Conversely, watch for a Selfish character to retreat in a fight, use supplies unnecessarily, or even steal from the party’s gold!īottom line, as your heroes lose their grip, you as the player lose your grip on them! We think it’s an exciting, unpredictable element that challenges players to make the best of an imperfect situation. A Masochist might advance in combat, eager to have their blood spilled, or they may refuse to be healed, fascinated with their own wounds. Much more likely however, they will fall victim to their stress and become branded with an Affliction – the moniker for a family of stress-driven behavior – such as Hopelessness or Masochism, Abusiveness, Irrationality, etc.Īfflicted characters are like loaded guns, you never know when they’ll go off! They will periodically ‘act out’, taking an action on their own imperative. Once they hit their maximum stress capacity, they’ll roll an ‘Affliction Check’ – success enters them into a heroic state, inspiring allies, and bolstering their abilities. Watch a fellow adventurer get rabies from a feral dog bite? Not so cheery.Īs an adventure goes on, heroes will get increasingly unnerved by what they’ve experienced. Land a big crit? Everyone cheers up a bit. Stress is a central mechanic in Darkest Dungeon – everything your heroes see, do and have done to them affects their stress levels, both positively and negatively. The Affliction System: Even heroes are human! It turns out, being a dungeon delver is rather a rough job. Like being 500 feet underground and running out of food, fighting horrific monsters, surrounded by all kinds of unnameable awfulness, for instance. We all experience it, especially those in particularly grueling circumstances. Something unique and challenging in its own way. However, we also wanted to do something different at the same time. We decided we wanted to honour that lineage and make an RPG in the classic vein. We’re all big fans of the dungeon crawling genre here, going all the way back to classics like Bard’s Tale and Eye of the Beholder (1 &2!).

Greetings from the Abyss! We are Red Hook Studios, an independent five-person team working out of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

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