So a couple weeks ago I posted a homebrew for playing Dark Souls games called Fires Far Away. It seemed pretty well received, and I promised to give an expanded version of it with some gaps filled in that people asked for.
So this is that, then. I have written up a bunch of new enemies and bosses, corrected some mistakes, and have rules for both Invasions and Covenants.
This made the book sort of long and poorly laid out, so I broke it up into four books. This way the common rules are all in one place, Enemies and Bosses are in their own book you can easily have open in another tab as needed, and Covenants and Invasions are in separate PDFs so you don't have to scroll past them when you don't need them.
Enemies and Bosses. Includes a lot more stuff since last time, but by no means its it comprehensive. I don't have time for that shit. If you want more monsters for your campaign, convert your own or make some up.
Rules for Covenants. Includes the Greatest Hits from all three games (the ones that work in a PnP game, anyway) and a couple of others to fill in the gaps.
Rules for Invasions. They exist somewhere between Boss rules and player combat rules, and carry all sorts of goodies if you can beat them.
Some faces you'll recognize, like Kirk the Knight of Thorns. Others fill more of a role specific to Covenants, like Dragonfang Villard and Dragon Sage, which provide examples of how Dragon Scales might come looking for the players of that Covenant.
Or hey, maybe you want to do Darkwraith things. Thats fine. But the Abyss Watchers might not like it. Blades of the Darkmoon too.
> play as a deprived > start off with shit gear, no humanity, and no estus flask
Thats going to be a rough ride.
Bentley Nelson
Aw shit, an update!
If I can get ahold of some Dark Souls miniatures from the mediocre board game, I might use them for this game as player and NPC pieces.
Is combat restricted to a grid or playing field, or is it a little more abstracted?
Alexander Perez
You'll want a grid. I standardized some terms and provided visual examples of area attacks and what they mean.
That said, one of the changes this time was getting rid of mentions to distance in feet and instead making it generic spaces, abstracting how much distance a given space is. I don't see any reason you couldn't play this on basically any kind of battlemap.
I think though that you could probably run it theater of the mind style if you wanted, the combat just become less tactical as a result. The crux of the combat is resource management and risk vs reward anyway, the positioning is just to make it easier for bosses and shit to threaten a bunch of players at once.
Dominic Roberts
Okay, I generally try to avoid grids but either/or is fine. I'd prefer a well-printed playmat for a cinematic feel, but I'm also a wargamer so that also plays a part.
Have you also considered a kickstarter or actual publishing of this? I suppose it might run into copyright problems, though, even though I'd love to see this product in print for on final revision. Maybe I'll just have to have a print-maker make some custom copies if ever I have the money...
Brandon Jones
Absolutely not. Dark Souls is too lively an IP for an unaffiliated user like myself to try and do something like that without getting slammed by a cease and desist. I can't make any money off this, and technically if there was an actual dark souls RPG I was hurting the sales of it would be a problem.
But thats fine. I already have a job. I dont need to do this for a living.
If you want a hardcopy book of it at some point, its my understanding you can get a book made at someplace like a kinkos.
I'm also not sure what final revision would even look like. As I said, I don't need to do this for a living. It was always sort of my plan to provide the skeleton for this and put it up on 1d4chan so people can add to it as time goes on, people sharing the monsters and gear and lore from their various campaigns and deepening the pool for everyone else in the process.
Balance isn't terribly important to a game like Fires Far Away. If the players can beat a fight, then it worked out. If a player dies or the team TPKs, that's also an expected outcome. Any fight that's too challenging for the players right now is a threat they can come back to later after they go and adventure elsewhere for a bit. The only things that should demand mechanical updates are quality of life fixes and addressing any specific actors like a given spell or weapon that turns out to be way, way more powerful than it should be and trivializing too many enemies. And even that is something GMs can likely handle within the context of their own games.
Ian Ward
I mean, you could start filing off the serial numbers and renaming things to make it a reality. Tons of things do that. Zweihander did that. I'm sure people here, myself included, would be down to help make that happen. I've got some experience publishing shit on kickstarter/indiegogo.
Easton Adams
Then I might just have to make myself a nice paper copy of these pdfs should I have the funds to furnish one.
Would you consider a Bloodborne system as well, or is this project the apex of your ambition?
Blades in the Dark also does this as well with Dishonored.
Leo Fisher
I seems pretty common honestly, and given that there's the void left by the creators for this stuff (or in the case of the actual Dark Souls TTRPG a lack of translation), it only makes sense that people would make their own versions with their own touches to fill that space.
Asher Miller
>it only makes sense that people would make their own versions with their own touches to fill that space.
Sure. But I don't think I can sand off the serial numbers and make Fires Far Away 'its own game' without either inviting legal action or removing the soulsian elements that made me want to make it in the first place. Even if I could, I don't see how doing that would actually benefit me. It sounds like a lot of hassle when I can just give this away for free and everyone can be happy.
Cameron Taylor
Had you a Patreon, I'd donate.
Otherwise, thank you for your work. I'll see about adding this system to my library and getting some friends to play it eventually. I suppose the best way to do your efforts honor is to simply enjoy it.
Nathaniel Davis
> Would you consider a Bloodborne system as well, or is this project the apex of your ambition?
I don't think we need a separate system for it, honestly. Bloodborne brings in a bunch of unique gear and monsters, but relatively few new mechanics.
Strength is Strength. Skill is Dex. Arcane is Int. Bloodtinge is new, but if we are being honest its REALLY easy to write out Bloodtinge, hardly anything uses it.
Frenzy as a new status effect.
Honestly, the biggest sticking points are blood gems and the hunter's dream. Which isn't so much a FFA problem as them not translating to a PnP format especially well. The hunters dream makes death really weird and complicated if dying always teleports you back to a hazy hub area where you can then teleport where you want from there. What if only one person dies? Does everyone else have to truck back to a lantern and wait for them to respawn? What if they decide to go do something else first?
And blood gems are just a really messy, complicated system of finding incrementally more powerful gems that only work for certain weapons anyway.
That said, I have given some thought on how you can integrate bloodborne material into FFA, casting Yarnham as a specific location in the larger world. Blending the themes of the two isn't hard, you just have to steal some bits from DS2 and DS3 lore.
Austin Butler
Also a little bit of a design change in intention. Bloodborne lends itself more to taking risks and being more aggressive in combat, while Dark Souls values caution more.
William Evans
I thank you for your contribution to Veeky Forums. Seems excellent.
John Edwards
Here's what I would do:
Optional rules for playing dudes from Yarnham. These professions all come with a unique license called Blood Ministration from the start that says that they are explicitly NOT undead, and if they die they probably stay dead. However, in return, they always regain life from melee attacks and the math for how much HP they are supposed to have changes, giving them more health too.
Runes take up Attunement slots. This feature is already implemented in the Church of the Deep.
Trick weapons have different statlines based on their current mode. Players that are not from Yarnam need a special license to use trick weapons due to their complexity.
Blood Gems are unique infusion materials that provide special benefits when used to upgrade a weapon, but come with some kind of downside like needing to sacrifice dregs to infuse them.
Lorewise, cast the Great Ones as being the same thing as The Deep from DS3: a supposedly benevolent aspect the abyss/collection of things that live so deep in the abyss it runs on other rules. The groundwork is already there, the church of the deep is founded on a dude getting dreams sent to him as a result of eating people.
DS2 has a recurring theme of people experimenting with becoming something more than human in an attempt to escape the curse of the undead. Have beasthood and the Great Ones be something that actually does do that: blood ministration means you never have to worry about becoming undead, but you are just trading one curse for another. But Yarnham is still rolling in eldritch knowledge, explaining their unique magic systems and tools and general tech level that's higher than anyone else has available. The ruins beneath Yarnham are just from earlier cycles, as whenever the Age of Fire gets re-linked the Great Ones get pushed away from our world again.
Jaxon Johnson
In keeping with FFA not making every player the Chosen Undead, Hunters in FFA would likely not be immune to beasthood. Ideally you'd want some kind of system where players can take on power boosts but doing so lowers their humanity and risks turning them into a monster over time.
I'm also open to FFA Hunters having a 'not really dead' mechanic where they "die" but the inhuman regeneration provided by their Blood Ministration brings them back. Though probably still with a cost, I suspect you'd want to tie that into the beasthood mechanic. Like, advancing beasthood always gives you powers no matter how it happens, but every time you do it on purpose means one fewer time you can afford to die before you become an NPC.
I really just don't think that the Hunters Dream would work as a game mechanic in PnP. A location, sure. A campaign specific feature? Maybe. But not as a default game mechanic.
Nice work user. I'm not too experienced with Dark Souls, but I've really enjoyed Bloodborne and I'm hoping to get more into the Souls series and the lore surrounding them. Once I do I might try running this for my group.
Is the system finished in this form, as far as can be understood? Or are further refinements planned by the original author, OP? I did read it mentioned that the intent was to let Veeky Forums build off this framework, but I'm wondering if there's a final version in the works?
Oliver Barnes
OP here. I don't really have anything else planned for it at this point. I'll wait and see what feedback people have, but I don't have any mechanics I really plan on adding or changing here at this time.
There is obviously room for more CONTENT, like enemies and weapons and spells and stuff. But as far as basic rules go, I feel like there is enough there, and enough examples of stuff, that people can build their own out from here. One of the things that I tried to do this time was pick bosses and enemies that would show off certain powers and types of abilities so that it establishes how they would work in the system. Stuff like The Rotton's grab, or how boss souls work, or how weapon skills work.
But yes, you should totally be able to make you own campaign with whats available. Just expect to fill in some blanks.
user, this is great. I'm usually interested in less crunchy systems and I'm not that much into combat and exploration, but reading it created a big urge to write a campaign for this system. I'm only 5 sessions in my current campaign, damn it. Maybe I'll do a one-shot first when I'll feel that campaign needs a break.
>If I can get ahold of some Dark Souls miniatures from the mediocre board game, I might use them for this game as player and NPC pieces. Mediocre is giving it too much credit. I don't think I've ever been more disappointed with a board game.
Isaiah Ward
I'd use legos, heroicas if you can manage micro miniatures.
Christopher Johnson
You know, that actually reminds me. Dark Souls lore seems to imply that certain kinds of magic just change you as a person. Dark magic turning you into an abyssal horror, Sulyvahns magic items that turn his dudes into beasts, and Gwyndolin being an especially weird example because he was great at moon magic but moon magic was female in nature so it warped his body. The dark is clearly unnatural and Sulyvahn's an asshole who was doing that on purpose, but in Gwyndolin's case it sounds like any dude that practiced moon magic enough is eventually going to take on feminine traits. And if thats true, is there a kind of magic that's inherently masculine too?
Obviously this isn't something that the games ever delved into, but its kind of a neat idea that a pnp format could explore. I don't think you would want it to apply to any of the usual sorceries and whatnot, but it could be like a cost for using really powerful stuff.
Angel Martinez
So if I'm reading this correctly - to pick up a multi-point liscence, you must level up multiple times at once?
Thomas Torres
As you may conclude from my previous complaint, I have the board game. I'm just glad I'll finally get to use the excellent minis on something.
Adrian Davis
gwyndolin was raised as a female, and grew up with a "reversal ring", moon magic doesn't mean shit he's using regular soul sorceries, which is weird for a god now that I think of it. dark magic only turns you into a cripple at most though (but ds2 so not canon I guess), only the abyss creates the monstrosities it is associated to.
William Brooks
Did you at least paint them? Or do they still look like army men?
And yeah, the game itself is sadly disappointing. Playable, just in dire need of houserules to speed up the game. But hey, Dark Souls minis are what I wanted and dark souls minis are what I got.
Hunter Adams
Gwyndolin used sorceries, yes. But Gwyndolin also did a lot of shit that was way, waaaaaaaay stronger magic than anything else we see in the game.
Stuff like casting an illusion over the entire city of Anor Londo, where that doesn't just mean making it look like daytime but actually conjuring up whole creatures that you fight along the way. Those giant dudes in armor you fought? They were not even real. The vanish with the illusion. But the fact that they were fake doesn't mean they couldn't kill you. Hell, some versions of the lore seem to imply the ORNSTEIN you fought in that room wasn't real.
Presumably this same illusion magic is how the bossfight against Gwyndolin works, where the room you are in turns into an infinite hallway and Gwyndolin can just teleport around it while you have to hoof it. So they call it Illusion, but its sounds more and more like reality marble tier shit.
If that's moon magic, I can see why Gwyn was willing to raise his kid in a fucked up way to have that on hand.
Connor Jackson
>The dark is clearly unnatural Nice try, Gwyn, but you don't fool me.
Michael Torres
Poison doesn't do 50 damage if you cure it, does it? Wording is a bit ambiguous.
Camden Morgan
If Gwyndolin was so powerful, which didn't he just choose not to die in DS1? Or not get eaten before DS3?
Luis Torres
Its not worded as well as it could be, but the intention is clearly that you take the 50 if combat ends and you are still poisoned.
Lincoln Bell
> DS1
Well, he stuck around until DS3 so that might legit be what happened.
> DS3
Gwyndolin mysteriously fell ill, and that was what allowed Sulyvahn to rise to power and and after he had enough of a following lead a coup and take over the city. Gwyndolin apparently fought back but was too weak to take them all and used the last of his magic to hide Yorshka, sacrificing himself to save his sister.
The implication is that Sulyvahn was behind Gwyndolin's illness and it was part of his plan, but Gwyndolin was explicitly not at full strength and still had enough magic to set up that funky invisible hideaway and spirit Yorshka there.
Ryder Myers
>his sister How frail are the minds of the infected...
Jose Jenkins
>coup Who even lives in Anor Londo besides Gwyndolin, the monsters, and the silver knights? Did the pontiff ring up the painting guardians or something? It can't possibly have just been the deacons of the deep. I remember encountering some red-eyed silver knights that bleed abyss goop in DS3's Anor Londo, so I guess a few of those guys turned, but those few wouldn't have been nearly enough.
Adrian Edwards
Anor Londo is right on top of Irithyll, and all of those guys work for Sulyvahn. So all the shit you fought there was probably on his side, and that's a whole city of people to rule over even if we never see civilians because this is dark souls.
But you are right, the Silver Knights we see must have turned. Otherwise they would be dead or fighting Aldritch's forces. We know the Darkmoon Knightess died trying to protect Gwyndolin, so there was a loyal force. They just didn't win.
William Adams
red eyes is just an effect with no significance. Irithyll (lower anor londo) has confirmed inhabitants but we never see them, you can play as one though. The painting building disappeared or something, the painting itself was destroyed too so paiting gardians kinda fucked up their job, I guess that's why they hide behind little paintings in ds2.
Jaxon Long
>Anor Londo is right on top of Irithyll It must have been a really recent coup, then, since the time-space convolution didn't splice Irithyll and Anor Londo together during DS1.
Dylan Watson
the action table says sprinting costs 1DW6, what's that mean?
Jaxon Rogers
just making Bloodborne part of the Dark Souls setting is a goddamn terrible idea, just do a separate Bloodborne supplement
also worrying about the Hunter's Dream is silly, the game itself establishes that there's normally only 1 Hunter of the Dream at a time, so most everyone else is mortal in the normal way unless they use weird Pthumerian stuff or become a Beast or Kin
Eli Roberts
Irithyll is literally lower anor londo from ds1 though.
Parker Lee
1DW6 = 1 die, worth 6
Its like 1DW3+, but it HAS to be a 6.
Henry Adams
currently reading it, and for the way you fused mechanics from all the trilogy and how well you understand the logic of these games you honestly deserve an award.
>And if thats true, is there a kind of magic that's inherently masculine too?
Praise the Sun. Though generic heals seem to be neutral.
Adam Hall
user, I think you don't know heals are provided by the goddess of tits.
Colton Taylor
Sort of?
Miracles in Dark Souls are legends and myths of the gods that the faithful draw power from. Different legends of different gods have different 'lessons' or aspects to them. It just so happens that the bet healing miracles were stories about Gwynevere.
Strangely, I can't think of any case case of using miracle magic that resulted in abominations in DS lore. Perhaps it can't. Sorcery can 100% fuck you up if you experiment with the powerful shit, just ask Aldia and his experiments or Seath and his stuff. Perhaps its because Miracles are only reflections of true power belonging to the gods, whereas Sorcery is something you can touch directly?
Or maybe its because Sorcery is the manipulation of souls themselves for energy, and its magic that affects your soul that warps your body. Miracles don't do that, so they don't have that risk. Pyromancy used to be safe from that too, the worst risk was just blowing yourself up, until the DoCs tried to recreate the first flame and lost control.
In any event, if we did come up with some side rules for this I think whatever solution we come up with could likely be used for anyone wanting to kitbash a Bloodborne version of FFA too.
Juan Evans
Well, the church in DS1 was manipulative and morally dubious at best. I guess that wasn't a direct result of the miracles though.
What about the bird people in the painting? They were associated with Velka.
Ethan Young
nvm, it's ds3 all over, at least we have an example of projectile weapons so I can work things.
a few suggestions instead of bitching: think about making an actual estus upgrade system please, and nerf the opals. prism stones indicate the damage from a fall. wtf is this eye orb thing. infusions restrictions/infusions as a whole can be improved, gib mudane, I want to kill gods with my teaspoon. armor improvements plz, could already get worked out by copy/pasting the weapon one. dual weapons/powerstance should be included. cont maybe?
Austin Taylor
that's because miracles are only the "good" tales, "bad" ones end up being hexes, as do dark sorceries and pyromancies.
Dominic Reyes
cont. I know a few disappointed skeletons, gravelords need love (and skeletons). a champion covenant would be easy to set up, like a permanent dmg bns for enemies on the character, with a killcount while part of it to give rewards. how is sulyvahn abyssal? he has the fucking profaned flame. invaders should be able to ambush/white branch without the 1hp penalty, and retreat when low on hp, mauldron isn't the same if he can't run to the boss after dodging through all your attacks with his 4300 hp.
Nathaniel King
forgot the most important thing: twinblades.
Wyatt Hill
OP here. Its not DS3 all over, but I did crib notes from DS3 most directly on the assumption that its the most 'refined' version of Dark Souls, and Focus is honestly just much more intuitive to implement in a PnP format than uses per rest is. Its what I thought was a 'greatest hits' list mechanics wise, with Hexes being their own spell category ala DS2 and Endurance being more like DS1 so that you can raise your equip load without being sad in a corner for 10 lvls with nothing else to show for it.
Whats wrong with the current estus upgrade system? Since we have different kinds of flasks now, I invented a third category that does both but not as well as the dedicated ones. Estus Flask shards were always a common way to upgrade an Estus flask, this just lets you trash old flasks to make new shards. Its less problematic that relying on Firekeeper souls, which would have to be weirdly common for a whole party to not get shafted by never being able to upgrade flasks. I'll admit that what I have done with flasks isn't 100% in keeping with the games, but I think its an improvement for the format FFA is in.
Prism stone change seems fine.
The Eye orbs couldn't allow player invasions. That would just be tremendously stupid in a PnP format. Best case scenario it forces the GM to whip up a random unique enemy on the spot. Worst case scenario it does that AND the rest of the party is twiddling their thumbs waiting for the one character who used the orb to finish up their masturbatory solo combat.
Mundane, Raw and Hollow infusions honestly all just seemed to be more complicated to implement than they were worth. Blessed and Simple are mechanically easy, but would have to be nerfed to not be gamebreaking. Because nothing actuallys tops the players from making a Blessed Broken Sword and afetr every fight passing it around and waiting an hour in game to top off everyones health after every boo-boo.
Adrian Thomas
I was just speaking in term of content in general, it's almost entirely ds3 stuff or mechanics, also what's up with the drake sword? why is it even a PoD reward lol.
Ian Scott
I'll be honest: armor enhancements were sort of a late addition to the book. I'm not sure happy about them, and that's why they are kind of half-assed, but i figured something was better than nothing.
The problem is that small incremental improvements for armor is a lot more aggravating to do than it is for weapons, because armor has 7 different numbers that will change each time. And some of them are really, really small. Like, if you handle it the same as weapons? Since the armor values are simplified to integers, a 10% increase to a value of 1 is still 1. And it will KEEP being 1 even after upgrading multiple times. This is far from ideal. That said, I'm open to better options for armor upgrading, as long as it isn't too nitty gritty. DS3 didn't let you upgrade your armor at all, and I almost went that route.
I haven't figured out a way to make Dual weapons, power stances, or twinblades weapon in game without being just normal weapons with a fancy name or OP multiattack weapons. I'm open to suggestions, and I'd love to get them working, but I didn't want to try and get too fancy right out the gate and bust the game.
Skeleton enemies I can include, Gravelords are a covenant I simply could not figure out how to make work. Which is a shame, because they are super cool and I love them. But they have the problem of being invasion focused in a game without invasions, and their weird buffed assassins thing also doesn't work for the same reason.
Covenant of Champions I'm open to including, but again didn't think of a way to make them work. It relies on a mechanic I'm hesitant to include in FFA, which is players increasing the difficulty of bosses.
Sulyvahn's Abyssal because he's the head of the Church of the Deep, I needed an Abyssal boss in the game as an example, and I wanted him to be.
I'm okay with invaders having unique ambush rules.
Josiah Rodriguez
> what's up with the drake sword? why is it even a PoD reward lol.
Because the Path of the Dragon in DS2 gives you the Black Dragon Greatsword as a reward, and frankly I think that's a shit weapon. Instead, the Drake Sword fills the same role while being less shitty, and the special effect of the Drake Sword by RAW meshes with making the fire breath attack from the dragon head totem more powerful as long as you wield it. Synergy!
It should be said again that nothing in the covenant rewards list should be taken as the word of god. GMs can, and indeed should, offer rewards they think more fitting to their campaign and their players. Hell, not all covenants will even be available in all games.
Evan Wright
OP here. Is anyone here more familiar with 1d4chan than I am? I'm not super proficient in wiki things. I can't even seem to find the button for making a new page, which I thought would have been obvious.
Carter Diaz
Shit my dog, nice work, kinda thought I'd never see you again.
I actually have an idea for the double weapons/powerstances: make them impractical (move patterns that end up not helping the players to replace the long ass startup/recovery animations), and add an absurd stamina cost (like in ds2), based on the individual cost of each weapon maybe? I could make some data for the twinsblades, they are a mix of existing weapons so it won't be difficult. for gravelords you could base it on their lore more than their mechanics, they're here to spread nito's miasma, maybe poison-related stuff? also is there a two-handed mode? should double the str in scaling at the cost of a hand (+stamina consumption maybe?). I think I will make some loot/enemies to pass time.
Nicholas Stewart
Page 28
Two Handing a One-Handed Weapon: You can hold a melee weapon you meet the prerequisites for that normally uses 1 hand in 2 hands instead to increase its damage. Doing so adds your Strength score to the weapons damage for as long as you wield it in 2 hands, though this obviously means you cannot also benefit from a shield.
One Handing a Two-Handed Weapon: You can try and use a two-handed weapon in only 1 hand, but doing so requires you to meet all listed Stat Requirements for the weapon + 4. For as long as you wield the weapon in only one hand, you only benefit from half of the weapons normal Scaled Damage, and you cannot deal Stagger with the weapon even if an attack or ability would otherwise allow you to.
Gavin Ortiz
what sort of houserules do you use to improve it?
Aiden Robinson
I never beat a room more than twice. If I beat it twice, that means that there is basically no reasonable chance that I am going to lose at it in the future, since I only get stronger. So on subsequent runs I skip that room.
When I buy cards from the item deck, I draw two and discard one. It helps filter through bullshit you cant use early game so you are more likely to get to something that's even remotely possible to use after a few planned level ups.
