Steamforged Games Apologizes & Reprints Dark Souls Books

Steamforged Games has come under fire recently for the high level of errors in the hardcovers of the recently released Dark Souls RPG. The errors ranged from major rules inconsistencies to typos and spelling errors--for example, knights were not strong enough to use their own starting equipment. In other places, there are references to D&D classes, such as the paladin, despite that class not being in the Dark Souls game. There is more detail in this post on Reddit.

The hardcover is out in the UK, although it is not due for a US release until next month.

The company has released an apology and promised to replace the books already purchased.

We at Steamforged Games would like to issue a sincere apology regarding the errors that have come to light in the DARK SOULS™: The Roleplaying Game. We want to thank the community for all the feedback we have received through our customer support channels and online. We are listening to your comments and recognise the importance of the issues that have arisen.

We want to make it clear that we take this matter extremely seriously and therefore have decided the best course of action is to order reprints of the book, issuing replacement copies to those customers who have already bought or pre-ordered the Standard Edition and/or Collector’s Edition.

The same applies for the PDF version we previously announced. Every customer who buys a copy of the printed rulebook will get a free PDF copy, with a release date and details on how to get your copy coming soon.

We ask for a little patience as we gather more detailed information regarding these reprints, the timescales involved, and how best to ensure we resolve this for each affected customer. As soon as we have these details, we will release them. In the meantime, if you have any issues or questions, please contact us through our support hub.

 

[Morrus]

I would suggest that it’s poor customer service that they’re trying to improve on. Good customer service would be proofreading your rule book for basic errors like this before sending it to the printers.

I think if you expand the term 'customer service' to include manufacturing, it pretty much loses meaning. Customer service is definitely separate in meaning to manufacturing.

 

[Sacrosanct]

IMHO it shows why it's best to release a PDF to supporters/backers/customers first, and only when you believe all the problems have been found and corrected, do you then order a print run of the book.

That's essentially what I did with Chromatic Dungeons last fall, though admittedly not intentionally. I think it's just a fact of life that when you have 500 eyes on something rather than 3-5, you're gonna get people seeing a lot of errors that were missed. So I hired another editor and just now am finishing up those spelling and grammar errors. Thankfully no rules changes needed. Just making it more polished. But I will be sending out new links to all of the backers with the updated files regardless.

On topic, I know a few people who played this game at Gary Con, and no one mentioned any errors that I heard. In fact, it's what convinced me (and Ginny's sales pitch) to preorder the limited edition copy while there.

 

[MGibster]

I think if you expand the term 'customer service' to include manufacturing, it pretty much loses meaning. Customer service is definitely separate in meaning to manufacturing.

Yeah, this is more of a quality control issue with the product itself rather than customer service. Although correcting their mistakes is certainly good customer service.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

The errors in the book go far, far deeper than some bad syntax. This game could not have possibly received a play test of any kind. If you pay $50/$95 for this product I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya...

 

[Weiley31]

The errors in the book go far, far deeper than some bad syntax. This game could not have possibly received a play test of any kind. If you pay $50/$95 for this product I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya...

I already have one, but thanks for the offer.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

After how they handled the Dark Souls Boardgame kickstarter, I am not surprised at all.

 

[CubicsRube]

The errors in the book go far, far deeper than some bad syntax. This game could not have possibly received a play test of any kind. If you pay $50/$95 for this product I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya...

It was the same for the board game, and according to comments other games as well. One game apparently had map tiles so dark you couldn't see anything, almost all of the games have house rules put up on BGG within a few weeks of them being released.

For the DS boardgame for example, playtime as intended would take 5-6 hours minimum instead of the advertised 2. Most of these numbers are guidelines at best, but the only way to grind to get enough stats for gear would be to fight the minions 3 times over until you got to the boss fight. Loot drops and combat results were incredibly random.

The only good thing was the boss fight decks. Everything else had to be houseruled by the community.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I backed the board game in Kickstarter and it was a pile of burning garbage for delivery plus the rules were so so.

I am not surprised this is bad. The company is terrible. Just look at their past kickstarters and the comment sections.

 

[Zehnseiter]

So instead of a game that actually works like and respects the source game they made a D&D game with Dark Souls trappings. And that was so badly done that they need to print a replacement immediately ?

Anyone else getting d20 shovelware flashbacks......

I will stay away from purchasing further games of that company. Their Dark Soul boardgame I backed on kickstarter had issues as well.
Not with the delivery just to be clear. I got everything I backed and I respect that but the game itself doesn't play that well.

 

[Sacrosanct]

What baffles me, is that I can't imagine the license for Dark Souls was cheap. Especially with the recent popular Elden Ring. So if you're gonna spend that kind of money on a license, why in God's name wouldn't you take the time to adequately playtest and edit?

I never got a chance to play it at Gary Con (but I did talk with Ginny Loveday who was running it, and she was running a game of it next to me on Sunday), and I didn't hear anyone talk about these issues then.

Just...odd