How would you go about running a game inspired by Dark Souls?
Before anyone jumps to talk about how I should totally use GURPS, I want to be clear: I'm NOT asking for a system. What I do want to discuss is how to make a *setting* that feels inspired by the Souls and Bloodborne games. Something that captures the feel of a dying world, kept on the brink. Where I do want to talk about mechanics, I want to hear what you'd do to make going Hollow feel like a threat, or how to handle unkillable player characters. Mechanics that reinforce the themes, not just creative combat.
I've actually made this thread a few times, but I'm currently reading a Dungeon World hack (a hack of a hack) inspired by Dark Souls, call Cold Ruins of Last Life. Has anyone else heard about/read/played it? It has a pretty neat system for their version of Hollowing.
Are there any other games inspired by Dark Souls out there? I know there was the Embers of the Forgotten Kingdom Kickstarter, but that seemed to just be in a Dark Souls style setting in Pathfinder/5e/Demon King, not so much drawing from the themes in any real sense.
Since my original OP was too long: >It has a pretty neat system for their version of Hollowing. You start the game with a bunch of Bonds and every time you die you either take a debility or lose one of your bonds. There's a big focus on memories and the amnesia, versus pushing forward and creating a new life. It's got a neat system for XP, alongside that usual PbtA style, where you have two separate tracks: Radiance and Memories, and each time you "level up" in one track, you get to choose a special event from that track but cross off an event from the other track. Once you've gotten four of either, you can basically signal the beginning of the end of the game by either discovering and renewing or creating a new bastion to defend. Of course, each time you die instead of taking a debility or losing a bond, you can also permanently lose one of your Radiance or Memory rewards.
It seems interesting so far, though I haven't actually read Dungeon World yet. They handle the whole obfuscated lore thing by having players create some of the lore. There are sample areas, but they come with questions to ask the players. Players can also do a Move to remember information and if they get what I think is the Dungeon World equivalent of a critical, they get to make up a fact about the world (if they get a normal success, they remember most of it, but the GM fleshes the rest out).
Jordan Reyes
Hollowing would work about the same as it did in the lore: the final death you don't come back from. Either as flavor for when the player simply stops playing, or as an enforced mechanic for a limited death counter.
As for actually running the campaign, Dark Souls may be light on the story, but what story it does have is defined by plots within plots and schemers scheming against schemers. The player character is a puppet being sent to kill things, and there are no less than two or three sets of hands trying to force their way into that tight butthole at any time. The backstory takes this over the top, with schemers running their plots for upwards of several hundred years, with projected arcs that could, and in one case does, outlast written history a few times in a row. To feel like Souls, the players would need to have major characters actively keeping them oblivious and using them to complete their own objectives and remove obstacles, while other characters give them very convincing arguments to flip them over to their side, all while enough information is sitting around to make everybody look suspect but the players know for a fact that in the end they'll be advancing somebody's agenda no matter what they do. Really reinforces that hopeless feeling and the theme of everybody fighting over the last few scraps and trying to make the best of a world rapidly approaching heat death, where the heat death is a living, malevolent force with an agenda of its own.
Jayden Jones
just keep killing them all and making them start over, it'll feel just like the game
David Sullivan
I think you mean Kaathe, not Frampt. Frampt is the one who was working with Gwyndolin.
If you kill Gwyndolin before getting the Lordvessel, nothing happens. Gwynevere is still there and apparently fully operational, your character either doesn't tell Frampt or he just couldn't care less, and the Link the Fire ending is the same. For all intents and purposes, Gwyndolin's continued existence isn't necessary for the plot. Raises a few questions about who's really running the show.
Also, the prophecy itself leans toward the self-fulfilling type and could easily be a fake made up by Gwyndolin and crew to get undeads moving in the right general direction.
Josiah Garcia
>Someone who hasn't gotten gud. But for real, Dark Souls is not about difficulty. Miyazaki has even said this himself. This is where Dark Souls 2 went wrong. They saw all the "Prepare to Die" advertisements and without Miyazaki they thought that meant making a quarter munching bullshit game and filled long boring linear areas with enemies that would aggro in large groups, barely stagger, and have homing missile arrows.
You die, you get back up again.
In terms of story, DaS1 actually seems really similar to a lot of generic D&D games. Especially when you get to SEN'S FUCKING FORTRESS. DaS1 needed a 10' pole.
When you first play the game, you don't really even know about the scheming of Frampte and Gwyndolin. You just have a very straightforward plot: >Here's a prophecy, fulfill it as Oscar's last wish, because after only six lines or so you already love him >Turns out the "fate of the undead thou shalt know" is that you're meant to succeed Lord Gwyn, so go kill some folks and do that >Open the way and kill Gwyn, then kindle the First Flame with your own body I mean, you only find out Gwyndolin manipulated you if you kill a *very hidden* Covenant leader (or shoot the giant titty lady) and realize Anor Londo was a lie. You only find Kaathe if you get the Lordvessel and then, instead of placing it, defeat one of the bosses out of sequence.
Wait, what happens if you get the Darkmoon Seance Ring and kill Gwyndolin before getting the Lordvessel?
>I think you mean Kaathe, not Frampt. I don't know what you're talking about. How is Gwynevere there, though? Gwynevere isn't even real!
Angel Rivera
This line:
>You only find Frampte if you get the Lordvessel and then, instead of placing it, defeat one of the bosses out of sequence
Sorry, I should've specified.
As to how Gwynevere sticks around despite being an illusion, I haven't the slightest clue. Note that you can also form a covenant with her, and that doing so nets you a ring that specifically says the real Gwynevere left a long time ago. And the covenant itself has restricted spells, so it's not just symbolic.
I mean, I guess maybe Gwyndolin just makes really, really good illusions? The game doesn't try to explain that part. It also doesn't explain the part where all the enemies except the silver knights disappear when Anor Londo goes dark, implying they might've been illusions too but you could still kill them for souls and get equipment off them. I don't think illusion means the same thing in Souls.
Landon Evans
I know what you were talking about, I deleted my comment and fixed my mistake. It was a jest, you see
Actually, are you sure? I went and looked it up and if you shoot Gwynevere in her titties, you'll get the Lordvessel the same way you'd get other souls or a tail weapon, but if you kill Gwyndolin first, the Lordvessel will be in the chest at the end of the Lord's Tomb. And apparently if you shoot Gwynevere before stepping into the room, you won't trigger Dark Londo.
Xavier Kelly
I'm quite sure, yes. Killing Gwyndolin doesn't kill Gwynevere. In fact, if you kill 'lin first and 'vere second, it results in what's probably a bug and the area becomes permanently invadeable by darkmoon ring invaders, reds, and gravelord hosting even without a boss. The Lordvessel may or may not be in that chest, I actually never bothered to look because you can still get it from Gwynevere.
Yes, killing Gwynevere before talking to her will still give you the Lordvessel, and killing her from outside her room doesn't make Anor Londo go dark (which is probably another bug). Although, if you kill Gwyndolin first and Gwynevere second, you get the day to night cutscene but Gwyndolin's voice doesn't come up, which is a neat touch. Come to think of it, I can't imagine any scenario where the Lordvessel would be impossible to get outside of a glitch, which makes it surprising that they added in two different backup ways to get it if the normal way failed.
Austin Lewis
Okay here we go. Dark Souls for tabletop.
>Long-term injuries. E.g. apply a debuff when recovering from unconscious state that lasts until a rest.
>Learn through experience. Never describe a monster or item by in-game terms.
>Outmatch the players. Make every encounter lethal, then refine it back to give the PCs a chance.
>Environments. Make the players DRAW a map as they go, even!
>Tactics over stats. Give your encounters high power, but also a weakness that can be exploited by observant players.
For example, throw your players against an encounter that's 10 levels too high, in a dungeon full of ways to stall or avoid the boss.
Hudson Green
>Never describe a monster or item by in-game terms. Does anyone ever describe a monster in in-game terms? Also, stats aren't obfuscated in Dark Souls. Not most of them, at least. You know what your equipment will do, though some of the consumables aren't always obvious.
I'm also not sure why you'd consider Injuries an important thing, though I'd planned to do that. It's just weird that someone else would have the same idea.
Jacob Reyes
I thought about this today, and I have an idea. Use something like Into The Odd - the game basically never asks for ability checks, characters only have a couple basic combat stats and saves. If somehting isn't dangerous or risky, you just don't roll your saves. That's one part, another would be having highly learn-able enemies, somehting that would force players to LEARN either a) what never to do around a given creature because it's deadly or b) the one specific strategy it works with minimum risk every time. This would get you as close as possible to the learning of visual cues in the game. No enemy ever is just a mindless bag of HPs, this will require a lot of thought to make each enemy a unique challenge. Then theres another thing - verticality. The thing that makes Dark Souls feel like a dungeon even in open areas - you're always on some shelf or plateau or catwalk, always 20-100 meters above the next nearest walkable space down, always 20-100 meters below the closes walkable space up. That makes it so ranged enemies are always a threat, unlike a more traditional dungeon, while opening up a lot of room so it doesn't feel as claustrophobic, but still maze-y.
Gabriel Richardson
>This is where Dark Souls 2 went wrong You mean the base game, and that was because of the first moronic director who didn't understand it. The DLC is much better, and I would argue superior to the awful linear garbage that DaS3 was.
Lucas Williams
Hey, I grew up on quarter munching games and happen to like them quite a lot. Dark Souls 2 was good, but it was even better in Demon's Souls where if you fucked up you had to do the entire level over again.
Ryder Lopez
I'm currently playing through SotFS and I liked it at first, but now it just feels like their answer to everything was throw a ton of enemies at you. The Lost Sinner bonfire puts you down right next to a crossbowman that aggros immediately (and in normal it was *three*) while Earthen Peak's central bonfire is a fucking kill room where stepping out aggros a handful of poison ninjas and a guy with a magic spear. Even that I could handle, but fighting the Smelter Demon and dying means aggroing Alonne Knights from the other side of the map, then pulling them back to somewhere I won't get hit with beach umbrella homing missiles. Half the time they're not even sitting on the map, they literally just spawn out of nowhere. I don't know why, but my computer doesn't load them all in this section, so I once ran across the central bridge only to have two knights literally appear out of thin air.
It's also really linear. I haven't gotten to any of the DLC stuff, though.
But this thread is supposed to be about the good stuff. Not me being pissed at this shitty level design, that was apparently Bandai/Namco's fault for doing a rush and firing the first director.
But you know how when you're pissed off and frustrated you lean back in your chair with your hands on your head? Last night I did that so hard it broke part of my chair.
Luis Davis
>that was apparently Bandai/Namco's fault for doing a rush and firing the first director. Did you try reading my post at all? The first director was garbage, the second one was good.
Caleb Edwards
I was talking about the core game. I was told (literally just now, actually, or at least before reading your post, so for all I know they're wrong): >Most of Dark Souls 2's flaws come down to it's developmental history, the push to get it out for PS3 and Xbox 360 instead of waiting, and the first main director. >The actual good director, who was the only director for the DLC, which are totally great, had been working for FROM forever, so it's not like it was some rando team >He did King's Field 4 >It was originally going to be an open world thing that had a bit of work put into it. Then they had to make it a more firm "Dark Souls 2", the main director got kicked off and the second guy had to try and fix EVERYTHING. And then Bamco was like "Get it out for PS3 and XBox360 instead of nextgen lol" >I just don't like the whole "Lol B-Team" meme is all
Liam Russell
That's more or less true. There's an interview where they go a bit more into detail, but basically the first director was making the game mostly unsupervised for six months, and when they checked up on him they didn't like the direction it was going so they pulled in the other guy to change it. By then, it was too late to make any new assets so they had to make do with the ones that were already made, and adjust the systems that were already in place, then somehow pull a playable game out of it. All things considered, they pulled off a damn miracle.
Surprisingly enough, the engine under the game is actually really good. For example, out of all the Souls games it's the only one that can have more than one bloodstain phantom on screen at any time. In fact, I don't even know what the upper limit is, but it's more than ten. Multiplayer connections are nearly instant and update in real time instead of in periodic refreshes, and it handles particle effects way better. It doesn't do lag well, though, but that's more a case of Fromsoft not knowing how to build for non-japanese networks and the rest of the series is about as bad.
Brayden Russell
It's disappointing.
And, yeah, the underlying system is really good, and I actually enjoyed a lot of the early game, even in spite of the lackluster level design and enemy placement. It's not until I got to the real clusterfucky areas that I started to get pissed off. Then again, I also played from the Pursuer to Heide's with friends.
Still, the tone of the game is completely different. At least one reviewer said that coming from DaS1's depression metaphor, the Firekeepers laughing at you and saying how you'll fail over and over was the absolute worst first impression a game has ever given him.
Zachary Turner
I kind of feel like the game was meant to be played with other people, and that was before the DLCs that had areas specifically advertised as being meant for co-op and full of absurd bullshit.
It's alright with other players, but monotonous and pointless alone. Dark Chasm invasions had to be the most fun I had in a Souls game, though, which was odd since I didn't like the PvP in DaS2.
Connor Sanders
>I kind of feel like the game was meant to be played with other people Actually, on that note, this might make DaS2 the better one to base a tabletop around. Unlike the others, which tried to stress the "loose connections" thing with people you never see again, this game was like the only one that expected you to go through all of it with a dedicated group, and didn't do anything to interfere with that.
Nicholas Howard
>that image
triggered
Leo Robinson
You know, I've been wondering how to do something Souls Inspired as opposed to just running a game in the Dark Souls setting (someone from one of the other threads linked their really good Pathfinder PHB where it focused more on The Deep than Fire, and everyone had the Twilight Mark or something like that), but honestly... Dark Souls 2 did have a good idea of just running through some other cycle ten thousand years down the line.
You set your game in a temporally distant setting with the same tropes of fading fire and play up the cycles and the four Lordsouls.
>Actually, on that note, this might make DaS2 the better one to base a tabletop around Great minds think alike. Although Drangleic is also boring as fuck compared to Anor Londo, and even what little I know of Lothric.
Carter Lee
That might be because Dark Souls 2 tried to set up the lore so that the cycle could continue indefinitely, working as a better foundation for sequels than DaS1 did. In other words, it stripped out individuality for infinitely reusable concepts. Kings and their kingdoms rise and fall, sometimes multiple in a single age. The abyss fragments, grows, and spits out queens to turn those kingdoms inward, against each other, and lead them to ruin. The kings could, in theory, triumph over the cycle by working together, but the dark is made of human nature and knows how to manipulate them. Through it all, the remnants of the first age of fire linger on to work their own designs through the ages, though their original will is long lost and anything they do is ultimately meaningless against the cycle of light and dark.
It's a framework, not a story by itself. Dark Souls 2 has a good framework, but they stopped there instead of writing a story for it.
Parker Fisher
The main problem is that like I said Dark Souls' lore was intentionally obfuscated, while Dark Souls 2's just wasn't there.
I mean, Dark Souls had already had that whole "this cycle will repeat" thing. DaS2 was just a hiccup in the cycle thanks to Nashandra.
Dark Souls has a better world to play in, but Dark Souls 2 has a better format. (I haven't played Dark Souls 3, though that one also seems to have a good set up).
I actually kind of hate the whole Nashandra/Four Queens thing. It feels weirdly sexist, but on top of that it's kind of at odds with how Manus worked. Manus went mad because they dug up the primeval man and started fucking with the corpse to learn Hexes. Having Manus be split into four pieces and at least three of those pieces just fuck everything up is really dumb. Also Nashandra's character design is so fucking lazy. Ultimately Dark Souls 3 seems to have a similar set up of Ages of Fire dwindling and Lords of Cinder needing to Link things, and whoops, there's a hiccup, someone needs to kindle this shit, but handles it better. Then again, most of what I know about Dark Souls 3 is a few Vaati Vidyas and this amazing comic: tapastic.com/episode/419171 Which also does a really nice twist with the whole "souls" thing.
In thinking to outright use the Dark Souls setting I was thinking that maybe the player characters could be inheritors of the four Lord Souls, or the pieces of Manus or something.
Jaxon Bell
I'd always hesitate before giving players a direct connection to major lore figures like that. DaS2 at least establishes a precedent for it, but I guess the characters who did inherit a Lord Soul ended up on paths that resembled the kind of nonsense a tabletop player would try to pull off. Build a giant castle of iron in the middle of a volcano? We've all seen that before. Lead a wealthy merchant nation, go insane, and stitch two giant spiders together by their asses? Classic wizard. Dig a massive series of tunnels underground and fill them from end to end with little statues that spit poison, then build a giant flesh golem battle suit to fight with? I knew that guy. Pieces of Manus, though, that would be redundant. Pieces of Manus are otherwise known as Humanity. Unless you're talking about the queens, but that brings up odd problems the dark is supposedly corruptive.
Tyler Wilson
Well injuries having permanent consequences is a good way to disempower the players. You can't rely on your healbot to pick you up at 100% efficiency.
The "in game terms" thing is more a general rule for me. Experienced players will know the monster manual and recognise standard monsters, so go out of your way to make them all weird or different.
Use cosmetic changes to confuse your players. "Orcs" with bugbear statblocks could work, but the more creative yiu are the better.
For example, an enemy type in my game is a Cadaver Collector (from middle finger of vecna). I run it as a large CR10 construct with vulnerable lenses on the head giving it vision, and ALSO have it so large that it takes a whole turn to fit through an average doorway. Some good passive perception picked up these both, but the poison gas attack still caught them off guard.
Into The Odd also has a good health system. Damage comes straight out of your Strength stat, and every time you take damage you roll a Str save. Fail and you collapse, pass and you keep moving. Since most weapons deal D8 damage or so, you're probably going to drop in 1-3 hits so actually trading damage is a bad idea.
Lucas Cooper
Well I did say that I think the Queens being eeeeevil was stupid. The Dark is the element of Humanity (though Humanity the sprite and Humanity the humans are different but related things). It's dangerous and fucky and most humans would prefer to live in the Age of Fire, but Manus wasn't a bad person, just pissed off and tormented. Classic "disturbed grave super ghost". Nashandra doesn't even seem to have a PURPOSE, and the one in Shulva doubly so.
I don't actually generally run games *with* monster manuals. At best I'm a CofD/nWoD player, and most of the time my players know I'm using Hunter rules, i.e. I'm making it up and not using the Requiem rules for Vampires, etcetera.
Damage Saves are also great. Mutants & Masterminds does that, and I really love it.
Jacob Collins
Here's the way i see it.
The first flame brought disparity. Let's say that's the SUN.
Izalith/Quel represents DAWN.
Anor Londo/Gwyn represents NOON
Tomb/Nito represents DUSK.
The pygmy, bearer of the Dark Soul, is different. The pygmy is NIGHT.
Now here's the fun part. "Night" (or the Dark) is defined by the absense of day. It's not "night" out in the void of space bc there is no "day" to contrast it with.
Hence, the 'time' before the first flame is SPACE. Night and day have no meaning there.
Now if Izalith is dawn, chaos is the SURFACE OF THE SUN. Chaos is the light and disparity of the flame unleashed, warping the world before it.
The Abyss, on the other hand, is THE DARK SIDE OF PLUTO. It's the Humanity of the dark (Night, remember) but taken to a point of such extremes that not even humans can withstand it.
>Tl;dr Chaos is corrupted Fire, The Abyss is corrupted Dark.
Cameron Green
Nashandra's appearance might've just been armor, because her sisters look more like a normal undead. And, as an undead would, they're feeding on souls to grow stronger (this part is mentioned in interviews, though it should've been mentioned in-game). It just happens that they're popping kingdoms like piggy banks to do it, which is actually a pretty efficient and safe plan if you have enough time to pull it off. There are hints here and there that Drangleic is either slowly falling to the Abyss or already has before the game starts, and an item description in DaS3 directly states it did eventually, so if the queens' role was to be Dark Lords they were doing their job perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that they'd apparently succeeded before the player character got around to killing them.
>Humanity the sprite and Humanity the humans are different but related things Humanity sprites are found in all humans, and is indirectly called the human soul in DaS1's DLC, from the descriptions on the four abyssal sorceries. The question is what would happen to a human if you took their soul away without killing them. Would they still be a human? Would they die on the spot? Would they turn undead? Does giving something humanity that didn't have it previously turn it partially human? These are questions that are never answered.
Luke Nelson
I'm almost impressed by the amount of reaching demonstrated here.
Adam Long
Basically, the setting should incorporate the right amount of begging, pleading, crying, and forlorn laughter conjoined with emaciated pawing toward the stars.
I mean, that's just how you do Dark Souls.
Anthony Kelly
Less reach, more metaphor. You need toe sun to live, but you wouldn't want to live there.
Other DkS tabletop tips:
>Breed mistrust. Give players and NPCs conflicting minor goals. EVERYONE wants to stop the villain, but the warlock also wants to make a couple blood sacrifices along the way and the paladin disapproves.
>Encourage observation. Your players should have to think about each encounter, combat or not. Don't be afraid to punish the PCs for overconfidence.
>Lasting consequences for failure. Death is a little final, but a missing thumb on a sword hand? Make your players LIVE with wounds, traumas and disabilities. If they fail a social encounter, have them run out of town!
Eli Sanchez
I disagree with some of this, not to mention all of the metaphors. There is no mention of stars in Dark Souls, and no visuals of or references to anyone pawing towards stars. Space and time aren't mentioned as things that didn't exist before the First Flame, and if they didn't then an Age of Dark technically wouldn't exist. There'd be no time between one Age of Fire and the next if time didn't exist without fire. You also assume each of the Lord Souls correlates to a segment of time, when the only relations they're shown to have are elemental at best (sun/light, fire, death, and dark). Basically, you're just trying to force your own idea of time being connected to the Lord Souls into the puzzle. Everything past that point seems like a logical conclusion, except that your starting point was never a part of the story to begin with. So, your conclusions are similarly unrelated. This also makes it not metaphorical, since the terms you're using do not have a symbolic relationship to the objects you're trying to apply them to, beyond you saying they do.
Anyways.
>Lasting consequences for failure I don't understand why so many people seem to have a weird boner for amputation. Two reasons: One, permanent penalties accumulate. Permanent penalties caused by unlucky dice rolls accumulate fast. This can eventually leave the players underpowered for their level. Two, I think people underestimate just how disabling losing a limb can be. Lose a finger, sure, you can get by with only minor adjustments and a slight loss of dexterity. Lose an arm, suddenly you can't keep up in the job market because you have literally half the work output of your peers. Lose a leg, and you lose access nine tenths of the job market entirely. And that's just in real life, where people don't fight dragons and overthrow lich kings. Sure, it's realistic, but realism is only fun in moderation. That's half the point of this board.
>breed mistrust I'll need another post to finish the rest.
Asher Johnson
>I'll need another post to finish the rest Actually, nah. The rest makes sense.
Levi Hill
I'm not actually saying that's how it's meant to be interpreted, or that it's what the designers intended.
>amputations In a setting with magical healing that stuff can be set right... for a fee, or with some effort. The point is more that players who fuck up (badly) have to live with their mistakes long-term. One story I read had a warlock lose her legs because she tried to spider-climb around a Medusa and got petrified. She then had to use mounts and invocations to move normally.
The point is the character wasn't killed, or even particularly hindered in the long run. A couple of levels spent riding a zombie bat, oh well. The point was, every time they tried to do anything they had a constant reminder of the time they climbed to a high point while fighting a medusa.
>breed mistrust
Granted, this only works if your players are good at seperating IC and OOC. Betraying a CHARACTER is fun, but you want to have that PCs player laughing about it with you afterwards.
Nathan Morgan
All three of those things depend on the GM's ability to implement them. Sure, they're great when well executed, but they frequently aren't. Suggesting them as tips is kind of iffy, because the people with the skill to use them right wouldn't need the tip and the ones who don't have that skill will be worse off for the attempt.
Ethan Nelson
That's an interesting way of looking at it.
Although you lose me at Pluto.
Oh come on, that's nothing. Pic related. I could have sworn I already had this, but I didn't, so I spent half an hour making it again I actually do like the theory that Velka is the Pygmy, but those were also some of the most out-there lore vids I've seen
Everyone should be nice and friendly, but have a suspicious laugh that says "I'm going to gank and rob you".
But there was no mistrust, outside of Patches and Lautrec. Everyone else only seemed suspicious with their weird keh heh heh laughs. Oh, wait, also I guess Petrolus.
Also, dying in Dark Souls is like dying in Megaman, in that you explode. So lasting damage would be weird. I do think Injury is important, but that's because the threat of Hollowing should be important. Not to mention the possibility of losing your currency.
Isaac Davis
Bloodborne is entirely different from the Souls series theme wise. It's a game about heroic individuals making great sacrifices to consistently keep the supernatural in check. And stupid people consistently experimenting with the supernatural, which causes it to come back again.
That and lots of themes related to consciousness, dreams, loss and other existentialist gripes that one post can't really summarize.
Oliver Scott
You have a point. I'm a new GM working with a veteran group, so I don't need to worry so much because those guys can RP pretty well.
Dark Souls has 2 main themes, in my opinion.
>Gameplay theme: Timing and deliberation. Everything must be studied and observed to find a solution. Rushing in gets you killed.
>Story theme: Entropy. All things end, but sometimes new growth rises from the ashes. Time marches on, no matter what you do.
Lincoln Sanders
>velka Fair enough, I keep forgetting how crazy the tinhatting can get.
Bloodborne in one sentence: it's cosmoses all the way down.
Mason Sanders
>It's a game about heroic individuals making great sacrifices to consistently keep the supernatural in check No it isn't. You do know the Hunters are just part of the problem, right? You're literally doing the bidding of Palemoon.
Jose Collins
Haha, fuck that, DaS2's gameplay theme is having to deal with a shitload of enemies in a system that favours one on one engagement.
Owen Bailey
Looks like someone was really bad at adapting to DaS 2
Jackson Collins
As someone who did adapt to DaS2, I have to agree with his sentiment.
Dominic Harris
It's more that the developers did a shitty job, because the team was switched halfway through and they were pushing a deadline. "Artfully designed levels with well thought out enemy placement" was scrapped in favour of "fuck it, just throw some enemies in". And for some reason they didn't fix that in SotFS.
I'm not *bad* at Dark Souls 2. I just find a lot of it *tedious*. I rarely felt frustrated at the level design or enemy placement in Dark Souls 1, I felt frustrated at my ability to cope. Except when I fell down a bottomless pit. Fuck that.
Kayden Cruz
>Although you lose me at Pluto.
Pretty sure he was just going for a fancy metaphorical way of saying pic related.
