Dark Souls Boardgame

Steamforged finally released it's rulebook. What does tg think?

static1.squarespace.com/static/56728f72a128e6b1e548ec55/t/5874bd56be65949768e2107b/1484045686732/DS-Core-Rules.pdf

I was literally just about to start this thread

All in all it seeks cool. I think they did a good job of packing in the dark souls feels and mechanics in a way that hits the right notes without being totally autistic about it.

Id have to actually play it firsthand to have an informed opinion about it. Up front, though...

The opening lore paragraph needs work. I know this isn't exactly 'important', but it skips over a lot of stuff and if I didn't already know the plot of Dark Souls I would be pretty confused. Its even less informative than the opening cinematic of the game.

My biggest concern is that there won't be enough game tiles to explore. I know there are a bunch of expansions already planned/being prepped for release, so enemy variety should be fine. But I worry that if you are doing the same exploration tiles over and over again, the game will feel samey even if everything else is really different.

DLC: The Board Game

TIME TO GET TO READIN'

First minor annoyance: Black stamina bar?
Why not green...

having had a look through it...
they could explain things a little bit better I think, although some of them "how do the dice mechanics work- plain D6s or do the dice have different values on them" would be more explanatory with the actual set.

Needs more tiles and such to keep it varied. Maybe include rules for longer levels, where there might be multiple bonfires and stuff rather than straight run to minibosses?

It seems a bit stupid to make game over happen when the first PC dies at no sparks, you'd think you could keep going to the wipe. Give you the chance to try soloing the boss with everyone else dead around you on last chance.

It could explain enemy behaviour a bit better like "makes an attack if in range"

Beyond more content, explain better and "why is 1 PC game over" I'd need to get my hands on it to try more.

One death isn't game over, just a reset.

It basically treats each individual player as being equal to the player of the game. If you die, even if your summons are still kicking the fight is over.

Also, letting the rest of the group continue without you by default can lead to some unfun situations where half the party is dead and just sitting around with their thumbs up their butts waiting for the other two to go back to the bonfire or die already.

Or maybe its a balance thing, where if you can afford some people to die the game gets too easy. You basically offer up players as sacrificial lambs during a boss fight so your heaviest hitters can survive longer and win. The party only lasting as long as its weakest link encourages you to spread resources around and plan your battles carefully, because there is no such thing as an acceptable loss.

Imagine resting at a bonfire in the vidya would reduce it's usability and it would deplete after a certain amount.
The horror.

Yeah, but a board game needs a failure state. A video game is fine with 'try until you make it, as many times as it takes' but in a board game that's boring as shit.

> All enemies activate
> One player activates
> All enemies activate again
> The second player activates
> Repeat until party wipe

Damn, that does seem kinda brutal.

I think its important to remember that the enemies are going to make 'misplays' far more often than the players will. Enemies don't change facing during attacks, only during moves. So if you move out of an enemy's path and they draw a card that says 'swing 3 times', they will swing 3 times at empty space.

They get more actions, and you have to be careful about where you stand, but a lot of those actions will likely be attacking empty spaces.

The regular goons don't draw cards though.
They have one stat cards which says e.g. "Move to the nearest guy" or "Move to the guy with the aggro token" and "Whack at them."

"Misplay", an apologist's way of saying "Fucked up in a stupid manner".

>What does tg think?
I think that the design of Dark Souls is too closely knit to video games to ever successfully become a traditional board- or roleplaying game.

Also shorter to say.

Really like the trap mechanic. Also really interested in the items; the weapon examples show us some pretty cool ideas, with the dragonslayer spear never being able to attack enemies on the same node.

It's not too bad if it's 1 player, it's an automatic difficulty slider for more players, and the enemies usually target the last player to go, so they can make preparations.
Also hollows have 1 hp.

Where can you buy the intro set? or is it not out?

Will be shipped to backers in april...hopefully.

Didn't they say in the recent update that they were actually ahead of schedule?

There's no way to buy it until it comes out. It was available from the kickstarter which was in april until early December when backerkit closed late pledges

Its being released in march ahead of schedule. At least for first game. Invaders rules are no longer in base game but includes the models still.
Fucking this. Im not mad it seems like a solid game but i forsee A LOT of expansions for it. There is only 2 included campagins so without some homebrew it doesnt have a ton of in box content at least for the first wave.

They're ahead of schedule because they keep moving the goalposts...

"We're shipping your pledges a month early! Please ignore nearly every part of it will actually ship at the end of the year!"

"We took out invaders because they're TOO CONFUSING. You won't miss them for the half a year until they come back in an expansion normal people will need to pay for!"