I am unsurprised that the 5E D&D take on Dark Souls is… not a great fit.

Games built on pre-existing licenses often fall into this problem, usually because the people who decide the licensing have no real experience in the tabletop RPG world; “X popular thing + Y popular thing should work great, right?” It’s a failure based in the idea that most merchandise you expand into still function the same no matter what you put on it: no one says “Oh my Power Rangers backpack should function differently than my Naruto backpack.”. But for games, actually yes, the game should be different because the experience you’re emulating is different.

What are the fans looking for?

First off, you’re doing a license because you want to serve a fan base. It’s a good idea to know what the fans want. Here’s a thing; if you have to do surveys or marketing polls to even get an idea of what fans are looking for, you don’t have an expert on your team and you’re badly positioned. Hire someone who is in the fandom at least to start (also why are you doing this license if you have no fans involved yet?!?!).

In the case of Dark Souls, people love mastery and tactics. There’s an element of player skill involved. That skill can be “git gud” or it can be “I found a way to cheese this enemy”. Both are in the game’s fanbase.

What systems already do this?

What RPGs do anything like what you’re trying to do? Maybe none of them, but are any close or have some ideas you can pull? Legally, RPG mechanics can’t be copyrighted, so, you should research and see. Obviously, if there’s a pre existing system that’s hitting 70-80% of what you want, maybe you can license it? If you’re going to use a system, you should also be KEENLY aware of where the system DOESN’T fit with the things you want to have happen. Because that’s where your hard design work is going to go.

In the case of Dark Souls, there’s the Japanese official Dark Souls RPG (…which…seems like the obvious choice to license), a dozen indie RPGs that go for the Dark Souls feel, and, in the sense of combat mastery, some games that make use of “blow for blow” tactical play, like Riddle of Steel or Burning Wheel.

Project vs. Money

Finally, to one of the key points from the old Forge Forums I wish people didn’t lose; decide how much money you can afford to lose before starting the project and build your final game product within those means. (I wrote about this again back in 2010).

One of the problems that has plagued a lot of TTRPG space is people designing their game book to match other games; “They have 300 pages, I better have 300 pages”. Apparently the Dark Souls game was 500 pages. The Japanese Dark Souls RPG wasn’t 500 pages. The indie RPGs like Rune Cairn aren’t 500 pages. You’re generating a ton of page filler to meet a goal that no one is asking for; it is hustling backwards.

Now here’s the thing; if you go read the article, do you think the fans are more invested in have 500 pages or in having functional core game mechanics? Which would have been a better investment of time and money?

Anyway, it’s deeply frustrating and sad because tabletop RPGs are among the least expensive things to develop (compared to, videogames, Netflix series, mass runs of physical merchandising) and we’re forever stuck in this cycle of bad design choices with licensed games.

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