The Dark Eye/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Broken Base: The system is loved and hated, often at the same time by the same people.
  • Canon Sue: In one of the earlier campaigns, Ulrich Kiesow introduced his favorite character, the Sorceress Nahema as this. She haunts the setting since then, and is usually enigmatic and just better than anything a PC could ever achieve. The whole people of the kobolds might fit here as well.
  • Continuity Porn: Some might think that the setting's depth of information was a "bad" thing.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: A small part of the Fanbase believes that the nameless god is just misunderstood.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The sheer volume of NPC has led to quite of these. Many of the villains are more popular than their 'good' counterparts.
  • Game Breaker: Few and far between, but they do exist. Some of the truly terrifying ones are highly situational, though.
    • A guild wizards staff can be used to store spells which can be used instantaneously. Given enough preparation time, this can roughly double the amount of spells he can cast before he is out of mana and circumvents casting time and gesture or word requirements.
    • Because there are so many spells that can be modified and work out differently in different representations (Druid, Guildmage, Witch, etc.) a few spells can be incredibly powerful if used right, which led to the hilarious example of a player who, using only mechanism availible at character generation with no extra Game Master grace given, managed to max out the effects of one spell far enough to create the fantasy equivalent of an atomic bomb.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Many of the demons might qualify. The demon queen of rape and her servants certainly do.
  • It Was His Sled: Emperor Hal was a woman. The twist ending to an old adventure module, this information has no further relevance to the setting. Despite this, many fora have a ban on this information.
  • Mary Sue: The setting has its number of writer favorite NPCs who are strictly better than anything a player could ever achieve. One spectacular case is the Sorceress Nahema, the favorite NPC of the founder of TDE. He died almost ten years ago, but his creation still haunts the setting.
  • Rooting for the Empire: In the early days of the Dark Eye the slave-holding city-state of Al'Anfa was the source of all evil and scourge of the continent's south. Then Villain Decay set in and The Empire was thoroughly pummeled whenever it reared its head (and sometimes even when it didn't). Nowadays the fanbase is nearly unanimous in its support for the battered city.
  • Running the Asylum: The writing staff consists completely of fans.