Every since the first Dark Souls people have been asking for a setting, monsters, and weapons from that game to be ported into some sort of campaign guide for Dungeons and Dragons. Some people say that AD&D is the way to go. Others have actually made decent looking homebrew for some of the monsters/bosses of the first game. But I'm here to take a look at Dungeons and Dragons, and Dark Souls and see what it would take to make a true Dark Souls campaign.
First of all, we need to figure out what Dungeons and Dragons is at its core. Now, everyone plays the game differently and the table you sit at will determine what sort of rules/rulings you'll get. But looking at it from a RAW perspective, Dungeons and Dragons can be broken down into a few mechanics (we're talking about 5e from this point, mainly because it's what I play, but also because it's what I'm most familiar with on the design side of things):
1. A game of dungeons and dragons is called a session, which typically involves an adventure, which can be part of a larger campaign. These things will be described below.
2. A campaign is a string of adventurers that involves dealing with one particular question (i.e. will the adventurers defeat the cult before they summon Tiamat?).
3. An adventure is a string of encounters revolving around a smaller question (i.e. will the adventurers find the cult headquarters?)
4. An encounter is an even smaller question (i.e. can the adventurers defeat the giant guarding the stairwell?)
5. D&D characters level up by gaining experience points through combat/non-combat encounters.
6. 5e is set up to be handled in "Adventure Days", which are called such because it is the reasonable amount of encounters an adventure can handle in that day at that level.
7. Two short rests are typical per Adventure Day, and a short rest is an hour where the party can sit and recuperate, spending Hit Dice to regain hit points, as well as recharging certain abilities.
8. After an Adventure Day, the party typically takes a long rest, which is 8 hours and allows for a full recharge of HP as well as a recharge on all abilities.
That's a lot of stuff, but that stuff is what makes D&D actually feel like the game the designers wanted it to be. And you may be looking at it already and seeing some connections between it and Dark Souls. Even if you are, I'm going to talk about them. So let's dive in.
1. Campaigns! Dark Souls is a campaign. Dark Souls 2 is a campaign. Bloodborne is a campaign. You see where I'm going with this. This is simple, but coming up with a Dark Souls campaign is as simple as looking at the opening cutscenes to the souls campaigns and finding a pattern. Typically, the opening cutscene presents a problem with the world ("On the first day", "In the age of ancients"), and shows you who's going to be kicking your ass all game. The bosses. The BBEG. This should be 1-2 paragraphs. First paragraph to sum up the world and the problem. Second to show the main challenges/bosses of the world.
2. An Adventure is also easy to quantify. Adventures are the bosses. "Can I defeat the Moonlight Butterfly?" That question is an adventure. It involves locations, monsters, a summon NPC. It's got it all. It has several encounters and adventure days worth of fun (or death). So figuring out your bosses/optional bosses is the first step to starting your adventure planning.
3. I'm going to move these around because it's important, but we'll talk about the Adventure Day next, because this is the most important point in making a Dark Souls campaign. Each Adventure Day should have a goal, and this goal is solved by defeating encounters. These goals are building towards the end of the adventure. The boss. In Dark Souls, the Adventure Day is divided among three questions: Can I make it to the next bonfire? Can I open this shortcut? Can I defeat the boss?
4. Which means that each area should have a certain number of bonfires/shortcuts/bosses depending on how many adventure days it takes to get through. Deciding how many adventure days you want per area is actually a hard science. It can be discussed later, in its own article (maybe when we design our own Dark Souls D&D campaign). But ideally you want to shoot for 5-8.
5. So that means there should be 5-8 encounters (NPC encounters, Traps, Combats) in between each bonfire/shortcut. And depending on the level of your party, there can be multiple adventuring days accomplished before leveling up. Again, there is a math to it and it can be discussed later, but until then, just understand that Adventuring days equate to bonfires/shortcuts (and also bosses, but designing bosses that fight like Dark Souls bosses will again be discussed later).
7. Encounters are easy enough to talk about. They are the dragon on the wall, the skeleton soldiers in the burg, the wraiths in the flooded ruins. They are meant to chip away resources and in Dark Souls this notion is pushed to the maximum. There are a few rules that can be followed to make D&D encounter work more like Dark Souls: Max HP for enemy combatants, Max damage for enemy combatants, lowered AC because hitting an enemy never seems to be the problem.
8. Really encounters could be its own article, and it might be, but for now let's just briefly talk about the idea of XP and how encounters should reward XP. Typically, when designing a D&D campaign, there are planned encounters which are worth xp and random encounters which are worth xp. In Dark Souls, the only planned encounters are the bosses. Running past enemies is an option and defeated the skeletons in the burg does not give the kind of souls that helps. So when you are designing Dark Souls D&D encounters, alot 10-25% of the xp to the encounters between bonfires/shortcuts, and 90-75% of the xp to defeating bosses.
8. What that does is show the party that these encounters are not rewarding in the same way that the bosses are. They are there to drain resources, and unlocking the shortcuts/bonfires are the real reward to dealing with them. Saving resources for a boss fight is the goal, because that's the goal in Dark Souls. Keep your flasks and your spells for the Gargoyles. Don't waste them on the stupid undead.
9. That leads to the last D&D mechanic, which is the idea of short and long rests. In Dark Souls there's a thing called Estus Flasks. It's got a limited amount of uses, which recharge after resting at a bonfire. Hit Dice, spent in short rests, are limited and recharge after taking a long rest.
10. Hit Dice are Estus Flasks. Players spend them to get HP back quickly. But to make it quick, the idea of a short rest needs to be switched and almost abolished. A short rest is an action. In that action a player can expend as many Hit Dice as they want to "chug" from their flask.
11. You can push this even further to say that it's a reaction or a bonus action. I think it could (and should) be either or. As a reaction to being smashed by the Gargoyles spear, I spend three hit die to chug. Or, after attacking with my bow I use my bonus action to chug. I think this allows for greater verisimilitude.
12. If that's what a short rest is, then what's a long rest? Well, a long rest is any moment spend sitting at a bonfire. Once you sit and stand up from a specifically placed bonfire, your HP are back, your HD restored, and your spells/abilities are ready to use.
13. What does this change? It changes the idea of random encounters at night. These don't happen anymore. Random encounters themselves don't really work anymore, because technically all the encounters between the 1st bonfire and the boss are random/optional encounters because they don't reward much XP.
14. There could be a problem with this being abused. But like in Dark Souls, every time any player rests at at bonfire, the random/optional encounters reset, bringing more resource draining challenges between the party their goal. This pushes the party to go further, to find that shortcut or next bonfire.
So lets review what we've discussed thus far. Starting a campaign in Dark Souls involves a short opening which discusses the world and the central problem, as well as introducing to the party who they will be facing over the course of the campaign.
Creating adventures is about designing an area and a boss that is supposed to be defeated for that area to be cleared. Adventures are split into adventure days, which are represented by bonfires/shortcuts/and the boss itself. These adventure days involve 5-7 encounters (typically) which are very unrewarding and are meant to drain resources of the party, until the boss battle which is most of the XP for the adventure.
During an adventure day, the party has short rests which can be used as a bonus action or a reaction. During a short rest the player can spend their allotted hit dice to regain hit points. Reaching a bonfire and resting is the equivalent of a long rest, which restores HP, hit dice, and class abilities. But long rests also respawn optional/random encounters, ensuring that a party can't just keep backtracking to heal up.
Honestly that's a lot of stuff, and looking at that and thinking about your favorite moments in Dark Souls could be enough to run a campaign. But I'd like to go deeper and maybe even go so far as to create an entire campaign with your help. We'll get to talk about planning out adventure days, designing bosses, distributing XP/magic weapons, and all that fun shit.
But this is enough for now.
Until next time,
don't die.
P.S. - The idea just struck, but I didn't discuss the idea of death being meaningless in Dark Souls. But honestly I believe it should still hold weight in the D&D world, but you can always homebrew a rule if you believe death is an integral part of this campaign.
The rule would be something like: When your HP reaches 0, you respawn at the closest bonfire. Do not make saves, do not collect 200 dollars. Your HP is reduced by (a specific or level-based number) and you look hideous in anything but a facemask until you (defeat the monster who killed you, get your XP back, taken an item).
Honestly, it could be cool to prepare 2 character per player. One would be the normal character, and the other would be a revenant version of them. Or a special hollowed template version.
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