We played the Dark Souls TTRPG and yes, we died quite a bit

If Dark Souls: The Roleplaying GameReactions to the news were mixed when it was first announced. Fans of video games were thrilled to learn that the favorite universe would be ported to the tabletop. On the other side were fans of tabletop role-playing games who were shocked to find that the game would be based on the open-sourced version of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition rules.

I decided to run a little experiment: I gathered up some Polygon staff with lots of experience playing Dark Souls video games, and some Polygon staff with lots of experience playing D&D. Then I dialed up the game’s co-designer, Richard August, and had him run us all through a game. With only a wood club and shield, and with no other than a piece of cloth for cover, I was The Deprived. I tried my best to stay as neutral and observe what the others did. This is the end result. A weird and wonderful experience, one that was thoroughly enjoyed by diehard fans of Dark Souls and D&D alike.

Let’s not forget the Dark Souls TTRPG isn’t all that deep, but it is a hell of a lot of fun to die horribly alongside your friends at the table. Here’s how it works.

Here, the most significant deviation from bog standard 5e is in the use of a different type of resource called position. The following is the Dark Souls TTRPG position functions as both a player’s pool of hit points and as a resource they can spend to pull off special moves. In effect, it is an incomplete abstraction of the various mechanics found in classic video games. The position mechanic is a good substitute for moment-to-moment combat decision in Dark Souls.

Position can be used in many different ways by players. Are you going to defeat the Black Knight? Right now With your shiny new polearm, how do you feel? Then spend position — as much position as you want — to increase your to-hit roll. You want to cause a little bit more damage? To do five times as much damage, you can spend up five positions. To get his greatsword out of reach, you will need to go a bit further back. You can then move to another location for five more feet.

Some abilities require a longer rest time, while others are limited by position. If a bonfire is nearby, players can only take long breaks. The number of bonfires found on the map is closely related to the difficulty or ease of an adventure.

You can make clever adjustments to help swing the power balance in your favor. You can bank your souls at a bonfire, for instance, which simply isn’t a thing in the Dark Souls video game universe. You can take a break and transfer some of your experience points to a bucket for later. That removes the prospect of your night of gaming spent making corpse runs to get someone’s level-up back.

Steamforged games

Steamforged games

Steamforged games

My favorite change is the simplified initiative order. The initiative score of monsters is fixed. They’ll never roll for initiative, making encounters against multiple mobs of similar enemies more of a known quantity. Players roll their own initiative dice before combat begins, of course, but they are only rolling to determine if they are “fast” or if they are “slow” — that is, whether they will attack before or after the enemy. Once you have everyone sorted into fast and slow groups, it’s up to players to determine the order that everyone will take their actions in. People have plenty of time to think up clever strategies.

It is also possible for its value to fluctuate between lengthy rests. You’ll roll some dice before heading into combat, which can help to top off your position before a battle. In our game however, very few players were able even to get back to our original starting point once the first Hollow was thrown. This increases the tension.

Bosses are extremely difficult to defeat. Their stat blocks function more or less exactly as they would in 5th edition D&D, with plenty of powerful actions that map to their video game counterparts. Bosses have bloodied abilities – meaning that they change the way they look and fight when reduced below half their starting hit points. Bosses can use position like players, which gives them the ability to target their attacks and bring down player characters one-by-one.

And that’s just as it should be. Dark Souls: The Roleplaying GameThe source material is faithfully preserved. It’s a hard, grim, and tedious slog through strange and oppressive landscapes. It uses the guts of D&D not because it’s free and easy, but to make itself relatable — just as the video games use the visual and mechanical language of the action-RPG genre to create something that feels very different. This is The Dark SoulsTTRPG takes the best tabletop role playing game and makes it a language everyone can understand.

Could Dark Souls: The Roleplaying GameCould it have been built on a different game platform? It could. But when you’re throwing players into such a miserable, confusing, dimly-lit world as Lothric then you may as well do it with a system that at least someone at the table is likely familiar with already.

What mileage will your group get from this game? If you ran screaming from 4th edition D&D because it felt too much like a video game, well then you might want to look elsewhere for your fun. Also, you probably won’t want to spend an entire month there, plodding through intricate combat scenarios and gathering loot. After we had finished playing, August, our co-designer, admitted that he was also aware of this.

“It’s strongest feature is either a series of one-shots,” he said, “or as a kind of limited campaign.”

But I can’t think of a better way to bring in fans of the Dark Souls franchise to the art and craft of tabletop role-play. Most importantly, folks need to get used to the idea of D&D’s rules being used in other settings. There are a ton of new products coming out this year that rely on 5e rules, including one by D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast. The 5th Edition rules are well-known by more players today than any other time in the history.

Pre-orders open on February 16th. Dark Souls: The Roleplaying GameFor the 500-page core text, it costs $49.95 There’s a limited edition collector’s version as well, with gilt edges and a simulated leather cover, available for $99.95. The sculpts found in the book are a great inspiration for a full range of miniatures. Dark Souls and the Board Game.