Editing The Witcher (section)

===The Witcher===
The Talsorian one is essentially Cyberpunk 2020 with a very, very, ''very'' thin fantasy paintjob over it. The game was forced out of the studio once CDPR send their lawyers on them, reminding Pondsmith senior that when they got rights for CP, he agreed to deliver a Witcher pen-and-paper RPG in turn. Talsorian did their very best to wiggle out of their side of the deal, until it became clear CDPR will simply sue. And since they've spend over two out of three years doing nothing, this had predictable effect on pace and quality of the game design or the lack of playtests. The result was an internet FAQ and official erratum going for almost thirty pages of explainations and corrections within first month after release.

The game is class-and-race based, with a choice between human, [[dwarf]] and [[elf]] (and witchers as race-as-class). There's a lot of background rolling, some truly nasty ways for crits to work you over, and a rather vast crafting system. It is predominately using ''The Wild Hunt'' as inspiration and source of game mechanics design.

It's <s>not horribly designed</s> <s> barely playable </s> not recommendable for new GMs and players since it leaves much room for interpretation/house rules. The class system is <s>extremely restricting, even without comparison to the freedom of the Polish game. The skill system is schizophrenic as hell, not sure whether it wants to collapse similar skills together into super-skills or split them out into granular sub-skills </s> giving everyone 10 extra skills next to the 20-ish based skills the game offers, the random backstory generator <s>tends towards grimderp </s> consists of events that fit the setting of the witcher especially with three major wars going on, but with good stuff happening, too and ''cannot'' be removed or replaced with something that lets a player pick, since some results offer gameplay benefits and penalties. The GM is encouraged to not go into grimdark extremes but to make the world harsh but meaningful to the players. The crafting system is the worst kind of busywork math homework/bean-counting actuarial nonsense <s>and absolutely necessary since everything in the game is designed to be more expensive than necessary to force you to engage with it at gunpoint. Because hey, RPGs are about crafting, right? </s>

Combat's also <s>not bad awful, since it takes CP2020 game mechanics, slaps swords and magic on them, but never adjust for the fact original ruleset was written for firearms and ballistic armour.</s> totally wrong, except you ever chopped off someone's arm with a bullet. 

It has an unique stamina mechanic where players essentially have a finite-but-replenishing currency they spend by taking all kinds of actions, but it's ''very'' random and lethal, so having a medic is ''also'' something the party needs <s> at gunpoint </s> but which can also be supplemented by a mage or priest so pretty much as every TTRPG that uses combat. 

Finally, although they are the supposed draw of the game, Witchers are generally restricted to one per party, and while they are ''very'' good at hunting and killing monsters, they are very bad at <s> everything else </s> social skills, they suffer extreme social penalties, and while Geralt, by virtue of being a protagonist and a high-level character, is good at all kinds of things, most Witchers really, ''really'' need to specialize.  Honestly, the average man-at-arms is just <s> as good at fighting </s> as the average Witcher until you actually read the rulebook and realise the witcher has signs that protect him, slow down enemies or literally stun them so he can chop their head off in the same turn, and better at doing <s>other</s> social things that don't involve monsters or tracking. 

Holy shit guys, read the rulebook before crying about a system.