas. They certainly have more opportunities to gain XP!

wotmania.com had some RPG links, but all of their WoT RPG links are now dead. The last one I have that seems to be somewhat working is: http://wheeloftimeonlined20rpg.yuku.com/

PS. It now seems that I have more active Earthdawn links than WoT RPG links. I would never have expected that.