An amazing product made by Talsorian Games that has all the flavor of the games and the books in various ways, starting with the lore of the Continent, set in 1271-72 (between the events of Witcher 2 and Witcher 3 and at the dawn of the Third Nilfgaardian War against the Northern Realms), continuing with the races and classes, each one interesting and useful in its own way, and ending with the rules of combat, crafting both weapons and armors, alchemical conconctions, and so on. The crafting system is a fine addition to the game, and is both useful and interesting. The magic section is enourmous for just one book and it's interesting to see the signs (Aard, Yrden, Quen, Axii, Igni) be able to be used by a Mage, other than a Witcher.

Is it a dated game system? Probably. Is it fun? I had fun only reading this rulebook, it would be amazing actually playing this TRPG! Deadly sure it is. In fact, after the live session at IGN GMed by Pondsmith himself it is pretty clear that a Witcher could die pretty easily against the wrong monster, it said creature strikes for the head.

I'm obviously biased, I love the universe created by both Andrzej Sapkowski and CD Projekt Red and this product is exactly what I was hoping for. Sure, there are some typos here and there, but nothing that could ruin the experience and that couldn't be corrected.

I recommend this PDF to everyone who is interested in a deadly and well structured TRPG and is a fan of books and/or the games.

The Witcher setting meets the Cyberpunk role-playing system.

Beautiful art, well-laid out and, a few bugs aside ( like maximum stats for starting characters being easy to find), a really really well done book.

Uses the Stat+Skill+Gear+Dice Roll system. Very nice, fast and makes the luck of the die only one component of success. Will please your dice-unlucky players.

Skills are easy to understand and describe the Witcher world well, the system behind them is simple and effective.

Combat is snappy and deadly - little overly-detailed for my taste, but you can omit a couple things like Recovery actions and Fumbles/Critical Successes if they are slowing you down. Overall, though, solid.

The world is well-described and the denizens drawn from the Witcher very nicely. As others have said, an expanded Bestiary would be nice, but people have always been a Witcher's greatest challenge.

Saying this, a real triumph is how otherwise OP classes like Witcher and Sorcerer are represented and well-rounded. Although potent, each class - Man at Arms, Criminal, Merchant, Witcher, etc shines - and magic has it's drawbacks, oh yes.

The class skill system is also a nice touch - some abilities are much more potent than others, true, but those can be tweaked as your game goes on.

Really a solid, solid title. A foible - I feel the title characters are a little super-powered - in the game and the books, they aren't quite so potent perhaps? Zoltan with a Body of 10, for example. But, again, a minor quibble.

I'd like to give the game an 8.5 to 9.5, but if I have to go out of 5 stars, I'll go with 5. It's closer to 5 than 4 for sure. IF you like Witcher and gritty fantasy game systems.

The 25$ price tag is pretty steep, but what you get for it is pretty impressive. R Talsorian translated practically every mechanic from the video games into the tabletop format and from this you get some very interesting classes such as the merchant and craftsman, which offer a playstyle I havent really seen in other systems. The combat is as visceral and deadly as I was hoping, you can feel like a real badass kicking enemies into hazards and pirouetting your way around the battlefield, but at the same time you never feel like you know how battle is gonna go since everyone just one weak defense roll away from an injury thats gonna change your entire plan. Despite the pros(and this is reason I'm giving this book a poor rating) there are a ridiculous amount of errors. Some rules are confusing and explained poorly, others are based on information thats actually a left over from a previous version that conflicts with existing rules and some things are just flat out missing(How do you miss something as simple as the price and weight for a torch!?). If you plan on getting this book be prepared to spend a couple hours homebrewing content the devs forgot to include and deciphering how their game is actually meant to be played. Even though it was a headache to learn how to play, I believe it can still be the Witcher roleplay experience we were all hyped for years back when this was announced, there's just a ton of clean up needed before it can really shine.

Beforehand, let me explain that I am a big witcher fan and think the PC games are among the best games ever. I expected a good game of this RPG. After years of "development", apparently by a single person as the author speaks in the 1st person, it was finally published. The layout is ok, yet I find it not very fitting for a fantasy/ witcher setting as it looks very modern. The content is sadly very much distributed over the whole book, especially the professional skills for witchers (e.g. character creation, perks, lifepath, etc.). This is not very good for playing and you will keep turning pages. The system is not very balanced. First of all the dice become quickly unimportant, due to the combination with stats. In addition it is bascially a less detailed than the game, but still too complicated for a free table top roleplaying game. You have certain pieces that you have to put together for crafting diagrams. But this becomes very generic and gives you little freedom, especially as a GM. While this was ok for a PC game, it does not work for a good story game. All in all, the game just adds certain patterns together, but it lacks "Witcher life". The spirit is missing, the game has no soul. You can just grab the world description "The world of the Witcher" and use any generic rule system, e.g. rolemaster, with some modifications and will have a better game, which more interesting character development. The same "soulless" issues are true for the example story at the end. It is not scary or tense or anything, just stupid. This does not fit the "brutish" tone the game ostensibly wants to set. Don't bother with this "product", which looks and feels like a half-baked fan work.

I followed the development of this system and was really looking forward to it. We started playing it last sunday with the charachter creation and were looking to learn the mechanics while doing so. The text is very well written and i like the art. Nothing extraordinary but it brings the world of the witcher to live. But the layout is the big problem child. In most other rpg rulebooks they use the first few pages to convey to you the basic workings of the game, how the skill checks work, what dice are used and so on. But this book starts right off with the character creation and only on side 50 or so is it, where you finally learn, how the game works. Thats a big mistake on the writers parts in my humble opinion. And the there are all of those side notes. Some are just in game monologue and if you make the mistake to think they are just some side information, you are in for a treat, because some of them are crucial to the understanding of all the mechanics in the game. I do not understand why basic and critical information are shifted out of the main text an dumped to the side. I really like the alchemy, magic and gear and crafting system in general. Its in depth and if a player wishes to use it, it brings hours of play and can even lead to plot motivation and so on. Really ties in with the world and the experiences in the games. Then there is the combat system that i like so far, but here again strikes the difficult continuity in this book and how it ist written. It starts with how attacks work, and where you hit and what wounds are caused, with all the detailed effects and the "death state" But wait a minute. Why is there a reliabilty stat for my weapon mentioned? 10 pages later i know better. There is, why i do not knwo, a chapter with in depth combat slapped in. 3 pages where i learn how to block, that i can shoot a bow or use magic. Why, dear authors, why? I would have put it like that: Iniative, walking/running, actions, the different options of attack, special moves, ranged combat, magic, bombs etc., than the passive part of the attacked with the defenses, crit resolve and all of that, and only than do we come to the wounds and how damage is resolved, and end on the nice note of healing and the aftermath. Why all those side notes and step ins? A more consequent writing style with the informations in the right spot and the main text would have been better. The part of the witcher character creation would also do better as a complete chapter with all of the life steps, gear and all in one place for the witcher player and gm. Maybe after a few sessions i can give a more finite verdict, but right now this are the things, that really tickled me.

Unfortunaly a number of ugly warts that makes this product fall short of (my) expectations:

• A D10+attribute+skill vs Difficulty system where the fixed stats quickly make the D10 meaningless (which is already apparent in the first examples to explain the system in the rulebook, where a D10+26 is rolled against a difficulty of 19 (i.e. missing fit of stat range to standard deviation of randomizer)

• Too many detailed modifiers (which will be eyeballed anyway in real game)

• Crits and calld shots don't match

• Too little choice in character design to allow e.g. a group of Witchers

• Ugly layout choices (2-3 columns with changing width and overuse of italics; ugly coloured tables, totally unispiring character sheet) - look like straight from the 80s in a bad way

On the plus side is a treatment of the setting which is evicative and good crafting/alchemy rule

I really like it. Have been GM'ing for many years now and although I need to run with this a LOT more before it settles into a "favourite system" niche then it looks promising.

Calling something a favourite system is EXTREMELY subjective though so here's why I like it. The entire system is based of a simple core mechanic of a skill plus stat plus D10. Everything else that I've read is the sort of thing that you could then add on should you desire. If you want the lean and simple then it can be boiled down to that core. If you want more crunch then you can add the extra combat mechanics like criticals, combat maneouvers and the rest. Things like alchemy, magic and crafting are there if you want them but they don't need to be integral to the game if you don't want them to. It can, if you want, just keep bringing things back to that basic simple mechanic.

Delving into some of those more advandced mechanics though, I like that the combat is fast, brutal and deadly meaning that players will want to think their way round problems rather than wading in while assuming success. Even when fights are inevitable, people need to think tactically as well which I really like. But again, this could be modified or ignored by a GM who wants a slightly different flavour to things.

Just off the top of my head you could easily make the game less deadly by making the "death state" more forgiving, increasing the HP ratio or removing "injured status"

My main frustration is also a selling point. I have read that the writers were determined to have everything in the book so that you could just pick up this one book and run/play a game out of it. This is a good thing, however, it also means that there's a lot of detail that's been left out. I would have liked more monsters, more spells, more character stats, in depth discussions of the countries and their nobilities. In short, I wanted a bit more.

Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that at some point you need to stop writing a book and publsih it ina manageable format. But I wanted a bit more and am looking forward to/hoping for so more supplements to help with this.

I have one significant problem which is that there is a missing character class that one of my players was looking forward to being able to plat. He's a player that likes to play politics and and courtly games. To do that in this game you have to be a bard, or a mage. He wanted to be neither, he wanted to be a professional politician. The kind of sycophant that hangs around with Kings and ambassadors all the time that might be sent out with a party to "facillitate their endeavours". This is missing despite there being several characters in the source material that fulfill this role and we both found that disappointing.

Yes, I understand that anyone can take the diplomacy skills but it's the mage that gets the "Politician" skill tree. So at the moment, I'm having to work on a different class for him. This is why I've rated this four out of five stars because it seems like a fairly obvious to me.

Other than that I like it. It's obviously the result of a small number of people's work. I understand that updates with bookmarks and formatting will be released soon and I look forward to reading, and GM'ing more from this team

I've been following the development of this book ever since it was announced, and I was skeptical about it from the beginning. I'm not overly impressed with the previous works of the creators, so there is definitely some bias here, but I try to divorce myself from it as much as possible.

The Looks 2/5

The book is not a nice book. The layout feels puritan, and unadorned, sometimes confusing. It isn't unreadable, or distracting... But really there is not much to say about how this book presents itself. Almost all of the art is taken from the various CD Project games, which results in artwork of varying quality, lacking a strong aesthetic element all together. It just looks cheap. Uninspired text boxes, boring headers, and art taken from other sources... Meh.

The System 3/5

Not having played it yet, these are my first impressions of the system. It looks like it should work. It isn't an inspired system, or anything new, but it was changed enough so the setting fits with it comfortably. A single strike could end the career of an adventurer, or indeed any NPC, and the world of the Witcher lends itself really well to games where the system might not the the most important thing... It is crunchy, but it is mostly a question of understanding the rules and utilizing the right ones in any given moment. Since combat seems like something that ends very quickly, and has lasting consequences, much like in the novels, the tension leading up to the confrontation is where the game will truly shine. Character creation is really nothing new, but it creates flavorful characters with interesting backstories (as much as rolling on tables constitutes creating characters... I digress... It gives a good baseline) that fit into the world. The classes are fairly limited in their uniqueness, but they all sound kinda useful, and allow your character to develop a personality.. You won't be overshined by your own abilities in this game, that's for sure. Overall, it seems like system that does the job... like an old shovel. It might not be pretty, or fancy or new, but it can dig a hole. What else do you want?

Faithfulness 4/5

I'm not gonna talk about the setting, instead I will talk about how the setting is represeted in the book. Pretty good actually. You have descriptions of all major powers and places, something that this setting was missing A LOT. It isn't an encyclopedia of knowledge, but it is better than anything we had before. The monsters are given dual descriptions, both from the point of view of the everyman narrator of the book, Rodolf Kazmer, and from the POV of a Witcher, giving you both flavor and information in an entertaining manner. Rodolf also talks about pretty much everything else in the book, giving you his 2 copper pieces which makes a surprisingly interesting read, and helps the potential players orient themselves within the setting. The game is clearly drawing strongly from the CDProjectRed version of the world, which is apparent in many cases. I don't think this is a problem, because: A, it is a curated and more cohesive version of the setting, B, it is obviously tied to the success of the franchise for most places in the world. The few discrepancies between the world of the novels and the games, I am willing to let go.

Overall, I would recommend this book if:

• You are interested in playing in the world of the Witcher (with any system), and want to use the setting described in the book.
• You are interested in playing with kinda crunchy game systems, and like gritty, dark fantasy settings where things can go seriously wrong quickly.
• You are bored with D&D, and you want to experiment with some new variations on the fantasy genre, and you don't mind spending a few bucks on the book.

Don't buy this book if:

• You are into rules-light, narrative systems
• You want to play the heroes journey in a high fantasy game
• You never played an RPG before. Seriously, this ain't for beginners.
• You like products with strong aesthetic values. You will never take this book out to admire it's beauty.

PS. Do yourself a favor and read the novels and play the Witcher III. If you enjoy fantasy, you will have a great time with either of those.

First of all I'd like to state I'm very happy with the current discount of the PDF. I am planning on buying the hardcopy version in 2-3 weeks as well so would not have bought the PDF at full price. And I do not like waiting. At all.

So about 3 weeks ago I had a chat with 2 of my friends, one a massive Witcher fan, with a massive concern about this RPG. Everybody will want to be a bloody Witcher won't they? And that won't work since witchers aren't much liked (understatement) in most parts of the continent. "I hope they make the other classes interesting enough".

3 weeks later I am refreshing the hell out of drivethru and R. Talsorian's Facebook page and suddenly my 'witcher' search comes up with a hit. Oh god I hope it isn't Witcher: The Witchering and the 7 Witchers playing Witchers. And it wasn't....

Besides publishing 9 professions (classes) of which the witcher is 1, I feel they made every class fun to play and fun to play WITH: Has your merry band of travelers just arrived at the small town of [insert random name that is typically used for small towns, something without -grad .... I don't know ... Glenfield!] yes the small town of Glenfield! Ah, let us settle down for some ale and food. What is this you say? No coin? But we have a witcher in the group (there will often be 1 witcher in a group of +-4 people, seeing as theyre just too good when dealing with monsters, but hey if your campaign does not involve fighting monsters, why have a monster ahum mutant in your party?), he is sure to have some coinage from his last monster hunt? He slayed that Grave hag for 800 crowns! ...he spent how much on buying that sword? Eighthun.......son of a whOkay who has crowns? "Give me an hour" Says your bard, as he walks out into the town square of Glenfield (yes I know it's a small town but it has a square okay, just go along with it) he raises a crowd and captivates a group of 20 commoners and merchants, who seem to be able to do nothing but watch him perform a sad song about friendships lost and lack of coin to drown his sorrows. Half weeping the crowd puts crowns in his hat as he bows and thanks them. Or perhaps the bard has a raspy voice that day, or mocked the town patron saint, after which you are very much NOT welcome anymore in any establishment and it's best to keep travelling. Really though who has a patron saint called Dingus?

Now that you have all this coin, where do you spend it? Maybe the merchant of your group is well connected in this area and knows a craftsman who is willing to give him gear with a promise to pay the rest of the fee later! Maybe you have a craftsman with a knack for master crafting! Or you could donate it all to the priest as tithe so you can AHAHAHAHA NO, WE'RE NOT DOING THAT AHAHAHA

I could go on and on but in short: all classes add a nice roleplay element to the story. Of course it is up to the DM/players to actively use this but heyho that's in most games.

The harshness of the environments from the witcher books/games is portrayed accurately as well, it reminded me a bit of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, or Call of Cthulhu RPG, where death comes easy and things 'suck' a lot. No hot water, no food, no rest, no safety, let's go! See a group of bandits? Run. See 2 vampires skulking? Get out. If you get into combat, be SMART about it, don't just run in and spin-to-win around the battlefield, or you're losing that left arm. Lost a left arm? Have I told you about that Doctor profession that can operate on you and.... okay okay I'll stop selling the professions.

Are there things I dislike about the book? Definitely. The layout is indeed a bit basic, there are some font differences with center-page text and text on the side of the pages (center looks good, side font is a no). The colours used in the layout are bit run-of-the-mill and I feel the page numbers should have been stylised/painted. Yes there are some typos, yes the bookmarks are missing (I added them myself manually via Acrobat, since I could wait for them to do it and upload the new version, which they will, but as my first sentence says: I do not like waiting)but all of those things can be fixed, as long as the game rests on a strong heart. The art, however, is bloody gorgeous! No critique there at all, it's a wonderful job, and exactly what I was hoping it would be. The non-art aesthetics need a bit of a brush up methinks. Oh and about 90% of Rodolf's "heh"s need to be removed, it's tiring and annoying.

A lot of info has been included on gear, items, the intricacies of spells, witcher signs, alchemy, crafting, you name it. This combined with the information on what place magic holds in this world and the chapters on the continent/nations/inhabitants/creatures really makes this an interesting book for me. I was NOT looking forward to Witcher: The Witchering. We heard you liked the Witcher, so we put Witchers in your Witcher RPG so you could Witcher while your friends Witcher even harder! Brought to you by Witcher. No. This book sets us up for roleplaying in the world of the books/games that I love so much, and I am very happy that they did. The system works well with it too, it's a new system for me but I found no issues/hardships so far. I like the idea of a skill tree (long time mmorpg player, skill trees are my secret love) and I appreciate the character creation possibilities concerning where you were born, family situation etc. You could also skip some of this if you're not interested in stats as much, but they're good bases for backstories or applications of lore within the sessions.

So all in all: I am very very happy this book is finally here. Looking forward to seeing how they deal with community tips/ideas/further books with adventures (this book also contains one, good move!) and or expansions on the world. Now I am off to roll a Witcher cuz OMG DID YOU HEAR YOU CAN PLAY A WITCHER IN THIS ONE OMG I CAN BE A WITCHER!!!!!

Why do we buy this? Because we want The Witcher TRPG to happen and produce lots of additional Sourcebooks!

Why do I like to buy PDF? Because you can download the revised version free of charge!

Is 25 bucks too much? Nope, because I know that none of my Munchkin-Players will spend money on things that matter (like this book)!

Should you buy this? Yes! There are a few typos on the first few pages that (sadly) really stick out, which is no problem, because you bought an PDF (remember?) and those will be revised in due time! It feels like they really wanted to get it out on time for Gen-Con (a mistake WH 4th designers did not make) and I hope this doesn't fire back too hard. I'm a Die-Hard Warhammer Fan (go buy 4th Edition, fohr ze Emprah, btw.), but The Witcher PC Games left me deeply impressed with a world that is somewhere between my (preferred) High-Fantasy Warhammer und Low-Fantasy Game of Thrones (which is awesome to watch, but kinda less interesting to actually play). It offers a unique blend of these two worlds and after going through this book, I cannot help but feel that they really caught the essence of The Witcher.

Do I like the design of this book? Erm... well... njet! For the same reasons that I did not like die Green Ronin GoT books. It looks somewhat "too tidy", "too clean" and too “hastily made PowerPoint” for a medieval-style fantasy setting. WH 4th did this considerably better, for my taste – and they only published a Preview Version so far. Still, the rules capture everything I liked and loved about The Witcher Games: it's dark (rolling dat lifepath...), gritty (combat is wow, so much ouch) and (man, boo... eh, bombs O_O) it seems a little unfair at times. But what I really cherish - especially as a GM - is the way they handle classes. First off (jup, WH Fan!), I don't really like classes (srsly, screw you DnD! No wan in Tschörmanie laiks ju äniwäi!!!), but this feels just right: Every class has a unique perk that makes it stand out (only a Doctor can treat really nasty wounds properly) and three distinct and unique progression tables (which look really ugly, duh) but if you can ignore the awkward design choices, you'll get a really exciting roleplaying system with social skills that do actually matter (a thing I always incorporated in my PnP games).

Content – wow. No, seriously. I am impressed. Did I say that I did not like the design? Well, this book makes that up for content! Equipment, Magic, Crafting, Alchemy, Combat, World, GM Guide, Witchers, Relics, Bestiary… Call me a Witcher Fan-Boy, if you like, but I think they nailed it! Even when you’re of the not too creative type, with that kind of source material, you should be able to make the real Witcher experience happen!

The layout needs some re-design for future publications and bookmarks. Nevertheless – shut up and take my money!

And now, stop looking you turd, go buy this thing!

Yeah, you got me, I WANT this to be successful so they keep making stuff I can waste time and money on…

As a fan of The Witcher games and novels I was excited for this to drop. My biggest concern was that they would use some sort of narrative system or the custom dice that seem so popular these days. Fortunately it does not.

The system may seem a bit crunchy, but is pretty straightforward. D10+Skill+Attribute+Mod > TN, no big deal. Combat has some nice granulatiry and looks to be something you don't want to just jump into much like Cyberpunk 2020 which this is similar to. Character creation doesn't appear to be overly involved and doesn't include much randomization except for some lifepath style background tables. The game includes 20ish monsters, which should be enough considering that a large portion of enemies are going to be normal people, and that they should prove easy to customize. I am still hoping for a monster book though.

All around pretty happy with the purchase, I'll update when I get some play behind it.

Only having skimmed it so far, but i love the art style, the content looks fine, and the feel is there... at least for me. The bookmark thing is annoying, but in no way a dealbreaker.

I'm a huge fan of the Witcher series. I've played all of the games several times and have read the Witcher books. I am extremely disappointed in the way this book looks and feels. It is hard to tell what this game is about. My friends and I want to play as witchers in the Witcher universe but this game seems more about playing a commoner NPC in the Witcher games. The mechanics are even more confusing. It feels like a generic reskinned game from the 90's and it is not intentionally or ironically marketed as retro. It features archaic randomization elements and convoluted crunch. Even the layout of the book feels amateur and it looks like a layman's homebrew with stolen CD Projekt Red art slapped on. I'd consider paying this much for a modern and professional tabletop rpg but this "game" is far from it.