Dark Fantasy setting

>Thats not very dark though

Yes it is.

there was a sci-fi themed one that was supposed to feel mechanically like a souls game...Lost Source(pic is the latest edition of this)

and I also worked up a setting(system pending) that feels like bloodborne with more space to explore

Use warhammer fantasy roleplay (2e).
Can't explain right now, am on phone in bus.

simplest answer?

You could maybe use hackmaster? Its very much a game that you start at the bottom from what I've heard... Never gotten to play it myself so take what I say with a assload of salt.

>Tips on dark fantasy?
Dark fantasy is essentially what you get when your game is more middle ground in terms of the sliding scale of fantasy-horror, or if you prefer, it's fantasy with horrific elements. So when you're running the game, think also about stuff like the tension level and where that needs to be increased, think about creating recurring warnings and omens in order to instil a sense of unease.

>the sliding scale of fantasy-horror
I wouldn't think those would be on the same scale
it's a qualitative difference between the 2
that said, lots of horror elements combine well with fantasy

CoC without guns

>How would you make a Dark Souls inspired campaign?
The player characters come to the land of fallen kingdoms, each on their personal quests. I would keep the "die but don't stay dead" bit, with some sanity effects associated with death and death being common.

I would tie their personal quests into the deeper lore, building the greater world as they go along. Have a main, straightforward quest at first related to each of them, sprinkling interesting, crazy NPCs from here and there. Even go the extra mile and have settlements full of half-crazed people.

I tend to see both genres as 'what happens when some other thing (magic generally) alters how the world works' the only difference is what the end result of that change is.

>alters how the world works'
horror doesn't even need to do that...

survival horror is a fine example.

hell, have you played Rust(if not then you might like it). wolves and bears and other people will provide lots of tense moments, hiding, and running away, especially in darkness, and god help you if you don't have shelter and food.

people can be horrific to one another sometimes, totally unprompted. hell, how many horror movies out there are totally mundane?

The Purge has no magic, and being caught out in it can definitely qualify as a horror experience.

but this is me picking nits, so blah, I'll bump the thread with this.

yeah I maybe should have been more specific and said supernatural horror.

I'm playing in one using Godbound

user the system you choose is largely irrelevant though others might disagree. Getting it right is everything to do with narrative, pacing and setting. has it bang on. All of Films and games mentioned are deeply atmospheric and regardless of their content all can unsettle and terrify.

I think the question you need to ask yourself OP is just how good of a storyteller are you? Because that will define whether or not your concept lives or dies.

Isn't Symbaroum in this category?

Symbaroum, Kult, and Burning Wheel are all games that fit thematically and mechanically with Soulsborne style dark/gothic fantasy. More than that, the hallmarks of the genre mostly read like a "best-practices" for GMing:

>Have a small amount of fleshed out, distinct, and plot relevant NPCs scattered throughtout the world
>Combat should be fast, intense, visceral, and strategic--positioning is vital, environmental effects are strongly recommended, every hit taken or dealt has an notable effect and reaction.
>The world is intuitive to navigate and full of memorable places and vistas. Thought should be put into the visual arsthetic of enemies and locations.
>The world is teetering on the brink of ruin, or maybe is set in the aftermath of a collapsed golden age
>Boss fights are memorable, unique, thematically appropriate, and very tense.
>The overarching plot does not revolve around the players, they are merely actors in the world capable of affecting others' plans.

Planning a Souls-inspired campaign for next year, it's a very fun exercise in design even if you're not going to run it. Would highly recommend.

Use an unforgiving, lethal system. Shadow of the Demon Lord is a good one, as you can start off as a lvl 0 [race] and even as you level up some shit can just straight up kill you.

Create a deep world with a rich history and then tell your players absolutely nothing about it. Drop hints as innocently as possible, but never state anything outright.

Motifs of death, cleansing, painful rebirth, etc.

Try to depress the players.

A dark fantasy game with the progression of old school D&D. Gold you earn can be used as experience, or as a resource to purchase things.

It's short *exciting art* but this is a friend's system that we've played a lot over the last 3 years as its been updated.

The initial learning curve is pretty steep but once you grasp how the roll table works and how the derived stats trickle down, the actual operation of a character during play is very easy, and most importantly, very dynamic and stance/maneuver based.

It also has a GM's manual full of sample enemies, 'boss' rules, and the necromancy magic school but I don't have that shit lying around.

One of the most interesting parts of Souls-style storytelling is the gradual revelation of information about the world. This is most often accomplished through item descriptions, but that's pretty hard to translate to RPGs directly. How would you handle it instead? I've thought about having lore be relayed mostly through NPCs, but that starts to feel too much like an exposition dump, and the ability to question them further can spoil some of the "gradual piecing together" aspect. Ideas?

I loved the Lost Source setting. Would you mind posting the bloodborne one?

I was thinking about this today. I think the biggest problem is that in Dark Souls death merely means you go back to the bonfire but in a tabletop game you typically have a party of people playing together.

If one player dies, does the entire party get sent back to the bonfire?

If not, what does the dead player do? Do dead players sit it out until the party is picked off one by one? Cautious, skillful play being a pillar of the franchise, what if a cautious, skillful player avoids death for a long time? This will become majorly unfun for the dead players; if you let them play as monsters, it will become unrewarding for the skilled player.

If the whole party does go back to the bonfire when one player dies, what's stopping the game from becoming an absolute slog as the party repeats the same thing over and over again? If someone builds a bad character, they're really screwing everyone else out of a game.

I'm working on a system to play this based on French Anons comments and notes.

soon it will be as complete as the Lost Source document, with it's own unique special rules and shit...

Build a world, give the world a golden age. Find a reason to tear down that golden age, let the world fester for a couple centuries. Keep track of heroes and villains and their ultimate fates.

The campaign should start 100 years after the last named character's story ends.

You're a mad genius, man. I love it! Lost Source is a really a great setting.

There's an rpg (I think it's called The Fallen or something) which is built on exactly this premise, the players first set up important aspects of the game world, and then decide how all of them fell apart, where broken, warped, or lost. The game itself is the quest to them restore those things but I guess you could just switch systems after the worldbuilding stage and then play in it as a dark fantasy world

bear in mind I didn't come up with Source like I did with Bloodbrew.

lost source was a setting made by Veeky Forums I decided what wild ravings got put in is all...and came up with the impact/stagger mechanics

Bloodbrew is a setting made by me after too much bloodborne and a bad description of "innistrad" wherever it's from...

I'm hardly a mad genius...I steal most of my ideas and stitch them together till they fit.

Not sure what he meant to do with it, but it is a pretty solid system for more 'realistic' fantasy without going too rules heavy. Using the optional rules for infection and all the other more brutal rules would make things a lot more dark. Getting healed with optional rules in that game with non magic is brutal.. and magic is rare.. and untrustworthy in its own way..

Could take some inspiration about the die but don't stay dead thing with the insanity mechanics from eclipse phase. Then again its not too hard to fully homebrew.

This.

Although having a good system can help set the tone, but if you don't have the story and pacing down its going to be pointless.

A way to add tension is to add more adversity.

core mechanic?
d100 roll under/over
d20
dice-pool
8-die river
roll and keep?

d100 roll under.
Its got an interesting class system based on professions. You progress from one profession to another unless the GM gives you the ok (due to having an rp reason) to progress to one outside of the normal progression options. There are hundreds of professions. It sounds complicated, but its really not.

Its got great random character generators, or you can just pick and choose.

I ran a high fatality 2nd edition game and my players loved it.

For more traditional adventuring borderprinces is pretty good.

I am currently writing up a Norse Mythology "Dark" Fantasy Campaign.

It's basically Pirates of Darkwater meets Beowulf.

rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11528.phtml

Here is an ok review. Was hoping to find an example of play. It also has dark heresy style critting.

>There are hundreds of professions. It sounds complicated, but its really not.
reminds me of the Dungeons the Dragoning level system, might have been where LawfullNice stole it from

I may have to find a copy and skim it for Bloodbrew

does it have as many combat maneuvers as Dark Heresy?
and can it handle simple Gunpowder weapons like blunder-buss and similar weapons?

It plays a lot like dark heresy. I'd recommend trying to get some of the supplements, or at least reading through which adds what. Its quite playable without any though.

Warhammer fantasy has gunpowder weapons. They are a big part of the game. Muskets are basically the empires main weapon along with guns and spears. Think revolutionary war era tech.

Its basically like dungeons the dragooning profession wise. So yeah, that is probably where they got it from.

1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle for some setting info if your not familiar.

has other resources listed that you may be interested in.

awesome
>revolutionary war era
which revolution?

I'm building in a pre-industrial setting but a system that runs in that kind of world will certainly have what I need

neato I may use this to build the world OUTSIDE the walls of I SHALL TEAR FROM THIS THREAD IT'S BOUNTY OF DATA

American revolution, although its based off the Holy Roman Empire and is Germanic culturally (for the most part).

I would recommend the Border Princes Supplement for random world generation tables. Its generic enough that it works quite well (just place major cities manually if you want too. that supplement is designed to portray a very large very barren and sparsely populated area.

Could go straight DS
>When you level up you increase a stat
That's it, number of spells you know, can prepare, can cast in a day, damage, how many times you can attack, etc. are all based on your stats.

I'd also recommend
The WFRP Companion: A Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Miscellany
for more optional rules for more realistic stuff. like realistic rules for primitive surgery.

Old World Armoury: Militaria & Miscellania
is basically probably a must have for your purposes for more equipment.

Career Compendium
For a fuckton of careers.

spirits or phantoms, playing out a scene, or speaking about a place, before fading away.

I have the concept for the world I even have a setting of play, but making the damnable maps for it will be the difficulty.

and building the world around the setting will doubtless help me.

I'll take these books and use them for ideas. I'm building on ideas I've stolen from French-user

the Stamina/evasion/maneuver system will be a BITCH to balance...but it might turn out well

is there a monster manual?

Fucking frenchfags. Not only did the movie that sorta inspired bloodborne was made in their country, but they also have the only GM who's currently running a bloodbrew campaign (at least it was still the case in the last thread if I recall correctly).

The biggest problem with making a Dark Souls RPG is that it's just not fun in a tabletop to respawn and go back through a dungeon everytime you die. It'll become boring quickly.

Yes, there is a monster manual.
Old World Bestiary: A Compendium of Creatures Fair and Foul

there is a list of second edition books on this page. the monster manual is quite good in my opinion. I also love the magic system, and there is an entire book devoted to it. There are a ton of supplements, and all of them have been good. (I own most of them)

>monster manual
Here, you can steal some ideas from this

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_Roleplay_publications

forgot the link

Which movie inspired bloodborne ?

>hey Veeky Forums I'm working on this thing
>LET US ALL SHOVE IDEAS DOWN YOU THROAT SO YOU CAN FINISH IT
>FUCK YOU NAMEFAG; BUT TAKE MORE IDEAS
>IT WASN'T YOUR IDEA STOP SAYING IT WAS, NOW TAKE THIS SUPPLEMENT IT WILL DO WHAT YOU NEED

yes, I will stay on Veeky Forums so long as Veeky Forums is a thing.
this board is best board.
except when the board is Oak or Maple, then /diy/ is best, but not for long at a time.

I don't remember the exact title, but think it was something like "the brotherhood of the wolf"

Yes, that's the one, from 2001

I would just change a few basic rules.
Long rests would just be bonfires, players could set up their own bonfires but surrounding enemies in the area will respawn
I guess souls could be xp, but I wouldn't replace actual currency with souls
If a party member dies, they still lose control of their PC. Their PC now becomes a wandering NPC in the world and can either go on to do great things, or go mad and turn hollow...or both. Could use former PCs as sorts of mini bosses or even BBEGs
I'd homebrew some new feats to not make players feel like pussies in this overly punishing world

You're going to need to brush up on dark monologuing. You need to loudly proclaim your grimness at every opportunity and do lots of grim shouting.

Make sure after you kill the dragon you grimly shout about how dark and grim and evil you are for killing the dragon.

Dude what the fuck are you retarded or are you just pretending to be retarded?

definitely pretending to be retarded

>apocalyptic hell vibe
Make everything shit.
That town you visited before and made some friends amongst the NPCs?
Upon the party's return they find the town was overrun by marauding beastmen.

That NPC your party loves and keeps running into?
Have them show signs of mental and physical stress and wounds. Their armor gradually becomes dirtied and damaged every time you see them.

During the summer I heard about a guy taking applications to join a Bloodborne session. Supposedly he had created a pretty elaborate rule set and everything. I also heard he was notoriously vile and angry basement dweller, so I didn't really look that deep into it.

>you should use a few npc quite notable

What the fuck is this guy trying to say?

Part of being a genius is knowing when exactly those ideas fit. Another common trait is humility-- you're smart enough to know how much you don't

tl;dr: don't sell yourself short, user.

WORKING ON A BLOODBORNE BREWED SYSTEM

THESE ATTRIBUTES(except wounds) ARE MULTIPLIED BY 5 FOR THE D100 ROLL UNDER SYSTEM

I NEED TO INSERT AND BALANCE ATTRIBUTES FOR
SOCIAL/CHARISMA
INTELLIGENCE
AND
PERCEPTION

for each of the classes.
I may or may not need to add a class

TAKING SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE JUSTIFY.

if you say so. doesn't stop me from essentially stealing shit from other people...

I hope so, I've KS'ed the recent one for the full package

Same here, hope it's worth it

>Part of being a genius
>humility
Bullshit. For me, at least, being smarter than most people only convinced me that the best I could find is a equal and I still haven't found one

Griffith please go

having played dark souls I think what he means is having very few NPCs and making them memorable

Yes and no.
>That town you visited before and made some friends amongst the NPCs?
Upon the party's return they find the town was overrun by marauding beastmen.
Not sure about this one. The world in Souls-style games is largely static, and any calamities that could have happened already have.

>That NPC your party loves and keeps running into?
Have them show signs of mental and physical stress and wounds. Their armor gradually becomes dirtied and damaged every time you see them.
This is key. Every NPC should have their own arc.

To add to this guys post.

In Dark Souls only the people change not the world.

IMO it would fit the dark souls storytelling style better to instead of a town being overrun while they were gone , they find an npc in the already overrun town searching for something which your players might have found previously:

At the entrance of the town the players notice that almost every house's entrance has a trail of blood coming from inside,following the trail leads to the town's square where a blaze is consuming a pile of dead peasants, upon close inspection the corpses look to have been cut around the neck area, some bearing a chiropteran fashion to them.

A stranger wearing a colorful mound of bandages is waiving his arms up flapping the fabrics "Featherless freedom..." upon reaching him he turns and lowers his arms until they almost disappear inside the garb "Oh, You don't have a look about you from around here, that bleeding fang you carry... are you also from the church?"

Almost every choice your players are presented with have to be ambiguous but have actual importance:

Guy could be a member of the church or someone from it might passed by earlier, should you give the fang to him? what would happen next?

The players should meet with this npc more often, each encounter answering previous questions but presenting even more:

"Featherless freedom... is a verse from the Cloud's chant."

There should be details in almost everything enough for conjecture but not fact:

Cloud's regalia reads (or an int/lore test might work):

"The bloodied fang is carried by both fanatics of the Cloud for worship and by hunters of the Church as a taunt."

A group of bats is called a Cloud.

>Cloud's regalia reads (or an int/lore test might work)
This is where i'm getting caught up. I can't think of a way to give out pithy little chunks of lore that isn't too forced or purely demonstrative and therefore easily overlooked.

anyone have a download for these pdfs?

Keeping it short, and ambiguous.

Let's try something like this and make an object more appealing:

>Gauntlet.
>a stout glove with a long loose wrist.

That's not interesting at all, it adds nothing, it has no personality.

>Noble's gauntlet.
>A piece of equipment worn by Nobles.

Now,it's not any other gauntlet it's a Noble's gauntlet.

>Noble gauntlet
>A finger-less gauntlet.

You have: something unusual,that brings questions(who would wear something like this?) but, that's not interesting and arguably downright a waste of space since you cannot draw anything of the setting from it, it needs FLUFF.

>Noble gauntlet
>A glove devoid of fingers
>To some, jewelry is more important than armor,sometimes even better protection,The Count is one such case.

Hmm, they go as far to give up protection just to show off rings? these nobles could be interpreted in many ways(ambiguity) :

>being extremely vain they would go as far as to endanger themselves (as nobility is often seen)
>they just don't have a need (Noble also means powerful) or have something better instead(could it be the jewelry?).

Now you have references (the count,the rings,the nobles) to something, a character with a touch of personality (that is assumed but not confirmed)
other items that could be of importance (said rings)

Remember that in dark souls descriptions are narrated as if it was from someone from outside the game.

so, going on the assumption of an average of 10 points per attribute this means adding 30 points worth to each in the 3 new stats...

I'm thinking (social, inteligence, perception)
Milquetoast gets 11, 10, 9. (boring across the board)
Lone Survivor gets 9, 9, 12. (head on a swivel keeps you alive)
Troubled childhood 13, 8, 9. (skilled lyre)
Violent Past 8, 9, 13. (show me what to smash)
Professional 8, 14, 8. (clever makers of things)
Military Veteran 12, 8, 10. (a certain amount of kissing ass involved)
Noble Scion 13, 9, 8. (social behavior tutelage trumps things)
Cruel Fate 6, 12, 12. (magic is dangerous to the unaware and the foolhardy)

these are theoretical stats for the mental stuff that soulsbourne VIDEOgames don't actually need.

THOUGHTS?
SHOULD I ADD A BUILD, OR CHANGE STUFF AROUND?

The dark souls setting is just videogame-tier writing that is completely unremarkable except for the great visuals, which, newsflash, are the least friendly aspect of anything to translate into the pen and paper role-playing experience.

The best part about dark souls: Getting punched in the dick until you get good, and the satisfaction of beating something that's difficult after dying 10 times is in complete opposition with the enjoyable parts of pen and paper role-playing.

I've been thinking about this lately myself.

My idea was to keep the campaign relatively short, and do it over and over again. Every iteration the bosses become the inevitably failed and broken PCs from last time around.

Start in something akin to the late age of fire, where everything is stand up and noblebright, and every turn around, everything gets worse and worse as the world dims. There is no bbeg, except for the futility of trying to resuscitate a dying world whose time has long since passed.

kek

Good news everyone ! I'm going back to my place in two days and I'll be able to get my work back and hopefully be able to answer most of your questions (I could also upload various character sheets & monster blocks, answer questions about the campaign, etc...)

noice, it's actually pretty useful. I'd just add modifiers on that based on the backstories the players provided but that's not really quantifiable

Fuck yes...

And a thought strikes me, perhaps I have several packages of mental stats and let players pick based on backstory?

If anybody finds what this is actually called and can share it that would be great, shit sounds cash.

For starters, have humans (or a human like race) be the only playable race. Every other living and breathing thing is out to murder you for the most part. It will make the player's instantly suspicious of anything inhuman.

found it: dropbox.com/s/59ujj29f76kkq0j/FALLEN V.1.3.1.pdf?dl=0

...

monotreeme bringing quality content as usual

Honestly Dark Souls has a lot in common with classic D&D megadungeon campaigns.

There's an emphasis on traps, highly lethal and unrewarding combat, and emphasis on careful observation of your surroundings. You have a vast complex of various themed levels, and the GP you find in the dungeon is both your source of XP and cash to resupply. Often these megadungeons are also decayed ruins that once had an alternate purpose known to the GM but only revealed to the players in bits and pieces from the architecture, denizens, and layout. Every dungeon denizen you meet rolls a reaction check to determine their level of hostility so it may be possible to parley, trade, or gather information from some of the inhabitants.

Like points out your system is going to be less relevant that the actual content and layout of the areas to explore. Make the areas and setting first

I've not updated that in like...months. by now it's stale and I need to work on it some more.

>quality
nah, it's not like it's my collection if implements for HIGH IMPACT SEXUAL VIOLENCE I tend to be more proud of those projects anyway.

WORKING ON A SYSTEM FOR A BLOODBORNE BREW

so I'm still working on the system to play BLOODBREW, I'm having trouble defining Bloodtinge or rather figuring out what it should do.

I already have a Strength Stat(heavy weapons) and a Skill Stat(light weapons)

should it be ranged weapon to hits? should it be a Fate-point pool? what should it do?
right now I'm using the ARCANE stat as a resistance stat more than anything

BEHOLD, A SOULS CHARACTERS WORST NIGHTMARE

always check the pdf share thread before asking
here's core, there's more in the pdf share thread

userscloud.com/t29loe5oofj5

speaking of Dungeon Maps, I really like this one(originally from the OSR supplement Beasties), been fiddling with ways to use it for a while now

I'd say have it be primarily for ranged weapons, but also applicable to certain melee weapons

Arcane should be for both various tools and weapons of a more mystical nature, as well as tied into a sort of luck/fate point system(since a high ARC stat increases your item discovery rate)

Seems a little convoluted/overworked imo. How are you and your group taking it? How "good"/proficient are you all in pnp?

I run my own little shitty homebrew for about 2-3 years, but it's basically slightly extended Simpled6, and it works because I only game with close family and friends that don't bother reading 10-page rules.