Dark Souls OSR Unofficial RPG Dark Souls OSR Unofficial RPG Preface - Disclaimer I do not own anything regarding Dark Souls or OD&D, nor the various volumes I have used to create this (AD&D, 5th Ed. D&D, Unofficial Dark Souls RPG by Emanuele Galleto, Silent Legions, etc.). All rights belong to their respective creators (From Software, Namco, TSR, WOTC, etc.). Nothing here needs to be sold or use for money, only personal use. Finally, I stole a lot of content and table from various bloggers over the years and I can’t say I remember always where, therefore I cannot credit them. I hope they will not be angry with me because of that. I especially stole a lot from the “Dark Souls Unofficial Role Playing Game” by Emanuele Galleto for anything related to lore, worldbuilding, names, etc. and some ideas for Dark Souls mechanics. I also stole from Silent Legions and Kevin Crawford for some worldbuilding aspects. Introduction - What is this book and how to use it This experiment started off as a port of Dark Souls 1 into TTRPG using an OSR framework. Rapidly it became quite clear that it couldn’t be OSR as per my personal definition of OSR, that is, a game that retains both the principles and the compatibility of old school RPGs as defined by old school TSR (OD&D, AD&D, Basic D&D and all retroclones of those). This games keep the principles as much as it can, but does not follow the compatibility. I did try to keep it as much as I could and offer paths to re-compatibilized at the cost of de-Dark- Soulifying the game. Referee’s using this toolbox can go in whatever direction they want. Since my personal goal was to put Dark Souls into TTRPG, the basic proposition will be to have more Dark Souls principles and mechanics and less compatible D&D. The basic frame that was used to create this Dark Souls RPG is OD&D with Chainmail(ish) combat resolution. It was only a natural choice since it gives more freedom to the Referee to use the three combat system (I scrapped one) to create a tension that’s relevant to the moment while style having a good amount of “crunch” for those that wants to delve into it in a Man-to-Man context. For this reason, I tried to put everything down to d6 to accomodate for easier play and odds. To create again a sense of squishiness in the face of adversity, I came back to a system without HP. You have HD and you go down fast. Nonetheless, having armor, magical items, dodge-rolling about, etc. can give you a good edge to survive. Instead of a class system, if you want to have a more Dark Souls feeling, there is optional rules at the end for a classless system. The reason I still went with class is threefold: ● Compatibility ● In the Dark Souls game, you are effectively a one-man party because it’s a single player game. Here, you have a party. You don’t need to be able to do everything. ● And even if you can do everything in Dark Souls, there is still “style” of playing through builds, and people generally fall into “classes”: ○ Sorcerer/pyromancy full caster with light armor to roll and move around, i.e. Magic-User Dark Souls OSR Unofficial RPG ○ Full (or almost) melee, whether is high dodge, high poise, or generalist, i.e. Fighting-Man ○ A mix of Faith and (generally through Dex) melee, or sometimes a pyromancer/sorcerer with some melee, i.e. a Cleric If you still want to provide a better variety for your players, you can elect to give them “boons” outside their class if they consume a great Soul. For example, if you consume the Soul of a Black Knight instead of using it as XP, you could learn to carry bigger armor or weapons, and so on. I will now provide some tips on how to keep a better compatibility with OSR/TSR below. If you have not read this whole document, I advise you do so before to understand the changes: ● Instead of using the (modified) Chainmail combat system, use the alternative combat system. Using the Chainmail system has the disadvantage of rendering a lot of equipment, spells and monsters incompatible unless the Referee knows what he is doing and is competent in mental gymnastics. If you want to keep the Classless but not the combat, just have your character pick either a progression of Cleric, Fighting- Man or Magic-User every level, and adjust HD and Saving Throws accordingly. If you want to keep the combo thing, I’d suggest making it that every 4HD and plus PCs of any class, when they roll a 6 on damage, can roll an additional one (ad vitam aeternam) to simulate the fact that they perceive a weakness and go again. It would be more logical to put it on the attack roll, but IMO multiple attack roll, especially if they are done one after the other, only makes the game take more time. ● Modify all death rules to suit your needs (that is, character death is permanent death as per normal D&D instead of coming back at Bonfire). ● Return to the Charisma attribute and have Humanity (if you need it) as a 7th attribute or something else entirely. ● Instead of the modified Chainmail monsters, adopt a more OD&D/AD&D list of monsters. With those last four main changes in mind, you could probably use the present books in conjunction with any compatible OSR/TSR material without any major problem, since the rest is mostly kept as-is from OD&D or with minor cosmetic changes/changes brought about by my own experience at running OD&D and AD&D. Final and important point: this book was created with a West Marches style campaign in mind, heavily focused on pointcrawl (one area being one point) and megadungeons (areas as dungeons) to give a more Dark Souls feeling. Therefore, if you plan to use the alternate rules I presented above to go more towards OD&D and not run either a West Marches or pointcrawl campaign, I fear this book will be 90% useless to you. Take note that all Dark Souls specific rules are untested for now. To anyone that wants to read more on the subject and a potential thought process, read/visit those: ● https://grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf ● http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated- mechanics-a-brief-primer Dark Souls OSR Unofficial RPG ● http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon ● https://youtu.be/QhWdBhc3Wjc ● http://dungeonsddx.blogspot.com/2013/06/dark-souls.html ● https://thehydradm.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/dark-souls-the-dnd-video-game-that- isnt/ ● https://www.enworld.org/threads/dungeon-layout-map-flow-and-old-school-game- design.168563/ ● Skerples series: https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2018/06/osr-iron-gates-mythic- itinerary.html ● Megadungeon design: ○ https://thehydradm.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/dark-souls-the-dnd-video- game-that-isnt/ ○ https://www.enworld.org/threads/dungeon-layout-map-flow-and-old-school- game-design.168563/ ○ http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the- dungeon ○ https://grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf ● http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated- mechanics-a-brief-primer ● http://gameswithothers.blogspot.com/2014/03/dark-souls-video-game-table-top- role.html Core Experience The Core experience of D&D and TTRPG should be, for this type of game, centered around three concept: Exploration, Social Interaction, Combat. ● Exploration: This is one of the main and chief concern of this TTRPG. It might be light on some of the details, but it’s because it bears heavily on the Referee to create intricate dungeons, using the three clue rule (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule), etc. This Dark Soul OSR will provide basic rules and will try to maximize it by having XP found during exploration, lore have an impact on finding new places or determining a boss weakness, and having a system of revival that will give players new avenues but also more opportunity to delve deeper. ● Social Interaction: This is the one that will most suffer from a Dark Souls campaign. Most Social Interaction will be between players, some phantoms and some NPCs scattered here and there. ● Combat: Combat has been made less critical than in the video game (where its mandatory) but more than in OD&D, which is why there is more rules for (Chainmail redux). Common Terminology and Abbreviations This section will give definition for common terms and their abbreviations. This is useful to people who are new to either OSR or Dark Souls. Some terms have been changed for the sake of lore/fluff, but as a Referee you could decide to keep terms and abbreviations from OD&D without any problem. Dark Souls OSR Unofficial RPG ● Attributes: PLAYER’S SECTION Character Creation Summary of Character Creation 1. Roll 3d6 for the first five Attributes (Str, Int, Fth, Dex, Con) and write 10 for Humanity (Hum) 2. Choose your class (Warrior, Pyromancer, Cleric) 3. Choose or roll a background 4. Write down your class features, starting equipment and other characteristics: Saving Throw, Armor type/Armor Class, Hit Dice, Encumbrance, Weapon Slot, Attunement Slot Attributes There is six attributes: Strength (Str), Intelligence (Int), Faith (Fth), Dexterity (Dex), Constitution (Con) and Humanity (Hum). The first six are randomly generated by rolling 3d6.