The Dark Eye
| Das Schwarze Auge | ||
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| RPG published by Ulysses Games |
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| Authors | Droemer Knaur Schmidt Spiele |
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| First Publication | 1984 (1st edition) 1988 (2nd ed) 1992 (3rd ed) 2001 (4th ed) 2015 (5th ed) |
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Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) is what Germany equipped on their character sheet where Americans wrote "Dungeons & Dragons". It's pretty much THE fantasy role-playing game in Germany, it's been around since the 1980's, and it's in 5th edition. And it exists because TSR said "we will not do business with the krauts."
There was one shit translation effort, but in the 2010's there was a kickstarter to raise funds to bribe fund DSA's publishers into making a decent English translation for 5th edition.
The default campaign setting is the world of "Dere" (an anagram of "Erde," or "Earth"), on the bog-standard fantasy feudal Europe continent of Aventurien. It's got the usual complment of fantasy races: orcs, Tolkien-like elves, lizardmen, goblins, kobolds, giants, etc. It's got spellcasters and even their own Elminster named "Borbarad", and the technology level is somewhere below muskets and blackpowder. Over the sea far to the west is the golden land of Myranor where it looks more like Final Fantasy games with a decadent and declining wealthy empire, airships, and catgirls. A third continent and setting is the Hollow World of Tharun which has an Edgar-Rice-Burroughs feel in island archipelagos.
Chargen used to be dierolls and classes, but in 4th edition they changed a lot of mechanics and went to skills based. Then they had a D&D 3.0 moment and had to re-release a fixed version of 4th edition, which fans call "4.1 edition".
Success checks are rolled on 3d20, and each die has to roll under one of the three appropriate attributes for the situation. Character attributes are: Courage, Wisdom, Intuition, Charisma, Dexterity, Agility, Constitution, Strength, and Speed. Failing on one or more of these dice tell you exactly how you fail (i.e.: you were agile enough to climb, but got too tired on the way up. or you had enough constitution to last, but couldn't find handholds that lead all the way to the top).