How do I portray souls-like NPCs correctly? I have a vast scifi

>>52734828
How about you think about what "souls-like" characters are even supposed to be and then portray them like that. That would work.
Otherwise, don't use memes as personalities and come up with how they'd really act

>>52734828
Souls characters often have one singular thing that keeps them going. They cling to this to avoid losing the will to live.

Siegmeyer, for example, considers himself a skilled and heroic knight. Your constant assistance is appreciated - he can't rightly insult your efforts - but they grate on him and make him realize his own failures. In the end, he fails to sacrifice himself for your safety, and loses his will to try any further. His daughter finds him at the bottom of the world, and gives him news from his wife that finally ends him.

Give them one ideal or practice that lets them cling to sanity and anchor themselves. They know this is all that's keeping them together, and it wears on them. They only have one reason to live, whether or not they want to admit it.

Also, give them all unique laughs. Sardonic laughter is charming and important for the sort of atmosphere the's characterso cultivate. People often laugh in spite of themselves.

>>52734828
>souls-like

Dropped.

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>>52735053
Okay, bye

>>52734828
Excessively dry senses of humor, acceptance of their current situation and ultimately impressed gratitude if the players help them out.

"Well, you look like a sorry bunch. Crashed here have you? Bunch of fools! But who am I to talk? I'm in the same boat! Ahaha... well, better get used to it. We're all stuck here together now. Any of you bring a deck of cards?"

Once the players repair a ship and offer for the NPC to come with, you'll have hopefully developed another few personality traits for the character. Do they graciously and pitifully accept? Do they beg and plead like a child? Do they proudly and stoically refuse to come with, insisting that they must find their own way out? Up to you.

Also, give them all unique items, armor, technologies, etc. The players can just kill them to take them, or they can legitimately help them at which point they will part with the item. That's something I always liked in Dark Souls.

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>>52735427
>not 'Aye, goodbye.'

>>52734828
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

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>>52734828
I remember a few years ago when Fallout 3 came out, there were a bunch of threads on /tg/ about "how do I run a game like Fallout?".

Or when Fury Road was big and people wanted to know how to run a game like Fury Road.

Or when that one other media property came out and people wanted to know how to replicate the feeling they received from experiencing that media property, only instead of experiencing it directly on their own, they wanted to experience it by aping it somehow and expecting all their players to help facilitate the feeling they received from experiencing the media property.

You could look at those archived threads and see what they did.

>>52735988
>a few years ago
It was almost a decade ago anon

>>52734828
Sonderousness is an important aspect. You need to be able to imply that these people have personality depths without them spewing their backstory and quirks in your face. Be subtle.

A lot of gallows humour, though don't give it to everyone. Mild depression, though again, don't give it to everyone. Combine the two sometimes, people who laugh at their own failing.

Ideals and goals. The characters should be portrayed as clinging to their purpose regardless of how hopeless the world might seem, whether those ideals are simply self-preservation, love for a distant figure, general heroism, or their search for a familiar face.

However, you should emphasise that the world seems intent on crushing those ideals. Emphasise that while on a basic level, these survivors are good and decent people, they are all feeling the pressure of the world and probably won't survive with their ideals intact. That sense of inevitable dissolution is important.

The Crestfallen Warrior is probably the best example I can give, since despite lacking a name or backstory of any kind, he manages to portray that sense of sorrow and mild despair, barely clinging to his humanity against a world that has gone dark.

>>52735912
keh heh heh...

Give them each a unique laugh. It's really one of the uniquely soulsian aspects, alongside

>Excessively dry senses of humor, acceptance of their current situation and ultimately impressed gratitude if the players help them out.

or just straight up despair.

One of the most important aspects of characters in the Souls series is that they exist to contrast the sense of solitude and loneliness the rest of the world is conveying. Each encounter is made more special by the fact they're much more sparse than your typical RPG, so they feel much more significant.

>>52736088
Straight up despair is what leads to the hollow.
They have nothing, so they become the nothing they have fought and failed to conquer.
Then you have soulless Enemy NPCs

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>>52735053
>>52735427

BTFO

>>52734828
"souls' like'' stop using the word souls like to discribe simple concepts nihilistic and narcissistic characters are a start later you can branch out into revenge

>>52735988
Dark souls came out in 2011 though.

>>52740938
Make me, nerd.

>>52735785
That unique item shit only applies to DaS2 and 3. In DaS1 you HAD to kill the NPCs if you wanted their shit, especially their weapons. I guess there were cases where if you advanced their quest line enough you would find their armor on some random corpse that was implied to be them.

>>52740938
>Being this contrarian

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>>52740940
>mfw

>>52739487
But the enemies have souls; they drop them when you kill them. :^)

Despair alone isn't quite enough for hollowing, though it helps. The crestfallen warrior in firelink manages to sit there in despair for half the game before actually hollowing. Dying a shit ton of times will fuck you up more quickly, probably because dying is more painful than mopeing.

>>52742760
I don't think there's a solid line between hollow and not hollow, outside of gameplay mechanics. The crestfallen warrior was in the process of turning hollow, because he'd just stopped progressing and was stewing in his own despair.

>>52734828
Try taking some inspiration from SOMA?
its actually underwater but it could easily be changed and have the same feel.

>>52734828
>souls-like NPCs
Basically, they're all whiny losers who used to be good at something, but now they're shit. Just like everyone and everything else in the setting.

So just write them like washed up has-beens.

>>52734828
Ah ha ha ha.

>>52746366
>t. someone who hasn't played any souls games

>>52742341
In dark souls 1 you rarely got characters' items from killing them.
For instance, killing logan does not get you his big hat until you finish his quest line.

>>52742972
It's also largely dependent on which game you are basing things off of. The 'rules' for undead people going hollow seems to shift from game to game

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>>52737235

This can make a traditional campaign easier or harder, considering in a typical campaign, players expect to deal with a faceless level of noc's that represent a normal functioning world. D&D for example, you expect to go to town, deal with an inn\tavern keeper that you dont remember the name of, buy gear from some shop owner you dont care about, get hassled by town guards who dont have names and nobody cares about, get paid bounties by a mayor that you probably remember the name of, but otherwise has no interesting quality. The rest is the same old trope. The busty barmaid that the Bard is always trying to sleep with. The head priest that the cleric\paladin is always dealing with. The local crazy sage that the wizard\warlock is always dealing with. The rich noble the rogue is trying to steal from. The half-orc mercenary the fighter is trying to arm wrestle for bets.

NPC's that the GM spends a long amount of time describing are therefore meant to be important - which basically means "the NPC that the players will make fun of, act like dicks toward, and ultimately murder because reasons"

>>52735988
Did they proto-Photoshop a megadrive/genesis controller under that kids hands so he could be playing Sonic?

It's the same as 'How do you make portray silent-hill like characters?'

Both universes share a similar, dream like tone. With less direct interaction allowed between what the player can say to the NPC, means they kind of talk to themselves, usually rambling on about some pseudo-philosphical observation or about their history.

It's important to remember that these characters tend not to talk in a very focused or reactionary manner. They speak almost as if it was an internal monologue, as if you are barely even there.

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So heres a question

I'm planning on running a game set in the Dark Souls lore world, specifically between 2 and 3. Unlike the games, which are set in a disconnected part of the world (Lordran, Drangleic), my plan instead is to set the game in the lands and kingdoms you hear\read about.

In this case, player characters will be Undead, with their first act in the campaign becoming aware of themselves and breaking out of an undead prison. After that, its following what little remains of their memories back to the world they barely remember in hopes of doing whatever the PC's want to do - and since my campaign plot deals with the rise of the Undead Legion, and the spread of Abyss Cults, its a good time for Undead PC's to adventure, help out normal folk, and maybe find some way to make their lives meaningful as a way to stave of hollowing.

Opinions?

>>52734828
>Souls-like NPCs
>Sci-fi
What does this even mean

>>52748908
>Unlike the games, which are set in a disconnected part of the world (Lordran, Drangleic)
Anon, the timeframe between each game is so vast that entire kingdoms rise and fall. Gwyn's name is outright forgotten by the second game even if his magic/miracles remain

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>>52750605

Yes and No

In Dark Souls 1 and 3, certain kingdoms mentioned in 1 are still around in 3. Notably Carim, and Catarina - while others have long since faded away and become stories, notably Astora.

Dark Souls 2 created a whole new crop of places, of which none survive into 3. Its one of the aspects of 2 that make it so disconnected from the mainline lore.

Also, there are undead signature character who have gone through the uncountable millennia between all three games and are still going.

>>52750658
Time is utterly fucked as of 3 to the point where entire areas are displaced (Firelink Shrine)

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>>52750687

The impression I got from it was that the world no longer even exists. The flame has waned so much that beyond a radius from the kiln, the world just isnt there anymore - everything has been warped and pulled in around the kiln, as if the world of the age of fire can't exist beyond the metaphysical light given off by the first flame.

But thats just my take on it.