Lately, I've been in more a mood for fantasy storytelling. But, despite the mass popularity of it, studios hate funding it. There just isn't a wide breath of things that my attention span can currently handle. Thankfully, Ironsworn by Shawn Tomkin allows for the monk-like ascetic practice of solo gaming. A singular experience where you can take the role of both player and GM. It gives you the tools to tell your own stories using PBTA style moves, evocative random tables called Oracles, resource management, and progress tracks. It's an interesting blend of what feels like both modern and old school mechanics. The storygame elements come in to build out interesting consequences, flesh out the world, and give real weight to individual actions while the limited resource management is reminiscent of Advanced Fighting Fantasy (or Troika! which shares a mechanical linage to it) adding a real sense of danger and risk. But even with that solid base, the use of progress tracks (similar to the Clock mechanic seen in Blades in the Dark) are the real shining element that ties everything together as they measure how the world is changed by the actions of the players.
In trying to create a more Dark Souls esque experience, I realized the flexibility of the system and the types of stories that can be told with it. So I want to break down some of my thoughts on different styles of play and resources that can help you shape the game to your needs. First I'm going to talk about my own Elden Ring inspired campaign and more worldbuilding heavy settings, then I'm going to talk about some other frameworks for running anime style megadungeons (Dungeon Meshi) and social politicking games (Game of Thrones). For any custom playstyle, I recommend taking a look at this Ironsworn resource page. I haven't looked through everything on this page but I will tell people to avoid using The Augur as a tool because of it's use of AI. Other than that, it's a very good collection of fan made resources.
One of the strengths of Ironsworn is that the pacing of a session feels more similar to a fantasy novel than an actual ongoing campaign in other systems. Some games attempt to emulate fantasy novels by being more gritty and granular with the worldbuilding, but I finds this approach does not work as well as being able to set broad goals for characters that lead to direct change. The ability to abstract time and space is one of the most freeing things when it comes to telling stories on this scale. I typically prefer for those elements to be handled looser, so that an entire campaign that happens over a year isn't taking place in the span of a single month in-universe. Allowing time to pass is more interesting to me, to see the world change and for characters to get on with their lives. Of course, this is not everyone's bag and I've fought players before trying to advocate for such things. These things are built into the system and will be a natural part of play so the question instead becomes: How can you use these tools to tell the kind of story you want?
Dark Fantasy Campaigns
FromSoft style dark fantasy having roots in genre novels requires a bit more set up than the typical assumptions of Ironsworn. There are few options for handling this in the form of fan made hacks. Steelforged (also available as automated tables) has become the go-to whenever I get stuck. Filling out history, myths, and lore very quickly helps keep the world feel alive. Feats & Favors helps flesh out factions which you might model off of the Dark Souls PVP Covenants (Forest Hunter, Blades of the Dark Moon) or NPC groups in Elden (Volcano Manor, Roundtable Hold, Moghwyn Dynasty). Ironcrunch might also be of interest since it creates an actual playstyle closer to the video games, but I have not tested it out myself since I wanted to get a grasp on the base game first. Darkest Delves might also help if you want to give dungeon crawls a bit more of an old school flavor, akin to Dark Souls 2. Despite the name, Modern Domains is also good for expanding your toolset for planning delves since it includes domains like Academy, Archives, Barrens, Garden, Manor, Prison, Sewers, and Temple. Ironsmith: Sites is another good tool for building out dungeons. The Steadings mechanic from Dungeon World can be adapted pretty easily as well to make settlements on the fly to help keep details consistent. For mapmaking, I used Nortantis which generates easy to edit fantasy maps without using AI.
My final suggestion for a tool is a personal one: Battle of the Gods on my itch.io page. This was actually my first TTRPG I made based on a dream I had of a PBTA game where the only move was "Fight all the gods at once." I tried looking at other worldbuilding games but the scope either felt too small or the start was too vague. What this game does is create a set of gods, their relationships, a mythology, and an end of the world. My intent for using it when I created it was that if you played a game, you would start somewhere in the "middle" rather than the Ragnarok-like event it builds into but that is actual perfect for the Dark Souls style of dark fantasy. Since the game was made to be multi-player, what I did instead was create five different Gods and then resolved the rolls and turns by myself. The end result felt properly apocalyptic and gave me good enough circumstances that I was able to start figuring out basics about how magic works in the setting and what the state of the world is. I'm going to write more on this in another blog post, but it worked out quite well. Other worldbuilding games like Artefact or i'm sorry did you say street magic are also useful.
As far as mechanical differences go, I haven't been doing much in the way of changes as this is my first time with the system. My basic idea for my campaign was starting with an epic vow like "Usher in the new age" rephrased appropriately for my setting. By attaching a Threat to it (like the mechanic from Delve) with a name like "The Curse" you can build out a world state that is actively decaying as the game continues. You don't have to lay out all the Milestones but you might prepare a general layout for your quest: "Ring the Two Bells," "Gather the Vessel", "Slay the gods" etc. This vow is shared and restarted for each new character after one is removed from the game for one reason or another. You'll want characters you play to have some sort of condition that makes them generally loathed, related to being Hollow or Tarnished. The Revenant asset could be good to track "hollowing" if you want to stay rooted more in Dark Souls specifically. Each time you die you "upgrade" that specific asset, but if you run out of upgrades you retire your character as an NPC hollow. Your new character might encounter and fight your old one.
One thing I learned was that Delve suggests leaving blanks on Denizen tables, but I personally found this really interrupts the flow of play. My method was creating a list of evocative names in the style of the games and fleshing them out if the result gets rolled (EX: Howlwind Reaver, Beastkin Shepard). This meant that I had one session where I was just making up names and then my next session would just be focused on handling the delve. Sites are also good at simulating the kind of dangerous wilderness terrains characters pass through towards their goals in these kind of video games.
Megadungeon Campaigns
Most people these days probably have an anime they associate this kind of game with but it's also very prominent in early D&D games. Think of the dynamics between civilizations and dungeons that we see emerge in Keep in the Borderlands, Temple of Elemental Evil, or Ruins of the Undermountain (adapted in 5e to Dungeon of the Mad Mage) and compare that to something like Dungeon Meshi. A single settlement is above or otherwise near a massive dungeon that contains some sort of power or secret that people are after. You'll have cast of other adventurers who are making the same delve into the site, on-going relationships with NPCs, and factions who have vested interests in various elements of the dungeon. This style I think will be more fun in guided or group play but that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying solo.
Many of the previously recommended fan supplements are going to be useful here as well. Vaults & Vows will add character creation options more fitting to the genre. The same Itch page has expansions on Ancestries as well as decks of Demeanors and Motivations to help you determine who you are. You'll find that this is the same author of Ironcrunch so many of these options are also used in those playtest materials as well. Winterhall & Reign are two different hacks for adding settlement management mechanics to your game to help the main town or city near the dungeon stay dynamic. If you want a more consistent magic system there are a few options: Arcanum, IronSpheres, SpellForge, and Magic The Gathering style. Delves & Denizens also has a neat solution for magic items that can complement the Artifacts and Rarities from Delve. Also you'll want to grab Feats & Favors linked in the previous section for modelling factions associated with either the dungeon or the town above.
Notably with Delve, it's going to be the most important book for running this style of play. Unlike a normal campaign, your vows will be focused on things happening within the dungeon, so when you set an objective for your Delve, it'll be your goal for your current expedition. It could just be collecting treasures, finding a person, learning something. I'd suggest that uncovering new floors must be done as an objective as well. Typically the earliest floors of the dungeon will start at "troublesome" and increase in rank the further you go into it. Unlike the Dark Fantasy style game, it might be worth leaving blanks on the Denizens table and fleshing them out as they are rolled. The Dungeon is going to be "too big" to prepare too much before hand and benefits from having chaotic and unpredictable elements.
It might be worth keeping a "map" of each floor as different groups, themes, and domains emerge. It may not show every passage, but its a good idea to know where notable places are in relation to each other since the dungeon will be revisited consistently, it will create a more coherent sense of sense of place. Where does Undertake a Journey come into play? It becomes useful when you know where you want to go in the dungeon and don't necessarily have an objective in mind. Delve the Depths is rolled to make progress, but it goes into the Journey track instead of the dungeon's usual track. Objective focused on deeper parts of the dungeon may wish to Undertake a Journey at a rank appropriate to how deep you are traveling and then only begin the objective track once you have reached the destination.
The resource management while in the Dungeon is going to be very important as well. Make Camp as a move might result in Denizens finding you on a miss, or you might make finding a good campsite a Scene Challenge to convey the danger of the situation. The depths might contain "settlements" which are paradoxically considered both in and out of the dungeon. If this is the case, these are the only places you can Sojourn aside from the main settlement. They would function as "unlockable" safe spots that you can return to with the Escape the Depths move. However, it would trigger Delve the Depths when you leave. Returning to the surface from there would have to be done through Undertake a Journey. Denizens will also be encountered more frequently in this style of play because of how large the site is. As players learn the dangers, the Battle move could be used to glance over threats they are more familiar with in earlier sections of the dungeon. To mitigate some of the resource strain created by these rules, it helps to introduce consumable Health and Spirit potions that recover +1 when used as treasure.
Politicking Campaigns
Political Realism, while a long time genre of D&D play, is less represented in actual fantasy media outside the popularity of Game of Thrones and how it was adapted to fit the trappings of serial character dramas. The Vampire The Masquerade player in me is drawn to this style of play. While I do just think scheming is fun, its an interesting way of interrogating our own understanding of the consolidation of power, the kind of things people need to do to acquire it, and what motivates them. The personal and the political always collide. If something like Root, a PBTA game of woodland creatures resisting colonialism, can be used by governments to model insurgency then there is perhaps some use in modeling the halls of power to better strike against the heart of empire.
That said, there are plenty of things we can focus on mechanically to hone the game. Many of the fan supplement's listed above would be useful. The scale of the game is the first choice. You might focus on the capital of a kingdom or an entire country. Solo games mean it's possible to play multiple characters simultaneously so you might switch between a disgraced lordling, a knighted peasant, and a famous dancer. Certainly, people will come into conflict and rivalries will form. The Nemesis hack will add extra weight to this turning regular foes into notable characters. To further flesh out the social dimension of the game and the hidden information at play, the Investigation hack is another good tool. Feats & Favors as well as one of the settlement hacks listed above will also be pivotal as you'll want to model kingdoms, the factions within, and make the central location of intrigue a dynamic place. The "Scene Challenges" variant rule in the core book should honestly be standard for any Ironsworn game but it's going to see a lot of use carrying the action here as well.
Handling time management and scale is going to be one of the trickier issues. Calendar keeping is going to be very useful. It may be worth figuring out how long actions take and treating time as a resource spent to use moves, giving each character a limited number of moves they can use in a day, or letting a die decide (1d3 hours, 1d6 hours, 1d10 hours) and then upgrading the die if a miss or consequence causes a delay. Relationship moves are going to take center stage as alliances form and break. Sojourn is going to be the main rest action for settlement bound characters who probably have ties to notable factions. Make Camp will still be useful but won't be the main means of recovery which means characters can be expected to be more refreshed and supplied. Hitting with higher rank enemies when combat is on the table can make up for this. Draw the Circle is likely going to become the default combat opening in noble society.
Another possible concern is simulating war. Delve comes with a bonus asset called Commander that will be worth taking into consideration. You'll want to use the Battle move to settle larger confrontations and then simulate individual encounters as regular combat. Knowing how the overall battle goes will be useful for moving historical events forward, but the actual granular details might decide if a character receives honor or infamy. If you use multiple viewpoint characters, the commander might use the Battle move, while a fresh knight rolls for Enter the Fray. The order these are rolled may vary but they can be interlinked. Resolving the Battle move first might determine the rank of the knight's combat or a soldier's success in personal combat might give the commander help as if the Aid Your Ally move was used. Even in a fight, dynamic character relationships are going to be a key feature of this style of play.
Final Thoughts
Plotting out my own goals for my story really opened my mind to other ways the system's robust features can be used to create different types of narratives. Many of the resources available to this game are hosted in odd to find places like Patreon and Google Drive folders so I hope showcasing what the community has done will grow interest in further hacking of Ironsworn. This game also helps any aspiring writers learn pacing, worldbuilding, and character development. Focusing on different sets of moves available flavor how the game is played in cool ways so I would love to hear about how other people make changes to suit their needs. It's my plan to write more on my experience with the game in the form of session reports in the future but I wanted to start by laying out some thoughts on the system and tools available. If inspiration strikes, I'm also interested in designing my own hack at some point. Personally, I am pretty divorced from greater TTRPG communities since I left Twitter so I don't really have a clear idea on the ways that other people are playing this game but I really want to play Ironsworn more and see what players are doing with the system in their own campaigns.
