At the same time, it’s not the punishing restarts of a Roguelike, where the consequence of failure is that the story is over and you have to start over. The Highwayman, the Vestal, and the Occultist are new takes on the Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard more appropriate to the darker tone and more advanced tech of the pike-and-shot setting (Occultist to Wizard is actually a bit of a stretch, even, because of how different magic is portrayed in Darkest Dungeon as opposed to standard D&D).Įvery fight has consequences. The fish folk of the Cove are taken straight from Lovecraft’s Deep Ones (and thus have some similarity to standard D&D baddy the sahuagin, who have the same ancestor), but their abduction of the Siren to turn her into “their queen, and their slave” is a new and reasonably unsettling take on the standard Innsmouth plot. The swinefolk are vaguely orcish, but their new and gruesome backstory makes them the most interesting take on orcs since Warcraft first made them sympathetic characters clear back in 2002. New enough to be interesting, but not so desperate to carve out an identity for themselves that they’re unwilling to ever rely on classic tropes when they’re appropriate. It’s got a bunch of classes and monsters that are similar enough to standard fantasy fare that I don’t feel like I’m being left adrift in a sea of nonsense proper nouns and made-up jargon (offenders in this category often commit the double sin of leaving me adrift in this sea, and then when I get my bearings it turns out the setting is actually standard fantasy fare anyway, they just renamed all the elves and dwarves and dragons), but moved firmly in a lower-magic and more early 16th century millieu where gunpowder weapons and heavy cavalry exist alongside one another. My first thought is that if someone tried to design a game specifically for me, Darkest Dungeon is what they might come up with. It’s got a dark and oppressive mood, but that darkness can be pushed back, one bloody sacrifice at a time. Darkest Dungeon was released over half a year ago and I’ve been playing it off-and-on ever since I got it in the Steam summer sale several months ago, but I don’t have any D&D sessions to write about until this afternoon (and the rest of the weekend), so I’m going to give my thoughts on the game now.
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