Why is Dark Souls 3 the Best Setting?

>>53697383
There was a quest thread that had a better setting. We should have more quest threads on this board.

>>53697383
Dark souls 3 is a terrible setting. Geography is just "lol time and space are convoluted, here's a city that spontaneously grew a mountain under it", the lore is "copy dark souls 1 but worse, and forget that everyone forgot everything in dark souls 2", nothing makes sense and a fucking painting is apparently where we all need to escape to to prevent entropy or something.

Ds1 was a great setting. Ds2 could make an interesting campaign. Ds3 only works as a nostalgia roadshow.

Now Bloodborne. Bloodborne is where it's at.

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>>53697438
>quest fags

Dedicated artists and map designers.

I be my homebrew shit would be rad with a million dollar budget.

>>53697383
>>53697449
I Second this. Bloodborne really is where its at, Lovecraftian stuff is always good if its made by someone who knows what he's doing

>>53697495
You know, this is a really big truth. With enough visual talent involved, anything can be 10/10.

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>>53697383
Demon's Souls had the best setting of the "Soul's" games.

>>53697595
I'm interested in knowing why you say that! I was never very big on Demon's Souls lore.

>>53697383
>implying my settings aren't the bee's knees

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>>53697622
Boletaria just felt a bit more, well, grounded than the sequels. Although it's ultimately about a great old one being awakened, everything's about humans fucking their own kingdom up/dealing with the fuckup, rather than the actions of mythical beings.

The whole cycles of fire and dark just do not grab me, even if the environments, enemies and gameplay are enjoyable.

>>53697449

I liked PARTS of DS 3, but it was lacking a certain... something. It just never really felt cohesive to me. It lacked that element that ties the whole thing together.

The fucked up geography I can stand. DS2 had fucked up geography, but with Scholar of the First Sin we have the story with the crowns that culminates in an ending that opens new doors on the setting. Doors that DS3 never touches.

Instead, we have a very deeply invested story into the Boreal Valley and Pontiff Sullivan working with Aldritch. Narrative-wise, Aldritch is essentially our final boss. And that feels RIGHT.

In comparison... The Abyss Watchers get a little bit of setup, the Lothric boys at least own the castle you spend so much time in, but for having been the big ending to the trailer for the game Yhorm is kind of a 'literally who?' and his level is basically just a tiny detour that's a fraction of the size of just one level leading up to Aldritch.

What we really need is a much stronger throughline on the Soul of the First Flame thing. Something that makes that final boss feel like it actually fits rather than just being a cool boss that happens at the end because there needs to be a cool boss at the end.

Despite being the end of the game, returning tot he kiln feels like it matters much less than going to fight Aldritch, the guy you have spent half the game facing, is involved in multiple NPCs and locations, and has 3-4 different bosses guarding him.

Dark Souls is mostly an aesthetic - cool environment designs and a light touch on exposition so that the player is left mystified and wanting more. There's not remotely enough substance there to make a good setting for fiction or roleplay.

>>53698786
And then, you know, the DLCs, where everyone expected From to finalise the story of the series, and they did so in the same way they'd been finalising it up to that point, by introducing a stupid amount of brand new plot threads that nobody cares about and pretending like "oh, yeah, THIS will fix the world".
Like, seriously, DS3 itself introduced three or four possible endgames, WHY did they feel the need to add in another.

>>53698966

Sure there is. You just, obviously, have to expand things a fit.

There is a solid foundation there, but like adapting any game to a tabletop RPG you have to expand the world beyond the relatively small part of it you get in the video game, to account for players going off and doing their own thing/telling more stories than just the original.

Like, we can write up some lore on Vinheim pretty easily. We know a lot about it, even if we never see it directly, and frankly the politics and rivalries of sorcerer-professors at the Dragon School could easily make for a cool campaign on its own. It essentially is the focus of military and political power of their nation with a thin veneer of an academic institution on top. If you can't weave that into a cool story, thats your failing.

>>53698786
>What we really need is a much stronger throughline on the Soul of the First Flame thing. Something that makes that final boss feel like it actually fits rather than just being a cool boss that happens at the end because there needs to be a cool boss at the end.

Like if one or more of the bosses, when they went into their second phase, were clearly being possessed by the fire rather than commanding it.

Or steal a page from Aldia's book and have the bonfire scream at you from time to time. Have the bonfire abandon you at some point, requiring you to find your own way back to the Firekeeper to have her re-tame it for a while longer.

>>53697449
I somewhat agree with this.

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>>53698786
I feel like they attempted to play a very interesting plot trying all these loose threads into Pontif Sulyvan's mechanations in trying to accrue and manipulate little every source of power in the old world so he could rule over the coming age (down to the point where he has can reasonably pull unexplained powers like ' MY OWN STAND' out of his ass and you don't question it.) Meanwhile the player is trying to pull together the Kingdom of Lothric to perform it's sworn duty to the Flame despite the intense manipulation by the Pontif's fully subverted Cathedral of the Deep (and very probably one of the serpents if their statuary holds true.)

However, it a fashion typical of too much of japanese media, they don't want to actually confront or confirm the consequences of the plot they set up, just throw a few ideas out there and run hastily in the other direction to focus on some other little story. The fact that this format actually WORKS in Lovecraftian fiction (because the ideas and monsters you are confronting are too horrible, memeticly toxic, or just beyond your understanding) is probably why Bloodborne works, while their attempts at Dark Fantasy constantly appear to derail themselves the closer they come to any logical conclusion.

Personally my problem with Dark Souls (and Bloodborne) is the world they depict is generally so crumbled and hollowed out that 90% of the organizations and conflicts they fluff their setting with have no relevance, thus little reason for me to care for, or support. At least Bloodborne attempted to portray some level of civilian activity before it ALL goes to shit. It's like arriving to the party after it's already over constantly till you just get soured on the idea of parties at all.

>>53699426
Bloodborne is also more cohesive as a single unit. With the edition of the Old Hunters DLC you get pretty much all the info you need to construct a semblance of a timeline and a causality for pretty much everything that's happening while still leaving room to speculate. Hell, there's even stuff that they leave hanging without it seeming too confusingly ominous, like Oedon.

>>53699077
Yeah but functionally it's going to end up like any other fantasy magocracy. It might as well be the Principality of Glantri. I don't think you can capture what Dark Souls does well in a RPG setting bible.

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>>53699426

Speaking of Serpents, what do we know of Kaathe, the Sable Church, and Londor?

>>53699911
He's in charge of it, and almost nothing because for some reason they decided not to talk about it in the DLC.

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>>53697383
>Setting
Anyone one who unironically thinks Dark Souls has ever had a well thought out, fleshed out and coherent world is an unbelievably deluded fanboy.
Dark Souls provides you information about key characters but almost nothing about the world at large aside from meaningless details like "carim likes to fight".

>>53699992

It's a shame. I also feel that they missed out on adding Liliane, the only missing sister of the founders of the Sable Church. Yuria and Elfriede played a large enough roll in the base game and first DLC, respectively. The could have explored a lot more I feel, but i'm happy with the bosses in the DLC nonetheless.

>>53697438
>>>/qst/
they built you a fucking paradise

a special little board where you don't have to worry about wh40k or edition wars or bait threads

and all you fuckers can do is bitch about not having it here

i hate you questfags so fucking much

>>53697383
They've got some pretty sexy bosses

>>53700111
Yeah, it really felt like the lead up was to Londor, and then instead it was the completely left field Ringed City and some practically no name character.

>>53700254
/qst/ is a fucking wasteland and you know it.
calling it a paradise is like the propaganda videos that called the japanese internment camps a nice place to live.

>>53700386

It's also a bit of a shame that it featured the Dark Soul and someone tapping into it for what may be the first time since Manus, but they don't really go anywhere with it beyond "New painting, lol."

I also realised that since I stopped playing bout a month after DS3 game out up untill last month, I'm seriously missing some fan art regarding the DLCs, where can I tp up?

>>53697449
Honestly Dark Souls 3 is kind of a mess. I like parts of it, but and I like a lot of what they try to do but it really speaks of them biting off more than they can chew. I can see DS3 being a fantastic finale if they actually had the time, effort, and budget to do the Aldrich setup with all four lords of cinder. Hell, even what little lore they have for Yhorm and the Profaned Capital could have been amazing, it just stinks to me of running out of money and time.

That said, fuck yeah Bloodborne.

>>53700507
/qst/ is bad because quest threads are generally shit, shit we had to tolerate

if it isn't what you want it to be, that's on you, motherfucker

also, comparing the relative inactivity of /qst/ to being forced to live in an internment camp?

FUCK YOU.

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>>53697383
If you like it so much, why don't you marry it?

>>53700507
Getting your own board with increased functionality, is somehow like an internment camp.

Excuse me, I'll be over here, laughing at how stupid you are.

>>53698966
consider it a good use of negative space

an absence of activity isn't an absence of substance, it's artfully simple, and deceptively complex in some regards

>>53700553

What bothers e quite a bit about DS3 is that there's no twist. Everything happens as you expect it to and there's no revelation.

>Demon's Souls

King Allant is the reason it all happened. He's been reduced to a pathetic slug like being.

>Dark Souls

Gwyn is alive and Hollow, a meer shell of what he used to be.

>Dark Souls 2

The Queen is the villain, and the King has gone Hollow, but did what he could to stop her.

>Bloodborne

The world is just a dream of the Old Ones.

>Dark Souls 3

Nothing. No twist, revelation, or reveal that turns the story of the game on its head or otherwise recontextualizes anything that has happened up until this point.

>>53700081
You're just mad that their setting is more interesting than yours without all the autistic attention to detail to things like tax code or fantasy economics or whatever the fuck it is you shitty writefags spend hours making poorly.

What system is good for DS or at least DS-style game?

>>53701230
Definitely. DS3 really feels rushed to me. It's like they threw together some of the unfinished plot threads they had for other games and then tried to get it out as soon as possible. It's a fun time, but it really lacks the consistent effort in storytelling that made the other games so compelling.

Oh well, I'll always have my dumb fanmade cycles to make interesting.

>>53701287
not >>53700081, and a DS fan, but medieval economy is fascinating for some people. stop telling other nerds that they're having fun wrong.

>>53701334
DS is about things like careful management of stamina and making sure you don't overextend too much, which are pretty videogame-y. Thus, there aren't a lot of tabletop games that fit it in terms of gameplay. Dark fantasy-wise, though, I really like Symbaroum.

>>53701334
Never played it myself so I don't know how it actually handles, but from what I hear of it something like WHFB might work.

>>53701334
Fragged Empire is doing a kickstarter for two new combined setting/rules expansions, and one of them is specifically for Dark Souls/Bloodborne style games

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>>53701345

Another thing. Do you ever feel that dark magic was just better implemented in DS2? It was its own school with its own quirks and drawbacks while still allowing you to dip into it effectively if you were playing any other kind of caster.

Felkin was a bro.

>>53700755
>i dont like it, therefore it should be left to die in the desert
>>53700848
>you get your own town in the desert with everything you need, why are you complaining that theres armed gaurds?

>>53703096
Who will shoot you for not posting in your little board? From the sound of it you do need a bullet though, not from being a quest fag, but from being such a bitch who thinks his petty internet issues compare to fucking forced relocation.

What's next, getting a temp ban is your trial of tears?

>>53703179
i dont think it compares at all, jackoff. real shit that really happened to real people is infinitely more serious and more fucked up than any stupid thing that can happen to me on 4chan.
its called a metaphor you stupid faggot.

>>53703248
the metaphor implies theres anything related to your situation and what you're comparing to. So again, what is /qst/s machine gun guards? What terrible blight do you face from having your own board?

>>53702912
Felkin was indeed a bro, and I feel that DS3 basically deciding that DS2 didn't exist was a gigantic fault of theirs. That said, I think that all of the Deep stuff was super cool, and I really wish that it had been folded into DS2's style of dark magic as their equivalent of the evil pyromancies. The kind of shit Felkin looks at and goes "FUCK THAT, GO TELL KARLA TO DO IT"

You know what, this thread is here. Let's make a fan-cycle. There are an unknowable amount of cycles between DS1, DS2, and DS3. Let's invent one, maybe use it for some games or settings in the future.
Here's what I figure the things it needs are:

>A central theme
DS1 was the first, but DS2 was all about Kings, DS3 was all about Lords of Cinder as a kind of followup to Kings. Some kind of central recurring theme that keeps showing up.
>The Lord Souls + Seath
These guys have to show up somewhere, in some aspect or another. Be they bosses, NPC's, important figures in the cycle's history, or just things that are there.
>Artorias' Sword
It's SOMEWHERE in the world as the games show, probably doing something legendary.
>Patches
There must always be a Patches in Miyazaki.
>Recurring NPC themes.
There's always a Traitor (Lautrec, Leonhard, Navlaan), there's always an Adventurer (the various Seigs, Benhart) and there's always a Crow, and many many more.

Let's do something fun!

>>53697595
Fucking this.

I've put hundreds of hours into all of these games, but the only world I genuinely want to see more of is Boletaria.

Something about how grimy, hopeless, and brutal the world is, and the strength of perseverance of the NPCs in the face of those things just really grabbed me. It was also nice to have NPCs that weren't snarky shits to you. Characters like Stockpile Thomas and Yuria really made you feel as though you were coming to a familiar community.

Also I like DeS's brand of weirdness with fantasy. Flying manta ray god, vertical eyed grim reapers, fire spewing spider, and just a trash golem were all nice diversions and neat takes on things, even if some of the bosses were meh long term.

NO IT IS FUCKING NOT

DS3 IS A PATCHWORK CLUSTERFUCK OF THEM TRYING TO TIE (godlike) 1 TO (pretty okay) 2 AND END THE WHOLE SERIES WHILE MOVING FORWARD

IT HAS COOL ELEMENTS BUT NOTHING FULLY COHESIVE ASIDE FROM "ugh shit is bad"

HOLY FUCK THIS TRIGGERED THE FUCK OUT OF ME.

Best setting is 40k.

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>>53702912
>>53703794
DESU I think DS2 in general is underrated. A big chunk of the negativity around it is due to launch bugs, being not muh DS1 yet also somehow ripping too much from DS1.

>>53706726

The weakest parts of DS2 (lore wise) were its connections to DS1 w/ the exception of The First Sin.

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>>53697449
My fellow confederate.

>>53699426
Sulyvahn...fucking Sulyvahn.
He's played up as such an imprtant character but when you meet him he's just standing there...in his church...doing apeshit.
He's just another boss standing in his Arena waiting to be slain.

>>53706579
Personally, I wouldn't bother with my own cycle, I would just take the setting as a backdrop for my own schtick.
I'd most defnitely even drop the whole cycle stuff all together.
Age of Ancients > Age of Fire > Age of Da-AGE OF FIRE > Age of Shit

Doodle up a map of the world to place all of the important locations somewhere, make a timeline with all of the important events and then set a campain somewhere in between.

The PC's as undeads venturing to Lordran after escaping an asylum? Having to deal with a massive undead outbreak in Balder? Dicking around in Thorolund as clerics or Dragonschool shenanigans? Exploring the world of the Age of Ancients as a Silmarillion-like epic high-fantasy adventure?

>>53701230
>>Dark Souls
>Gwyn is alive and Hollow, a meer shell of what he used to be
And DS1 had even more twists concerning humanity and the abyss. So did DS3, but there was no big central one.

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>>53706579

Don't forget the Moonlight Sword.

>>53706579

Dark Souls: Snakeeater

Thou who art undead art chosen, yadda yadda. You spend the first bit running around fighting monsters to gain an audience with the Head of Wisdom. This cycle is heavily Dark themed, with hexes everywhere, patches of Abyss around, and a cult that is a sort of predecessor to the church of the deep.

Darkwraiths fill the role of Black Knights as secret guarding minibosses.

After killing some bosses and proving yourself worthy, you enter the church and meet the Head of Wisdom... and its fucking Frampt. A decapitated Frampt, to be precise.

Turns out that Kaathe and the other serpents are sabotaging this cycle by dragging important souls into the Abyss so they cannot be used to link the fire. If you want to save the world, you will have to go into the Abyss after them.

The other serpants will try to stop you. To begin, kill Frampt and take his soul, so you can walk the Abyss without harm.

>>53708882

So... 4 kings rematch, Atorias rematch, fight some serpants, fight some shards of Manus...

What else?

I like the idea of this being a prequel to DS2, where the serpents are presumed dead, so this could be when the Bed of Chaos becomes the soul-corrupting Old Chaos we saw in the Ivory King. The chaos flames stay in the Abyss changed it somehow.

Abyss corrupted Seath-soul could be the origin of Hexes, mixing the dark with Sorcery.

>>53701230
I would argue the twist to DS3 is the End of Fire ending.

Unlike the other two endings, which deal with the conflict between light and dark, End of Fire simply sees both the firekeeper and the Ashen One simply allow the fire to go out, ending the cycle. No attempt to allow Dark to reign supreme, no linking the fire to continue the cycle. Simply an end, with no real certain future or grand plan.

I loved the ending because it just takes all the plans of both sides and just ignores them for simply allowing the cycle to end.

Hell, it even goes out of the way to suggest that even though the First Flame has been extinguished, fire may still return to the world.

Maybe it's not a twist in the strictest sense, but it has this sense of finality to it that none of the other endings do, something I really didn't expect out of the game.

>>53706726
DS2's best plot bits were the DLC. God damn those castles were amazing.

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>>53709532

Did you kill the Fire Keeper, Anon? Be honest.

>>53709649
Honestly? I did not.

>>53709532
The fire never truly goes out, you only give the world a brief moment of respite until some fuckhead rekindles it. They flat out tell you this.
It's also why both endings of DS1 can be equally canon. If you linked the fire, you were the first man to pick up the cycle. If you became the Lord of Dark, you briefly ruled the dark age, then somebody fucked your shit or you went hollow and somebody else linked the fire.

>>53699911
Kaathe founded the Sable Church and then died, likely killed by either Frampt or the Londor Sisters.

>>53709649
"Be not unkind to the fire keeper"

>>53708095
Sulyvahn is a random fuck from the painting that went and conquered the world. There's a case to be made that he might be the Painter Girl's brother and quite possibly Fluffytail's son.

Other than that, he links the Lords of Cinder together. He conquered the dark, researched the fallen capital, became the first of the scholars and has the church in his pocket. The most important and unanswered question though is: What the fuck does he even want? Because I can't for the life of me decipher his motivation.
Maybe it's one of those obvious in japanase, indecipherable in translation things.

>>53710751
Well holy shit, looks like I have a new monster resource to throw in when I next run 5e!

>>53709998
>quite possibly Fluffytail's son
It's somewhat implied he's the son of what became one of the witch trees.

>>53711197
That's equally if not more likely, but opens up a lot more questions and is less thematically fitting than him being Paintergirl's brother, who we know for a fact to be a crossbreed.

>>53700507
So, let me get this straight...

The /qst/ board, that is dedicated to quest threads and has increased functionality to assist with quest threads, is garbage.

Hmmm... it couldn't possibly be because the idea itself is fucking terrible, could it? THAT COULDNT POSSIBLY BE THE CAUSE, RIGHT?

>>53697449
>ds2 matters at all
>the convolution of blood memories and "We truly were the Bloodborne© the Whole Time™" is legitimately better than the ds3 world

This is what supreme contrarianism looks like.

>>53710751
you beautiful bastard
thanks for this

>>53697383
It's also better than your bronze age fantasy, the most garbage of all worlds I've seen or read.

>>53699911
They have the ability to access fiber optics as well as other technologies through astral projection and have thusly devoted their careers to pursuing the stories of villians

So the primordial serpent is revered as would any ancient being but in a world guided by constant bloodshed its preferred isolation is regarded as virtuous

then the Anor Londo is just the oldest and most repeated culture in human history and London is just another example of the royal family of Gwyn lost to the abyss and is a thing worth morning

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>>53709649
No and now I only shit once or twice a week

>>53709943
>The fire never truly goes out, you only give the world a brief moment of respite until some fuckhead rekindles it.
Were that the case, Dark Souls 3 would have been literally just the conflict in 1 again. Link the fire, keep fire going, cycle, etc. The issue is that the cycle doesn't appear to be working anymore, and when the first flame dies, it's for good. There isn't going to be another one because that option's basically gone at this point.

What >>53709532 is getting at is also what I believe. After the fire is out, that's it, but maybe, some day, something new will show up. Maybe the rules will be different, maybe not, but the Fire Keeper and the Ashen One want to actually see it out on the off chance that something will. It's not like there's anything left to save of the world anyway, right?

I'm actually not sure about that last point, but it seems exceedingly likely that Lothric is basically the only place on the planet that actually has anybody still alive left, especially on a second playthrough after Ringed City.

>>53711728
I think the final line of the Fire Keeper is very important, because it suggests that there is still hope, no matter what everyone has told you.

>>53697449
I honestly think DasIII was just Miyizaki being mad at Bandai Namco over the first Dark Souls, and the whole game just exists as a way to fully realize ideas he didn't have time to explore in the first DaS. That's why it seems like a bunch of random cool scenery slammed together from someone's ideas notebook, because it basically is. It says something when the main theme of your work is "You should be playing Bloodborne instead, this is literally just cut ideas from DaS please stop buying these"

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>>53711777
I agree tripsman. Fire Keeper is honest and pure, and if she says there's hope for a non-shit world, I'm going to take it. Plus there's one really good way to occupy your time before the fire comes back.

Actually is it ever stated if the Fire Keeper is "immortal" in the same way that other characters are? Like, is she an undead, an unkindled, or an actual human? Presumably the two of them will be able to wait it out in the Kiln, right?

>>53708200
there is a moonlight sword in every From game, even armored core, and they all shoot a beam.

>>53712253
The one in bloodborne is still the best use of it though. Making the Moonlight Greatsword something besides just a fun bonus item is always great.

>"You were at my side all along..."

>>53712299
>Hasn't played King's Field

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>>53708200

>>53712299

I hadnt been spoiled on that when I played, so I shit a brick during thst cutscene.

Because, on the one hand, this was clearly where I got the MLGS. Sweet.

On the other hand, now he was going to moon-laser the SHIT out of me.

>>53697383
Dark Souls 2 is a better setting for expanding the world in a believable and appropriate manner, and using the bits that it expands and explores. Much better than adding in everything and forgetting half of it. What the fuck is the Deep and why does it matter?

>>53713677
Isn't the deep the abyss?

>>53713766
no, the Deep is beyond Light and Dark. Just another lovely unresolved plot thread in a tapestry of the things.

>>53713677
Finally some who agrees! Everyone shits on Ds2, but it really has the most impactful presentation of three. Ds1 and Ds3 are all about grand quests and the nature of light and dark, but Ds2 is very down to earth and personal story, which is why I think it shines.

>>53714226
Really? I thought it was just Dark from Concentrate.

>>53697383
Uh, my setting is cyberpunk brazil.

>>53714307
I'm so glad I wasn't the only one. The majority of the complaints I've heard about 2 are about its gameplay, which I can kinda understand, but absolutely nobody talks about its story, and it's my favourite story by far. Nothing special. You're one of hundreds who have reached that first flame, but it's the places you've been and the people you've both met and their stories you've lived that make it special. Fucking anyone could reach the first flame.

Alright, as the anon who posted >>53706579 I'm going to tell ya'll about what I did with it.

Shortly after beating SotFS, I wanted to make a cycle. However, I wanted to make it based around something besides kings or gods, so I chose Quests. Considering that hollowing could be staved off by having purpose, I figured it could be pretty cool if there was a cycle where it wasn't the lord souls that were important, it was what their hosts dedicated their lives to doing. I also threw in some allusions to Arthurian myth, and a whole lot of boss designs. Particular highlights include:
>Granywn, Knight of the Clouds
Holder of the Light soul, a knight who once led his order on a quest for the mythical Cylix of Lords, but who's quest required him to lose more and more of his humanity as he went, until you face him as a giant armored beast, coated in fog and crackling with lightning. Fight was basically Blood-Starved Beast meets area denial, with big swathes of very slightly damaging static-charged fog that helped obscure its movements.
>The Lady of the Fireflies
Because the opening cinematic of DS2 was great. The holder of Death Soul is thousands of fireflies in the shape of a woman, who sends your hero on their adventure in the first place, as is her quest to find a hero worthy of succeeding where the lords failed. Not the final boss, but damn near the end, and fights with swarms of fireflies across a mirrored lake, doing big sweeping attacks and dodges where she dashes through you in a damaging swarm.
>The Librarian
Crazed hollowed out undead who got a tiny, broken bit of Seath's soul, and it fucked him up bad. Covered in pages and scrolls, melted to his flesh with candles glowing with pale blue fire. First half of the fight teleporting spells while summoning paper guardians, before he figures out the Moonlight of Seath and starts casting moonlight lasers and rushing down with fans of fading crystal. Also, his candles change to moonlight green.
The point was ADVENTURE!

>>53714600
Surely Adventure is just a side effect of the purpose of the stories? Rekindling the Flame, seeking a cure and gathering the Lords are your mission, it's just an adventure accomplishing those things?

That said, if I'm understanding you right, the contradiction present could be the basis of stories aplenty. Undead embark across the land, trying to find a purpose unknown and unknowable. Is their passion enough to keep one from Hollowing? Scholars thus set out, charting the fall of a Kindgom, for the Curse seems to appear only at the height of a Kingdoms glory, and their drawings and notes will perhaps outlast them. Soldiers and killers ply their trade too, until the Kingdoms are empty. Everyone has left, beyond the walls of their castles and the fences of homesteads. Imagine a nation-wide game of musical chairs, a whole kingdom ups and leaves in search of purpose, invading a foreign kingdom almost unintentionally, while their own home falls under attack for the same reasons.

>>53697438
Fuck off. You have your own board finally. Wall to wall fucking quest threads for you so you can leave us the fuck alone.

Go to hell you entitled piece of human garbage. I hate you so fucking much.

>>53714731

That could inspire an interesting cycle where scholars peice together the outlines of previous cycles and someone gets convinced that its the circumstances, not the timing, that causes the end of the age of fire.

So whoever it is that has Gwyns soul is basically a nomadic warrior king that smashes any civilization he can find before it gets 'too big', ironically trying to prevent the next Anor Londo and stop the clock.

>>53714823
Now that sounds interesting. The Lord Souls end up in the hands of Nomadic parties. They don't use them for personal gain, but instead try to harness their power to break the cycles. Cities are razed and libraries burned as these people with Lord Souls try to stop Kingdoms arising that will herald an end to their age of fire. Sound good?

>>53714731
Yeah, the big idea in the end was the idealization of the Quest without people considering what it meant. Granwyn went so hard into his quest that he lost all aspect of who he was in the process, The Lady decided that she has to find the person who can succeed them instead of doing anything about it herself. The Ruin Queen (who has the Life Soul) toils endlessly on the same thing, desperate to keep her purpose even though its decayed into uselessness. The overarching theme I wanted to really convey with the player as well was that as the chosen undead, you kind of dont *have* a quest. You are given them, but you do not choose them. In the end, your story is about finding a purpose in the world, even if it's not the one you set out for.

to emphasize the journey aspect of this, my plan for the final boss was to not have it be anyone with a lord soul, but instead one of your repeated traveling companions, who pulls a Lautrec and kills the current holder of the Dark Soul, consuming it and all the humanity it can muster, in a nihilistic "I have no purpose, so my purpose shall be to make the world have nothing" kind of gambit. Your villain is someone who traveled with you, if not alongside you, but in the end looked at the choice of meaning that the player was faced with and couldn't deal with it.

>>53697383
*than

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>>53697383
DS3 is too doomy and gloomy to be that interesting, frankly. The cool parts of the setting are the records of cool stuff that was around before you got there - by the time the PC is running around, everything is just shit and boring. Also, Aldritch killed my're waifu, wtf

>>53710751

This is actually quite bad. Mechanics wise lots of these are confusing. I want to like it but it obviously needs tweaking and can't be taken at face value.

- Based on plate armor and a shield Berenkie Knight should have 20 AC instead of 16
-Why does a CR1 hollow has a 3d8 attack?
-Why are Ornstein's bad? Swift Dodge only activates on a hit and isn't the multiattack killer it's supposed to be, and Fallen Comrade is usable only once by both Orstein and Smaugh making it a one time legendary action when in the game it was something that automatically happened (Ornstein should also have 40 more HP).
- Smaugh hilariously has a crappy +1 WIS save
- Seath has damage resistant to ALL SPELLS but contradicts itself immediately with damage vuln fire and lightning. Also a monk can keep Seath tripped up the entire fight with his amazing +0 DEX mod
- Iron Golem has a 3d6+5 Great Axe attack even though Great Axes are normally a d12, so with Brute it would be 2d12+5 making that far better than 3d6+5. Then again, with the poor wording I don't know if Brute is already factored into the 3d6 or not. Also I'm not sure if there are Construct rules or not, but if there aren't, mages eat the Iron Golem for breakfast as the Iron Golem has a -1 DEX mod and a 0 CHA and WIS mod - the three saving throws that spells typically target
- Anything that has a fly speed and breath attack are broken af (suck it melee fighters flyby breath attacks all day erryday!)
- Why does Sif do radiant damage?
- Prowling Demons can be kited by a level 1 mage
- Darkwraiths can solo Black Knights
- Why do Belltower Gargoyles not add their STR mod to their tail whip? To cut off their tails, is that 30 damage before or after their damage resistance? Why is their tail attack poison damage?
- Why is Gwynn and Artorias both size medium?

>>53711577
I've been discovered!

>>53714307

Dark Souls 2 had the best PvP, lack of full Red Eye Orbs notwithstanding. I could invade for days with any weapon and fare well, but in DS3 it is nearly always 3v1 against the invader.

I'd still take Weapon Arts over Power Stances and an FP bar over Vancian Casting, I admit.

>>53715092
Monks can't trip anything larger than their size category, use some fucking common sense, people.

>>53697383

It isn't.

The writer literally cannot tell a story and leaves massive plotholes that are explained away with "When I was a child I read stories about knights in anoddah language and came to my own conclusions, so instead of writing a cohesive story, I'll jumble crap together".

My nan could write a better setting.

>>53715092
Not disagreeing with the fact that it needs tweaking like most homebrews, but
>Anything that has a fly speed and breath attack are broken af (suck it melee fighters flyby breath attacks all day erryday!)
If you don't do that to your melee only, no ranged attack types at least once, you're a bad gm. As long as you remember to give them a nearby cliff or boots of jumping or something so that they can still be somewhat useful.

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>>53700254
>they built you a fucking paradise

Since this is DSLore general,what do we call the generic enemies we fight that are giant humans but are neither Giants, nor Humans?

>>53717214
Big Guys

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It doesn't matter about the rest of the game, it had the most complete segment in the series in Slave Knight Gael.

Everything involved in it, the inevitability of two cursed humans duelling over the Dark Soul, the fight itself, and the fact that they made it as a total sendoff to the series was just pitch perfect to me.

I've completely finished with the soul series after that, it's never going to get better than that.

>>53714307
I think everything to do with vendrick is great but alot of the characters and areas not related to him are kinda sparse. Like spider cave why? Or the rottens boring no story area.

>>53717250
>>53717214

It goes:
> small guys
> humans
> big guys (for you)
> huge guys
> giants

>>53717214
I think most of them are part of the race of Lords (the gods and their progeny). Some may be giant-human crossbreeds or just Big Guys™ but for instance the Silver Knights are clearly racially distinct.

>>53717214
Is Ciaran the smallest big guy?

>>53718327
She's not even a Big Guy™. She uses the same NPC model as the player. Chester is taller than she is.

>>53718342
The Witch's daughters all use the human model and they're lords or giants or whatever

How come gwyn isnt gigantihuge but all his children are?

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>>53715079

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>>53715079
>>53718783
>waifuing Dark Sun Gwyndolin

>>53718725

He used to be gianthuge, but he spent thousands of years burning away all his power in the kiln. He is withered, and basically reduced to the hollow he was before he discovered the lord soul.

>>53718725
Gwyndolin is about the size of a regular human

>>53718850

There is no higher calling.

>>53718725
>>53718872
The Firstborn isn't all that fuckhuge either, and Gwynevere was just an illusion so there's no knowing how tall she really was. Filianore isn't that big either, come to think of it.

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>>53717418

It's cool that it also bookends the entire series. Dark Souls 1 and its DLC ended with a fight against the first one to link the flame and the first to wield the Dark Soul, Dark Souls 3 and DLC ended with the embodiment of every person to link the flame and every pygmy with a Dark Soul.

>>53714889

This explains why, in future cycles, no one knows anything.

>>53712299
its the most story important item in 2 King's Field games.

>>53718049
>Silver Knights are clearly racially distinct
Why is that? I thought they were of the same species as Gwyn.

>>53699148
But that's the thing. The Fire is dying. The best you can do at this point is either let it die, let the world die first, or start the whole thing all over again with possibly worse consequences.

>>53711852
She can absorb souls, so I would assume she's some kind of Undead, like the Shrine handmaiden. Greirat even says "everyone's dead or hollow anyways", aside from the Champions of Ash and Heirs of Fire/Lords of Cinder running about.

>>53697438
>We should have more quest threads on this board.
no. they should stay on their cancer containment board

>>53721005
Precisely. Since we don't have any consistent geography within the world either, nobody knows where these Raiders come from. You get this ominous almost Knights of Farron-esque thing going on with them, where they just appear to burn everything down. Small townships out in the world live in fear of them, at any point fearing they could be burnt down and slaughtered to a man. Only these wandering Scholars, in groups small enough to evade the Nomads, stand any chance at recording what transpired, and even they're liable to miss things.

>>53723838
Hate is the real cancer, you're just too far gone to see it.

>>53724856
Damn, I'm riddled with cancer then.

Whelp, the quest circlejerk/hatefuck has thrown this thread into a loop. Dumping a water=souls setting I just bullet pointed out.

Disc world
Central mountain spring ala tree of life
Water is the essence of life
Floods reset the cycle
Those who drown in the flood cursed to eternal life
Can be swept off the world by the flood into the Starsea… what happens to these people?
No oceans, the floods eventually drain off the edges of the world and/or filters out the bottom (world is very thin)
Pre-flood: Civilisations have rose, but scarcity from the drought causes conflict, preparations are made to withstand the flood
Post flood: Each flood destroys almost all trace of civilisations, but the surge of energy brings forth new life, and bountiful possibility
Capturing water = gathering power
Wells, aqueducts, controlling the territory around the Spring, summon rain…
Typical societal reactions: Build an ark, create an isolated system, embrace the flood, flee into the Starsea, hedonism… Most involve hording water to fuel their plans
Water is supernaturally effective at nourishing. Drops are worth kingdoms late in the each cycle

Thoughts?

>>53697550
putting lovecraft into a mechanics heavy game like souls really ruins it stuff like the frenzy meter and insight are neat in concept but in practice it turns a slow decent into madness into a checklist for ingame events

>>53725465
That was the only big slip up in-game; making beasthood and insight insignificant.

There should have been more level fuckery with high insight like paths changing and different shortcuts and well I'm not sure what they could have done with beasthood. Maybe make it like it's current pellet effect but always applicable? The longer a player goes without dying or traveling by lantern the higher their attack and lower their defense?

>>53722513

The fire is dying, yes. But there is a big difference between the fire dying and the fire having a will of its own and actively resisting you.

The cycle must continue.

>>53715092
>Why does Sif do radiant damage?
Lore-wise he wield the not-cursed greatsword of Artorias which deal bonus damage to anything related to the dark.

While Sif only deal physical damage when you fight him, the sword you can forge from his soul deal both physical and magical damage, has the highest divine modifier of the game and has a secret modifier that let you do 20% more damage to anything related to the dark (mainly darkwraith and the 4 kings).

>>53722513
I roll to steal the fire.

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>>53697595
Patrician taste detected

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>>53730301
Prometheus, stahp.

But in other subjects, the greatest issue with making a Dark Souls type setting is simple, yet fundamental to the series: everything in that type of world, eventually, either decays or burns. Nihilism is a big part of the series, frankly, but players tend to reject it out of hand, as do quite a few DM's.

It's kind of a dualism; when nothing matters, everything does.