Why D&D 5e Is The Chosen System Of The Dark Souls RPG

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In many ways the upcoming Dark Souls: The Roleplaying Game is a fusion of the best elements of the Dark Souls series and Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. There are plenty of differences between the Dark Souls games and D&D — with the former being a (mostly) single-player video game emphasizing individual success and improvement and the latter being a highly collaborative experience where players don’t necessarily win or lose. Despite this, the Dark Souls RPG may yet succeed in combining the two by relying on tried-and-true mechanics to support new rules.

FromSoftware’s games, from 2009’s Demon’s Souls to the long-awaited Elden Ring, are largely defined by their challenging boss fights, high level of difficulty, and balance of risk-versus-reward decisions, with the Dark Souls trilogy standing as the studio’s defining work. While many tabletop RPGs prominently feature combat, these systems are often streamlined to accommodate slower gameplay and a higher number of players. It would be easy enough to build an RPG setting around the world of Lordran or Drangleic, but a game lacking weighty, brutal, and deliberate combat would struggle to evoke Dark Souls, which is where Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition comes in.

Related: How 5e D&D Is Different In The Dark Souls RPG

D&D 5e owes much of its success to the simplicity of its systems compared to previous editions. While high-level characters, reality-bending spells, and an abundance of powerful magical items can make D&D parties feel unstoppable in campaigns, the core of the system is incredibly straightforward. The vast majority of seemingly-complex actions and rules boil down to rolling a die and adding a number, with corner-cases and esoteric rulings being few and far between.