My Second Indie TRPG: Starting with the Philosophy of Dark Souls

Pallas Athena, Klimt

Inspired by the Better Soulslike Tabletop Jam and the BONFIRE JAM!, I reworked my homebrew of Into the Odd, now called The Lands Between, to fit the thematic and aesthetic tone of Dark Souls (and with clear influence from the much anticipated Elden Ring). The first place I went to for an homage to the series is the philosophical core of Dark Souls: Existentialism.

Responsibility for the consequences of your own actions, valuations, and identity is the most compelling freedom in roleplay. This is something which drew me to Dark Souls as a Roleplaying Game, back when I saw this trailer for the first time, which emphasizes that you are free to take any action that you please, but that there are always consequences to you exerting your freedom without self-reflection.

Dark Souls gives the players an immense responsibility to define their own identity and purpose in the game, something which I've felt from my very first playthrough. I could at every corner express myself through the actions I did or did not take, by basing them on the values that I actively identified and reevaluated while I explored the setting and scenario.

Furthermore, the setting and scenario in Dark Souls is famously endlessly complex and rife with interpretation. Practically all that you meet have their own purpose which is entirely indifferent to your own, but more often than not, not indifferent to your existence. Many wish to kill you, for greed, hunger, or self defence, use you to their own ends, and will move about the world to fulfill their own goals regardless of what is convenient for you. 

Such a weighty, indifferent, even outright malevolent world is the one such that promotes responsibility for your own identity. As such, when I think of what would make a "Better Souls-like Tabletop RPG" or reflective of the core themes of Dark Souls (Bonfire Jam), establishing such an Existentialist world is what I find most important.