Lowly Tarnished, the Erdtree has revived thine soul yet again, to gather the Great Runes and restore the Elden Ring. But many steps make a great journey, and the Shardbearer to whom thine fate leads remains indomitable, lest ye reclaim lost runes and turn them toward the ends of Grace.
The Elden Ring CRPG has about eight-thousand details that affect PCs and gameplay, which are great for a computer to track. Not so much for people. So, players of the CRPG, viewers of the live streams, and even ye fans of the Dark Souls RPG, which of those game aspects belong in a discursive-RPG that succinctly and faithfully conveys the soul of Elden Ring?
Ok that's a good question - what from Elden Ring actually matters and would be worth translating? Also which not.
1) Stamina - I think you have to ditch this entirely, or re-work it massively. You really don't want to track an elaborate numerical stat that goes up and down every round. You could re-work it into a number of actions, maybe, and like some attacks take up 2 actions, and parrying takes up 1. Or maybe you even call it Stamina, and say it has a default value of 5, and maybe actions are tagged with "Stamina" and if they are, you can only do three actions that cost Stamina per round, and armour/weapons which are tagged "Heavy" can subtract 1 from Stamina each so you can do less, and so on. But I think just dumping it entirely wouldn't be a crime.
2) Status Effects - Madness, Scarlet Rot, Death Blight, Blood Loss, Poison, etc. - I think you really want to keep these because they are very much part of what makes Elden Ring what it is, and they matter to the lore too. However, you probably drastically simplify how they're applied, which than the numerical count-up the game uses - maybe just use a check to see if a given attack or circumstance applies them, and have each have three levels? You definitely want to make them pretty nasty.
3) Parrying and Dodging - I think they need to be actual mechanics of some kind, maybe even ones that don't involve a roll/check normally, depending on the combat mechanic. If you do make them rolls, I think it's worth differentiating them, so that they're differently useful.
4) Chip damage - I can't actually remember if Elden Ring has this, but I think it does - if ditch it, except maybe for specific enemies.
5) Blocking and Shield types - I think any Elden Ring RPG is not a rules-light RPG in combat, so I think you making Blocking be a thing like Parrying and Dodging, and make there be at least a distinction between the "full block" and non-full-block.
6) Damage types - I feel like they're kind of a big part of the experience of Elden Ring, because using the wrong one, or not having access to one can be a huge deal, so I would look for a way to keep them.
7) Backstab - Could keep or dump depending on how the game was set up generally. It's probably pretty mechanically simple at least.
8) Poise - Some people would be mad if it was removed, but I'm not really sure how to handle it, and I don't think it's going to come up that much. Like with Status Effects, maybe just don't track it as a number, but as a check. I genuinely don't think it contributes to the vibe much though.
9) Armour - There need to be a reason to wear it, and if you wear a lot of it, it should change how you fight.
10) Equip Load - I feel like this does have an impact, and it makes a huge impact on how people load themselves out, like it's why you'll see a guy in just a robe or whatever but with a gigantic super-sword. I suspect you don't want to track it too closely but like, armour, shield and weapons should contribute to some kind of simple value.
11) Runes instead of XP - This is part of the vibe so stays. Also lets you reward non-combat stuff by having people find runes. I would probably make it so leveling up was either always X runes per level, or a very simple increase, like, your level x 2 or something.
12) Bonfires and dying/being reborn - I'd want to put it in, but I could see other people going either way.
13) The eight stats - I think they'd need to be drastically simplified. They don't actually directly contribute to the vibe at all, rather their derivatives do, so maybe just use the derivatives? Like there's no Endurance stat, only Stamina and Equip Load. Or even just Equip Load.
I could go on, but that's probably enough for now, is this the sort of thing you were looking for at all?
