How Disco Elysium's Weirdest Rules Make D&D Better

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The 2019 release of Disco Elysium raised the bar for writing in RPG video games, and given its clear homages to tabletop RPGs, Dungeon Masters can borrow some of the Disco Elysium’s unconventional approaches to make Dungeons & Dragons campaigns better than ever.  Unlike D&D, combat is not the focus of Disco Elysium as there are few opportunities for players to solve problems with fisticuffs or gunplay. Instead, the game focused on skills, and it used those skills in unexpected ways, a technique DMs can copy to enrich D&D. Although Disco Elysium is a scripted work, the sheer volume of branching possibilities presented by the game offers an ideal rendition of a well-prepared DM who is also comfortable with thinking on the fly.  By emulating the Disco Elysium approach to skills, as well as the developers’ thoroughly fleshed-out scenario planning, DMs can give their campaigns a bit of Disco style, which includes allowing for spontaneous humor and player agency to ensure every session is memorable.

Drawing from Disco Elysium for a Dungeons & Dragons game is appropriate since Disco Elysium evolved from the homebrew D&D campaigns its creators played into a landmark video game. The mechanics of Disco Elysium resemble a tabletop RPG, one that uses two six-sided dice instead of the iconic d20 of Dungeons & Dragons. Disco Elysium relies entirely on skill checks to resolve all forms of mental, social, and physical conflict. Since the 3.0 version of D&D the game has contained a universal skill system for all player characters, unlike prior editions that had no skill system, or when Advanced D&D contained one set of mechanics for its “non-weapon proficiency” system alongside percentile-based mechanics for Thief-exclusive abilities.