Dark Souls Discussion Thread

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Okay, so sell me on the game. I know it's dark medieval fantasy with punishing combat (and now apparently a cool setting), but what's the basic premise. I've started watching the videos you linked, but I'd like to hear a bit more about what's up with this thing.

[Lmns Crn]

There's no "basic premise." The game throws you in with very little explanation of what's going on.

From the start, you know that the fires are fading and that's a signal that heralds Bad Shit(tm), and that apparently connected is this plague of the undead. People start appearing with the Darksign on their flesh, which is the mark of the undead curse, and they get thrown into the Undead Asylum to rot. The game starts with you in the Undead Asylum. You are (and most of the characters in this game are) undead.

You escape the Asylum (doing so is the "tutorial" level) and find yourself drawn to a land called Lordaron, which apparently serves as some kind of undead beacon, as undead from all over are turning up there. Once there, you find you mar or may not be the "chosen undead", but what you are chosen to do remains unclear.

There's a lot of business about the undead curse, and retaining the last shreds of your humanity and sanity. The curse of the undead is to eventually go "hollow" (i.e., to become a mindless zombie), and although some strong-willed undead resist this for centuries, it's eventually inevitable. There's a whole game mechanic about humanity, and whether you go around in a more humanlike form or a more hollowlike form (as per default). Being human allows you to kindle bonfires (which are immensely important) with the spark of your humanity, but it means other undead are drawn to that humanity like a beacon (i.e., it opens you up for multiplayer participation in your world. You can solicit help, or you can be invaded while human.)

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Okay... I have to be honest, not having a premise sounds more lazy world-building than original... Nevertheless, the undead part does sound cool, and hearing several of you speak highly of it does have my interest.

[Hibou]

Okay... I have to be honest, not having a premise sounds more lazy world-building than original... Nevertheless, the undead part does sound cool, and hearing several of you speak highly of it does have my interest.

I felt the same way at first, as it seemed for a little while like there was little motive to advance through the game, but then you start having brief chats with NPCs that make you say "okay, what's going on?" and the more you seek out the info, the more you find little hints at a creepy backstory and hidden agendas of the people you meet. Speaking from having experienced it way too quickly the first time through, when you get around to trying it out, make sure to take your time and get input from NPCs after you do things - the information they provide usually aids in overcoming an obstacle or hints further at the aforementioned story.

EDIT: Also, I'm going to try to respond to all of the other posts tonight. :)

[SA]

I earnestly believe this is the best trailer for anything ever.

Speaking of which: your debut and Prepare to Die edition trailers are the same.

[Hibou]

I earnestly believe this is the best trailer for anything ever.

Speaking of which: your debut and Prepare to Die edition trailers are the same.

Noted and fixed. Also, that trailer is indeed amazing. I shall add it to the main post.

EDIT: Still trying to get around to responding to everything. What do you guys think of pick-up Pathfinder and/or FATE games (or some other system) based in the Dark Souls universe?

[SA]

Depends what you mean by Dark Souls universe. Lordran? The territories of humanity? Set during, before or after the time of the undead curse? Do you intend to tweak rules to make it mechanically reminiscent? Trial and error are pretty central in that respect and I do wonder how one might go about implementing them in Virtual Tabletop. (I can well imagine a Souls board game)

Also: this is a great insight into the various NPCs. Consider what each of them says with their dying breath and what that says about them.

[Hibou]

Depends what you mean by Dark Souls universe. Lordran? The territories of humanity? Set during, before or after the time of the undead curse? Do you intend to tweak rules to make it mechanically reminiscent? Trial and error are pretty central in that respect and I do wonder how one might go about implementing them in Virtual Tabletop. (I can well imagine a Souls board game)

Also: this is a great insight into the various NPCs. Consider what each of them says with their dying breath and what that says about them.

Probably Lordran. I think it would be fun to play something along the lines of what Reah was doing with Vince and Nico, but add extra areas as seen fit and maybe a few new NPCs. Both before and after could be interesting. I suppose we would need to do some work on a system to make it work but I haven't given it that much thought yet :)

[Hibou]

So my reply to everything took way longer than expected, but here it is:

A thing I really like about deities in this setting is that the line gets really fuzzy around what is a god and what is not. I don't think it's ever actually stated, but I get the strong impression that the gods in this setting are only gods because they've got a lot of power, and the answer to "how much power do you really need before someone starts worshiping you?" is a bit subjective. Gwyn and Nito and the Witch of Izalith  got some of the best power when they picked up the primordial flame, but that didn't really give them fancy fire magic, it just made them more of what they were already becoming. It magnified their scale.

I love the symbolism of stuff like fire in this game, too. The whole game mechanic around pyromancy starts to get really intense when you consider what fire means in the setting, and just who you're emulating when you go around carrying a flame and making it respond to your will. The mechanics reinforce the lore, in that pyromancy doesn't give a crap about who you are or what stats you need, and it doesn't require you to collect esoteric catalysts or whatever. You just pick up a flame and go, and your flame grows with you.

Agreed. I really enjoy the way deities have a weird way of seeming simultaneously involved and not, and are very killable. This has actually inspired my newer iterations of my setting a huge amount, as everything is a bit lower-magic in the sense that the divine beings are very killable. Pyromancy is the coolest thing and I was absolutely blown away by them actually using pyromancy without needing funky magical items or a ridiculously high Int stat.

On that note, what about the ability to spend souls as a currency? If you take the word literally, you're quite powerful even as a lowly Asylum-bound undead...

One thing I extra specially love about this game is the way it evokes places you never see. You know what Carim is like, and Thorolund, and Balder, and Vinheim, etc., because you know what kinds of people and things come from those places. Nothing ever barfs forth lore at you: "Carim is like this...", but you do know it's associated with ornate rapiers and creepy cursed rings and a goddess of sin, and an image starts to take shape.

This this this. I like how they managed to combine that so effectively with telling you very little about most of the characters, in particular characters like Lautrec, Artorias and the Four Kings. You hear all about Artorias especially, but even though you're told of his great deeds and encounter the after effects so much of what kind of individual he actually was is forgotten, kept secret or consumed in his exposure to the Abyss.

sin and consequences-- everybody is assumed to be on the verge of falling, it's only a matter of time; everybody has a million dark secrets in their storied pasts

This ties in so well with the vulnerability of the deities in this game.

* solitude and self-sufficiency

This definitely, tied with a tendency to break the solitude by featuring hints of other characters' activity in the location in the past (or future, depending on how you choose to interpret the way people like Solaire talk about the nature of summoning)

On a related note, anyone ever notice the stairway in the lower Undead Burg that looks kind of like it was meant to open up? It's on the left side when you head down the stairs and is boarded up, and if you look down from the rampart from when you first enter the area, you can see they definitely drew it in as if it might've been used at some point. But maybe I'm just crazy

[SA]

I wouldn't be surprised. There are a lot of cool ideas they scrapped because of time constraints: Gwyn and the Bed of Chaos are both simplified versions of the originals. I would particularly like to have seen Oscar of Astora and Shiva of the East's stories fully played out in the game.

I like how they managed to combine that so effectively with telling you very little about most of the characters

Nothing the game tells us about Carim is very nice. Oswald and Lautrec both come off as rather... amoral. Then there's Sir Arstor with his bite rings and his purging stones :(

[Hibou]

I wouldn't be surprised. There are a lot of cool ideas they scrapped because of time constraints: Gwyn and the Bed of Chaos are both simplified versions of the originals. I would particularly like to have seen Oscar of Astora and Shiva of the East's stories fully played out in the game.

I like how they managed to combine that so effectively with telling you very little about most of the characters

Nothing the game tells us about Carim is very nice. Oswald and Lautrec both come off as rather... amoral. Then there's Sir Arstor with his bite rings and his purging stones :(

I sincerely hope the sequel exposes us to more of this. I wonder if it'll be based outside of Lordran? At the very least, we ought to see more NPCs from these places, maybe even more specifics of important characters such as Lautrec.

[SA]

This might be of interest to my fellow dark souls.

[Numinous]

I've seen Dark Souls played, I'm familiar with the concepts, and I even spent 3 hours beating the Asylum (judge away).  With all you folks talking now though, I might actually have to shell out for Prepare to Die after all. Thanks for spending my money for me guys!

[Hibou]

I will not judge, but I will tell you the feeling of being able to manhandle the Asylum (and most other early parts) once you've played it a few times is highly satisfying.

[Numinous]

I will not judge, but I will tell you the feeling of being able to manhandle the Asylum (and most other early parts) once you've played it a few times is highly satisfying.

I'm sure.  My weakness in videogames though is mechanical execution, so I usually prefer games that reward research and thought over reflexes and muscle memory.  However, I did find myself feeling profoundly satisfied after beating the Asylum demon.