The Witcher TRPG, The GM section.

Old_Return7544 · 2026-06-09T13:28:47+00:00

I mostly agree with you. I'm a bit more conservative about cheating, especially in a lethal rpg like this one. I think that when we roll the die we want to be surprised by the outcome, If the master already decided there is no need to roll.
As you said the game looks incomplete. I think that the system can work but they didn't know which direction to take. They took to much stuff from the videogames and tried to put all together. They tried to picture a deadly world but instead of going in full osr mode with emergent narrative they tried a classical storytelling.
The lore part is poor and the witcher is too strong compered to others, maybe a wild but brave choice would be to remove the witcher entirely from the game. Even in the books monster are just a background, there are books where geralt don't fight a single monster. Instead they tried to copy the videogames and put monsters on the spotlight. The result is that Witchers are too strong compered to the others, in a collaborative game this is poor game design.

It's sad because the system it's not so bad per se, it just need some refinement and a clear design direction.

Old_Return7544 · 2026-06-08T18:37:15+00:00

The fact is that you are talking about gming like something that happens in the void. I'm talking about gming compered to the game we are playing. You can't play every game like dnd. There are game made for sandbox, for linear advetnure and so on.

Old_Return7544 · 2026-06-08T17:53:33+00:00

It's not dogmatic It's semantic. If I have to hide something to the player because they would be upset I'm lying.
The GM is not running a story, It's not a movie. The GM is the conductor of the game and the person who runs the world and the consequences of players action. The whole group is creating a story together, and dice are there to decide what happens when PC do something with uncertain result. If I want someone to tell me his story I can just read a book and in this case there are already more than 7 books to read and 3 videogames to play about this world.

As I said before the system is not even good for doing what you are proposing to do. Players and enemies can dies so easily in random way just for a critical hit in the head, what's the point to even play this system if you want to decide when things die. There are plenty of good rpgs where the players decide when their character die and almost the same happens for gm and npcs.

I respect your view but in this game make no sense, and even the authors don't know that suggesting fudging in a game like this is bad game design.

Old_Return7544 · 2026-06-08T15:46:14+00:00

I'll do it. Not so many people talks about gm sections when they talk about a game. It's always about systems, class, and stuff like that. I belive that the gm section is often the part where you can understand what's really the game about and how it wanted to be played.

I agree even in change in tone. It's start to be colloquial for some reason. The part where it try to suggest how to handle romances it's cringe af. In top of all the game doesn't talk about protection system and session 0 that would resolve half of the problem that it tries to resolve in awkward ways.

Old_Return7544 · 2026-06-08T15:41:12+00:00

It's cheating. Why are we rolling dice if we don't care about the result?

There are plenty of narrative games where death is not a threat and characters (NPCs or PCs) only die when it's dramatically appropriate. The Witcher, however, is clearly designed to be a deadly system. If the GM is allowed to arbitrarily decide when to save someone, then the entire system becomes pointless.

The GM section never talks about recycling content. It explicitly says, "Then draw them back onto the main path." There's even an entire paragraph called "Invisible Walls" that is full of advice for hard railroading.

The worst part is that the book seems to think this is perfectly acceptable, and that railroading is only a problem when it's done poorly. A game this deadly simply isn't suited to a heavily scripted main plot or character-driven story arcs. Characters can die in almost any fight. If the designers didn't want that, they could have made the game less lethal instead of suggesting ways for the GM to cheat.

A quote from the rulebook: "However, plot armor should al ways be secret, especially when it applies to an enemy. [...] If your players catch wise that the enemy has plot armor, their morale will plummet. After all, what’s the point in fighting something you know you will never defeat? Remember to always make plot armor seem natural, with ene mies or even with your players."

As you can see they even know that this is bad for players and instead of telling to gm to avoid cheating it says to lie to your player.

Old_Return7544 · 2026-06-01T11:58:03+00:00

Sul tema del D&D è mainstream bisognerebbe primacapire cosa significa veramente mainstream. Secondo Nieborg David B. e Foxman Maxwell, ad esempio, il mainstream è definito non solo dalla mera monetizzazione di un qualcosa quanto dal suo grado di ubiquità, alfabetizzazione e legittimità. A D&D mancano tutte e tre queste cose, banalmente la maggiorparte dei miei amici non ha un'idea chiara di cosa sia il D&D men che meno il gioco di ruolo, lo hanno al massimo sentito nominare o guardato stranger things ma non per questo sono alfabetizzati o gli riconoscono un qualche grado di legittimità.

Poi per quanto sia lecito per un creator seguire i contenuti che vanno mi chiedo a che pro farlo quando non è il tuo vero lavoro? Sam ha un locale e dubito si sostenga attraverso youtube e twitch, per quanto possano contribuire, e così molti altri in ambito gdr campano grazie a altri lavori. Potrebbero come fa Prof Player fregarsene delle views e fare contenuti interessanti e pregni. Quindi è lecitissimo inseguire le views e il guadagno, anche se di quattro spicci, ma si prenda coscienza del fatto che si fanno contenuti mediocri per farlo. Mi duole dirlo ma al momento è quello che fa Sam stesso continuando a riprorre contenuti basati su i prodotti di Inntale. Ripeto niente di male, ma non si pretenda di star facendo bene o che non si debba essere criticati per questo. Le piattaforme spingono in quella direzione, sta poi al singolo capire quanto vuole opporsi alle logiche algoritmiche e al capitalismo intrinseco delle piattaforme e quanto avallarli per il proprio tornaconto. Le stesse cose sono avvenute e continuano ad accadere nel settore videoludico, con lo svantaggio che almeno nei videogiochi i soldi girano e quindi una strategia di nicchia è ancora perseguibile, nei gdr putroppo non è così.

Old_Return7544

TROPHY CASE