From Gamasutra: Gen Con’s expo hall is a cornucopia of nerd-dom without parallel.
You find crowds of people poring over boxes of game dice like rare jewels on display at a bazaar, snaking queues for popular game pavilions, skyscrapers of bookshelves, traffic jams of cosplay, all with a titanic Pikachu hovering over it all.
Picking something out from the riot seems almost daunting but there’s more than a little big news hiding in the crowds. A pair of venerable and popular tabletop RPGs from France and Germany have been translated into English, Polaris and The Dark Eye, respectively.
Ulisses Spiele’s The Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge in German) was launched in 1984 and became the bestselling RPG in the German market, even outselling Dungeons and Dragons. The homespun alternative to D&D’s juggernaut can, at first blush, seem to offer nothing that kitchen sink settings like Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder’s Golarion don’t in spades. The anglophone market is certainly saturated with Tolkien-esque high fantasy already. But there are a few things that make The Dark Eye stand out a touch and may appeal to players like me who simply can’t get enough of Elves, Dwarves, and Dragons.
Read more at Gamasutra.com
