A "Dark Souls"-like Campaign?

[EnnPeeCee]

An idea that I've been tossing around, and have discussed with a few players in my group, is to try running a DnD campaign is the style of the Dark Souls games. To clarify, that would mean a campaign with the difficulty cranked up much higher than what I would normally run, but provide the players free restarts of some sort. The idea being, much of the campaign would be more trial and error based and promote the players taking more risks, rather than the typical DnD campaign which I find leads to very cautious players who lean on tried and true tactics.
I'm definitely not trying to replicate the skill based dodge and parry gameplay of Dark Souls, I know that won't translate well into DnD. Nor am I really interested in porting over Dark Souls themed content into DnD, which seems to be all I could find on Google. I'm basically looking for a good way to implement death not being the end of a character, rather just a setback.

I was just wondering if anyone has a run a campaign in this style before, and if so, how well it works. I'm still in the early conceptual stages of this, so I can easily be swayed off if it looks like a bad idea.

I realize the campaign set up for this type of game will be a bit different than a normal DnD campaign. I'm on the fence about how much of the game world would "reset" if the party dies. Having every enemy respawn like in Dark Souls would be far too tedious for DnD, mostly due to the time combat takes. But having nothing respawn might promote suicidal tactics too much.
One method might be to make the campaign more puzzle like, where enemies are super-susceptible to certain types of damage, or interaction with environmental hazards. So gameplay revolves more around the players figuring out which tactics to use where, rather than trying to find one universal tactic.

One thing I'm struggling to put together is a thematic reason WHY the players would be able to freely resurrect over and over, without resorting to "A wizard did it".

I know there would need to be some sort of penalty to characters dying, otherwise the players would just run into every room and mash their faces up against everything to figure out what kills them and what doesn't. My initial thought is to provide some sort of reward at regular intervals throughout the campaign, but each time the party dies, the reward gets reduced. A careful balance of how much that reduction is, and making sure the players understand the mechanic, I think would keep the players on track.

As a DM, I think this would also open up a lot more of the "unfair" types of challenges and enemies, such as save-or-die spells, sneaky enemies that try to pick off players, cursed items, etc. I tend to not use those sorts of things in my normal campaigns, since I don't think they're very fun, for both the players or DM.

Anyway, I think that's enough of an initial rant. Let me know if I'm crazy, or if this might actually make for a fun campaign.
TLDR: Thinking about making a challenging campaign where player death leads to a "reset" and not a "gameover". Trying to find a good balance of tediousness, game challenge, player rewards, player penalties, and theme. Or if this is just a bad idea in general?

[Drakevarg]

I tried this a few times, with a thing I called the "Hellcube." Which is basically worked like the movie Cube except the PCs respawned in the starting room every time they died. The idea was basically just to acclimate them to the feeling of difficulty so that when they escaped the cube - and respawns stopped happening - they'd have a healthy sense of caution about their environment.

In practice, this didn't work. To be fair I tried this before Dark Souls came out, and I was just generally a less experienced DM, but in practice it just produces jaded and reckless players and makes a tedious slog of ultraviolence that the players will mindlessly smash against again and again until it relents.

[Blu]

I thouht about something like this before.
First XP would be the only resource, while converting any gold reward to XP
Second, like in Dark Souls, dying would make you lose all your XP, this discourages suicide tactics
Third, you don't automatically level up, you have to expend XP for the level. For example, if a lvl 1 character has 4k xp stored, he would be able to go to level 3 (1k for lvl 2 and 3k for level 3)
As a bonus point i also elaborated a system where characters could expend xp to increase stats, based on the level system

[Karl Aegis]

Trying to find out why dying doesn't work... Isn't that just Planescape: Torment? Take some inspiration from that. From what I've heard it's a good game.

[EnnPeeCee]

I tried this a few times, with a thing I called the "Hellcube." Which is basically worked like the movie Cube except the PCs respawned in the starting room every time they died. The idea was basically just to acclimate them to the feeling of difficulty so that when they escaped the cube - and respawns stopped happening - they'd have a healthy sense of caution about their environment.

In practice, this didn't work. To be fair I tried this before Dark Souls came out, and I was just generally a less experienced DM, but in practice it just produces jaded and reckless players and makes a tedious slog of ultraviolence that the players will mindlessly smash against again and again until it relents.

Yeah, I can see that being issue.
Ideally I'd like to create a game that plays like, "Lets get as far as we can, and when we die, we'll learn from our mistakes and get farther next time."
But not, "Lets just keep throwing ourselves at the problem until we find a solution."
I'd imagine there's a fine line between those two.


I thouht about something like this before.
First XP would be the only resource, while converting any gold reward to XP
Second, like in Dark Souls, dying would make you lose all your XP, this discourages suicide tactics
Third, you don't automatically level up, you have to expend XP for the level. For example, if a lvl 1 character has 4k xp stored, he would be able to go to level 3 (1k for lvl 2 and 3k for level 3)
As a bonus point i also elaborated a system where characters could expend xp to increase stats, based on the level system

Using the XP as a resource is a good idea.
Although, if encounters don't respawn, losing your XP could be a problem, since it would be difficult to recover after losing it.
On the other hand, if encounters do respawn, could lead to the players trying to "farm" easy encounters, which I don't think would be fun for anyone really.


Trying to find out why dying doesn't work... Isn't that just Planescape: Torment? Take some inspiration from that. From what I've heard it's a good game.

Oh yeah? I have also heard it's a good game, but I know nothing about it. Maybe I should look into it.

[curious-puzzle]

Ooh! This is what I've been trying to do in my campaign!

*coughcoughshamelessplugcough**

I went (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?436134-The-Curse-of-Artaith-(a-3-5-Campaign-Journal)) with more of a "multiple lives, but not infinite" idea, but everyone playing seems to still be enjoying it so far.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, Dark Souls doesn't really work as a roleplaying game in personal my opinion

a big part of the game play is your reflexes. unless you can come up with a mechanic that gets that player reflex skill in there, its not going to work, since stripped of all its gameplay elements, Dark Souls is basically just a very artistic gothic post-apocalyptic zombie setting. I guess the closest feel to that is a roleplaying game about survival horror, which lets be honest, isn't really DnD's wheelhouse. for starters, wizards are too powerful, because they can win everything too easily when optimized. you want people to be scrambling for survival even WHEN they're optimized- the pre-planned build stuff only gets you so far, and you have to also have good reflexes, figure out the bosses patterns and so on to really get through things, which I like, knowing when to dodge is a big deal and I don't see roleplaying modeling that very well with rolls.

[Blu]

Using the XP as a resource is a good idea.
Although, if encounters don't respawn, losing your XP could be a problem, since it would be difficult to recover after losing it.
On the other hand, if encounters do respawn, could lead to the players trying to "farm" easy encounters, which I don't think would be fun for anyone

I understand your concern and farming the same enemy might become tedious.
So how about instead of respawns, you just set a fixed CR for the encounter and randomize the enemys and the numbers. That way it the obscene amount of d&d monsters there are, i reckon it would stay fresh for a good amount of time

[Pleh]

I want to do this, too, but you will have to restructure things very differently from vanilla D&D to make it work at all.

I did hear some friends of mine taking on their first Tomb of Horrors run with kind of this same "respawn at start when you die" approach. They seemed to like it okay. You probably want your dungeon to be constructed similarly, so study up.

One of the first rules of Dark Souls is the players have to enjoy dying and losing progress frequently, because if it isn't punishing and brutal, it ain't Dark Souls. If they can't take the heat, this isn't their game.

Along this line, the d20 system can make many fights feel unexpectedly easy or hard with a few good or bad rolls. Using the 3d6 alternative system will help reduce wild swings of probability and reward players working out better tactics rather than trying the same strategy repeatedly to get the dice to roll high enough.

For this, I would recommend E6 rules. Keep out the massive game breakage of high level full casters.

The XP loss is a good idea, but remember that bonfires allow you to save progress by spending your XP. You shouldn't lose progress after the XP is expended. But you also cannot change any XP investments. All sales are final.

Half the challenge of the game is precarious balancing on narrow ledges while enemies relentlessly swing swords and hail spears and arrows at you. Level design needs to be intricate, beautiful, and deadly.

Other half is economy. Infinite carrying capacity is probably a good idea if everything is worthless. Don't worry too much about farming; combat should never be trivial. The weakest enemies can tear you to pieces at your highest level in pretty short order if you get sloppy.

This ties into weapon maintenance. Item degredation is vitally important. You might respawn every time, but that mighty weapon you wrested from that boss after several dozen tries won't last forever unless you manage your upkeep. And it certainly won't survive trying to tunnel through the castle wall.

And doors are critical to economics. Doors unlock shortcuts that allow heroes to bypass taxing encounters and access new areas (and their resources). There ought to be careful consideration to how magic and skill monkeys could make your doors ineffective.

The game ought to reward players for constant vigilance, exploring every corner, handling challenges with caution tempered with courage, and above all, perseverance in the face of adversity.

[Zale]

Have you seen the Dark Souls Board Game? A friend backed the kickstarter and, thus, I've had a chance to play it. It's probably one of my favorite board games for being true to the concept it sets out to emulate; and, you might be able to wrest some interesting ideas from it.

Personally, I'm an incessant tinkerer so I'd probably just try a major system overhaul to try and emulate Dark Souls.

I like the E6 idea. Probably, I'd add in Wounds and Vitality, Armor as Damage Reduction, an innate class bonus to AC, and weapon groups to taste?

Probably also steal some of those old rules for Weapon Proficiency that end up giving specialists special bonus when using a particular weapon type- just have the maximum rank capped via level (biased towards martial characters and not magical ones), then implemented by practicing with the weapon (instead of being a limited number of weapons you can specialize in via feats or the like).

For death, resurrection but at a cost- DS3 had, to my knowledge, a thing called 'hollowing'. I'd probably adopt something similar, in which each death progresses the amount of (or points of) hollowing you possess. At certain thresholds of point amounts, you start to become more and more undead-like in appearance and capacity- which can be handy, but also means slowly giving up on the things that make living kind of enjoyable. Eventually this disconnect from ones own humanity starts to result in mental issues, probably some kind of percentile chance for your character to act without your input (ala confusion, maybe?).

The important part is putting that threshold far away enough that it's a significant threat, but providing a way to reduce your hollowing level. Not an easy way, but a way- so that you want to avoid death if possible, but if you die it's not an inevitable step towards becoming an NPC.

Honestly, though, I feel like the way you present your story is far more important to maintaining the tone of a Dark Souls sort of game than the mechanics. While part of it is the punishing nature of the game, the atmosphere is an important part of the play experience- an era is slowly dying and you are responsible for either extending it or killing it off. The world as you know it is crumbling, and you face off against monsters and gods who have either gone mad or simply are between you and your choice.

Or so I feel. Best of luck!

[Florian]

I wouldn't use D&D rules for this, at least not one of the d20 editions. Combat is too slow and tactical, the magic system and how HP are handled too clean and heroic for this kind of game.
I guess either the old Diablo II supplement for AD&D or a mix of Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd and Dark Heresy, possible with Diablo II or Hexen II classes as basic framework and the corruption/warp mechanic moved to possibly kick in at every respawn.
That way, it´s possible to slowly "grind down" the characters until they finally succumb, and emulate the "hollowing" that can happen after death.

[Gruftzwerg]

One thing I'm struggling to put together is a thematic reason WHY the players would be able to freely resurrect over and over, without resorting to "A wizard did it".


A powerful artifact permanently "summons" the party members from their (other) plane (e.g. FR) to the campaigns plane. And since they are summoned, they don't really die. They just try to turn back to their plane when they get killed/dropped. But the artifact has bind their spirit to the campaigns world until they finished their duty. So they get re-summoned (maybe after some cool down time) at the artifact over and over again until the campaign is finished.
Than the players are free to return home with nothing in their hands left to prove their years of tales xD

edit: and to introduce your PCs to the new mechanic, encourage one of them secretly to aim for PvP in the early party meet & greet phase. This way, they'll get to learn the mechanic the fun way and can turn into a running gag maybe (that the PC sometimes kill each other if they get to much annoyed of each other, imho a natural development in such a situation of immortality).

[EnnPeeCee]

For this, I would recommend E6 rules. Keep out the massive game breakage of high level full casters.


I like the E6 idea. Probably, I'd add in Wounds and Vitality, Armor as Damage Reduction, an innate class bonus to AC, and weapon groups to taste?

I was thinking the same thing, E6 plus W+V seems like a really good fit here. I haven't actually ran a game with either of those rulesets before, but I've been wanting to for a while now.



A powerful artifact permanently "summons" the party members from their (other) plane (e.g. FR) to the campaigns plane. And since they are summoned, they don't really die. They just try to turn back to their plane when they get killed/dropped. But the artifact has bind their spirit to the campaigns world until they finished their duty. So they get re-summoned (maybe after some cool down time) at the artifact over and over again until the campaign is finished.
Than the players are free to return home with nothing in their hands left to prove their years of tales xD

edit: and to introduce your PCs to the new mechanic, encourage one of them secretly to aim for PvP in the early party meet & greet phase. This way, they'll get to learn the mechanic the fun way and can turn into a running gag maybe (that the PC sometimes kill each other if they get to much annoyed of each other, imho a natural development in such a situation of immortality).

Hmm, that does sound like the right idea. Thanks, I'll have to tinker around with it, should give me a good start though.



Yeah, Dark Souls doesn't really work as a roleplaying game in personal my opinion

a big part of the game play is your reflexes. unless you can come up with a mechanic that gets that player reflex skill in there, its not going to work, since stripped of all its gameplay elements, Dark Souls is basically just a very artistic gothic post-apocalyptic zombie setting. I guess the closest feel to that is a roleplaying game about survival horror, which lets be honest, isn't really DnD's wheelhouse. for starters, wizards are too powerful, because they can win everything too easily when optimized. you want people to be scrambling for survival even WHEN they're optimized- the pre-planned build stuff only gets you so far, and you have to also have good reflexes, figure out the bosses patterns and so on to really get through things, which I like, knowing when to dodge is a big deal and I don't see roleplaying modeling that very well with rolls.

I completely agree, I'm really not after trying to replicate Dark Souls in DnD. I'm just interested to see if the resurrection/reset mechanic that Dark Souls uses can be applied to a DnD game. The dodging and reflexes absolutely would not translate well.

[Lord Raziere]

I completely agree, I'm really not after trying to replicate Dark Souls in DnD. I'm just interested to see if the resurrection/reset mechanic that Dark Souls uses can be applied to a DnD game. The dodging and reflexes absolutely would not translate well.

hm.

could be, technically. simply say that there are certain points you have to activate that'll bring you back to life automatically when you die, but you lose your exp and money when you die at all. because souls are both. and if you die on your back to retrieving them, they are lost forever. but you still remain at the level you are currently at and dying never inflicts level drain.

whether this is a good idea or not, I don't know. but it can technically be done. though, I don't know how it would work in a party of five? the evilest solution would be that when one person dies, they get sent back to the "bonfire" while the exp and gold are left for the taking of the other four players, while all the encounters other than the one they just killed respawn again, so the one person has to get back to the other four without the benefit of the other four players. to fix this, you obviously need to find an item to summon your left behind player back to you from the bonfire hidden in an obscure location or through an unclear sidequest that there are no clues about even exists.

[Pleh]

Another video game to consider: shadow of mordor.

If you're really aiming for the reset mechanic, compare and contrast DS against SoM. They handle it differently and you could find something valuable in looking at it from a different perspective.

[Crake]

What you're describing basically sounds like standard high level play. Death becomes an inconvenience, not an obstacle. Starting from level 11 onward, players have access to contingent spells, which allows you to craft contingent spells for things like revivify, teleport, word of recall, or heal, even combining them. You could have "save points" that simply apply a contingent revivify, heal and word of recall on the players, and when they die, the "respawn" back at that location at full (or mostly full) hit points, most of their status effects removed, and without any level loss. Of course, there are things that would prevent that, such as dying in any way that revivify wouldn't be able to recover you from (negative levels, death effects, being decapitated, etc), but the basic premise is there.

Of course, the whole concept of save points is a very video-gamey thing, if you wanna use that kind of thing, why not just go full on and just rewind any combat that happens without the need for some in game mechanic, and ignore any metagaming. Because if players can throw themselves repeatedly at an encounter, then while the players can adapt via trial and error, surely the encounter would as well? Unless all the encounters are mindless creatures? The only way trial and error could work, is if the encounter is entirely reset each time, including the enemies, which basically means rewinding time, or, as I said earlier, just actually legit using "save points", and just pretending like each wipe that occurs never actually happened.

[ColorBlindNinja]

3.5 already has save points. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8142448&postcount=2) :smallwink:

[PrismCat21]

I came to link Curious Puzzle's campaign log, but it seems that's already been done. :)

Give it a read. You'll enjoy it

[EnnPeeCee]

I've been doing a little more thinking about this, specifically about why I'm interested in pursuing this type of game.

I think it basically boils down to wanting a game where player failure does not result in player defeat. With D&D as it currently stands, there is very little room for player failure, at least on the large scale. At least in my experience, a well balanced campaign is written so that the players are intended to be successful at every encounter, with varying degrees of difficulty. The only truly threatening encounters are ones that risk the players' defeat. Any encounter that can't result in player defeat ends up just being a resource tax of some sort.
But neither the DM nor the players want to see the party be defeated. If the party is defeated, that's it, game over, unless the DM wants to step in and hand-waive something or change the narrative of the campaign. Everyone (presumably) wants to keep playing the game, so defeat is not an option.
This creates assumptions and expectations going into the game from both sides. As players, you play under the assumption that every encounter you come across has been balanced and catered to be possible for you to complete. If something is too hard for your character to do, you expect the DM to make it as obvious as possible. Rarely do I ever see players in DnD consider retreating unless the DM gives them a giant neon sign that says "this fight is impossible".
And from the DM's perspective, you want to make everything balanced to the party, so that they can be as successful as possible. You try to use encounters that are fair to the players, and give them plenty of time to react. Ideally, you want to make encounters challenging, but if you push it too far, you risk defeating the party and ending the game.

I realize as I'm writing this, it might sound like I'm whining about how hard it is to be a DM. That's not my intent at all, I hope I'm don't come off like that. I'm just trying to dig down and figure out, both what it is I'm looking for, and if there is a good way to incorporate that into the game.

So I'm looking for a way to make it so that player failure is actually part of the game, and not the end of the game. I fully realize that losing isn't fun, but at the same time I'm not sure that winning every time is fun either. I feel like it would make for a better game if players actually failed every once and a while, without that resulting in the end of the campaign. I don't want to grind my players into the dirt, this isn't some ego trip where I want to "win" as the DM. I just want to see a game where I can throw out a big challenge with a low chance of success on the first try, and if the players do fail, they can go back, rethink their strategies, and try again. DnD as it currently stands doesn't really allow for that, since failing against a difficult encounter likely means death, and short of high level wizard shenanigans, there is no recovering from that.

Anyway, rant #2 over.

[Endarire]

I've pondered this while playing Dark Souls and my answer has repeatedly been, "This would translate poorly to a tabletop game as a direct port due to reflexes."

But the Souls series has shown that difficult is still doable. People beat Dark Souls at level 1 and filmed themselves doing it. (See YouTube.)

More specifically, what are your 3-5 most important parts of the Souls series you want to translate to tabletop and how did you intend to implement them? Could you have alternative objectives (not involving death) that had to be met for the party to win/lose? For example, if a third party beats your enemy first, you lose.