Disco Elysium perfectly captured the tabletop RPG experience. It is not a Dungeons & Dragons-style game, but an homage to less mainstream TTRPGs.
Many video games try to evoke the tabletop RPG experience, but with Disco Elysium, developer ZA/UM took a different route, capturing the feeling of the numerous TTRPGs that are not Dungeons & Dragons or similar heroic fantasy games. Games like D&D focus primarily on combat, and many other popular tabletop RPGs like Shadowrun have a similar focus, albeit swapping dungeons filled with monsters for corporate facilities with security staff. A significant portion of the TTRPG hobby places just as much emphasis on skills outside of combat, including the investigation-oriented Call of Cthulhu and early White Wolf RPGs like Vampire: the Masquerade. Disco Elysium marvelously captures a tabletop experience, but for those who have never ventured beyond D&D and similar games, it may be an unfamiliar one.
Critics and players have praised the uniquely brilliant writing in reviews of Disco Elysium, but just as impressive as the quality of the writing is the sheer scope of possibilities the game accounts for. Disco Elysium is the best video game representation of a skill-based tabletop RPG where the Game Master allows the players to approach problems from any angle. The game uses an easy-to-understand tabletop-style system of rolling two six-sided dice to determine success or failure. The skill list in Disco Elysium is broad, ranging from RPG staples like Perception to more eclectic skills like Electro-Chemistry, which governs the protagonist’s relationship to substance abuse. Because the game offers a wide variety of approaches to advancing the investigation, any of these skills could come into play.
Related: What's New In Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Where games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Solasta: Crown of the Magister adapt 5e D&D's system to video game form, others like Pillars of Eternity use original mechanics to provide a D&D-style experience. Disco Elysium is closer to the second group, but as an homage to games beyond D&D. While Disco Elysium stands alongside independent video game giants, it also pays tribute to indie tabletop RPGs and less mainstream TTRPGs. Instead of reminding players of their favorite D&D campaign, Disco Elysium is more likely to evoke the feeling of games like Unknown Armies or The Strange. Tracking both Health and Morale is an unusual concept for D&D, but very familiar to players of World of Darkness RPGs like Mage: the Ascension, where Willpower is a vital resource.
The story and setting of Disco Elysium may remind players of the surreal tabletop RPGs that make Death Stranding seem grounded and straightforward in comparison. Its gameplay also draws from the tradition of skill-based RPGs, rather than combat-focused games. In Disco Elysium, combat skills like Hand-Eye Coordination (for firearms) and Physical Instrument (for melee combat) are in no way more important than social and investigation skills. If anything, these skills are less valuable, as much more of the game is spent trying to connect the dots and get people to open up to the protagonist as opposed to engaging in direct armed conflict. Where modern D&D has broad social skills like Persuasion and Deception, Disco Elysium has more nuanced skill distinctions, like Rhetoric, Drama, and Authority.
Disco Elysium is clearly designed as a love letter to tabletop RPGs. Players can collect tabletop RPG dice in Disco Elysium and they may encounter games like “Wirrâl 3rd Edition Mega-Supplements Setting Module” in the Martinaise bookstore. The game even features a comical take on a primitive MMORPG, a failed business from the Doomed Commercial Area which was to be conducted using a series of linked phone networks with live Game Masters adjudicating results in a shared campaign.
The fictional games referenced within Disco Elysium resemble D&D and wargames, but the experience of playing Disco Elysium is closer to Kult, or a game using the FATE system. Tabletop RPGs are as flexible as the GM and the players allow them to be, but their mechanics suggest the game’s focus. A game like D&D has a multitude of rules to resolve combat, but relatively lean rules for social encounters. Disco Elysium’s skill system makes it clear that violence is just another skill check. A player might use Reaction Speed to dodge a bullet, but they are more likely to use Composure to avoid embarrassment.
Related: How Disco Elysium: The Final Cut Got Un-Banned In Australia
Disco Elysium is one of the best isometric RPGs to play, visually harkening back to the original Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment. The gameplay of Disco Elysium goes far beyond what Planescape offered in terms of versatility and depth of writing. As a video game, every possible story branch and skill check outcome has been dictated in advance by the designers, and their efforts resemble an experienced GM functioning at their very best. Some scenarios mimic a well-prepared GM who accounted both for players who might use Rhetoric to talk their way past a guard while others might use Savoir Faire to parkour around the situation. Other scenarios resemble a game where a player goes off the rails and the GM rolls with the punches admirably, as with the NPC responses to outlandish player dialogue options in Disco Elysium.
For players experienced in less mainstream tabletop RPGs, like those who recall both Vampire: the Masquerade and Vampire: the Requiem, or Call of Cthulhu veterans, Disco Elysium offers the feeling of a masterful home-brew campaign. The world-building is laid out elegantly, presenting a setting that mirrors real-world politics and nations enough to be familiar, but with enough changes and fantastical elements to keep things interesting. The main narrative of Disco Elysium focuses primarily on politics and murder, but its setting contains supernatural overtones, with The Pale, a mysterious fog of madness that separates small “Isolas” of reality, and The Innocence, a saint-like being given absolute political authority that might be a vessel for some supernal consciousness. This design makes Disco Elysium a dream setting for several styles of tabletop game, catering to everything from gritty police drama to Lovecraftian horror.
The tabletop RPGs Disco Elysium evokes are certainly the more mature ones that are not appropriate for young players. While it was bizarre that the TMNT RPG dealt with drug addiction and psychosis, this subject matter is entirely fitting for Disco Elysium’s story. The protagonist emerges from a bender of booze and drugs, trying to forget the pain of his past, and pushes through an amnesia-inducing hangover to solve a brazen murder than conceals a web of politics and underworld activities. The player might commune with the urban spirits of Revachol or plunge back into substance abuse to find the edge they need. Disco Elysium is a sterling example of a supremely executed tabletop RPG campaign, but it is not an iconic Dungeons & Dragons game; it is an homage to the many other TTRPGs that have pushed the hobby further beyond its wargaming roots.
Next: Exalted Is The Tabletop RPG Most In Need Of Video Game Adaptation
Derek Garcia is a Game Feature Writer for ScreenRant. He lives with his wife, three dogs, and a likely excessive number of video game consoles. When he is not writing, playing video games, watching movies or television, or reading novels or comic books, he occasionally takes some time to sleep. Derek majored in journalism and worked for a print newspaper before discovering the internet. He is a fan of science fiction and fantasy, video game and tabletop RPGs, classic Hong Kong action movies, and graphic novels. After being immersed in nerd culture for many years, Derek is now happy to write about the media he enjoys instead of just ranting to his friends.