I was reading through a thread that touched on the idea of D&D heroes performing feats far beyond those of mortal men, to the point of becoming supernatural (even among martial classes). This immediately evoked the Souls franchise to me - or at least my understanding of it. Iirc, it's specifically alluded to in Demon's Souls: the more souls you consume (and level up) the more you become something more than human; something terrifying. Thus, when you see Havel clad in his armour of stone, striking down dragons and so on that is because he has left humanity behind. By even 24 STR you're likely beyond that which a human is capable of (the point at which you can 1h the Guts sword).
So I was wondering whether anyone has experimented with using the Dark or Demon's Souls setting in tabletop? I know a card game exists but I was more thinking of a homebrew (unless tabletop books exist I suppose). The thing is, I am pretty good at the games and find them enjoyable now, and the setting is great but frankly, I'm not brilliant at something like D&D and if the difficulty and expectation of frequent death were the same, I imagine a party of three getting quickly discouraged given the sheer time investment involved to make even modest progress. How could such a game world be implemented so as not to be utterly unplayable to a relative novice?
Tyler Perry
Dark souls has a lot of similarities to an old (AD&D era) official D&D setting called Ghostwalk:
>The central locale for the Ghostwalk setting is a city called Manifest, a mausoleum city built atop a geological feature known as the Veil of Souls which leads the spirits of the departed on to the True Afterlife. In the immediate surroundings of the city of Manifest, the ghosts of the dead may cross the barrier into the land of the living and interact with their loved ones as translucent beings forged of ectoplasm, their ghost bodies marked by whatever injuries killed them and often driven by some craving for some aspect of the living world, such as music or food. A manifested ghost may fairly easily be returned to his body by resurrection magic and so in the City of Manifest one may die a great many times and be returned to his body with no harmful side effects. The one danger in exploring the other side of death as a ghost is the Calling, an unshakable urge that overcomes ghosts at some point in their unlife that drives them to forsake the world and pass into the True Afterlife. Such a transition is permanent and marks the end of a character
>While all sentient races have spirits, only the human and demihuman races can travel to Manifest and live again as ghosts. A great many nonhuman races are jealous of this gift, and have sought to destroy Manifest throughout its history. Several times they have succeeded. This has resulted in an underworld of forgotten catacombs, all that is left of the many cities left behind. Below these are vast natural caverns and tunnels that increase in size and complexity surrounding the Veil of Souls. All of these are filled with all manner of monsters and villains, but also treasures lost.
>Of the enemies of the City of Manifest, perhaps the most persistent are the Yuan-ti, snake people who long for power and immortality and thus hate everything the city stands for.
Jack Mitchell
The answer to your every question is Shadow of the Demon Lord (with or without the setting and fluff).
Josiah Sanders
Not OP, I1m gonna hunt this down, thanks.
Christopher Cox
You're right, there's a lot there that sounds familiar. Still, The Calling sounds much nicer than going hollow I must say.
Could you please elaborate?
Mason Brooks
Ghostwalk was invented for 3rd Edition. I think it was, in fact, technically the first 3rd Edition campaign setting.
Aaron Brooks
Shadow of the Demon Lord is a very streamlined refined 3.PF that is lethal, magic isn't trustworthy and the world is going to die when the Demon Lord arrives any day now.
Aaron Bell
Got a link to a PDF?
Ethan Jones
It's more 5e than 3.x, but yeah, very streamlined and has a nice dark tone.
Angel Howard
I don't have a setting but I do have a bunch of the bosses statted out in 5e
Jace Gomez
Its incomplete, but I have a Dark Souls specific homebrew system I can post for you when I get home if you want. Its playable, its just the weapons list and enemy list are incomplete. Stuff you could fill in as you plan out new areas.
Includes Hollowing and repeatable death, but not without limit.
David Miller
If you do a dark souls inspired game, I would suggest not making them Hollows. People tend to forget that not everyone become Hollow in dark souls, or that there aren't regular everyday people living normal lives. Only powerful & strong willed people become Hollows. & the Hollowed condition is one that as you die more & more the less "you" comes back. You develop obsessions, phobias etc. The MCs of the games are special because they can hold on longer than normal hollows.
Just tell them to make normal characters like any other game except the backdrop is Lordan, or New Londo, or Carim, etc. Then after they are comfortable in the world & you are comfortable with the idea, introduce Hollowing. How normal humans fear Hollows, how it degrades the mind, etc.
There is also the risk of imprisonment (Undead Asylum DS1) Enslavement (Slave Knights DS3) & worse for Hollows in the civilized world
Tyler Anderson
Not OP, but I'd be interested in that
Mason Myers
yeah but the point is to balance the power creep vs. their humanity - not dissimilar to how Vampire the Masquerade or most of the WoD games have a counter balance between humanity and the core power sources of the splats.
Hollows just want to be loved, but failing that they'll cover themselves in plate mail made of rocks and murder and murder dragons with a hairpin.
Juan Sanders
This is really nice. I take it not your own work? If it is, I'm extremely impressed. Nice artwork too.
Josiah Scott
I feel like Demon's Souls has great potential for more adventure. After the game, Old One goes back asleep, fog is lifted, the world is in disarray and the Soul Arts are gone. All that remains are scattered enchanted, magical items, but the ability to make more is gone and the Slayer of Demons weapons are highly sought after, legendary weapons. But now the fog is coming back, slowly, in far corners and souls are getting trapped in the Nexus again.
The PCs could be simple adventurers trying to traverse the unstable reality between Archstones to get to the Northern Limit where the Slayer of Demons weapons are said to have ended up, away from prying eyes. But it seems someone found them, and the Soul Arts have been rediscovered. They die and become trapped in the Nexus, and go on to continue their journey to collect the weapons before the demons return in force.
The unstable reality could be temporal gateways for encounters with ancient demons, insane warriors who never made it to the north, black phantoms and more from the past, or from other worlds.
Luis Hughes
Or there's the broken archstone, still trapped midst fog and demons, where salvation never came. The world moved on, but in the Land of the Giants the dead walk still. Their souls unable to return to the Nexus, who can say what fate befalls them?
Whereas the Old One has returned to slumber, now a question remains without an answer, and no way to solve it - or at least not by conventional means.
Angel Reed
Post the rest please
Ian Murphy
>This immediately evoked the Souls franchise to me Do you have literally any other point of reference?
Thomas Richardson
>that is because he has left humanity behind heh heh i get it
Adrian Flores
Honestly I just ran it in pathfinder. Basically gave everyone the wizard template and had them choose their proficiency and save scores, and since all magic is taken from spellbound I just had npc trainers and book pages as loot. Estus flask was a refilling health potion and hollowing would drive a person mad after 4 deaths without using humanity. Enemies where usually 5 levels or so above the players, and bosses a minimum of 10. You can more then likely run a similar idea in dnd or most other d20 systems as well
Aiden Sanders
I see you're a man of discerning tastes
Owen Howard
>my players and I are so attached to one game that we can't possibly learn a new system for a game mechanically and thematically incompatible with 3.pf even when much better options exist kill yourself
Eli Gonzalez
Now, now. Have a seat and get comfortable. We;ll both be hollow before you know it. Hahahahahaha...
Parker Anderson
Nah, we did d10 systems pretty often (lotfr and a bit of wod that was modded to hell and back), I just used pathfinder since d20 lends well to fantasy and pathfinders an easy edit.
Isaac Martin
You're either trolling or retarded
Jeremiah Lewis
You keep thinking that user, I'll just have my fun
Jaxon Mitchell
Bump for Souls
Andrew Baker
>my work oh I wish. I am horrible at homebrewing sadly. But I can post stuff like wants
Nolan Fisher
...
Samuel Jackson
...
Jackson Howard
...
Dominic Allen
...
Jaxon Murphy
...
Jace Cox
...
Ryder Perez
...
Brandon Ortiz
...
Connor Adams
...
Dominic Evans
...
Wyatt Miller
...
Camden Bennett
...
Elijah Moore
...
Jace Bailey
...
Christian Russell
...
Samuel Morales
...
Christian Roberts
whoops
Lucas Morris
...
Jack Davis
>Genesys Narrative system and dynamic combat make it easy to narrate souls style combat, however it's not as deadly as it should be for Souls, so it requires some creative GM-ing. It also requires specialized dice. On the other hand, it'll run just about anything, and it's on the level of 5e in terms of crunch.
>Zweihander/Mythras To hear Veeky Forums say it, they're nearly interchangeable fantasy ports of the BRP d100 system. Mythras is more modular in my experience though, and has a variety of magic systems that can support Souls style casting. The combat system is also deadly and detailed enough to support the dynamic style of souls, albeit at a slower pace. It is, however, pretty goddamn crunchy, and I've been hard-pressed to find players willing to put the time or effort into learning the system when modern RPGs tend to favor more streamlined, faster paced learning curves to deal with busy schedules and limited time frames.
Lincoln Thompson
...
Elijah Ward
...
Jackson Edwards
...
John Fisher
...
Wyatt Adams
...
Christian Ortiz
...
Anthony Cook
...
William Cooper
...
Luke White
...
Jeremiah Turner
...
Blake Perez
...
Lincoln Sanders
>get cool original spell descriptions >butcher with fanfic
Juan Ramirez
...
Jonathan Scott
...
Jason Cook
...
Colton Lee
...
Jacob Kelly
...
Asher James
...
Kayden Morgan
and the very last one I have
Gavin Johnson
Sadly I don't know of any fantasy systems with that kind of power scaling for players aside from 4e d&d but the rest of the game doesn't really lend itself well to Souls style games
Blake Sullivan
...
Dominic Martin
Thanks user these are cool Surprised there aren't stats for basilisks or mimics though
Landon Nelson
One of those monster entries is actually a Mimic, but I wont link which one.
James Turner
The narrative style of Souls games really doesn't work for tabletop, no matter how hard you try it'll never "feel" like Dark Souls.
Ayden Reed
>gwyn >the most evil character in the setting >lawful good Who wrote these profiles?
Mason Martin
Can anyone convert Capra Demon (and maybe some other mobs) into playable races?
I always loved the Capra Demon and wished I knew how to use those mods to let people play as bosses.
Austin Allen
>Who wrote these profiles? Either a lordcuck or that sneaky kike Frampt.
No? Surely all's you need to do is make sure that the environment does the storytelling; the exploration. Incidentals in structural damage, corpses, cryptic messages and meetings. So on. I think it could definitely be done. A big part of it, though, would probably lie in stripping the PCs bare and seeing how they reacted to the world, defenseless as babes.
Joseph Scott
no idea dude. I just grab them from reddit and tumblr and throw them at my players from time to time
no idea how to convert monster races into a playable character in 5e. 3.x.. maybe
Camden Sanchez
>gwyn is evil Go back to the abyss darkwraith.
Robert Thomas
>He's a firecuck Burn to ashes for your loyalty to a race of 'gods' who care nothing for you
Justin Jenkins
>Downing souls makes you fuckhuge >Your PC kills several fuckhuge characters and eat their souls >You never gain an inch of height
Fucking Memesouls.
Camden Morales
Modern pop culture has damaged this generation. They have no knowledge of things older than they are.
Gavin Carter
Fuck I forgot how out of place this guy felt in DSII. Felt like he came from a completely different setting. Like I wouldn't' be surprised if you fought him in Kingdom Hearts.
Why was he so fucking anime?
Dominic Campbell
wew
Noah Ward
“Psssh… Nothin Personnel… Kid…”
Josiah Evans
What was his deal anyway? Like he's supposed to work for that goddess of vengeance right? The fuck was he doing hunting down the PC?
Nolan Lee
no idea. I started playing ds3. Currently waiting for the remastered version for the switch
Juan Rogers
Darksouls doesn't elaborate on its shallow as fuck lore?
Shock!
Jonathan Watson
>hurr durr fire bad dark good See how well that worked out for the humans of Oolacile.
Ryan Reyes
>souls lore >shallow Just because it doesn't give a detailed explanation on every little aspect of the lore doesn't mean it's shallow.
Dominic Martinez
It's sort of shallow, though. It has the illusion of being deeper than it is by having a lot of unanswered questions
Daniel Thomas
I've been running a 5e game in the Dark Souls universe, specifically right before the dragon war that happened before the events of Dark Souls 1. The first thing I did was stat all the equipment. I based it all off the in game stats. I then figured out how ability scores would work so it was closer to Dark Souls. Then I moved to things like parrying and blocking. It basically ended up reducing the health and increasing the damage of the normal 5e balance. I also have sort of a classless leveling system to fit the feel of Dark Souls. I made a player's guide pdf if anyone is interested. Keep in mind it's pretty rough and has seen some changes that haven't been reflected yet. It's something I came up with alone and has only been played about 5 sessions.
Charles Ortiz
GURPS or Runequest are by far the best suited systems for Soulsborne stuff. Gritty and granular, and a somewhat complex combat system that at least kind of imitates the timing and complexity of learning your weapon's moveset and enemy behaviors in DS/BB
Nathan Young
How about you read a book instead of basing everythign off the flavor of the month video trash? You're (presumably) an adult. Grow up.
Dylan Smith
>technology is scary and bad If you can't see the merit in its particular brand of storytelling and interactivity, you don't deserve to enjoy it.
Grayson Nguyen
Sure, let's see itz sounds decent.
Bentley Stewart
>no idea how to convert monster races into a playable character in 5e. 3.x.. maybe Can you try it? It's always good to be creative.
Thomas Ramirez
It's puerile nonsense masquerading as storytelling. It's an inherently juvenile "medium" fit only for mindless entertainment. It cannot and will not ever be capable of any real pathos or theme and anyone who thinks that it's in any way comparable to a real artform such as literature should procure some rope at earliest opportunity.
Grayson Gutierrez
You haven't played a videogame since the Atari 2600, have you, user? Things changed a little since then!
Angel Kelly
I wouldn't waste my time or my money. I've seen well enough what passes for "story" and "character" among modern gaming audiences. It's pathetic and breeding generations of illiterate, emotionally stunted man children who can't engage with anything beyond a cursory level and think that the depth of role playing is picking from one of several options and doing mindless busywork to make their numbers larger. They spend their time playing video games and watching movies instead of films, reading children's books well into their thirties. It's pathetic.
Gabriel Hernandez
>Locks away a trusted and loyal friend "for his own good" >Banishes one of his daughters to sleep forever in the Ringed City >Feels threatened by the humans, so he makes it so their souls will get burned away if his Age of Fire wanes. Also wipes out all record of them kicking ass against the dragons Gwyn was a dick. You really can't argue that he wasn't.
Sebastian Torres
I think you're an absolutely sad little luddite snob, but you're free to have your opinion and remain willfully ignorant just so your views don't get challenged. No amount of genuine argument or debate will change those views unless you change them yourself. But why would you? That's hard.
Also >comes into a videogame inspired thread to moan about videogames You're that kind of person, take a look at yourself.
