To Dark Souls fans, what RPGs do you think best encapsulate the combat system of the Dark Souls video game franchise or aspects of it?

I think Hackmaster does well at incorporating the weapon speeds into its initiative. With a bit of tweaking, the ORE system good do this as well (light weapons add 1 to initiative while heavy weapons subtract 1).

As for stamina management, perhaps Apocalypse Prevention Inc. would be a good fit, since different actions have different stamina costs.

As for the difficulty of pulling certain moves off, perhaps Riddle of Steel works.

I'm thinking perhaps GURPS can encapsulate the system most comprehensively.

What are your opinions and why?

I'd use GURPS (not just because I almost always use GURPS anyway) because it already has a built-in system where the results of combat are determined by the situation, terrain, equipment, skills, where everyone moves when, and what happens specifically during combat, which is already fairly like Dark Souls. Already you've got weapon reach and speed and retreating and acrobatic dodges and slams and so on moving people during the action and possibly having to avoid falling and so on.

The question would remain which optional rules to use or add to have it be more or less like Dark Souls (the arcade/video elements) versus GURPS (more realistic). Dark Souls has a lot of super-strong giants and if you did a straight conversion in GURPS almost all their attacks would tend to be very lethal (or at least take out whatever body part they hit). If you want to match the arcady elements, you'd probably want to look at the more cinematic GURPS optional rules - perks for special action moves and abilities - things in GURPS Action and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. And/or you could mix in GURPS Martial Arts and/or some of its cinematic rules and master skills, though those tend to be a bit crunchier than the stuff in Action and Dungeon Fantasy.

Isn't there a Fragged Empire variant on Kickstarter right now that claims to do that?  I've never played Fragged Empire - so I have no idea how a variation would work at hitting the Dark Souls vibe.

Definitely Earthdawn. All "classed" characters use magic (classic example is the Theif's telekinetic lockpicks), there are Disciplines (classes) dedicated to certain weapons or attack styles (Archer, Scout, Swordsmaster), lots of great magic, a whole spellcasting Discipline dedicated to the undead, spirits, horrors, and the astral plane (Nethermancers are much more than simple necromancers).

I have totally run a high Circle undead (beheaded) troll Nethermancer/Elementalist NPC who had liched himself as this community's wards fell so he could hold off the horrors while they escaped (he tended to hold his head down at his waist level... but trolls are tall, so...). That was the game set in 3 chained-together flying upside-down mountains, which certain wealthy Therans were certain would keep them "well above" the death and destruction of the Scourge. Too bad the largest one (used as the farm/slave community land on it's "new flat upper surface") had already been infested by the Horrors. So, airship chases and dungeon crawls through upside-down fortifications on the "underside" (the old upper surface of the mountain). That was the one game where a player willingly submitted to a Horror (his Named sword was a Horror, which he kept secret) for power in order to defeat all the other Horrors (& corrupted nobles from the "upper island") in the final climax.

Just as an example of how crazy we used to get with the system.

4e D&D? :eek:

Maybe check out the boardgame that was recently kickstarted.

A bit of a letdown after such an interesting thread title: "Dark souls combat? What strange necromancy is he writing about?"

Dark Souls combat is centered around mastering combos, dodges, and parries based on precisely timed combat frames. In other words, it has more in common with Tekken than it does with any tabletop games. And like any attempt to turn a video game into a table game, something fundamental will get lost in translation.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;967981Dark Souls combat is centered around mastering combos, dodges, and parries based on precisely timed combat frames. In other words, it has more in common with Tekken than it does with any tabletop games. And like any attempt to turn a video game into a table game, something fundamental will get lost in translation.

At the same time, it is very much "how do I solo this dungeon" in tactical approach. It has some very D&D tropes baked in:  limited use magical items (potions, herbs, etc), _very_ Jacquayed dungeon design, Weapon vs Armor types, Gold = XP = SOULS & you only get what you can carry out of the dungeon to the next campfire. The parallels are what made me recommend Earthdawn, which has also tackles "making sense of D&D tropes".

Why would you want to? Its challenge and thrill, for those who enjoy it, is so closely related to the mechanical structure in the game and timing / combos that to simulate the same style in an RPG would be a nightmarish system. GURPs could handle some of it, but I think I would chock this one up to "not RPG material", if you're focusing on the nonsensical weapon speed / invulnerability / damage things that DS does.

Quote from: Telarus;968023At the same time, it is very much "how do I solo this dungeon" in tactical approach. It has some very D&D tropes baked in:  limited use magical items (potions, herbs, etc), _very_ Jacquayed dungeon design, Weapon vs Armor types, Gold = XP = SOULS & you only get what you can carry out of the dungeon to the next campfire. The parallels are what made me recommend Earthdawn, which has also tackles "making sense of D&D tropes".

Being a single-player game isn't really a definitive element of Dark Souls, and neither is losing your stuff when you die. The medium here matters a lot. What really makes those games shine is they way they mashed together the roguelike, the pattern-based platformer, and the fighting game. Take away the parts that are unique to video games, and what you're left with is a solo Player vs DM RPG, which really isn't Dark Souls.

You might as well ask how to turn Quake II into a board game.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;968037You might as well ask how to turn Quake II into a board game.

They made one for Doom - https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/doom/

It even got pretty solid reviews on BoardGameGeek.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;967981Dark Souls combat is centered around mastering combos, dodges, and parries based on precisely timed combat frames. In other words, it has more in common with Tekken than it does with any tabletop games. And like any attempt to turn a video game into a table game, something fundamental will get lost in translation.

Actually, that's a response to how the game is (badly) designed, full of tricks to mask a lot of flaws.  The game relies on a lot cheap tricks like massive damage, Tomb of Horror style BS ambushes and a lot of memorization.  It also uses the illusion of exploration while funneling the player into following an exact path.  It shows you very little of it's mechanics, less so than the games of the 80's and 90's, letting the average player figure out that lock targeting, for example, is a trick to get you killed.  That the spear and shield is the best tools in the game for combat survival.  It also punishes you for using it's basic learning tool, death, with a myriad of respawn and in the second game, a health penalty.

So I have to ask:  What part of this can you not mimic via D&D?

I also can't see the point in trying to replicate Dark Souls combat to tabletop. Gurps or Riddle of Steel can do it with one leg and a hand in the back... But then what's the point? What makes the videogame fun is more related to the medium than anything else.

Aspects more interesting to capture, I think, would be the immortality of your character and its relation to souls and humanity. A DS tabletop adaptation should be more concerned with that than specifics of combat. Even then, the series solitude/sense of isolation is so important that I can't imagine how to capture it with a group.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;968066So I have to ask:  What part of this can you not mimic via D&D?

I can't understand the relation. A combat exchange in the videogame takes 1 second, while in tabletop D&D it takes a couple minutes. Are you saying the ending experience is the same?