ELDEN RING

[Hank]

Hello hello.

This is a very barebones interest check. I don't have a fleshed out premise, or fancy character sheets, or even a system that adapts Elden Ring's stats into something workable for play-by-post. I'm not even sure I have the time to GM anything. The only reason I made this thread is to ask a question: is anyone even interested in writing an Elden Ring RP? And if so, what would you want such an RP to look like? If anything, this thread serves to spark a discussion.

"Share them with me, your thoughts, your ambitions, the principles you would follow."

• Do we want to explore the Lands Between before the Shattering happened, during the heydays of the Golden Order?
• Or do we want to explore the Shattering itself? Perhaps an AU where we create our own demigods and fight a continent-spanning war?
• Or do we stick to the world as we know it, and play Tarnished warriors that aim to stand before the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord, navigating the dangers of the Lands Between in a smaller and more personal story?
• How important should the stats be? Do we give vague descriptions of the skills we're good at, or do we want to have hard numbers and lists of spells with names and all?
• How do we approach canon characters? Playable? Controlled by the GM? Absent entirely?

Or perhaps there's no interest at all. That could be the case as well. Either way, I'm all ears.

[POOHEAD189]

No promises because of my schedule but you got my attention.

[Hank]

No promises because of my schedule but you got my attention.

@POOHEAD189

Hey Ben. Any answers to the questions I posed?

[Dark Cloud]

I'm very much the same, but I have been needing some sort of Souls rp in my life. But like I'm not finished Elden Ring yet so, I should try to do that. Lol

[Dion]

Interested but don't know enough about lore yet to answer the questions. Will try and recruit my best friend Swedish Hillan and see what he thinks.

[Hillan]

Interested but don't know enough about lore yet to answer the questions. Will try and recruit my best friend Swedish Hillan and see what he thinks.

@Odin

Aw, you called me your best friend. Cute.

Anyway, all of the pitches sound interesting. I think telling an AU story of us all trying to become Elden Lord following the shattering makes sense - though perhaps setting it earlier within the timeline, to where the Erdtree was still standing tall and the roundtable hold was in it's prime.

I don't much care for stats. I think stats are more of a game-neccesity for the medium, rather than something important to the plot - after all, you're able to beat the game at RL1, yet it would make very little sense to allow a story where such a character becomes Elden Lord.

[Falkas]

[Fading Memory]

I am soundly interested myself. I third an AU approach, and third a step away from any sort of stat system. Elden Ring is rich and complex enough without us bothering with a statistic adaptation for forum play.

I also like the idea Hillian proposed specifically where we’re Tarnished seeking the quest of Elden Lord. My curiosity personally lies especially in a world of alternate characters, but by god the world is complex and curious as is and creating alternate characters from ground up may as well be building a new world entirely. I just would want to see unique or different original folks than purely canon NPCs if they crop up.

[Roman]

Anyway, all of the pitches sound interesting. I think telling an AU story of us all trying to become Elden Lord following the shattering makes sense - though perhaps setting it earlier within the timeline, to where the Erdtree was still standing tall and the roundtable hold was in it's prime.

@Hillan

AU set earlier could be interesting. Maybe the game is the story of the previous generation of Elden-seekers, who fuck it up so hard that they become the reason the Erdtree closes itself off to the Tarnished in the game proper?

Separately I like the idea of an AU Shattering, each portraying Demigods in the early days almost immediately after the cataclysm, with various particular political alignments and power-gatherings etc in time for an all-out-war.

[Falkas]

[POOHEAD189]

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

Hey Ben. Any answers to the questions I posed?

@Hank

Not yet, friend. But I'm thinking on it...

[Theyra]

Interested though, I may not join. But, in favor of the third option like the rest.

[Falkas]

[POOHEAD189]

Yeah, I say go with option 3. A narrative of a group of tarnished sound cool.

[Hank]

Alright, it's clear that option 3: a group of Tarnished warriors is the most popular option, with an emphasis on narrative over game mechanics, set shortly after the Shattering war. I like this premise too; it gives us leeway to make our own NPCs for the Roundtable Hold and in the rest of the Lands Between. We could even make it so that the inhabitants of the Lands Between haven't entirely lost their minds yet, potentially allowing us to communicate and reason with the knights and soldiers that serve the various demigod armies, or the peasants that live in the forts and villages throughout the world.

Now for a few other issues. Personally, I think there are several other game mechanics we should also ignore:

• No respawning, both for us Tarnished and for NPCs/enemies. Dead is dead.
• No Flasks of Crimson/Cerulean Tears from the get-go. Let healing be done with traditional remedies or restorative magic, and let FP/mana/whatever-you-want-to-call it simply regenerate over time. Healing potions or crystal tears with special effects could be found as loot throughout the world instead, and the ability to craft them (like the perfumers) could be part of a PC's skillset.
• No sites of lost grace, or at least not in the way that they function in the game. The guidance of grace being visible as rays of light makes sense and should stay, and perhaps this light converges at locations that would make for good resting spots, but that's as far as it should go. It doesn't have a useful place in a written narrative, in my opinion.

Then there are some game mechanics that I believe we should keep, but adapt to make them fit:

• The strength of runes, the ability to become more powerful by defeating enemies, should probably be a sort of passive effect that we use as a vague excuse for our characters growing in strength over the course of the story, if we don't ignore its existence entirely. I also don't think runes should be the active currency; Patches uses the word "coin" when describing wealth, so let money just be gold coins or something.
• The Roundtable Hold. I'm not very fond of including Melina in the story and her ability to teleport us to a version of the Roundtable Hold that exists outside of the world. I don't think fast travel in general is a good idea. Unfortunately, we don't know how other characters like Roderika or D are able to travel to it. Do we say that there are portals throughout the Lands Between that can take us there? Maybe it's a place we visit in our dreams? Or does the illusory Roundtable Hold just not exist yet, and we have to fend for ourselves in the Lands Between until we reach the Fortified Manor in Leyndell?
• Spirit Ashes could be reworked into an ability or a school of magic, like I suggested for alchemy earlier.

Let me know your thoughts and opinions.

[Hillan]

We could even make it so that the inhabitants of the Lands Between haven't entirely lost their minds yet, potentially allowing us to communicate and reason with the knights and soldiers that serve the various demigod armies, or the peasants that live in the forts and villages throughout the world.

@Hank

Very solid idea to leave the other forces of non-tarnished damaged but not completely feral.

Now for a few other issues. Personally, I think there are several other game mechanics we should also ignore:

• No respawning, both for us Tarnished and for NPCs/enemies. Dead is dead.
• No Flasks of Crimson/Cerulean Tears from the get-go. Let healing be done with traditional remedies or restorative magic, and let FP/mana/whatever-you-want-to-call it simply regenerate over time. Healing potions or crystal tears with special effects could be found as loot throughout the world instead, and the ability to craft them (like the perfumers) could be part of a PC's skillset.
• No sites of lost grace, or at least not in the way that they function in the game. The guidance of grace being visible as rays of light makes sense and should stay, and perhaps this light converges at locations that would make for good resting spots, but that's as far as it should go. It doesn't have a useful place in a written narrative, in my opinion.

@Hank

Ditto.
I think Grace being a narrative piece that guides us (or perhaps leads us astray, given the chance that some of us would want to become Volcano Manor-scum) is great, but yeah, no instant-heal once we touch a golden light on the floor lol. It's already implied but I wanna explicitly state that I think the split worlds and time dilation are too convoluted concepts that need to go.

Then there are some game mechanics that I believe we should keep, but adapt to make them fit:

• The strength of runes, the ability to become more powerful by defeating enemies, should probably be a sort of passive effect that we use as a vague excuse for our characters growing in strength over the course of the story, if we don't ignore its existence entirely. I also don't think runes should be the active currency; Patches uses the word "coin" when describing wealth, so let money just be gold coins or something.
• The Roundtable Hold. I'm not very fond of including Melina in the story and her ability to teleport us to a version of the Roundtable Hold that exists outside of the world. I don't think fast travel in general is a good idea. Unfortunately, we don't know how other characters like Roderika or D are able to travel to it. Do we say that there are portals throughout the Lands Between that can take us there? Maybe it's a place we visit in our dreams? Or does the illusory Roundtable Hold just not exist yet, and we have to fend for ourselves in the Lands Between until we reach the Fortified Manor in Leyndell?
• Spirit Ashes could be reworked into an ability or a school of magic, like I suggested for alchemy earlier.

@Hank

I agree on runes being the most logical passive way for us to increase our abilities and grow over the course of the game. I don't think there's any need for a game-system to provide that gain. I don't mind either way if we use runes for both currency and experience or just the latter. Fast travel creates far more issues than it solves. Allowing us all different mounts that we need to care for makes more sense than all of us riding on torrent. Though, Melina poses another interesting issue; Maidens? Do we each need one? Do we all follow one like a gaggle of simps? Or do we just ignore the fact that a tarnished needs to act as consort to a maiden to have a chance to become elden lord?

To me, Roundtable Hold is a good idea for a collective of the main party of the game. A union of tarnished who need to fight together to survive in the lands between. Perhaps our role as elden-lord-to-be isn't so clear at this point of the story, allowing us all to make far easier alliances even with other tarnished who are still at their prime. I.E, the real Roundtable Hold is the friends we made along the way. Events of the RP eventually leads to the illusionary extra-dimensional place eventually being created.

I think in a still active society the role of the Tarnished might be more akin to that of a monster hunter or some kind of folk hero, so we might be able to inject more traditional party-based fantasy games into the setting if we care to go that route. A gameplay loop something akin to - Gather a bunch of tarnished, fuck up a monster, celebrate at the pub as town-after-town goes feral.

[Dion]

• No respawning, both for us Tarnished and for NPCs/enemies. Dead is dead.
• No Flasks of Crimson/Cerulean Tears from the get-go. Let healing be done with traditional remedies or restorative magic, and let FP/mana/whatever-you-want-to-call it simply regenerate over time. Healing potions or crystal tears with special effects could be found as loot throughout the world instead, and the ability to craft them (like the perfumers) could be part of a PC's skillset.
• No sites of lost grace, or at least not in the way that they function in the game. The guidance of grace being visible as rays of light makes sense and should stay, and perhaps this light converges at locations that would make for good resting spots, but that's as far as it should go. It doesn't have a useful place in a written narrative, in my opinion.

@Hank

If we are focusing on narrative based storytelling as opposed to a roleplay-ified game, then I think all of these make sense as far as removing their mechanics. You hit the nail on the head re: sites of lost grace, since I think having our band of Tarnished meet around a Site of Lost Grace a lá "you're all in a tavern together to embark on a quest" is quite a fitting start to the story.

But that really leads me to one of the bigger questions I have for this story: are we all cooperating? We're all trying to become the Elden Lord (or at least I am under the assumption, based off of what I've read so far, that most of us are) and that will inevitably lead to animosity between the characters; that's just sort of the way these things seem to go, especially if we're in a period where all of us can more or less see grace clearly rather than faintly (at least, that's how I interpreted the game; the other tarnished do not always oppose us because they do not see grace as well as us, thus they accept they are probably not meant to be the Elden Lord, but I never really finished the game that far to really know the specifics).

And, frankly, I really enjoyed the aspect of the game where certain Tarnished are just assholes, lol. So to that end; are we a merry band of Tarnished trying to become Elden Lord together, or are we working against each other in secret (but still traveling together) or is this a sandbox style story with a narrative focus but without anything that binds us together?

• The strength of runes, the ability to become more powerful by defeating enemies, should probably be a sort of passive effect that we use as a vague excuse for our characters growing in strength over the course of the story, if we don't ignore its existence entirely. I also don't think runes should be the active currency; Patches uses the word "coin" when describing wealth, so let money just be gold coins or something.
• The Roundtable Hold. I'm not very fond of including Melina in the story and her ability to teleport us to a version of the Roundtable Hold that exists outside of the world. I don't think fast travel in general is a good idea. Unfortunately, we don't know how other characters like Roderika or D are able to travel to it. Do we say that there are portals throughout the Lands Between that can take us there? Maybe it's a place we visit in our dreams? Or does the illusory Roundtable Hold just not exist yet, and we have to fend for ourselves in the Lands Between until we reach the Fortified Manor in Leyndell?
• Spirit Ashes could be reworked into an ability or a school of magic, like I suggested for alchemy earlier.

Point 1: I think the usage of runes as currency in ER is strange, like you said. I understand that Runes would be used to (magically) make you stronger in ER, but then their use as currency is kind of weird, and vice versa if they were currency, why would valuta be able to make you stronger? I agree that we'd separate them and use "runes" as kind of a way to say "oh I worked very hard to beat everyone and their mom, so now I'm stronger." I'd only question whether we even want to quantify this.. seems like a really easy way for people to get upsetti spaghetti because oh I wrote that I killed 20 of this enemy, and you only killed 4, so naturally I'm stronger now. I think with the group we have + narrative focus, we can avoid that of course, but it's the first problem that came to mind for me.

Point 2: I actually like the roundtable hold and, honestly, it could be a really fun plot device if we were ''the first'' to find the way to the roundtable hold and build the place up from a decrepit ruin into a livable place for us to gather our strength and device our plans. I'd propose that Sites of Lost Grace have the ability to teleport us there somehow, and that we just kind of close our eyes to the mechanics of it (because it's magical, like so many other things in the world that we don't understand nor need to understand) and leave it at that? Suspension of disbelief, I suppose.

Point 3: sort of like a necromancy/spirit magic thing? That could be cool.

How do you/others feel about dragon magic, though?

[Fading Memory]

I dig everything discussed so far. Treating Sites of Grace in the aforementioned ‘tavern before an adventure’ would give us a good episodic framework, and permit ‘interludes’ at the Roundtable or scenes in places in the world ‘between’ those adventures. I think that’s extremely solid, good idea Odin!

The topic of Ashes and summoning- I thin delegating that to a ‘Spirit Tuner’ character would be best conceptually. Rather than it being purely some NPC role, if someone wanted to play that zookeeeper style they’d be a Spirit Tuner. The idea is already there, and rather than creating a new title we’d just be slightly adjusting the existing one. As for the idea of Dragon Magic, I’m cool with it if that’s a character’s schtick/gimmick- I just also like the idea of us being more moderate/low-key and growing into our power quite a bit. A story of growth, hardship, and how rising power affects the sanity, comraderie, and world around us. As for my initial ideas…

LET CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD

Personally, I planned on playing an open-secret character aligned with (probably) the Frenzied Flame. I think there’s a lot of interesting roleplay to be had with the group OOC knowing this alignment in the style of open secret and the IC dancing around the topic.

Naturally if the group decided on more buddy-buddy we’re all true boon companions as a theme, I’d go with something else, but that was my initial stirrings.

[DELETEDUSER007]

>Just chiming in to say that anything draconic in any FromSoft title eventually leads to something unpleasant. Especially if you're trying to become one. Just look at the wyrm enemies and sentinels. Not saying it can't provide ample storytelling opportunities mind, just that if it is used beyond communion it's probably going to suck for the Tarnished in question.

>Unless your Tarnished hates eating organs, in which case it'll suck regardless as they'll need to eat a dragon's heart. At least I assume that's what communion involves. It could also be some strange arcane grafting procedure.

[DELETEDUSER007]

No sites of lost grace, or at least not in the way that they function in the game. The guidance of grace being visible as rays of light makes sense and should stay, and perhaps this light converges at locations that would make for good resting spots, but that's as far as it should go. It doesn't have a useful place in a written narrative, in my opinion.

>Also, if I may play devil's advocate for a moment... allowing Grace--while yes it is just a video game mechanic more than anything really--it would also allow players to explore the idea that this particular cast of Tarnished, or at least one of their number, is working cooperatively to seat an Elden Lord so their immortality can finally end. Recall that these are the same people who left with Godfrey in all likelihood, probably fought and died horribly, only to get torn away from death's sweet embrace by an absentee space god or possibly the Erdtree/Marika. And who are currently having to undergo more trauma that they can't really forget but always come back from, in a setting where mental health is about the furthest thing imaginable from the average person's hierarchy of needs.

>So allowing Grace, while it would need to be handled carefully, could create an opportunity for a darker and more depressing tale. Or a character who just wants an Elden Lord, regardless of how well said individual would actually do, so they can finally die and be at peace. Again, not pushing too hard for this--since I'm not even planning on participating due to my own Elden Ring related story I've harped on more than enough--but I do think there is a narrative place for it if done correctly. And it also fits the whole theme of everything going to shit that FromSoft seems to love exploring.