I am now into session three of the new TEW, and I have to say - outside of the novelty and originality of the original - the new one is more satifying, fun, and structurally cohesive in every way. The adventure is so compressed, with so many ways to tailor and expand the writing for your individual group while providing the most novel and interesting villian idea ( the BC) probably ever that I have seen in an RPG. The writing is designed to create dramatically satisfiying outcomes while being condensed and flexiable. Pulling a 3-4 hour session from 3-4 pages of writing is pretty good stuff!

I played the full original TEW both when it came out and with Hogshead reprints - I have to say this is vastly superior adventure experience using a more cinematic and satifying mechanic. I HEART NEW TEW!

You will be burn in a pyre! Heresy!

I can't compare in play, but I have to agree that the Part One at least, now that I'm playing it, is indeed packed with stuff including stuff that can be "unpacked" to add to story etc.

I find them similar in quality so far. I'll hit up one of my players who's run the old ones after a few more sessions and get his impression as well.

The NPC presentation isn't as useful in FFG's "fluff-laden-paragraph-style" plus clunky scattered playing card decks. Most of this could just go in the book as my lifestyle doesn't allow for a lot of card deck sorting. I also find that the maps on those teensey weensey little sheets is also a bit of poor design.

One pet peeve (after the others The fact that I'm reading about a "bandit attack" makes me want to puke though. Bandit Attacks are about as cliche and game-design-amateur as they come and not something that goes into a high quality production. This should have been re-done and will be somethign that I'm going to have to make some major additions to.

There have been a lot of good fan support write-ups. I hope people upload these to RPGGeek for all-time

I do like the variation on black cowl and that there are plenty of NPCs to interact with (at least in the beginning) and I also like the way they present the clues which is a vast improvement to having even more fluff for every NPC to memorize. I plan on using this technique in my future scenario designs.

..oh, and it sure is pretty

jh

So far I also like it more than the 1st edition one, which I have played through several times.

One of my players noted that it was refreshing that the npc's they were surposed to talk to, were all accesable (this is pretty huge for me, and is one of my biggest frustrations with 1st edition) and not Magister this and Guild Master that. Pretty much every time I've GM'd SoB, my players has startet trying to devise a plan on how to kill Teugen/Steinhäger, as they were certain they were evil, just had no real proof. Only plot (tju tju plot train here I come!!!) moving forward interrupted this.

And yes, 1st edition had a ton of information, but I can't remember much of it, and to be honest most of it was useless fluff imo. They spend tons of pages on encounters that does nothing to move plot. And add to that, it was soooo unstructured, pretty much all of them, and needed much GM improvising to keep things on track.

I liked 1st edition and good campaigns are far and between, but so far this one delivers to me and my group.

PbtT was what looked most promising when we launched it, but I think it's a huge mess of a book, with information spread out on a bazzilion pages. You have every single important npc with story, description etc… but no freaking page for the Graf??? Yes he's ill, but he's not in a coma! Who attends to him, does he ever leave his room? Who does he speak to, maybe a list of the npc's on when they talk to him?

And the whole vote system is just confusing, only information you need is that the Graf got persuaded to sign the laws, and who helped persuade him. So what if his daughter has 3 votes, the laws wont be pulled back untill the showdown anyway, and the players have no way in hell to find out who have votes and how many.

And the festival… allmost every day is a cardboard copy of the previous one, and in the huge book of information, no page is dedicated to describing what happens the different days, and where. But we do need a couple of pages with an inn being attacked by chaos, where the players find a note saying "help me"… What are they to do, do a house search?

In the new edition the garden fest is so much more structured, info on all present, but not 10 pages to plow through, just enough to help the GM improvise the rest, and a short consise set of events.

Could use more maps, I agree. But I've never really used maps anyway. When I played SoB/PbtT I drew up a sketch of the city, saying "Here people are poor, here people are rich, here is your inn". My players then usually say they take a short tour around the city, and I plot in notable sites (Major Temples, jousting arenas market places etc…). And in combat I draw a quick sketch on a whiteboard and plot in the chars.

I can't see myself using the last book, as I don't really want to explore the Chaos Wastes, but might change my mind once we get there.

Spivo said:

Ha ha! That's what our Bogenhafen scenario came down to as well! We finished that scenario and I asked myself, WTF just happened and what was the plot hook?

My players seem to be enjoying interacting with the lower classes (and my 2 nobles have upper class to deal with).

jh

It lacks the iconic grandiousity of a Castle Wittgenstein, or the vast political intrigue of Power behind the throne ( my favourite of the original) but for overall story coherance and interesting and motivated reoccuring NPCs (even an ending that was thought out prior!) it stands above the original TEW. I am a huge fan of those character cards! Having a great time with it.

My ownly beef is the Chlotilde card illustration, it doesn't match her description in text and is hardly the image of the "the social darling" she is supposed to be. Doubtless art recycled from somewhere is much suspicion.

Hi,

Val, couldnt agree more! Have considered finding a more suitable picture and grafting it onto the card. She looks like some Lamian bloodsucker ***** on the card…

Got to say i agree with the points about coherent storyline. I loved PBtT but overall looking back atthe series I'm not sure it would be as good to play through from start to finish, though I'm writing a variant to TEW2 book four already.

Have a look at "Comtessa" for Freebooters Fate.

re comtessa, Interesting, a little disdainful in expression according to google image (liked the pirate goblins search brought up).

double post, sorry

valvorik said: