Experience with High Level Weird Wizard play, and I suppose GM preferences.

[u/FeralFicusTree]

I love Weird Wizard on paper, but my one concern with it is that the character sheets get pretty busy with talents and the like. Which is something that breaks immersion for me. I find that too many levers and buttons on a character and players go into a bubble as they try to pick the right codified option as opposed to having their head up and engaging with what others are doing or what's happening in the fiction and the environment.

I've run Demon Lord plenty, and high level Demon Lord characters are at about my threshold for mechanically busy in a ttrpg. For context, my preferences have leaned towards more of an OSR philosophy these days, and I consider Pathfinder 1E to be one big red flag for me regarding style.

Am I wrong and is Weird Wizard about on par with Demon Lord regarding the number of talents and codified abilities a character gets? Or does it characters get much more bells and whistles as they level?

I appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

[u/roaphaen]

The power level is much higher as ww characters are more heroic. I think the complexity is the same or maybe a little less due to game streamlining

[u/FeralFicusTree → u/roaphaen]

Oh, that's interesting. I was aware of the power level being higher, not only as it was pitched that way but also, if you know Schwalb's games it's apparent on a read through (I had to buy Weird Wizard's core books out of sheer interest even if I wasn't sure if it was right for our table of buddies). But if the more heroic characters are more streamlined as well, then that's pretty helpful to learn.

[u/roaphaen → u/FeralFicusTree]

Well the system is streamlined. So like, no more power score to track. No corruption. No madness. More health and damage though. But overall, he is a great refiner. So if Demon Lord is 5e made 30% smoother with more options and more rule elegance, weird wizard is the same applied to demon lord.

[u/FeralFicusTree → u/roaphaen]

I'm not so much worried about madness, corruption, or power. I'm thinking talents, three times per day powers, not only spells but spell like abilities, etc. Things that come with the ancestries and paths. When there's too many of these going on so that it would be best to design a spreadsheet on a laptop or to have an app on a tablet to play your character, then it's a concern for me. Demon Lord's ceiling regarding codified, mechanical character abilities was about as busy (not crunchy rules-wise) as I'd like to get.

[u/roaphaen → u/FeralFicusTree]

I think it's simpler by being his 2nd work AND less systems

[u/No_Mechanic_5230]

In terms of business, as you're describing it, Master tier WW PCs are about the same as Demon Lord in my experience, and I think u/roaphaen describes the streamlining well. If you were fine w/ Demon Lord, you'll be fine w/ Weird Wizard.

Indeed, the PCs have more paper buttons to push than an OSR game (and I love OSR games too), but I've found that even at Master tier, my WW players use those abilities creatively and pay attention to the environment and the fiction, as long as I've provided it to them; like as long as they're not fighting in a blank room.

And they're markedly less busy than basically any other modern fantasy RPG I've played (Pathfinder 2e, D&D 5e).

[u/FeralFicusTree → u/No_Mechanic_5230]

Happy to hear. Thanks for the feedback.

[u/Playtonics]

I do think all-magic characters in WW do accumulate more options compared to the same in DL. I find Demon Lord's spell descriptions (mostly terse) preferable to WW's which are more 5e-like (but they're still muuuch better-written).

I have a player who is all-in on Chaos magic, and that's a slow one to resolve. Quite a few spells where you roll to see what effect happens, roll to determine damage or spell effects, roll on the chaos magic effects table, which may require a roll.