💯 {Staff Pick} [Let’s Read] The Official Dark Souls TRPG

[IoBlack]

Yep, you read that right. There is in fact an officially licensed roleplaying game based on From Software's notorious dark fantasy saga out there...

...but only in Japan. (You knew there was a hook somewhere.) And frankly, the likelihood of it ever seeing a formal English release are slim-to-none, despite the fact that spin-offs like the Dark Souls board game have proven there's plenty of players salivating for an analogue version of their favorite die-'em-up.

Still, after getting my hands on a copy during a recent trip to Tokyo, I thought it might be a fun exercise to try and work through the rulebook - and share my findings with other RPG fans curious to see how From's particular brand of gameplay translates to a tabletop setting. My Japanese language skills are barely there, but with a lot of machine translation and a bit of common sense, I've managed to develop a reasonable understanding of what makes this thing tick.

THE BACKGROUND
First off, a bit of general background: the Dark Souls TRPG was first published in 2017 by Kadokawa, the company behind iconic anime magazine Newtype and various prominent and not-so-prominent manga and light novel series you may or may not have heard of, such as Chrno Crusade and Haruhi Suzumiya. Despite the name, it's based directly on Dark Souls III, the most recent entry into the franchise at the time.

The game itself was primarily written by Hironori Katou, an employee of the Japanese RPG company Group SNE. Group SNE is a bit of an elder statesman in the local roleplaying scene, having created the highly popular Sword World (essentially Japanese D&D) franchise all the way back in 1989. The most recent edition of Sword World, 2.5, still seems to be doing solid business for them, but they also produce games in other genres, dabble in board, card, and computer gaming, and have published localized versions of Western stalwarts like Shadowrun, Earthdawn, MechWarrior, Tunnels & Trolls, and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia.

In short, this RPG isn't the product of some fly-by-night operation - it's a book with a pedigree.

THE BOOK
The Dark Souls TRPG is a 304-page black and white manga-sized volume - a pretty standard format for Japanese RPGs, as I've discovered. In a fun touch, once you remove the dust jacket, you'll discover that the front and back covers of the book are copies of the standard character sheet; the inside back flap of the jacket doubles as a little player reference guide.

Bluntly, the production values aren't going to give Wizards of the Coast any sleepless nights - it's all very spartan, illustrated mainly by screenshots from the game itself - but it's very readable, extremely handy to carry around, and cheap, coming out to the equivalent of about 14 bucks at the time.

My copy of the TRPG also came with a full-color GM's reference chart-slash-referee screen, which breaks down the core actions and terminology and provides an index for the most important rules. This turned out to be an valuable starting point when it came to deciphering the game.

PROLOGUE
The book kicks off with the more-or-less legally mandated "What is an RPG" spiel and a rundown of the basics of the Dark Souls setting. The whole shebang covers 9 pages, and seems to be fairly surprise-free.

SECTION 1. MAKING
Pages 14 to 62 deal with character generation. You have two ways to create a PC in the Dark Souls TRPG: pick a pre-gen, or roll one up yourself. In an apt nod to the original game's co-op features, each campaign only has one proper PC - all other players are White Phantoms summoned by the "host" to assist them in their quest. Groups who really want to recreate that Dark Souls experience in all its glory can even try to play using only non-verbal communication to talk to each other - a handy guide at the back of the book (p. 298 and 299) lists all the gestures used in the video game.

(It's worth noting at this point that the TRPG deliberately skews towards one-on-one play or extremely small groups. Hironori is up-front about the fact that this was done to replicate the tension and isolation of the source material as much as possible.)

As in the video game, PCs have 8 core stats: Vigor, Attunement, Vitality, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Luck. Like D&D 3E, those stat scores are mainly used to determine stat modifiers, which are equal to the relevant stat divided by 4, rounding down. If you have a Strength of 9, for instance, this translates to a +2 modifier. In fact, the only time the base stat really comes into play is when determining which classes you can take and which abilities you can learn and use.

The one exception to this is Luck, which simply grants a number of re-roll attempts per session equal to your stat score. In other words, 10 Luck means 10 re-rolls. Each re-roll used reduces your Luck pool by 1, and regaining Luck only seems to happen under rare circumstances during play.

Next come the derived stats. The first of these is the character's Level, which is equal to the sum of all of your stats minus 80. You then divide it by 4 to get your Level Modifier. The game reckons the average Level is 8, but it can definitely swing higher or lower.

Hit Points (HP) are expressed as boxes; your character has a number of HP boxes equal to (5 + Vigor Modifier). These are marked off as you take damage. Focus Points (FP) are spent to use your various abilities, and are equal to (5 + Attunement Modifier). To recover lost HP and FP during play, PCs have special items called Estus and Ashen Estus Flasks, which restore 3 HP and 1 FP respectively when used. Each Flask has a limited number of charges determined by the scenario, and only works on its owner.

Defense (DF) determines how much damage you take from attacks. The game distinguishes between Physical Defense and Magical Defense, which are the sum of the Physical/Magical Armor Values for all currently equipped armor plus your Level Modifier.

Finally, you have your Initiative Bonus (equal to your Dexterity Modifier), Muscle (Strength Modifier), Magic Power (Intelligence Modifier), Miracle Power (Faith Modifier), and Skill Power ((Faith + Strength Modifier)/2). These determine how much punch your various attacks and abilities will pack in combat, and how quickly you'll be able to take actions.

What about Vitality? It’s used for tracking encumbrance, mostly. There are 3 levels based on how much weight you're hauling vs. your Vitality: Light (load less than or equal to Vitality), Medium (Vitality +1) to (Vitality x 2) and Heavy (Vitality x 2 +1) to (Vitality 3). In addition to determining just how much you can carry, period, Vitality also decides whether you can effectively dodge with your loadout. The higher your encumbrance, the more expensive dodging becomes - but more on that later.

With that covered, let's look at how the stats are actually determined. Randomized character generation means rolling (2d6+4) eight times, then assigning the results to the eight stats as desired. However, the game advises you to re-roll if you wind up with more than 105 points of stats, as you will be powerful enough to unbalance the pre-written adventures included in the book.

If you want to limit the amount of unpredictability here, the end of the chapter has some alternate (and honestly fairly fiddly-looking) methods for randomly generating stats. Or players can just take 88 points and split them between the eight stats as desired, eliminating the element of chance entirely.

Once you have your stats set, you get to choose a class from one of the ten listed in the book. Players familiar with Dark Souls III will recognize these already: Knight, Mercenary, Warrior, Herald, Thief, Assassin, Sorcerer, Pyromancer, Cleric, and Deprived. Each of these has its own stat prerequisites, starting equipment, and starting abilities. To qualify as a Knight, for instance, you need at least Vitality 15, Strength 13, and Dexterity 10, while a Thief requires Dexterity and Luck of 12 or higher. However, each of the classes also has a set of default stats you can use. So if you know you want to play a Herald, just pick the pre-gen Herald and be done with it.

With your class selected, the next step is to generate three memories from your former life. The first one is obtained by rolling on your class-specific memory table, while the other two are generated using a set of six (Joy, Fun, Bright, Dark, Anger, Sorrow) tables shared by all classes. Potential results can include things like "Days sequestered away, reading books" or "Ridiculed by your closest friends."

Memories provide a little flavor and context to your character, but also have a mechanical effect: each time the PC dies and wants to resurrect at a Bonfire - dying being a key component of the Dark Souls experience - you must lose one of your memories. If a character has no more memories left to lose, they're dead for good. This is a bit more punitive than the original games, but puts a hard limit on how long a session can drag on for.

To wrap character creation up, you select a name, gender, apparent age, and a short description. At this point, it's onto the second chapter: the basic rules.

 

[tanaka84]

Damn, this reads amazing. The few JRPGS I've managed to read (either brought over or fan translated) always impress me, they have very simple rules with very rich and original takes on stuff.

 

[vini_lessa]

Nice. Loved the memory mechanic. Waiting anxiously for the second part.

 

[IoBlack]

SECTION 2. BASIC RULES
The rules of the Dark Souls TRPG are surprisingly compact, only taking up pages 64 to 98 of the book. Like many Japanese RPGs, the core of the game’s system is built around 6-sided dice, and uses two key types of rolls.

(1) nD rolls: The old classic: roll n dice and add their results to generate a total. In some cases, you're rolling (nD+x), which means x (usually a stat modifier) is added to the total to generate the final. This roll type mainly applies to Initiative and non-combat task resolution.

(2) N rolls: Roll N dice simultaneously, but do not add their values. Instead, the result forms a pool that you'll pull individual dice from based on a number of different criteria. The major place you'll see N rolls is during combat, where they're used to determine what you can or can't do, action-wise.

Combat and Stamina
Speaking of: as you’d expect from its brutal source material, fighting and killing (hopefully things other than yourself, but again - this is Dark Souls) are the main focus of the game. Thankfully, the rules powering it all are a little more strategic than your typical fantasy heartbreaker, revolving heavily around the careful management of character resources.

Key to the whole shebang are the Stamina Dice, so let's dive into those first. In Dark Souls, Stamina was a crucial part of the combat experience: almost every action, including guarding, depleted your Stamina, and once you ran out of it, you’d be unable to act. Low Stamina also left you vulnerable to being staggered after blocking a hit, so success in combat meant being a bit more thoughtful with your actions instead of just mashing the attack button ad nauseam.

The Dark Souls TRPG simulates this by giving you 5 Stamina Dice at the start of each combat round. Players must then decide whether to spend them on attacks, abilities, and other actions as Action Dice, or to keep them in reserve as Reaction Dice to defend against attacks from opponents later in the round.

In the case of Action Dice, you declare up front how many Stamina Dice you're turning into Action Dice this round, then roll them all at once. Now comes the fun part: seeing what you can actually carry out with the resulting pool.

Each action in combat comes with its own cost. Most basic actions, like using an item or swapping your currently equipped weapon, have a flat cost of 1 Action Die. Attacks and a number of offensive abilities, however, are listed as having a cost of [n] - a number inside a box. What this means is that you need to remove Action Dice totalling this number or more from your pool to carry your desired action out. In other words, if your target number is [10], you would need to remove dice whose value totals up to 10 or more.

Some abilities also have you hunting for Solo dice to spend. Solo dice are any dice in a given pool that have the same face value: if you roll a 6, 3, 3, 1, and 4, those two 3s would be considered Solo dice. If you rolled a 5, 5, 5, 4, and 2, the three 5s can be pulled as Solo dice. (Solo dice are also used by the game's Malice mechanic, which we'll get into later.)

Reaction Dice, meanwhile, are kept in reserve until you're attacked and decide to use them. At this point, you declare whether you're attempting to guard (which will reduce damage) or dodge (which will avoid it entirely). Then you roll as many of your remaining Reaction Dice as you want to allocate to the attempt. In both cases, you're looking to match a cost of [n]. In guarding, that cost is determined by the shield or weapon. When dodging, it's your encumbrance: [6] for a Light load, [8] for a Medium load, and [10] for a Heavy load. If you fail, you take the full brunt of the attack - no second chances.

Round Sequence
Now let's get back to the combat procedure as a whole. Combat rounds in the Dark Souls TRPG are broken up into a four-step sequence, which unspools as follows:

1. Round starts. All spent Stamina Dice regenerate.
2. Everybody, including inactive characters, rolls 2d6 and adds their Initiative Bonus. The result is that combatant's Initiative score. Proceed from the combatant with the highest Initiative - they now get to act.

So far, so expected. But there’s an added wrinkle here: if two or more combatants have the same Initiative score, they lose their actions for the turn and become inactive. (If this happens to a PC, they gain 1 Luck - one of the few ways Luck regenerates during play.) This is important because certain abilities allow players to adjust combatants’ Initiatives, making it possible to prevent opponents from acting. This mechanic is referred to as “Initiative Batting”.

To help players strategize, all enemies have a fixed Initiative count - it's generated once at the start of the battle, and never re-rolled once determined.

3. The combatant with the highest Initiative chooses how to allocate their Stamina dice - either by taking one or more actions (Action Dice), or by saving them for guarding and dodging later in the round (Reaction Dice). In the case of actions, these are then resolved before moving onto the next step.

4. Once the current combatant has taken all the actions they want to (or can), they become inactive. The remaining PCs roll Initiative again, while the monsters stick to whatever Initiative value they originally had. Whoever has the highest Initiative now gets to take their actions. Repeat this process until all combatants, friend and foe, have acted. At this point, the round is over and a new round begins.

Attacks and Damage
Unless the target dodges them, attacks hit automatically. If so, they do a set amount of either Physical or Magical damage, which in turn determines which of the target’s Defense (DF) scores you use to calculate the final amount of damage inflicted.

The number of HP boxes marked off by a successful attack is based on the margin by which the damage dealt exceeds the target’s relevant Defense (DF). Beating it by up to 10 points deals 1 box of damage; 11 to 20 points equals 2 boxes of damage; 21 to 30 3, and so on. If you successfully guarded against the attack, however, you get to further reduce the HP lost by however many boxes your weapon or shield is listed as blocking.

Players can chain together multiple attacks in a single turn, but the cost goes up by 1 for each subsequent attack. For example, if your first attack of the round costs [5], it would cost [6] to attack a second time and [7] to attack a third time. Certain weapon types, like bows, also can’t deliver multiple attacks in one turn.

Special Damage Types, Weaknesses, and Resistances
There’s one other factor that comes into play when determining damage, and that’s the matter of special damage types. In addition to Physical and Magical attacks, a combatant can also potentially deal Fire, Lightning, Dark, Bleed, and Poison damage. In the same vein, their target could have a Weakness (indicated by one or more black boxes) or Resistance (indicated by one or more white boxes) to that type of damage - either as a result of their gear or their natural abilities.

A Weakness means you add that many boxes of HP damage to the attack. A Resistance means you subtract that many boxes. If you have both a Weakness and Resistance, or multiple Weaknesses and Resistances to same damage type, add everything together to determine the final modifier.

Movement and Areas
Combat in the Dark Souls TRPG involves some degree of movement, but only in an abstract sense. The battlefield is broken up into a general Melee Area - where everybody can hit everybody else - and Safe Areas, where you’re temporarily out of melee range and can attack targets with ranged weapons and abilities, if you have them. Moving to a Safe Area or back costs 2 Stamina Dice; if you’re still in a Safe Area at the beginning of a combat round, you’ll be dumped back into the Melee and will have to find shelter all over again.

A battlefield can have up to 5 Safe Areas, each of which can be occupied by up to one combatant at a time.

Death and Victory
Any combatant that's reduced to 0 HP or lower by an attack dies. If it's a monster, they'll drop a certain number of Souls - the game's currency - and the players get to make a d6 roll on the monster's loot table. However, each monster only yields one item, regardless of how many players are currently in the game.

If the host PC dies, they will resurrect at the closest Bonfire - assuming they have memories left to (ahem) burn. Upon respawning, they regain all of their HP, FP, Luck, and (Ashen) Estus Flask charges, and are ready to resume their adventure. As far as I can tell, you don't lose Souls for dying, which probably comes down to the fact that you can only revive three times, period.

Finally, White Phantoms who bite the big one can simply be revived by the host by making a special summoning action in or out of combat.

Combat carries on until one side is slain or runs away. Players can attempt to escape a battle, but this comes at a high Action Die cost: [11 + Number of Remaining Enemies].

 

[IoBlack]

While I'm at it, here's a few pictures of the book I shared on my Twitter account a few days back:

 

[Miss Atomic Bomb]

Guidance:

Cool! Making this a Staff Pick!

 

[IoBlack]

Guidance:

Cool! Making this a Staff Pick!

Awesome - thanks so much!

 

[ruemere]

Did you run a char through an encounter?

The rules make the game look like a combat sim, yet there seems to be no support for gathering intelligence or deploying an elaborate tactic - the DarkSoulsy game should reward skill and planning. So far, going OSR would achieve similar results in my opinion.

Finally, I hope there is something else to the game besides Talisman-like coop mode.

 

[Victim]

OSR type designs with high impact powers that either PCs or their enemies might randomly resist and to hit chances actually seem like the mechanically opposite tact from both the Dark Souls RPG and games with fairly low randomness and more emphasis on active mitigation on the player's part.

 

[IoBlack]

SECTION 3. FIRELINK SHRINE
Unlike most RPG rulebooks, the Dark Souls TRPG doesn't have traditional sections for equipment or abilities. Instead, this information is packed into the third chapter (pp. 100-130), which is dedicated to the Firelink Shrine, your home base over the course of the campaign. The Shrine is inhabited by four NPCs, each of whom is responsible for one particular aspect of your character’s advancement.

The first NPC is the Fire Keeper, the shrine’s mysterious blind guardian. As in Dark Souls III, she’ll raise your Level in exchange for the Souls you’ve obtained from defeating enemies, completing quests, and exploration. The number of Souls required to go up a Level is equal to your new Level x 100, so moving from, say, Level 5 to 6 costs 600 Souls. However, you can jump multiple Levels in one go if you have enough Souls saved up.

Gaining a Level has three major benefits. One, for each Level gained, you get to increase one of your stats by 1 point. Secondly, you may be able to increase your DF, which is derived from your Level Modifier. Finally, characters are entitled to one new ability whenever their Level reaches a multiple of 5 (5, 10, 15...).

Abilities in the Dark Souls TRPG are divided into five families - Weapon Skills, Miracle Skills, Sorcery Skills, Pyromancy Skills, and Other Skills. Among these, there are three types of abilities: Ac (used with Action Dice), Trigger (which can only be used if certain criteria are fulfilled), and Passive (always in effect).

Abilities typically have a cost to use - usually Stamina Dice or Faith Points - a learning prerequisite, conditions for use once learned, and a range or area of effect. Most abilities also have two Ranks, meaning they can be bought twice to improve their power or reduce costs.

Here's an example: the Sorcery Ac Skill "Soul Arrow" initially requires an Intelligence of 10+ to learn. It costs [4] and 2 FP to use, the player using it must have a catalyst (a special weapon type that deals little to no damage, in this case a Sorcerer's Staff) equipped, and it affects a single target in Melee or from a Safe Area. At Rank 1, Soul Arrow does 30 + Intelligence Modifier damage to the target; at Rank 2, damage is increased to 35 + Intelligence Modifier. (For players familiar with the source material: Soul Arrow Rank 2 is effectively DS3's Great Soul Arrow attack.)

Another example: the Other Skill "Immortal Remains" is a Trigger that kicks in when a player drinks from their Estus Flask during play. By spending 2 FP at this time, they regain 2 extra boxes of HP. It only has 1 Rank, but can be combo'ed with another ability, "Fast Drinking," for even greater benefits.

The interplay between the various abilities is likely where most of the game's tactical meat will come from, but I haven't delved far enough into this portion of the game to comment.

The second NPC, the Shrine Handmaid, sells various equipment, including weapons and armor, in exchange for Souls. She’ll also buy your unwanted items for 10% of their book value. It's worth noting that most of what she sells is going to be quickly outclassed by the treasure you find over the course of your adventures, as it effectively corresponds to the starting equipment in DS3.

In the TRPG, characters have a total of 12 equipment slots: 3 for weapons or shields, 3 for armor (head, body, legs), 3 for rings, and 3 for miscellaneous items. In the case of items, multiples of the same item stack - in fact, you can have up to 10 of the same item in a slot.

Weapons are a bit complexer than you'd expect, with a fair number of stats to parse. These are:

• Type: The weapon’s class and size (Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large), which may be a factor in certain abilities and affects weapon upgrades.
• Prerequisites: The stats you need to wield this weapon. For instance, a Bastard Sword requires Strength 16 and Dexterity 10.
• Weight: Used to calculate encumbrance. In the Bastard Sword’s case, this is an 8.
• Damage: Base damage dealt by a successful attack. As mentioned a few posts up, this is always fixed. Some weapons can be held two-handed for extra damage; if so, it will be denoted here. A Bastard Sword is listed as having Damage 29/44, meaning it does 29 damage one-handed and 44 damage two-handed. Other, larger weapons must be held-two handed, in which case the Damage will be denoted as -/(x).
• Damage Modifier: Which stat modifier is added to the base damage to determine the weapon's total damage output. This is usually either Strength (for brute force weapons) or Dexterity (for weapons that rely on finesse), but some add both, or the same stat multiple times. A Damage Modifier of "Strength Dexterity", for instance, means you add your Strength and Dexterity modifiers; "Strength Strength" means you add the Strength modifier twice. This is one area where things get a bit messy in translation, as the stats are described with just a single character in Japanese.
• Attack Cost: The Stamina cost for attacking. This ranges from [2] to [7], depending on the size and type of the weapon. For the Bastard Sword, this is a [6], indicating it’s a cumbersome weapon that takes a lot of energy to swing.
• Guard Cost: The Stamina cost for guarding, assuming the weapon can be used to parry. Like the Attack cost, this varies from weapon to weapon. The Bastard Sword has a Guard Cost of [3] - pretty decent, all things told.
• Physical/Magical Reduction: How many boxes of Physical/Magical damage the weapon protects from if you successfully guard with it. With a Bastard Sword, you have a Physical Resistance of 2 and a Magical Resistance of 0 - a giant sword just doesn’t do much good against a fireball.
• Special Abilities: Unique abilities gained by wielding the weapon, if any.

While most of the Dark Souls arsenal is melee-based, there’s also missile weapons like bows on offer. They have the benefit of being able to attack from anywhere on the battlefield, but require ammunition that takes up some of your precious miscellaneous item space. While you can’t do consecutive attacks with them, Missile weapons can be used to perform headshots, allowing you to deal double damage by spending 2 Solo dice instead of the normal Stamina cost.

In addition to weapons, you can also equip shields. Shields (mostly) can’t deal damage, but are cheaper to guard with than weapons and have higher Physical and Magical Resistance values to boot.

While you can hold up to three weapons or shields, you’ll obviously only be able to equip one or two at a time. Whatever is currently in your hands is considered ready, and everything else is in reserve. If a shield or weapon has a special ability, you naturally only get to benefit from it if it’s actually being used. Switching one of your ready items with one you’ve got in reserve costs 1 Stamina Die in combat.

Armor is more straightforward: each piece has a weight, Physical, and Magical Defense value; if you equip an entire matched set of armor pieces, you may be entitled to a special bonus ability. A full Grave Warden set, for example, gives you one box of Poison Resistance. The game also makes a point of denoting the armor’s material (cloth, leather, metal), although I haven’t encountered a use for this information in the rules yet.

Finally, there’s items. The ones sold by the Handmaid restore your HP and FP, deal damage, or bestow specific elemental properties when consumed.

The third NPC, Blacksmith Andre, upgrades weapons’ base damage in exchange for Stones (more familiar to Dark Souls III vets as Titanite) found during play. A weapon can be upgraded up to 5 times, but the Stone costs for upgrading are cumulative: it takes 1 Stone to upgrade to Level 1, 1+2 (3) for Level 2, 1+2+3 (6) for Level 3, and so forth. How much an upgrade increases damage by depends on the size of the weapon. The initial Level 1 upgrade increases Small damage by 2, Medium weapon damage by 3, Large damage by 4, and Extra Large damage by 5; each Level after that increases it by the same amount again.

If you really want to trick out your gear, Andre can also give a weapon a special damage type like Dark or Bleed, assuming you happen to find the appropriate item and bring it back to him.

Finally, there’s Ludleth of Courland, Lord of Cinder, who gives players access to one-of-a-kind Boss Soul Items in exchange for a unique Soul harvested from the bosses of the book's four pre-written adventures. These we’ll examine next time around.