Thinking about these kinds of games, their roots and what could be taken from them and tossed onto the table.
Things that interest me about Roguelikes
- final death
- fast chargen
- procedural generated setting
- gear/scarcity
- levels and improvement
- challenging? learning through play?
- No linear path, no path at all
Things that interest me about Souls-likes
I could be wrong about any of these. I really only know these games through their trailers and online discussion but find them fascinating.
- dark setting
- old maps recontextualized
- big antagonists
- setting has strong, iconic vibe, building on a theme
- armor and swords (dress-up?)
- winding path that doubles back
- cursed character with an odd relationship to life and death
I’m thinking out loud here and tossing out notes in public. If you have any thoughts on tabletop RPG’s and these games please let me know.
Githyanki Diaspora 
Another aspect of the first generation Roguelikes that’s interesting is object interactions – NetHack in particular being famous for things you find having multiple ways they can interact with each other, dipping items in potions/pools of water, dropping rings in sinks, right up to the emergent fun of monster interactions plus polymorph… There’s some great ones reminisced about here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/Rp4-2A3OxuM
Also – Cogmind! How awesome does that look! Not heard of that and it’s immediately onto my Steam wishlist 😁