I have a group who are big fans of Dark Souls, and I'm pretty into it, myself. I'd like to do a brief Dark Souls campaign about a group of newly-turned undead.
The question is, what system to use? I'm mostly familiar with pathfinder, D&D, and NWOD, but none of those feel quite 'right' to me for the level of lethality and quick, decisive, strategic combat that's present in souls.
What would Veeky Forums recommend? Has Veeky Forums ever statted out any souls stuff before?
As for story, I'm thinking of sticking them in the deep dungeons of the Vinheim dragon school, and having them have to fight their way out of town during an outbreak of undeath. Your input welcome here too.
Kayden Myers
I'd fist suggest that, considering how many unknown factors there are concerning the Dark Souls lore, it might be wiser to simply create a setting INSPIRED by the Souls universe, sharing many of its themes, rather than flat-out setting a campaign in it.
Nicholas Scott
I know the lore pretty well -- I figure by setting something in the 'human' part of the world, I'm pretty free to make up my own shit. It's a lot less restrictive to my mind than even, say, Game of Thrones, exactly because of all the unknown factors. You can paint your own picture in those grey areas.
John Moore
I agree with this - either make an entirely original setting in the style of Souls or take the DS2 approach and set it in a new, independant 'cycle' of the world.
I would doubly encourage the first option because the DS style of die and die again translates poorly to tabletop (speaking from experience). Prehaps something akin to Kingdom Death: Monster where all your characters are frail survivors who hunt individual horrifying beasts instead of hordes.
Leo Hughes
What plots could you really run in that universe while still having it feel like Dark Souls, though?
Wyatt Jackson
What if there was a table of random debuffs for each consecutive death, with a limited stock of 'humanity' items to cleanse these debuffs? And if it's a TPK, then they can challenge the encounter again or search elsewhere for something more doable?
I feel like a dark souls game lends itself to a dungeon crawl spanning a huge location.
Sebastian Miller
Regardless of the system, be sure you put a long bridge in your game. And when players walk across it a god damn dragon comes out and kills them all.
Lucas Nguyen
And a horrible fucking poison swamp.
Isaiah Powell
I statted out some Souls stuff for GURPS once. Nothing too in depth just some spells, Estus and humanity mechanics. I'd probably tweak the stuff I've done now that I'm more experienced with GURPS, I'd probably tweak the spell system to be more souls like as well. Besides that I'd probably use that last gasp rules for combat, possibly tweaking AP costs to be dependent on weapon weight.
Adrian Brown
No - I tried running with very severe debuffs for every death and yet the different nature of RPGs combined with the co-operative aspect caused very much a trial-and-error style of gameplay.
An alternative 'Undead' character style could be that, while you have a large health pool, it is impossible to regenerate it. I think it adds to the tension and inevitability that are hallmarks of the series while being relatively new - a good Souls RPG replicates the feel and style of the game rather than the mechanics.
