The Dark Souls RPG

 

Before we get into my thoughts on this game we need to go over my opinion of “trad” games, such as modern DnD, Pathfinder, and derivatives such as the Power Rangers RPG and the like. We’ll also need to talk about the other RPGs that are openly based on Soulslike games. It’s not exactly a spicy and original take but without knowing my opinion on both Trad and games inspired by Dark Souls my comments on the Dark Souls RPG are going sound odd.

Spoiler: I like the game. Kinda.

No, I wasn’t sent a review copy.

No, the game is not perfect, it has its very obvious flaws. Yes, shame on Steamforged for not taking more time!

But hear me out.

Trad games (as defined by this blog post) are classified in part as games where the  GM is active and the players are reactive. The game rules have a giant hole where storygames, the OSR, and classic games have a turn structure. Whether it be PBTA Moves, Burning Wheel’s round robin style of showcasing player Beliefs, BDnD’s turn structure, etc, most RPGs have some pretty detailed rules on how to handle the story as a part of the game. It’s actually pretty common for RPGs, if you take the hobby as a whole.

But not Trad. There’s a big gaping hole in that area, by and large, because one of two things are expected: either your GM has come up with his own little structure/flowchart/map or whatever, or he bought an adventure so he didn’t have to prep for God knows how many hours.

Don’t balk at that. Even a cursory glance at DnD 3.5 and up reveals that is the assumed state of play. Hours are assumed to be spent by the GM in prepping a showcase of goodies that players of the “wrong” (aka people who are allergic being reactive) persuasion will wreck within minutes. Ironically enough if you hand one of these ornery players a game of literally any other type they become fantastic players, by and large. This is Trad’s greatest disadvantage: if a player wants to do more than react to whatever the GM has in mind they’re going to create waves, regardless of how much the GM communicates with them.

So, now you know my opinion on Trad games.

Dark Souls the RPG is the best Trad game I’ve personally ever read.

There are a lot of games based off of Dark Souls. I’ve played some, and enjoyed them. I’ve read more than a few, more than I can remember right now, so I have a… decently(?)… educated opinion on the subject. These games try to take the feeling of Dark Souls and explore it on their own terms. One of these games, Bleak Spirit, is one of my favorite games. So I’m not here to talk against the many adaptations. They’re good games in their own right, by and large.

But Dark Souls the RPG is the most faithful adaptation that I, personally, have ever read. 

It’s not close either.

I’ve now made two astoundingly ridiculous sounding claims. Let’s take them in reverse order.

Dark Souls the RPG is the most faithful adaptation that I, personally, have ever read, for an astoundingly simple reason: with the exception of class features every single mechanical element of the game is an in-game object. You don’t gain spells, can’t just grab whatever weapons you want, you find them! Souls can be scattered throughout the world. Even your backstory is a part of the game, an object you can lose. I’ve not seen another game that’s owned up to it to this degree. And this faithfulness to ludo-narrative cohesion fixes Trad play. The GM can construct an environment with all the mechanical bits and bobs, complete with all the layout tricks he likes. He then drops the players into this environment and sits back. And waits. The greatest strength of a Trad game (letting the GM just go nuts in the background) then overcomes Trad’s greatest flaw (the ease of railroading). 

“But the game’s lacking in combat balance!” This freaking Dark Souls, why’re you looking for a fair fight??? That's not a thing in Dark Souls and we all know it!

“The game has glaring flaws!” Yes it does, but you know what you do with that? What you literally do with all Trad games: houserule it extensively. Just 'cause 5e is more polished than Dark Souls does not mean that 5e is a good game, nevermind that they expect you to fix their design stupidity. There’s no real operative difference, like it or not. I’d much rather house-rule a game with a good chassis (Dark Souls) than a mediocre one (5e, and I’m being generous by calling it mediocre). And the set up of Dark Souls is actually really really good. 

You can find all the obvious flaws and discuss the really bad production cycle of The Dark Souls RPG all you like. It’s deserved. The game was clearly rushed. But if you’re going to do that the other side of it should be discussed as well. The Dark Souls RPG respects the actual gameplay ideas of the video game, and adapts it to TTRPGs more faithfully than any other adaptation than I’m aware of. That makes the flaws of this game all the more tragic.

That being said, I’m going to enjoy drawing up dark and twisted environments with all the crunchy/fictional goodness I can. Not to mention hacking part my players’ backstories with glee when they die.

If you don’t then that’s your choice. But me? I’m gonna go have some fun.

Sometimes I am really glad I write these awhile in advance. My opinion's become a bit more sarcastic since the above, so in my typical fashion I'm not going to rewrite the above (because it's not wrong) but contextualize it. See, I really like this idea of the special abilities being tied to stuff you find in the world, and that you change your character build by swapping out the items you have, with some influence and choice within the class you have. Combine that with a good and crunchy combat system and something passible at skills and you'd have a good game!

That seems.... familiar... somehow... where have I seen this before?

Yes, Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, the Essentials line. The classes have more choice than Dark Souls, nevermind the feat choices are voluminous. 4e's got multiple books worth of items, along with a way of fixing the math so that you don't need the items to keep up. Monsters are built off of 4e's far better engine, with plenty of room to not just do what Dark Souls currently does.... but a lot better. Like, a hell of a lot better.

THAT, my friends, is about 80 bucks: the cost of the Dark Souls roleplaying game, shipping included! If you can throw in some extra money for a copy of DM's Guide 2 you'll be set for the rest of your life.  You can take the same ludo-narrative stuff that Dark Souls does and put it in here, with more variety, better builds, and actual guidance for hacking the game.

Sure, the art ain't as nice. And the writing in Dark Souls I find more enjoyable. But those above books? They'll give you the same experience, but more reliably.

So yes, Dark Souls is actually a good RPG

But 4e is better, buck for buck.

But that's true of 4e against a lot of modern games, Essentials or not.

Wandering is the Point

I'm Ornery

I do not like most video games. They feel too sculpted, too clean, too sterile. Having grown up in controlled and sterilized environments I find myself practically allergic to anyone controlling my environment, nevermind me. This makes communicating any part of my worldview particularly difficult, nevermind sitting down to play some other numbskull's idea of fun. So I am phenomenally picky about video games. They either need to be areas where I can just run around or they need to be sculpted so freaking well that I can just enjoy it, as opposed to realize I've been taken for yet another ride.

And I hate that feeling, on a genetic level.

It's practically enough for me to break out in hives.

No, I don't think it's inherently a problem. Well, the hives part, probably yes. But my dislike of being in a sterile and controlled environment is not a problem, thank you very much.

Which brings us to Dark Souls and the secret area Ash Lake.

Dark Souls is Ornery Too

I have noticed something about "classics", actual classics: I usually have to take a long time to absorb them. It took me five attempts to read Brothers Karamazov, over the course of almost ten years. Les Miserables still sits on my shelf, incomplete. The Solar Cycle was shotgunned through rapidly, which I've been told is not the best way to go about it, but I knew that if I didn't just sit down and do it I'd never get it done. And yeah, that was phenomenally difficult to do, but I did it. It always feels like this wrestling of wills, as I try and get this new viewpoint into my skull and try and figure out what I think of it.

Dark Souls and I seem to have a similar relationship. I'm on year two and my second attempt. It's going better, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that cussing the game out and walking away for weeks was a common occurrence. But I've continued on my way, killing everything in my way indiscriminately, hoping that my zweihander could keep the stunlock going, upping my endurance so that I can continue an onslaught of damage. It's probably not the best build but I love seeing creatures stunned or proned. 

I heard about Ash Lake thanks to my brother-in-law, Kyle. He told me how to get there: strike down not just one but two secret walls, and make your way down The Tree. When you get to the bottom you will be there, at Ash Lake. I had seen pictures of the trees. The dragon. And that path of white sand, cutting through the navy water. I dunno, I just wanted to go. Why not? It was really that simple of a desire. But the barriers to getting to the secret route was.... not what I wanted to do. Blight Town is an awful awful place. I want to get out of here before I even go; poison swamps with fire-bugs? Nope. Nope. Nope. So walking further into that mess? Definitely not, thanks.

Well the other day, while trying to pick a peck of snide, somehow I stumbled acrost that tree, with two false walls inside!

And I thought: why not?

Oh NO.

(For those you who are blessed in your ignorance, that's a basilisk. It has a poisonous breath that kills you and then cuts your health in half until you can get the curse removed)

Yup, got cursed, half health! Now I could either go back or keep trying to go down. I've already got to get all the way back up to the surface to undo the curse. And that means getting back through Blight Town. I mean, that's going to be one heck of a trek and I just... I mean I may as well get to the bottom, right? Basilisks are bad, but they aren't impossible to deal with.

OUCH

So I am totally not at the right level to take those guys. It takes way too many hits to kill these fungusmen things, and so one on one became... impractical. I wound up running through, after several dozens of attempts. I practically wept at getting to that bonfire. I'd finally made it down here! After so many attempts I-

OH COME ON DARK SOULS!

A freaking hydra! Really?? Well, maybe I can just go around and-

Why.

Just WHY

ANSWER ME

Unable to avoid the hydra and unwilling to run back up and brave that tree so soon, I decided to go after the hydra. I figured I either had to git gud or just start over by this point, I was so unwilling to beat a retreat. So I went back at it. I kept dying, but each time I learned a bit more. And a bit more.

And then a head flew off.

And then I had a blind spot in the attack pattern. 

I only died one more time before finally putting the hydra down. I'm still trying to figure out how the heck that happened.

There are a few other creatures hanging around, but it's just white sands, worn away by the black-blue water. All these trees.... and then I found a grove of these trees, rising up out of the water. With a dragon. He shouldn't be here! Dragons are dead in the setting! Like, wiped out. With the exception of the Gaping Dragon (which is certainly not in its original condition) dragons were wiped out by Gwyn and the gods. The dragon was also sitting in front of a bonfire that had been boosted, which means that the dragon is female, given she is the flame-keeper. The idea of picking a fight with this young dragon seemed idiotic. I was cursed and was certain that I did not want to pick a fight at that point, not one I didn't have to. 

Wait, I can enter a covenant with the last true dragon?

Absolutely yes.

Now it was time to go back up; there literally wasn't anything around else here, beyond some weird clam monsters and a few items. Going back up wasn't quite the struggle I thought it would be. I've always found myself overestimating the difficulty of trekking back through an area; I got up pretty easily.

Now to take care of that freaking curse. I found the lady who sells them, and realized I had some farming to do. Not a problem!  I went killed a bunch of undead, over and over and over, until I thought I had enough. So I went back.

I had read it wrong. I needed another thousand. Groaning, I killed the thousand souls I needed and came back.

Now, I'm not entirely sure why, but that actually meant a decent amount to me. That messy little episode in my extended Dark Souls run is something I'm still pondering, days later, trying to understand what had happened. I'm not sure why that is. But it is. If I could find more video games that did that I'd play a heck of a lot more often. 

Whatever that is.

"Games Need to be Accesible"

(Or "sOmE GaMeS ShOuLd bE AcCeSiBlE bUt ThEy DoN't AlL hAvE tO bE, as Aaronsolon said)

So I'm walking into my workplace one day, minding my own business, when a coworker of mine runs up to me and strikes up a conversation. I'd talked with this guy a few times before, but had never talked in-depth with him. As we were going along I randomly decided to tell him about the board game night I and a buddy of mine host on Friday nights, after the kids and spouses are asleep. He was thrilled, but kinda blanked when I told him we would be playing Power Rangers. He told me that Thuy Trang was his eternal love and he would be there. Two other people had RSVP'ed and I was excited! Four people playing Power Rangers meant that we would be past the dreaded three player mark, where the game is probably at its hardest. People were claiming colors and it was gonna be a great  evening.

Yeah, no one else showed up but this guy. Oh, and he was new to anything beyond Monopoly.

I smelled disaster.

Part of the challenge of Heroes of the Grid is that it's a very intense game. You have to really know the character you're playing and have to be talking to everyone else constantly, otherwise the influx of attacks flattens the group. With a system as uncompromising as this game's I was afraid that I would not be able to help my newfound friend figure out the character in time. I was right. We got completely and utterly stomped, losing three times over, but choosing to complete the game anyway. We narrowly beat Scorpina, almost losing for a fourth time in a row. And it was great!... at least for me. We were both emotionally exhausted from the ordeal and it was past midnight. I kinda figured this would the last time I'd see this dude, honestly. Two people had bailed on that night and he was given a game that was completely and utterly overwhelming with few people to rely upon and, especially after the ass-kicking we had been subjected to, I wouldn't blame him if he didn't come back. I was also a little bitter that the game was this friggin' hard.

"So this was great! Let's have more people next time, yeah?"

We had a conversation about the game, and he was practically bubbling about it. Yeah, his luck had been horrible and the game was a bit overwhelming, but it had been such an adrenaline rush! We both wanted to play again, but again, past midnight and all that. I told him about some of the other experiences I'd had and he listened attentively. He said he wanted to get better, so he could have more fun with the game. I told him he would, if he put the time in. He nodded, said he'd be there next week, and left.

I stared, sorta slack-jawed, as he walked back to his car.

And, in case you think that was a fluke, I had called one of my buddies who had first played this game with me and asked how much he wanted to keep playing, since I wanted to buy expansions for the game and didn't want to waste my money on it if he wasn't going to play. Our first games had been very rough, with the first one ending in abject defeat and the second one sorta being cheated through. So I was pretty nervous. I had enjoyed the game, but I really enjoyed the challenge. I do not assume others have such a thrill at finding a game that takes some work to understand. But his answer surprised me. "Yeah, it felt like whenever I first played Pandemic, that same 'HOW ARE WE GOING TO BEAT THIS??'  was there. But that turned out alright and it's one of my favorite games now, so I figure why not keep cracking at this one? It's a lot of fun, even though we lost!"

The thing is, I don't mind easy games. One of my favorites, Tsuro, is extremely easy and simple. Anyone can play it, at any confidence level. I've never seen someone not be able to play Tsuro, and it's so aesthetically pleasing to lay down those gorgeous to lay down those tiles and laugh as you realize that everyone is screwed and that's OK. And I'll be damned if Smash Bros isn't an immensely fun game to play with people who have no idea what they're doing! It's got a pretty low threshhold of initial play. I certainly think there should be be gateway games for every genre of play imaginable. People need to know that these can be fun and achievable, in that order.

But I also think that some games should not be. The challenge is part of the point of that game, that adrenaline rush as you realize that, while you may not understand the rule-set, it is open to you and it is on you to understand and master and, should you fail, the system punishes you, sometimes severely. The experience is fraught with the danger of being sent all the way back to the beginning, sometimes with nothing to show for your trouble. And these types of games are extremely frustrating at times, especially for the people who love them. A good game that is difficult does not fail you because it failed, but because you failed. And that distinction has to be very, very, very apparent when playing the game. I haven't beaten Ornstein and Smough yet because Ornstein and Smough are intrinsically unfair, I keep losing to Ornstein and Smough because I'm not respecting the rules that the game has bound the world to. I don't dodge enough, I get very greedy for just that one extra hit that won't actually do anything but HE'S OPEN AND I SHOULD TAKE IT AND OH MY GOD IF I DON'T DO IT I'LL DIE. Such a panic mode is a trap, and these games are designed to punish panic. Do not panic. Think. Breathe. Be judicious. If you lose, you know why you did. If you won, you definitely know why you did. You earned it! You faced something that looked insurmountable and almost was, but you did it! The adrenaline high is unlike anything else, to know that, even if others did it or not, you did. Life is different after a victory like that.

There are some, however, who cannot partake in that experience. Whether it be an actual handicap, money, whatever it is, they cannot keep up, and feel bad that they can't. It doesn't help that the people who can weather such experiences rub it in their faces, which is all sorts of wrong, but even if they didn't there'd probably be some people who wanted to experience a different aspect about the game than the difficulty of it. Perhaps the story is something you want to experience, or maybe the aesthetic really appeals to you, or maybe you just want the damned designer to give you a break. And there are games that do this! And I have no issue with that! The designer, the one sending the message, thinks it should be more open. I'm perfectly fine with that.

But some don't, and that's fine too. Games are a communication of an interactive nature. The designer sets up a design and the player goes through it, guided by the rules into an experience that the designer intended. Some designers are a bit more specific about what they intend. They have forged an aesthetic, a set of mechanics, an experience, a message that is inseparable from the difficulty of the game itself. And yes, the designer gets to be the one who makes that decision. Yes, it excludes some people from playing. I doubt I'll ever finish Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. I'm just not very good at platformers. It's not something I really grew up with, and therefore a game that other platforming gamers have told me is hard is something that I'm not going to have the best experience with. And that's alright by me. The world is not about me, and I have no issue with someone telling me "No, this is not for you", because there are plenty of other things that are. In fact I have issue with games that say "this is for everyone!" because it means that they're precisely for nobody at all. I am quite sure that I will some day meet someone who hates Tsuro, although I've no idea if that person will have a true pulse or a soul. I may have to call for an exorcist at that point, but such is life. But Tsuro is also designed for a specific experience: an intro party game. It's not deep, and anyone trying to get real depth of gameplay out of base Tsuro is going to have a really bad time with it. But fortunately Tsuro's design is extremely clear and I don't know of a soul that has ever mistook it for a tactically deep game.

No game (or media) is for everyone, all the time, or sometimes ever. Not everyone can read Dostoevsky. Not everyone can read Gene Wolfe, or Tolkien. I don't think people should be machismo about it (although sometimes a good victory roar and chest pounding feels pretty dang good, particularly Dostoevsky), but let's not beat about the bush here: if you are not talented in the way that a game (or media) demands the designer has absolutely no obligation to make it so. In fact, he has a responsibility to make sure it hits a certain audience, and only them. Communication is, by nature, exclusive. I'm not going to deliberately (yes, that's in there on purpose... sigh....) tell someone else other than my wife and children that I love them with every fiber of my being. I am not going to call my best friends "Beppin", cause that's what I call my wife, nor would I say "DA BUB" to anyone but my firstborn son, because those things are meant to for them, and them alone. Is it elitist? Abso-friggin'-lutely it is, it's only for them and I mean to keep it that way! Are they good enough for me, which insinuates that others are not? Yes! Should I be a jerk about it? No! Just because I love my sons enough to talk absolute nonsense to them with a big grin on my face, in a way that only they understand, should not mean I should share that experience with my brother-in-law.... although I think he'd find that awesome.

I'll have to process that later.

Anyway. 

So, I don't think that games are for everyone, everywhere, at all times. No one is that good at designing. I think you can either say "my game is for everyone" and be lying, however unintentionally, or you can say "No, I've designed for this experience" and, if you don't want to compromise that experience or make a similar experience, there's absolutely no issue with it. Should people be jerks about having that particular talent? No. But those people shouldn't be penalized by not having a game built for that particular experience. They should not have that particular talent excluded from a gameplay experience. Excluding people from your game is an inevitability. The question becomes who do you want to talk to, and why?

And I think that's a lot more interesting than saying "This game is too hard and I think it should be made to fit me". If it's too hard for you, then look elsewhere. I know I have and I'm glad I did. But, sometimes, just sometimes, try it again. And again. And again. And again. You might get something you didn't expect to.

BUT HEAVEN HELP ME IF WE DON'T WIN NEXT TIME

EDIT: I changed a few things meant in good humor that, as it turns out, were not taken that way. There will be a further edit later, but I cannot do that at the moment, so I hope this very short  apology will have to do before I put in a longer one in later. My apologies are offered. It's the internet, so I don't assume forgiveness, but that out of my control.