Earlier this 12 months, Helldiver 2’s grip on gaming tradition was unmatched. For no less than a month, each nook of social media was brimming with memes created from or impressed by absurd gameplay from the smash-hit by Arrowhead Video games. And that’s not a fluke, comedic play was constructed into the bones of the sport, all the best way right down to the tabletop role-playing sport that impressed it: Drakar och Demoner, or because it’s extra generally recognized within the English-speaking world, Dragonbane — a Swedish tackle Dungeons & Dragons that you could play proper now.
First reported on by PCGamer earlier this 12 months, Arrowhead Video games’ CEO and artistic director Johan Pilestedt mentioned his sport design tends to lean in direction of comedy due to his expertise with tabletop video games, “the place the gamers handle to show the whole lot right into a farce.” On Monday, in an interview with the New York Occasions, Pilestedt specified that it was his childhood video games of Drakar och Demoner that influenced the collaborative, long-form narrative strategy Helldivers 2 would turn out to be recognized for.
Drakar och Demoner (which straight interprets to Dragons and Demons) was first printed in 1982 by Goal Video games. Whereas then eight-year-old Dungeons & Dragons had begun to develop in reputation, the barrier between the English-language sport and the Swedish-speaking participant base supplied a possibility for Goal Video games to make their very own fantasy tabletop RPG utilizing the Primary Position-Enjoying system, the brainchild of Name of Cthulu writer Chaosium.
Since its preliminary conception, the sport has gone by means of six editions and virtually as many publishers, most not too long ago touchdown with Free League — the Swedish tabletop writer recognized for video games like The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, Mork Borg, The Electrical State, and Alien: The Position-Enjoying Sport amongst others. In 2022, for the sport’s fortieth anniversary, Free League ran a Kickstarter for an English-language version of Drakar och Demoner’s, which raised over $700,000. The complete historical past of Drakar och Demoner is an extended one, which may be learn in a e-book by Orvar Säfström and Jimmy Wilhelmsson… although sadly it’s solely accessible in Swedish.
Dragonbane, based on Free League’s website, goals to domesticate a playstyle it calls “mirth and mayhem roleplaying.” The sport’s excessive fantasy design prioritizes minimal pre-session preparation with massive, absurd swings throughout play. Gamers select professions — which not like D&D courses solely affect beginning stats and don’t limit development to pre-determined talent paths — and species, which embrace normal fantasy dwarves and elves in addition to extra out-there selections like the enduring mallards, often known as duck-people. The central mechanic of the sport makes use of a well-recognized skill-based d20 system, however as an alternative of rolling excessive to succeed like in D&D, gamers need to roll low. In the event you’re taken with Dragonbane’s particular mechanics, precise participant Jasmine Bhullar (Dimension 20, DesiQuest, Acquisitions Included) made a video breaking down how Dragonbane compares to D&D and what, in her opinion, it does higher.
Whereas it’s not fairly the identical sport Helldiver 2’s improvement staff performed almost 40 years in the past, the affect of Dragonbane (or extra precisely Drakar och Demoner) is simple. Each time you see a Helldiver meme, bear in mind, you’ve a Swedish tabletop sport to thank.