Unofficial Role Playing Game
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Unofficial Role Playing Game by Emanuele Galletto based on the games by Hidetaka Miyazaki and From Software this book is dedicated to: 9 Marcus Sanders, also known as EpicNameBro 9 Michele Poggi, also known as Sabaku no Maiku, or Mike of the Desert 9 Hidetaka Miyazaki and From Software 9 and to Velka, may she absolve us from our Sins This is a fanmade, non commercial work. It will always be available for free. Think of it as an expression of my deep admiration for the Dark Souls series and the many talented people who worked on it. It is a labor of love. I have no ties whatsoever with Hidetaka Miyazaki, From Software or Bandai Namco. If you are interested in contacting me or checking out the rest of my game projects, you can find me here: www.instagram.com/roosterema www.facebook.com/roosterema plus.google.com/+RoosterEma twitter.com/RoosterEma 3 4 Introduction Hi, and thank you for checking out my fan- So... what are you supposed to do with this? How made Dark Souls Tabletop Role Playing does a Dark Souls-themed RPG work? Game! Well, there are three core elements in every Now, I know that seeing this book’s page count Dark Souls game: may make it look a bit intimidating, but don’t 9 Exploration: We’re not just talking worry - most of it is lists of items and magic “geographical” exploration of each loca- (you know, all those shields, weapons, armors, tion, finding shortcuts and precious bon- spells and odd trinkets) from the videogame, fires. In Dark Souls, you explore the hidden not to mention statistics for the most common history, lore and (often unsettling) past of a enemies you might encounter during the game. land twisted by the will and actions of gods So, don’t let that scare you: 90% of what you and powerful entities. need to know in order to play is written on the You also end up discovering more about various sheets that come with the game (you can those few sane people you meet during your find them in the same folder as this document). journey, and witnessing the tragic epilogue You’ll want to print those for your group. to their stories. My goal when designing this game was to re- 9 duce bookkeeping whenever possible, and to Combat: Most of the creatures you en- make the most out of those materials you will counter will try to hurt you, kill you, or at have in front of you when playing at the table: least kick you down a hole to steal your stuff. basically, the more information you can find In the end, a large majority of the Dark by simply looking at those sheets, the less time Souls’ series mechanics revolve around mak- you’ll have to spend flipping through this book ing you better at killing things and/or avoid to search for an answer. getting killed by those same things. 9 Loss of Humanity: As mentioned above, many of the Non-Player Characters we encounter in a Dark Souls game will be driven by a certain duty, mission or de- sire, but they’ll end up being consumed by it. Not you, however - not the protagonist. And this is mostly a gameplay choice: after all, if you were actually able to go Hollow in a Dark Souls videogame, that would mean a permanent death for your character. All progress lost, go back to the starting screen and press “new game”. Now, let’s take a look at how I translated these elements into a pen-and-paper game. 5 Exploration and Combat The whole Dark Souls RPG is built around The whole back-and-forth between exploration these two concepts: in the game, each of them and combat is something you will get used to has its own phase. pretty quickly: it resembles many classic JRPG titles, where you move on a map and sometimes 9 Exploration Phase: When you travel trigger combat encounters with creatures. around the world map, go from one loca- Exploration in the Dark Souls RPG is handled tion to another, talk to NPCs and search for through the World Sheet and Location Sheets: shortcuts and secret passages, you’re in the the Game Master will use these to design in- exploration phase. teresting areas and keep track of the ways they The exploration phase is pretty freeform: connect to each other. More information on it’s basically a conversation between the this can be found on page 30. players and the Game Master (GM), with Combat has its own sheets as well: the Combat the game rules occasionally helping to solve Sheet is used to abstractly represent the battle uncertain situations. area (you will need some tokens, miniatures or The players will describe what their charac- other small objects to indicate the position of ters do, and the GM will tell them how the characters and creatures during the conflict), world, creatures and characters react to it; while a useful reference sheet contains all the there will be times in which the outcome basic mechanics and rules you might need. of an action will involve dice rolling, but Combat is explained in greater detail starting that should not be the default. In fact, it is on page X. assumed that the Player Characters are al- most always going to succeed at what they do, except when something or someone di- rectly opposes their action or engages them in combat. 9 Combat Phase: Whenever characters or creatures come into conflict with each other, the exploration phase ends and a combat phase begins. Honestly, a vast majority of the rules in this book are about combat. It plays a key role in the videogame, and it is just as important in this tabletop roleplaying game. On average, a single session should include two to three combats (but it’s still possible to have an ex- ploration-only session, or to have a single huge battle with a boss, for example). When combat ends, you go back to a new exploration phase, and so on. 6 Loss of Humanity Like I said before, the Dark Souls videogames by a strong will but completely changed by the do not allow the player’s character to go com- trauma of death and reshaped by your journey pletely Hollow: while it is true that Dark Souls throughout this accursed land. III has a Hollowing statistic and Dark Souls II Or, you might choose to spend your souls to progressively punishes you by reducing your Hit become more powerful, gritting your teeth and Points with each death, you’ll never lose your ignoring the growing holes in your memory. character. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think If you are lucky, you will accomplish your duty that’s entirely fair and understandable: the before it’s too late. whole point of Dark Souls is that it can get away with being so challenging precisely because you But don’t worry! Even if you permanently lose can try everything an unlimited number of your character due to them going Hollow, you times. can always make a new one. They will be weak For this game, I went in a different direction. and overwhelmed at first, but as long as you can I wanted each defeat to count, and I wanted find some strong allies, you will survive. characters to be tragic figures such as those we Hopefully. encounter while playing the videogame: Solaire of Astora, Lucatiel of Mirrah, Siegmeyer of Catarina, Big Hat Logan, and many others. Death in the Dark Souls Roleplaying Game is more than a temporary setback. It eats away at your memory, shatters your being and brings you closer to going Hollow. The game makes use of a mechanic called Sparks of Memory: each Player Character will begin the game with four of these, and they can never have more than five. A Spark of Memo- ry is something that keeps you human: funny thing is, they are rarely happy memories. Turns out pain, anger and regret take deep roots into our hearts, and the strength of these emotions can keep us going even when our body is broken and reforms from the embers of a Bonfire. When you die, you lose a Spark of Memory: a piece of your being will be forever lost, and you will be a step closer to losing yourself. You will also be able to create new Sparks by spending souls and defeating powerful enemies: you will keep darkness at bay, but lost memories can never be regained. With time, you might be come an entirely different person, driven 7 Design Choices, and Why I Made Them Saying that I’ve encountered no difficulties 9 Consumables: Keeping track of these re- when making this game would be a lie. In fact, quired you to constantly erase and add stuff I chose to create a Dark Souls tabletop RPG to your character sheet, basically destroying precisely because I knew it was going to be a it! Instead, consumables are equipped just challenging experience... which I think fits the like rings and have a limited number of whole Dark Souls theme too! uses, which recharge whenever you have a And by the way, if you don’t agree with some chance to rest at a Bonfire. of these design choices, I think it’s perfectly Game Masters should only ever place one reasonable. This is nothing more, nothing less copy of a consumable item in the game than my own take on a Dark Souls RPG, and world, obviously; this design choice puts an you’re free to modify it with your group! emphasis on making the most out of unique consumables rather than hoarding hun- 9 Items that restore Humanity: This dreds of copies.