Darkwood as a Tabletop RPG

[/\ [TooManyCooks]]

Not long ago, I finished my play-through of Darkwood and soon I'll be attempting to make and run a TTRPG version of the experience. (because I'm masochistic like that)

What about the game was most notable to you and what elements of it do you think really shaped the experience for you? In order to do this properly, I want to know what the true essence of Darkwood has been for different people.

From game-play mechanics, to plot, and even art style, music, and character design, what were the things that really made the experience unique for you, and what would you change if you could?

While I've gotten to meet and get guidance from a handful of you awesome Darkwood veterans on-stream too, I'd be interested to hear your detailed opinions now that spoilers are of no concern either.


PS.
(If curious how the TTRPG turns out: EveOfUntimes at Twitch)

[Null Winter]

The overall atmosphere was the main draw for me. My introduction to Darkwood was a short Early Access clip from a friend showing a Banshee entering a window, them shooting it, and its corpse burning a radiation shadow into the floor. I immediately thought "I want to know what that it is and why the hell it does that". Curiosity is a powerful motivator.

Darkwood's world feels very unique, in the same way that Dark Souls feels unique; the world is twisted in both beautiful and ugly ways. Just because an NPC looks like a monster doesn't mean they don't have an interesting story to convey, and the actual monsters are truly atrocious. Dark isn't always bad, and light doesn't mean safety. Perfect for a tabletop conversion.

The music and sound design came out perfectly, which is more amazing since the team had no experience with such things. Every creature sounds distinct, idle noises can be concerning or convey usable information, etc. Music and such doesn't come up much for tabletops, aside from maybe some background music from someone's laptop.

Combat feels good, since you can choose to be aggressive and evasive, or you can fight in abstract ways such as setting traps and lures or by using your active abilities. Players should always feel like multiple options are viable.

Which ruleset are you using? Deadlands Classic would handle this well, since it actually has a built in terror system and the lethality of its wound system fits the lethality of Darkwood's later enemies. The system also accounts for various gun types in addition to traditional melee combat, and has stamina in the form of Wind for exhausting actions.

If you get a definitive time and date, then I or the devs could potentially post a broadcast notice for the stream.

[Super]

The whole experience is very numb, and indifferent to the fact you make very awful choices no matter what you do, or how hard you try not to. No matter what path you take, Wolf or Musician, Radio Tower or Tree... It is a true Cosmic Horror story filled with vague illusions and dark fantasies that simply make you feel meaningless on the grand scale of things. There is no good, nor bad, just different. You affected your surroundings, how so? Why care; Darkwood simply does not care, and does not care if you care, it does not matter, and therefore the whole experience becomes very gray. In the end, against such cosmic powers and seismic Beings, we are nothing, and our perspective of reality is nothing...

I love the tone and story. It was executed perfectly.

[Monorcle]

Darkwood is a great game and i would like to see his universe as a ttrpg, but since i'm very bad at english, most of the following sentences are google translated and not very detailed:

The fact that most of the character doesn't have a name but a title "the musician", "the doctor", "the wolf"... adds a unique atmosphere like in a dark fable.

"The being" is an unknown entity with an unknown purpose showing just how misterious the story of this game is, allowing the player to create his own theory to try to explain a part of the universe of darkwood.

The longer we stay in these woods, the more we get insane, just like the stranger or the doctor who begins to see hallucinations and crazy dreams about their past or the past the woods.

[/\ [TooManyCooks]]

Originally posted by Null Winter:

The overall atmosphere was the main draw for me. My introduction to Darkwood was a short Early Access clip from a friend showing a Banshee entering a window, them shooting it, and its corpse burning a radiation shadow into the floor. I immediately thought "I want to know what that it is and why the hell it does that". Curiosity is a powerful motivator.

That's very true. A mysterious atmosphere is a must, both to draw on the fear of unknown, and also to bait players to keep pushing into the dark journey partially by their own will ;-)

Originally posted by Null Winter:

Darkwood's world feels very unique, in the same way that Dark Souls feels unique; the world is twisted in both beautiful and ugly ways. Just because an NPC looks like a monster doesn't mean they don't have an interesting story to convey, and the actual monsters are truly atrocious. Dark isn't always bad, and light doesn't mean safety. Perfect for a tabletop conversion.

Indeed. The game and the world work on very particular mechanics and logic that I think allows for many outcomes that can't all be explored in one single game. Using the fact that TTRPGs use a human brain as CPU I'm thinking about putting those world mechanics in use as dynamic things that give different outcomes each playthrough.
For example: Imagine if without knowing, some 'sacrifices' that make the more difficult hybrid enemies in the game were able to be MADE by the unknowing and naive players from an array of animal corpses and such. Without knowing, creating the horrors that will then be brought to life by the forest and affect everything that follows.

Originally posted by Null Winter:

The music and sound design came out perfectly, which is more amazing since the team had no experience with such things. Every creature sounds distinct, idle noises can be concerning or convey usable information, etc. Music and such doesn't come up much for tabletops, aside from maybe some background music from someone's laptop.

The latter part of this message, the part about the creatures, is actually one I'm really excited about. Making new creatures that fit into the world themes and, as the DM, sometimes making certain sound cues real-time instead of always during narration, would really help players automatically respond to what may be happening just like players in the game would. Obviously sound placement goes out of the window, but recreating the randomized 'stick breaking' sounds, different tiles making different amounts of sound, and all such things can then be followed by pointing to a map or noting a direction.

I doubt in the short amount of time that I'll have I'll get to make that extensive an OST, but I do often try to make music for the games I make too. Listening to the Darkwood OST and thinking of more minimal inspirations should be good for background music, hopefully.

Originally posted by Null Winter:

Combat feels good, since you can choose to be aggressive and evasive, or you can fight in abstract ways such as setting traps and lures or by using your active abilities. Players should always feel like multiple options are viable.

While I'm thinking of constructing a very lite and easy to pick up system with as little number crunching as possible, combat will indeed have an array of mechanics too, trying to replicate both the stress AND the freedom that you get in the game. (This one is a little extensive so I'll leave the detailed examples for the stream, no matter how excited I am to rant :-P)

And to answer you about the rule-set, and that's great suggestion btw, I'm actually planning for all of the games I TTRPGify to either get a system from ground up or be an extension that can be used or translated into nearly any system.
In this case, I'm thinking of making a very very light system from the ground up. Since I'll only get to run a high production one-shot (outside of the play-testing) I think making sure it's not incredibly number heavy is very important.

Originally posted by Null Winter:

If you get a definitive time and date, then I or the devs could potentially post a broadcast notice for the stream.

That'd be absolutely fantastic and very kind of you! I'll begin building the system together with chat from right today (10 aug) at 21:30 BST and then continue the same way Saturdays and Tuesdays until done, but I really wouldn't want to waste the devs' time with just the brainstorm streams (even though having their input would be absolutely fantastic too)
So I guess I could make a separate thread later when I know I'll be play-testing or just running that final one-off?

[/\ [TooManyCooks]]

Originally posted by Super:

The whole experience is very numb, and indifferent to the fact you make very awful choices no matter what you do, or how hard you try not to. No matter what path you take, Wolf or Musician, Radio Tower or Tree... It is a true Cosmic Horror story filled with vague illusions and dark fantasies that simply make you feel meaningless on the grand scale of things. There is no good, nor bad, just different. You affected your surroundings, how so? Why care; Darkwood simply does not care, and does not care if you care, it does not matter, and therefore the whole experience becomes very gray. In the end, against such cosmic powers and seismic Beings, we are nothing, and our perspective of reality is nothing...

I love the tone and story. It was executed perfectly.

Yeah, helplessness is one of the prime elements of the experience.
I will definitely want to include the possibility of a "true ending" style of decisions as well though. The one that allows you to overcome and burn everything down. Obviously, just like within the game itself, it should come at a high price, and only be granted through lots of exploration and lots of suffering.

[/\ [TooManyCooks]]

Originally posted by Monorcle:

Darkwood is a great game and i would like to see his universe as a ttrpg, but since i'm very bad at english, most of the following sentences are google translated and not very detailed:

No worries at all! I'll do my best to go through them and extract all that I can! Thanks for writing anyway \m/

Originally posted by Monorcle:

The fact that most of the character doesn't have a name but a title "the musician", "the doctor", "the wolf"... adds a unique atmosphere like in a dark fable.

Indeed. I feel like it makes characters more symbolic while also making everything seem impersonal and unimportant. It really paints every character in the same light of being a helpless victim; an unwilling puzzle-piece in the cosmic horror.

Originally posted by Monorcle:

"The being" is an unknown entity with an unknown purpose showing just how misterious the story of this game is, allowing the player to create his own theory to try to explain a part of the universe of darkwood.

Yeah. Very similar to "the zone" in stalker. I think the game's usage of one's curiosity and fear of the unknown is definitely one of the most important aspects.

Originally posted by Monorcle:

The longer we stay in these woods, the more we get insane, just like the stranger or the doctor who begins to see hallucinations and crazy dreams about their past or the past the woods.

Yep. Almost as if your reality is also consumed by the woods. I'm definitely going to be implementing a morale/madness system in the game as well. One that kinda works with the same twist of: The player thinking they're getting stronger and going the right way, while in reality they're spiraling further down madness and going towards the center of the forest.

[mits giotix]

Darkwood is one of those settings that I would love to try emulating via my own TTRPG... once I manage to sit down and write the rules, that is.
Alternatively, I am thinking the the rules of Unknown Armies would be a good fit for the themes and atmosphere of Darkwood.

[/\ [TooManyCooks]]

Originally posted by mits giotix:

Darkwood is one of those settings that I would love to try emulating via my own TTRPG... once I manage to sit down and write the rules, that is.
Alternatively, I am thinking the the rules of Unknown Armies would be a good fit for the themes and atmosphere of Darkwood.

Awesome to have you chiming in as well! I will check Unknown Armies out first chance I get.

[mits giotix]

Originally posted by Evey TooManyCooks:

Originally posted by mits giotix:

Darkwood is one of those settings that I would love to try emulating via my own TTRPG... once I manage to sit down and write the rules, that is.
Alternatively, I am thinking the the rules of Unknown Armies would be a good fit for the themes and atmosphere of Darkwood.

Awesome to have you chiming in as well! I will check Unknown Armies out first chance I get.

Unknown Armies if one of my favorite ttrpgs ever, for various reasons; one of them is that it's a rather "weird" one. Both rules-wise, and as a setting (which I absolutely adore, to be honest). However the weirdness of the rules makes sense, especially when it comes to combat (and how lethal it can be) and the setting.
If I may make a suggestion, read the 2nd edition rulebook first! If you love it, you'd probably love the supplements too. The 3rd edition's rules are a bit more abstract, so your mileage may vary. The lore's still amazing although it continues the lore of the 2nd edition.