[Q&A] Cody Pondsmith (The Witcher)

[19:30] <+CodyPondsmith> Yep! Hey everybody, so I’m Cody Pondsmith, lead designer on the Witcher TRPG! For those of you who don’t know the franchise, the Witcher is a dark fantasy franchise that stemmed from the novels of a prolific polish author named Andrzej Sapkowski. The novels gained a ridiculous following, spawning comics and tv shows and eventually a series of Video games

[19:32] <+CodyPondsmith> a series of video games that most of you are probably familiar with! I was once told that Witcher is like the “Lord of the Rings of Eastern Europe”.

[19:33] <+CodyPondsmith> The world itself is a dark and dangerous world where due to a bunch of bits of magical hapenstance, including a dimensional rift, magic and monsters were dumped onto a bunch of unsuspecting folks who had to struggle to survive!

[19:34] <+CodyPondsmith> The result of this is the Witcher, a class of mutated human who is purpose built to slay monster and break curses! The only problem is, most people are deathly afraid of them due to their mutations and their grim work!

[19:35] <+CodyPondsmith> It’s a really deep lore and it would take hours for me to summarize it in depth but that should be a good intro for anyone who isn’t familiar! (Done)

[19:35] <~Dan> Thanks, CodyPondsmith! The floor is now open to questions, but please respect my calls for question pauses!

[19:35] <+CodyPondsmith> Come at me, bro!

[19:35] <~Dan> Heh. 🙂

[19:35] <+molamolafish> Oh uh. Sup

[19:36] <+CodyPondsmith> Hey.

[19:36] <~Dan> What character types are available to play?

[19:36] <+CodyPondsmith> So character types are split between races and professions.

[19:37] <+molamolafish> Like…

[19:37] <+Cereser> So, where do you think the witcher series is heading to?

[19:37] <+CodyPondsmith> Race-wise there are, Humans, Dwarves, The Aen Seidhe (the resident Elf species in the world), and Witchers.

[19:38] <+CodyPondsmith> Cereser: I don’t really know where the series is headed. CDPR is focused on Cyberpunk 2077 at the moment and we are carrying the Witcher torch at the moment.

[19:38] <+CodyPondsmith> Jumping back…

[19:38] <+Catseye> hi

[19:38] <~Dan> (Howdy, Catseye!)

[19:38] <+molamolafish> Sup catseye. Cody is currently answering some questions

[19:38] <+CodyPondsmith> Profession-wise, there are 9 professions: Bards, Craftsmen, Criminals, Doctors, Witchers, Mages, Priests, Men at Arms, and Merchants!

[19:39] <+calyboi96> Okay, so, the witcher is a world with fast paced, cinematic and gritty action, even Witchers can be taken down by a human who get’s a lucky shot in! What does your system do to capture the qyuick and deadly feel of those fights? ^_^

[19:39] <+CodyPondsmith> Hi, Catseye!

[19:39] <+Austin> Hey Cody, I’m so glad the Witcher RPG is finally coming out! My question was how you handle gender in the game? The world of the Witcher is regrettably, but accurately, sexist. Did that play into design?

[19:39] <~Dan> (Question pause after Austin’s question. Thanks!)

[19:40] <+CodyPondsmith> Calyboi96: I spent a lot of time going over the deadly system to make it fit the world as much as I could! Being based on cyberpunk it is already a very deadly system, that tends to be fairly unforgiving! To add to that I put in a series of ”

[19:41] <+CodyPondsmith> critical wounds” which allow you to impose penalties by breaking bones, rupturing organs, cutting arteries and the like. These wounds are based on how much more skilled (or lucky) you are compared to your opponent so if you are a really great swordsman you can massacre a bunch of opponents with devestating attacks. But (just like geralt) you can also get

[19:42] <+CodyPondsmith> unlucky and wind up with a critical wound scored on you.

[19:42] <+CodyPondsmith> I wanted to write the system so you didn’t always rush into combat. You had to think it through and gauge what would be the best approach to the combat.

[19:43] <+CodyPondsmith> There are also a lot of abilities and special attacks that allow you to strategize when you enter combat.

[19:43] <+calyboi96> Interesting, so like, parrying and feints etc?

[19:43] <+CodyPondsmith> Calyboi96: Exactly!

[19:43] <+Steamin661> Gwent? Is it in the pnp RPG and are there new rules to make it more accesible in a table top format?

[19:43] <+molamolafish> In the series, we see plenty of examples of Witcher ablilities and even mage abilities. How have you come up with specialties/abilities like for priestest, men at arm’s, bards, ect. That have not been explored as much into deatil in any of the books or games?

[19:43] <+CodyPondsmith> Gonna jump over to Austin’s question here!

[19:43] <~Dan> (Please hold questions until the end of the question pause. Thanks!)

[19:44] <~Dan> (Welcome to #randomworlds, godfatherbrak!)

[19:45] <+CodyPondsmith> Austin: We are going with a bit more a lenient aproach to Gender in the TRPG. We see a number of women in powerful positions in the books and videogames and the world is at war so people are less likely to focus on gender if you can fight.

[19:45] <+CodyPondsmith> We leave it largely up the GM to decide how much hassle female characters receive in their game.

[19:46] <+CodyPondsmith> Hope that helped!

[19:46] <+CodyPondsmith> Moving to Steamin661

[19:46] <+Austin> It did, thanks!

[19:46] <+Anthony> One of my player wants to do an herborist/alchemist but there no clear professions that is suppose to cover that type of work from what i looked at.

[19:46] <+Anthony> Can you tell me if a class has those capacities, the artisan or the doctor perhap ? Since the witcher must have alchemy in he’s work, i suppose that an equivalent for the humans is also there in the book

[19:46] <~Dan> (Let’s continue holding questions until Cody gets caught up. Cody, please give us a (done) when you’re ready for more questions. Thanks!)

[19:47] <+CodyPondsmith> Steamin661: Gwent is in the TRPG in a form but it’s mostly another form of gambling. It isn’t it’s own system.

[19:47] <+Anthony> oh sorry it taught the beak was over my bad

[19:47] <+Anthony> break*

[19:47] <+CodyPondsmith> Molamolafish next

[19:47] <~Dan> (No worries!)

[19:47] <+Steamin661> Cool. Thanks

[19:48] <~Dan> (For those guests just arriving, please set your names with the /nick command; e.g., /nick Dan. Thanks! 🙂 )

[19:49] <+CodyPondsmith> Molamolafish: Every class has a skill tree that establishes 3 different ways of playing that class. The skill trees total 9 abilities but they give you a lot of options. Men at arms for instance have abilities that make them amazing snipers at tremendous range, abilitites to shake off death temporarily, and make rolls to gauge the intent and actions of

[19:49] <+CodyPondsmith> everyone around the sort of like Deathstroke.

[19:50] <+CodyPondsmith> Bards can be devious manipulators who can make enemies into their pawns but they can also make huge crowds in the street to block paths during a chase or generate patrons who will help them out in a pinch.

[19:51] <+CodyPondsmith> My favorite is merchants, who can be the greatest tool for acquiring good, but can also become mafia style mob bosses who use threats and blackmail to manipulate people around them.

[19:52] <+CodyPondsmith> Instead of taking away from Witcher to make other classes viable we tried to give other classes abilities that would be as cool as Witcher abilities. 😀

[19:52] <+CodyPondsmith> Moving to Anthony!

[19:54] <+CodyPondsmith> An herbalist could be played by a doctor but they could also be played by a Craftsmen. Craftsmen break down into smiths and alchemists and alchemist specialized craftsmen can do cool things like double the dose of any alchemical creation they make and eventually adapt Witcher potions so they are less dangerous to humans.

[19:55] <+CodyPondsmith> Doctors actually have a whole tree devoted to herbology, giving them the ability to improvise what ingredients they need for alchemy and create herbal poultices that give temporary effects to their allies.

[19:55] <+Anthony> Nice ! ^^

[19:55] <+CodyPondsmith> I hope that answered the question! (Done)

[19:55] <+Anthony> yes thanks !

[19:55] <~Dan> (Thanks, Cody! Questions may resume!)

[19:55] <+Steamin661> Does the book include NPC, monsters and their stats? Does the book also include any adventures? And are there plans to continue producing additional products (adventures, bestiarys, etc)

[19:55] <+Tox> Hi Cody, will any of the professions be able to control monsters to fight for them? either through spells or another way?

[19:56] <+John> hi cody any word on a release date?

[19:56] <+molamolafish> And where to buy it?

[19:57] <+Guest52> Are schools other than the wolf school mentioned in the book?

[19:57] <~Dan> (Question pause, please!)

[19:57] <+CodyPondsmith> Steamin661: I hate books that don’t give you everything you need to play right away so the Core book has statistics for 20 monsters (3 of which are humanoids like mages and scoia’tael)! There is a short adventure at the back of the book as well!

[19:58] <+CodyPondsmith> I have a LOT of supplements planned in my head!

[19:58] <+CodyPondsmith> That would include bestiaries and adventures and what not!

[19:59] <+CodyPondsmith> Tox: Mages have a spell that allows them to place mental commands and Witchers can take a greater form of Axii that makes creatures fight for them but beyond that, different monsters are usually likely to fight each other if they are placed together so other classes can manipulate themselves into situations with multiple monster types in the same fight and

[20:00] <+CodyPondsmith> use that.

[20:00] <+Tox> that’s exciting!

[20:01] <+CodyPondsmith> Also, it’s not unreasonable to say that you couldn’t roughly tame some of the lower intelligence monsters. There are no systems for it but the GM could allow it. An option in LifePath also allows you to start with a wild dog/wolf companion.

[20:02] <~Dan> (Welcome to #randomworlds, Hohenzollern!)

[20:02] <+CodyPondsmith> John: The book release on august 2nd at GenCon and will be up on Drivethru RPG as a PDF shortly after! We are looking at getting physical copies on our site shortly after Gencon but I’m not the best person to ask for that.

[20:02] <+Hohenzollern> Hey

[20:03] <+calyboi96> so sorry to touch upon combat again! but this focuses specifically on the witcher and their signs, how did you integrate them into the system, and what kind of skill trees do witcher’s have?

[20:03] <+CodyPondsmith> Going to Guest52 real quick!

[20:03] <+John> 😀

[20:04] <+JGray> John: We’re doing a speedy print run to have copies at GenCon and anticipate selling out of those. Hopefully we’ll have a new shipment of books from the printer within the first week or two after GenCon. But no firm dates there because printers are wild beasts and not easy to predict.

[20:04] <+CodyPondsmith> We have some never before seen information on the other Witcher schools including where their keeps were located and what they were called! Your witcher character can be from any of the continental schools (not the manticore yet) and each school gives you a special bonus!

[20:05] <+John> fantastic!

[20:05] <+CodyPondsmith> Calyboi69 is next!

[20:07] <+CodyPondsmith> Witchers have the Spellsword (which gives them more Vigor points, alternate sign forms and the heliotrope sign), the Mutant (which lets them drink more potions, go into a poison induced frenzy and transmute their bodies even more intensely with Decoctions) and the Slayer (which lets them parry projectiles, make extra attacks in a round, and go into the

[20:07] <+CodyPondsmith> Witcher’s famous Whirl, where you can attack everyone in sword range once, every round!)

[20:08] <+CodyPondsmith> Signs are variable so the amount of vigor you spend on them varies and it gives different levels of damage and effect. This means you can decide exactly how much magic you need for each sign.

[20:09] <+CodyPondsmith> you can even exceed the amount of magic you can safely use to pour a TON of magic into Igni and shoot a freakin’ handful of dice of fire damage! (Done)

[20:10] <+Steamin661> How many pages does the core rulebook have? What would you say is the breakdown bettern lore and rules? 40% lore and 60% rules? Lastly, is the “never before seen info” found in the books considered canon with the games?

[20:10] <+molamolafish> This is propbably thinking abit far ahead, but is there any plans on releasing minis specific to this RPG? Is it a plan or just a dream? (P.s. you said the magic word and it is scoia’tael ♥️♥️♥️)

[20:10] <+Vinipac> How much less damage do classes other than Witchers do to monsters given that they don’t have silver weapons?

[20:10] <+calyboi96> That’s cool! Can you invest into different skill trees, or do you have to specialise?i.e. could I have ranks in both Spellsword and Slayer?

[20:10] <+CodyPondsmith> Steamin661 first!

[20:10] <~Dan> (Question pause after calyboi96’s quesetion!)

[20:11] <+Cereseragain> How do you plan on handling dwarves? Are they going to be in a LoTR style or have diffen

[20:11] <+Cereseragain> srry

[20:12] <+CodyPondsmith> Steamin661: the core book is 336 pages and of that the “World Section” is 32 pages of concentrated lore (including a lot of new information on Nilfgaard)! That being said there is enough lore sprinkled through this book to choke a horse. It’s hard to put a number on it but it’s a lot of lore.

[20:13] <+CodyPondsmith> We spoke directly with CDPR about the cannonicity of the new material and some of it i even got to sit down with the Witcher Story team and work out together! Everything in this book is cannon to CDPR’s Witcher video games!

[20:14] <~Dan> Nice!

[20:14] <+FranStewart> ❤

[20:14] <+CodyPondsmith> You probably hit a little bit of interesting witcher information every page or two in some areas! And a number of side bars and items are written with In-World voices for extra flavor.

[20:15] <+CodyPondsmith> Molamolafish next!

[20:16] <+CodyPondsmith> Molamolafish: I would love to get minis but there are no official plans yet. (We cover Elven Scoia’tael Archers in the Bestiary but we have a small section talking about the Scoia’tael in the world section.)

[20:16] <+CodyPondsmith> Vinipac!

[20:17] <~Dan> (You’re doing a great job, Cody. 🙂 )

[20:17] <+CodyPondsmith> Non-silver weapons do half damage to monsters. That being said there are still plenty of weapons that can do a lot of damage to monster (including a monster hunter’s crossbow, which is an enormous crossbow that’s almost more like a small ballista) Craftsmen can also unlock the ability to coat any weapon in silver!

[20:19] <+CodyPondsmith> Calyboi69: You can go down every tree in the skill tree as much as you want but you have to buy your way up from the bottom for each branch. You can’t jump branches.

[20:19] <~Dan> (All those who’ve joined as Guest##, please set your names with the /nick command; e.g., /nick Dan. Thanks! 🙂 )

[20:21] <+CodyPondsmith> Cereseragain: Dwarves in the Witcher world tend to be very much like Tolkien dwarves. They are stout, gruff fellows who speak with scottish accents. For the core book we wanted to stick to the lore and what we had seen as much as possible. There is a possibility that when we handle dwarves in other places (such as Nilfgaard) they may function a bit

[20:21] <+CodyPondsmith> differently.

[20:22] <+Motulev> I hope this was not asked already, but what is the core mechanic like?

[20:22] <+CodyPondsmith> They are unable to use magic (as per witcher lore) but they are strong as an ox and are the only race that gets a natural armor value!

[20:23] <+CodyPondsmith> Motulev: The core mechanics are a variant of our Fuzion system so when you want to do something you roll 1d10 and add it to a Stat value and Skill value to see if you beat a DC. If you roll a 1 you roll again and subtract that number, if you roll a 10 you roll again, add that to the 10 then add the whole value.

[20:24] <+Guest13> can you run a campaign with four witchers

[20:24] <+Motulev> ok

[20:25] <+CodyPondsmith> Guest13: We establish that in the current time Witchers are very rare. Every witcher character is an old witcher who went into hiding and has only recently come out. That being said! Since we see Geralt, Lambert and Eskel, or Letho and the Kingslayers yes. It is possible.

[20:26] <+Austin> Man, I didn’t think I could get anymore excited, but I am! Are any of the major characters statted out in the book?

[20:26] <+CodyPondsmith> Motulev: There’s quite a bit to the system. Do you have specific questions?

[20:26] <+CodyPondsmith> Austin: We have….8 characters stated in the core book. Geralt, Yennefer, Triss

[20:26] <+Motulev> not really, just that, d10+modifiers vs. TN

[20:27] <~Dan> Can you describe some of the mutations that affect Witchers?

[20:27] <+CodyPondsmith> Dandelion, Zoltan, Vernon Roche, Iorveth and Letho

[20:27] <+Anthony> Dan : Can i ask my question because i dont really know if the pause is still on at this point ?

[20:27] <+CodyPondsmith> We plan to do more later!

[20:27] <~Dan> (Sorry, questions can resume!)

[20:27] <+molamolafish> You mentioned how this RPG will go along with the CDPR cannon, what about the cannon of the novels?

[20:27] <+Anthony> How the magic is gonna work in the system ? Is it gonna be premade spells or customizable spells since in the game, magic is king is not well explain ?

[20:28] <+molamolafish> Core rule book? Are there going to be other manuals to come out?

[20:28] <+CodyPondsmith> First Dan’s question!

[20:28] <~Dan> (Question pause, please!)

[20:29] * +Motulev takes away molamolafish’s cannon and replaces it with canon

[20:30] <+CodyPondsmith> Witcher start out at a baseline without any mutagens applied. As you go you can apply mutagens like the video games. Red mutagens increase melee damage and can increase your relfex stat permanently if they are greater mutagens. Green mutagens increase health points permanently by two levels. and Blue mutagen increase the amount of magic you can use.

[20:31] * ~Dan nods

[20:32] <+CodyPondsmith> Mages actually can eventually get an ability that allows them to apply Witcher Mutagens to regular people. This is EXTREMELY dangerous and can kill your character but if you make it out alive it can make you more powerful (with some permanent visual changes)

[20:32] <+CodyPondsmith> Molamolafish next!

[20:34] <+CodyPondsmith> Molamolafish: The TRPG assumes that the Videogames are a continuation of the story of the novels. Assuming it wasn’t retconed by CDPR anything that happened in the novels happened in the cannon of the TRPG, it was just many years ago.

[20:34] <+CodyPondsmith> Anthony!

[20:37] <~Dan> (Welcome to #randomworlds, JimMc!)

[20:37] <+CodyPondsmith> Anthony: Magic in the TRPG is premade spells. I would love to do a spell creation system but the Core book isn’t the place for it. We have a lot of Spells, a number of Invocations (used by priest and druids), Rituals and hexes! Curses are treated as a GM tool and there is a section for building them in the GM guide.

[20:37] <+Guest13> is there a campaign in the core book or just the rules and the gm makes up the story

[20:37] <+Anthony> Thanks Cody

[20:38] <~Dan> (Questions may resume!)

[20:38] <+CodyPondsmith> Right now we are launching the Core Rule book. I have plans for many more supplements but none of those plans are solid yet.

[20:38] <+Matt> What are the different attributs/stats for characters? and is there a limit to how much health point you can have? (I m afraid high level characters end up immortal like in DnD)

[20:38] <+Vinipac> Can a non-mage/druid/priest/witcher learn weak magic tricks similar to signs (or cantrips in other TRPGs)?

[20:38] <+CodyPondsmith> Guest13: There is an adventure at the back of the book!

[20:39] <+Steamin661> What is the current “level cap” (i.e. how many levels are detailed and fleshed out). And is there any multiclassing?

[20:39] <~Dan> (Question pause after Steamin661’s question. Thanks!)

[20:41] <+CodyPondsmith> Matt: There are 9 Stats and a few Derrived Stats. The Stats are Intelligence, Reflexes, Dexterity, Body, Speed, Empathy, Craft, Will and Luck. You start with a static amount of health (based on your Body and Will) and that number doesn’t change unless you are mutated, raise your stats with improvement points or take a horrible critical wound.

[20:41] <~Dan> (wb, ProtonCrosser)

[20:41] <+Matt> great !

[20:41] <+CodyPondsmith> The regular cap at starting “level” is 50 but it can go up to 65 if you mutate yourself.

[20:42] <+CodyPondsmith> Possibly higher with some Relic items.

[20:42] <+CodyPondsmith> Vinipac!

[20:43] <+JimMc> I understand if you are not willing to talk about this yet, but what is the basic premise of the adventure in the back of the core book?

[20:44] <+CodyPondsmith> Vinipac: Unfortunately if you didn’t create your character with magic you cannot gain magic. The lore is fair explicit that you are either born with magic or you’re not. The only way I can think of someone gaining magic is perhaps by Goetia and deals with devils but that isn’t covered in the core book.

[20:47] <+CodyPondsmith> Steamin661: The system doesn’t really have levels since your improvement is done by raising skill/stat values, getting gear and magic but skills and stats cap out at 10 unless you have a racial modifier. There isn’t any multi-classing since it was based on Cyberpunk.

[20:48] <+FranStewart> Bright side being that in C-punk based systems you’re not locked down on what skills you can take. Lot more flex within each class than most other systems.

[20:48] <~Dan> (Howdy, MonkofLords!)

[20:48] <+JGray> Questions are open, Dan?

[20:49] <~Dan> (I think so. All caught up, Cody?)

[20:49] <+CodyPondsmith> JimMc: I love Sapkowski’s fractured fairy tale approach to Last Wish so the adventure in the back is kind of a twisted tale in it’s own respect. It’s called “To All A Goodnight” and it has a lot of fun stuff! (including stats for using molten metal as a weapon!)

[20:49] <+CodyPondsmith> (Yep!)

[20:49] <~Dan> (Questions may resume!)

[20:49] <+Vinipac> What is your favorite Relic in the game?

[20:51] <~Dan> I see that Witcher is both a race and a profession. Can you say a bit about how that works?

[20:52] <+Matt> How/When can the skill/stats be improved?

[20:52] <~Dan> (Question pause, please!)

[20:53] <+CodyPondsmith> Vinipac: The fun part is, we decided to make Relics really epic! So while relics are not craftable they are unique items with their own story attached to them! My favorite is probably….Ogh’r! It’s this HUGE war maul with the face of a cave troll carved into it. The short hand of the story is that this dwarf winds up in a territory feud with a bunch of Cave

[20:53] <+JGray> That was my favorite bit in the book.

[20:54] <+JGray> It really was.

[20:54] <+CodyPondsmith> trolls. and the only way the cave trolls will settle it is a head butting contest. the Dwarf knows he can’t win so he makes this enormous meteorite war maul and carves a face into it. Then he convinces the troll that the hammer head is a real head, because it has a face on it!

[20:55] <~Dan> Heh. 🙂

[20:55] <+CodyPondsmith> Trolls not being too intelligent, the troll goes with it and gets his head smashed and the Dwarf wins the day!

[20:55] <+Vinipac> That’s the most Dwarven thing I’ve ever heard!

[20:55] <+CodyPondsmith> It always makes me laugh!

[20:56] <+Anthony> So cool ! ^^

[20:57] <+John> OMG thats amazing

[20:57] <+CodyPondsmith> Dan: Witcher is a race and a profession. We couldn’t really think of a good way to do it otherwise because to be a witcher really is to be a different race. We could have called the race Mutant but Mutants are such a wide and varied group in Witcher.

[20:57] <~Dan> And I’m assuming that all Witchers (the race) are Witchers (the profession), and vice versa?

[20:57] <+Motulev> (Dan: say when)

[20:58] <+CodyPondsmith> Matt: Skills and Stats can be improved over time with Improvement Points which are handed out by the GM at the end of every session. You get more improvement points by doing epic things, surprising the GM and really playing your character to the hilt.

[20:58] <~Dan> (Questions may resume!)

[20:58] <+Anthony> The mage in this universe use energy from the elements and the have to learn how to use the four elements energy to cast there spells. Is this system included in the book ?

[20:58] <+Motulev> this was kinda asked above, but does the game handle an all Witcher group, a no Witchers at all group or a mix of the two?

[20:59] <+CodyPondsmith> All Witchers are Witchers and all Witchers are Witchers. 😀

[20:59] <~Dan> 🙂

[20:59] <+Catseye> I have to ask the painful question. Is this game based on Interlock or Fuzion?

[20:59] <+Cereseragain> What are the druids like in the game?

[20:59] <+FranStewart> Speaking of “epic,” can you talk a little more about the evil of curses, given how unique they are in magical terms?

[20:59] <+Motulev> Star Wars games famously tend to fail handling jedi and non-jedi at the same time

[20:59] <~Dan> (Question pause!)

[20:59] <+CodyPondsmith> Anthony first

[20:59] <~Dan> (Welcome to #randomworlds, Vinipac88!)

[20:59] <~Dan> (Howdy, Silverlion!)

[21:00] <+Vinipac88> (My old browser crashed, I’m Vinipac still)

[21:01] <+CodyPondsmith> Anthony: Spells are split up into 5 elements (Fire, water, air, earth, and Mixed) Drawing from each element allows you to use each element of spell. It mostly comes in when you fumble a spell or draw too much energy! When that happens you take damage and there is an appropriate effect based on the element you were channeling. I would love to integrate the

[21:02] <+CodyPondsmith> different personalities that different elements have in an actual system sense but for the first book I chose not to. We may touch on it as an optional rule in a later supplement.

[21:02] <+CodyPondsmith> Motulev next!

[21:02] <+Anthony> YESS OMG im so hype ! 😀 thanks !

[21:04] <+CodyPondsmith> An all witcher group is a small group of hardened, usually bitter, monster hunters who (due to a system of Social Standing) have a hard time entering a town without folks fleeing and are often given the short end of the stick. But they can focus entirely on hunting monsters and breaking curses. There’s also a lot of fun to be had, comiserating about being a

[21:04] <+CodyPondsmith> witcher and sharing stories from your past (we have a special Lifepath for Witcher that allows you to discover your characters history).

[21:05] <~Dan> (Howdy, Crazy-Cabal!)

[21:05] <+CodyPondsmith> A group with no witchers is often a group of people who are displaced by the war and traveling together for the saftey of numbers. With so many profession choices you can get a really varied group with a lot of wild interactions and they can do everything from monster hunting to High court espionage. I’ve been planning to run a whole game where my players are

[21:06] <+CodyPondsmith> members of the Nilfgaardian war machine, having a band of brothers style journey up from the south.

[21:06] <+Motulev> ok, so the rules system can handle and even supports different types of groups, this is good

[21:08] <+CodyPondsmith> Groups with one witcher are a lot of fun. You tend to think the witcher would take the lime light but a lot of the time they let someone else do the talking and sit in the back grumbling comically about peasants until there’s a monster to fight. Often times the witcher grows fond of their traveling companions (like geralt for instance) and sticks around.

[21:09] <+CodyPondsmith> I’m a bit behind! Catseye!

[21:12] <+CodyPondsmith> Catseye: In a weird way it’s come out to be a bit of a mutant fusion. It’s based heavily on cyberpunk but with a lot of influence from fuzion added when I had to write a new system (such as a magic system). I’m not sure I can really speak to which it plays more like though.

[21:12] <+CodyPondsmith> Cereseragain!

[21:14] <&Silverlion> Since I’m late, how much information will there be on the game world (I’ve never played the video game, though I was gifted it, I’m a writer and its distracting.)

[21:15] <+CodyPondsmith> Cereseragain: We decided to put druids into the same profession as Priests because they fill very similar roles as sort of a magic user who answers to a higher power and uses magic but not like a mage. As a druid you play a priest but you choose Druid invocations which focus more on manipulating nature and you go down the druid branch on the priest skill tree

[21:16] <+CodyPondsmith> Druids can make alliances with animals to gain companions, read signs of nature to be super trackers and have some really cool invocation that let you animate trees and bend the weather to your will.

[21:16] <+FranStewart> As a fellow writer, PLAY THE GAME. It’s got some truly inspired storytelling. 🙂 And quoting from earlier, about 32 pages of solid lore, with lots more fun stuff and minutiae in sidebars throughout.

[21:17] <+FranStewart> To the admins, lemme know if the side-chatter’s distracting. 🙂

[21:17] <~Dan> (You’re fine. 🙂 )

[21:17] <+CodyPondsmith> One second. Called away for a second

[21:18] <+CodyPondsmith> Hi, Fran!

[21:18] <+FranStewart> Heya, dude. 🙂

[21:19] <+CodyPondsmith> The curses in Witcher are really unique and we wanted to try and get that across. As anyone who knows witcher knows curses are usually the karmic hammer of Witcher and thus they tend to be really poetic in nature. We chose to make pure curses a Game Master tool so the GM could tailor them very specifically to what caused the curse.

[21:20] <+CodyPondsmith> We have a section talking about how you make curses, with example effects and even examples of how the curse should be lifted based on why the person is cursed.

[21:21] <+Crazy-Cabal> Are the various witcher schools stated? If so how many?

[21:21] <+alistair_doctor> He already answered that. It’s all of them except the Manticore (which he implied will be added in a supplement)

[21:22] <+Crazy-Cabal> Cool

[21:22] <+CodyPondsmith> Real quick! Motulev: We wanted to make sure that different forms of play were supported! We even have optional rules for verbal combat so you can run a party of merchants and mages and bards and have them verbally sparring with lord and ladies of high courts.

[21:22] <+FranStewart> …with different special abilities for each school, too.

[21:23] <+CodyPondsmith> And new lore information on the schools!

[21:23] <+CodyPondsmith> Silverlion!;

[21:24] <+CodyPondsmith> Silverlion: There are 32 pages of condensed lore with new information, plot hooks and lots of amusing asides by Lisa! We have also sprinkled lore throughout the entire book in item descriptions, side bars and all sorts of places! We wanted this book to inspire people to create cool games!

[21:24] <+calyboi96> so, the Witcher draws from a wide variety of folklore, but one of the most prominent and strongest influences is Arthurian Legend. As a welshman, I love this, it’s part of my cultural heritage and so I’d like to know if the lady of the lake and such feature prominently, and is Arondight or a similar relic in the game? ^_^

[21:25] <+Anthony> Has i was preparing my game for the release, i had a big problem finding a world map that i can use and read. Is there any map that we can use in the book ?

[21:25] <+Guest52> Is there a way mechanically to go through the witcher trials if you wanted to? It would be interesting to roleplay that as a group and see who makes it

[21:25] <+Vinipac88> Can you elaborate on how Social Standing works?

[21:25] <~Dan> (Question pause.)

[21:26] <+alistair_doctor> wait wait wait, when did we unpause?

[21:27] <~Dan> (Sorry, want to sneak in a question, alistair_doctor?)

[21:27] <+JGray> I think people have just been tracking questions and jumping in as soon as Cody answers the last one from a set.

[21:27] <+alistair_doctor> sure. I only have the one

[21:27] <+alistair_doctor> I know you said there was an adventure at the back of the book, but are there plot hooks in the rest of the book for moderately creative GMs to make use of?

[21:27] <~Dan> (Okay, NOW question pause. 🙂 )

[21:27] <+alistair_doctor> 😛

[21:28] <+CodyPondsmith> Calyboi69: Unfortunately neither will be prominent in the core book but that being said I love Toussaint and there is a possibility that we may do a supplement in that region talking about the Lady of the Lake, arthurian-style knights and vampires.

[21:28] <+CodyPondsmith> Anthony next!

[21:30] <+CodyPondsmith> Anthony: There aren’t many good world maps for Witcher. Believe me… Even we had problems finding good maps. I am hoping to get a more unified map a little later that we would likely put up as a downloadable on the site but there are maps in the book which are taken from the video games..

[21:30] <+CodyPondsmith> Guest52 next!

[21:30] <+Anthony> Thanks !

[21:32] <+CodyPondsmith> Guest52: The Trial of the Grasses would have happened centuries ago for any witcher character in the current game so there aren’t any systems for it. However, if the interest is there it is possible that I might look into doing an adventure module based on it.

[21:32] <+CodyPondsmith> Vinipac88!

[21:33] <~Dan> (Welcome to #randomworlds, BurritoChomp!)

[21:33] <+John> yes please! a trail of grasses module would be amazing!

[21:34] <+CodyPondsmith> Vinipac88: Every race has a social standing (which changes based on which region you are in) Your social standing establishes how the average person deals with you. There are Equal (No penalties. Usually for regions where your race is dominant), Tolerated (mild social penalties to charisma and the like. Dwarves are tolerated in the North for instance), Hated

[21:35] <+CodyPondsmith> Hated (major penalties to charisma, seduction and other skills. Elves are hated in the North) and Feared (bonus to intimidation but penalty to charisma. Feared is also the only one that can be stacked ontop of tolerated or hated. Mages and Witchers are hated and feared in the North.)

[21:36] <+CodyPondsmith> These are there to give system feedback for the inherent racism of the world and also show GMs how people should probably react to the character.

[21:36] <+Vinipac88> That’s cool! (the mechanics, not the racism)

[21:37] <+CodyPondsmith> Lisa went out of her way to create a bunch of plot hooks for creative GMs! If you read through the World Section you should get a lot of ideas for any country you decide to put your players in!

[21:37] <+CodyPondsmith> (Done)

[21:38] <~Dan> Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to bring up, Cody?

[21:38] <+CodyPondsmith> Oh geez… It’s been pretty thorough! Give me a second!

[21:38] <+CodyPondsmith> Oh! Just a fun fact!

[21:39] <~Dan> I’ll just mention here that gratuities are welcome at (Link: https://gmshoe.wordpress.com/the-gmshoes-tip-jar/)https://gmshoe.wordpress.com/the-gmshoes-tip-jar/ 😀

[21:40] <+CodyPondsmith> Information on monsters is specific to the skill you use to glean it! Witchers and other people with Monster Knowledge can roll to get really legitimate information about monsters but others can also roll Education to gain “Peasant Superstition” which is fun peasant lore about the monsters. 50% of it is good info and 50% is completely false and may get you!

[21:40] <+CodyPondsmith> killed! You get to figure out what’s real and what’s not!

[21:41] <~Dan> Awesome. 🙂

[21:41] <~Dan> Thanks very much for joining us, CodyPondsmith!

[21:41] <+Steamin661> Thats a neat feature.

[21:41] <+CodyPondsmith> It was a ton of fun, Dan!

[21:41] <+JimMc> Thanks Cody! Super excited!

[21:41] <~Dan> And you don’t have to run off, btw. You’re always welcome to hang out with us. 🙂

[21:41] <+Vinipac88> The game seem really cool!

[21:41] <+CodyPondsmith> Sure! If anyone has any more questions I’ll gladly answer them!

[21:41] <+JGray> The Witcher Table-top RPG is being released in print at Gen Con on August 2nd at our booth (1752). Later that weekend we’ll release the PDF for sale on DriveThru RPG. Physical copies will be up for order later in August.

[21:41] <+alistair_doctor> I’m definitely pumped.

[21:42] <~Dan> If you’ll give me just a minute, I’ll get the log posted and link you!

[21:42] <+JGray> Our blog will note when everything is available: (Link: https://tinyurl.com/randomworlds-chat)https://tinyurl.com/randomworlds-chat

[21:42] <+Vinipac88> What’s your favorite monster?

[21:42] <+JGray> That’s not our blog. 🙂 This is: (Link: https://rtalsoriangames.wordpress.com/)https://rtalsoriangames.wordpress.com/

[21:42] <+JGray> (Its late here)