Dark, Darker, Darkest - How dark do you like your setting?

[oxinabox]

Just how dark do you like your setting?


I mean the Default setting for 3.5 is the Goldern Age, not dark at all.

The Default Setting for 4e is Pinpricks of light, darker (though not nesc. darker).

My current setting Humanity lost, has people reduced to a foodsource. Darker.
(though i really need to find it in my heart to kill of the PC's Pet Bear, the it will be much darker)

But those arn't ful descriptions of what makes a setting dark.

WoD, is DARK. (with the right GM)
We like to Call it WoUC, world of unnesciary cruelty.
If something bad can happen, it usaully does.
Subtly horific dreams.
(One my PChad, ended with me thumping the table: "Damn it, why? it's just not fair, so cruel!", and the rest of the party like "Huh? what was that about?")

So How Dark, How Cruel do you like your setting?

[Tiki Snakes]

My current setting Humanity lost, has people reduced to a foodsource. Darker.
(though i really need to find it in my heart to kill of the PC's Pet Bear, the it will be much darker)

Don't kill the bear. Make THEM kill the bear. Perhaps it slowly becomes more and more violent. Maybe they wake up one morning, and it's just not there. They find it in a nearby clearing, happily devouring the remains of a little blonde-haired, blue eyed kid.

I was about to suggest that it could instead simply be possessed by demons, but I have a much better idea. Have it exposed to the horrific energies of the Far-Realm. It comes back as a horrendously tortured tentacle-laden, puss-dripping wildly mutating abomination, lashing out at quite simply everything to hand, all the while crying in complete agony.

Or it could just contract bear-aids.

[edit] I like a range of Dark, of course. For normal DnD, a little is good, but I'm also in a Dark Heresy game, which is pretty much nuff-said.

[bosssmiley]

I <3 WFRP (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue8/jameswallisreplies1.html), old D&D (http://thefineartofthetpk.blogspot.com/) and Call of Cthulhu (http://www.baelgun.us/Portals/0/Gallery/Album/4/cthulhu.jpg). These fonts of elder wisdom have taught me that players are secretly all masochists: punish them (harshly, but fairly), and they'll love you for it. :smallamused:

Shiny Happy Friendly Pixie Land doesn't need heroes, whereas adversity, betrayal and difficult moral dilemmas are both good drama, and character building.

[Morty]

I like my settings as something between WFRP and D&D, closer to the former. However, it has to be dark for darkness' sake, not so that PCs have a lot of opportunities to be heroes like in some settings. They're supposed to crawl their way up, not rise as champions of the common folk or somesuch crap.
However, I don't like it if the setting goes too far on the dark scale, which is what some people seem to be doing with WFRP.

[Myshlaevsky]

I <3 WFRP (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue8/jameswallisreplies1.html) and old D&D (http://thefineartofthetpk.blogspot.com/). :smallamused:

Shiny Happy Friendly Pixie Land doesn't need heroes, whereas adversity and difficult moral dilemmas are character building.

Seconded. I like black comedy in my settings too.

[valadil]

I like dim, but not dark. I pretty much aim for an R rated game, without going into NC-17 or X territory. Disturbing things can happen, but they happen off camera. I tell the PCs just enough that they can draw a conclusion, without me having to spell it out for them.

I prefer this style because it draws an emotional reaction from players. I feel its more effective than something overly dark. When you go for no light whatsoever the game can easily go over the top ridiculous. Then when you try to be creepy the players can only laugh it off.

[Temet Nosce]

My favorite settings lean towards a dystopian feel, heavy on misery inflicted by people firmly convinced they're right with a few places ruled by coldly greedy dictators, which are still dystopian but more civilized and efficient (slavery, arenas, corruption, et al).

[oxinabox]

Don't kill the bear. Make THEM kill the bear. Perhaps it slowly becomes more and more violent. Maybe they wake up one morning, and it's just not there. They find it in a nearby clearing, happily devouring the remains of a little blonde-haired, blue eyed kid.
The Bear thinks it's a squirel. ther've raised it from a cub, and it's still only just a cub (it's now 4 ft tall)
(BTW all squirels in my setting are carnivous preditors, chasing down birds)
I'm Too damn nice.
Need more cruel!




I was about to suggest that it could instead simply be possessed by demons, but I have a much better idea. Have it exposed to the horrific energies of the Far-Realm. It comes back as a horrendously tortured tentacle-laden, puss-dripping wildly mutating abomination, lashing out at quite simply everything to hand, all the while crying in complete agony.

Or it could just contract bear-aids.

No Far-realm, No outsiders (well actually, demons, sound fun, totally eddigns style devil worship is now being added to my setting. THe good Guys are going to worship Devils).

Finding a small blue eyed child maybe hard...
and the PC's have showns some idea of the Greater good.

They plan to kill a group of 'paladins' intent on rescueing a herd of people from the cattle grounds. after the the "paladin" hurt the enemy as much as they can, but before the people are rescued, because they PC's believe that the Place where the rescued people will be hidden, will A) destoy the people there,. revieling them to the enemy, B) be unsaustainable, and everyone will starve (it'll be a population increase of 200+%)

Having the bear break a leg, and need to be put down could work.
Or Rabies.

Now, i need to bring myself to refluff, the oldest, most powerful man alive, who can remeber the time when humans were free.
Who can Heal people:
Who the Free villagers say "Ermane, is the olderst man who ever lived, my pappy says that when he was a child, ermane was twice as old as he is now."
Who the VIllagers say: "Ermane, he's lived forever, he's older than the world. I've seen him bring people back from the brink of death, They Say death can't see him, they say Death can't touch him"

Now the PC's are going to start receiving hint that he gets this because he worships an evil older than that wich besets humanity at the moment.
an evil, that if it slips out of his control, could damn the whole village.
(32 people is the most the PC's have ever seen free, By Far!)

[Guinea Anubis]

I like mine set up kind of like a dark comedy. There is humor in it but its very twisted.

[Knaight]

Ranges from fairly dark but comedic to absolute dystopia. The former tend to be fantasy, the latter hard sci-fi, frequently involving real religions taken to extremes.

[EleventhHour]

How dark do you like your dark? GRIMDARK.

[Rixx]

I like to hover somewhere between The Slayers and Guardian Heroes.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Fairly dark. Nations are at war, one nation wants to bring about decay and blackness while the other squirms in fear of it in the guise of victorious zeal. The nation of wild magic and freedom pretty much exploded and became a gigantic continent of "AAAHHHHSTOPCUTTINGMYFACEOFF!!!!" And not only that, but the undead continent that wants to kill everyone is drowning in it's own nihilism. The decay isn't only physical. The whole setting is pretty much a sea of tragedy, and will be until the Elder Gods rise from the sea and eats the multiverse.

[Rankar]

I enjoy the world to be real: its not perfect but its what we've got. Some people and places are decent enough but some others are war zones torn apart by magic and slaughter. Worldwide war gets crazy and there's always a Switzerland.

Oh, and humanity is seldom my main race since humans are morons and tick off the other races, thus settlements get slaughtered for being "holier than thou." Stupid humans.

[FoE]

In my typical setting, I start off with a world where the heroes ride magical ponies, drink from rivers of milk and joust with candy canes. Fights are ended with hugs and kisses.

Then I take that setting and rape the hell out of it. :smallamused:

[hamlet]

Do not confuse "dark" with salaciousness and sensationalist.

That is all.

[Tempest Fennac]

I don't like dark settings at all due to finding the game to be less fun (I'm inclined to have gameworlds which are generally peaceful and plesent with less plesent things existing).

[chiasaur11]

I enjoy the world to be real: its not perfect but its what we've got. Some people and places are decent enough but some others are war zones torn apart by magic and slaughter. Worldwide war gets crazy and there's always a Switzerland.

Oh, and humanity is seldom my main race since humans are morons and tick off the other races, thus settlements get slaughtered for being "holier than thou." Stupid humans.

Holier than thou?

Humans can be right #&@s at times, granted, but compared to Elves, we're tolerable on the lecturing front.

Stupid elves.

[FoE]

Holier than thou?

Humans can be right #&@s at times, granted, but compared to Elves, we're saintly on that front.

It's a pity you can't argue with them. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitleukqnnj0yvqci)

[Cubey]

Moderate. Good and bad things happen but for good reasons rather than "just because". Total bastards can be found everywhere, but so do nice people and altruists. By default, the party will achieve their goals or at least live through the experience, but there may be sacrifices along the way. Very painful sacrifices. That they can avoid if they try hard or smart enough.

I hate it when people mistake dark and edgy for mature. I'd rather play Happy Sunshine Land the RPG than something like this (http://forums.bioware.com/viewpost.html?topic=639622&post=5897859&forum=84).

[Wulfram]

Unhappy is the land that needs heroes.

Things have to be going pretty badly, so that there's something for the PCs to do.

However, too dark settings can be annoying because they limit your character options. It's nice to have the option to play reasonably light hearted characters. I also don't like settings where civilisation is extinct, just because of the sort of character I prefer to play

[chiasaur11]

It's a pity you can't argue with them. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitleukqnnj0yvqci)

Linking to TV tropes?

I lost five minutes just now. FIVE.

That's...

actually not that much. Huh.

[deuxhero]

Dark, but with no emo characters.

[Solaris]

My campaign's deities are cribbed from the Cthulhu mythos, and not the crap where there's Good Cthulhu. There are no good gods, just celestials and dragons pretending to be deities. Adventurers don't kill dragons, dragons kill adventurers. The celestials reproduce by infecting humans. So do the fiends. The ectoplasm used to make 'computers' is harvested from prisoners, pulling them from the cycle of reincarnation forever. They mass-produce clockwork robots that use these computers, which means they do this to a lot of prisoners. That's in the LG kingdom. It recently launched a crusade that involved putting entire villages to the torch that was entirely justified and necessary. They almost wiped out civilization on their continent. One of the most powerful spellcasters ever used this line in reference to his foe's seeming inability to stay dead: "That which is not dead can eternal lie, and given strange eons even death itself may die." Arcane magic is slowly tearing apart reality, piece by itty-bitty piece. The ancients imprisoned Dragons in the Netherworld to prevent this destruction, but they only succeeded in delaying it for a while... and in making the Netherworld an even worse place to visit. Life itself is bleeding out of the universe as the tainting of the Netherworld means all souls get more and more polluted each time they reincarnate. Elves are not nice. Dwarves aren't either. Nobody's nice, not even the good guys. Neither elves nor dwarves are the good guys, and neither are most humans. The Industrial Revolution this world is undergoing is pouring pollution and semimagical death into the ecosystem. The ecosystem is fighting back. Most of the world is either under the tyrranical grasp of a demilich or stands on the verge of bloody revolutions very much like the French Revolution.
And there are guns. Many, varied, and advanced guns.

[Pika...]

As a DM:
Well, my own can be dark (Humans also lost for example), but then again I have incorporated someone's plane of confectionery sweets with a few adjustments.


As a Player:
As long as there is no rape or child abuse I don't care much. I'd gladly play the darkest ravenloft or cathulu inspired game, or I can play Smurfs level fantasy. I prefer the later, though.

[Choco]

Unhappy is the land that needs heroes.

Things have to be going pretty badly, so that there's something for the PCs to do.

That is my view as well. Most of my settings are fairly dark, though not to the point where light just cannot exist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapsackWorld).

For added fun, I like to throw "dark" reveals at my players whenever dramatically appropriate, it NEVER gets old. For example, in my setting people can get corrupted through exposure to a big enough source of negative energy, and this corruption basically turns them into mindless, savage animals bent on killing anything that isnt one of them. This condition is not curable (stopping the spread of this "disease" is one of the major plot points of the campaign). Then one day the PC's were escorting a young (12 y/o) princess back home when they discovered she had the ability to cure this corruption. So there was much rejoicing and they thought that with the help of this girl they have saved the world. However, her power was actually more of a filter, and we all know what happens to any (physical) filters over time. The look on their faces was PRICELESS when they figured out that every time she used her filter ability, it ate away a little more of her body and even magical healing didnt work (she was an altruistic kid, honestly wanting to help people and suffering silently until it was just too much to hide). That little revelation, in addition to bringing up plenty of moral questions, definitely put a slight dent in their plans :smallamused:

[Eldan]

Worldwide war gets crazy and there's always a Switzerland..

---Self-censhorship---

Okay, no real world politics.

Anyway, I mostly play Planescape. It can be rather dark, but often players won't really notice the darkest parts... if you spend enough time in, let's say, Arborea, you might forget that there's also a Hades, or Sigil's Night Market.

[Superglucose]

I like dark, as in bleak. You need to gain political favor, which doesn't necessarily mean you have to do something terrible, but you do have to turn a blind eye to the fact that the government a) runs a slave trade and b) is essentially run by an enormous crime syndicate.

To me, Dark doesn't mean "horror" or "disturbing" but rather "very little you can do in the world." See the movie "Pay it forward." It's dark, but there's only a couple of spots of violence when the little boy gets stabbed and when the teacher explains the story of him getting lit on fire, the dark part is that despite the little boy's giving and giving, everything stays the same. The drug addict goes back to doing drugs, etc. etc.

*THAT'S* dark, *that's* psychological. Guts strewn along the walls is spectacle.

[Flayerman]

I'm inclined to agree with Superglucose. I like a healthy range of light as a feather (I GM Spelljammer, for crissake) to dark as night (my games leave people guessing and one continuing horror game has its only player routinely put through rigors that would break a normal man).

But the real thing about dark is definitely the bleakness, not the spectacle. Anybody can whip out some tentacles and go to town on unsuspecting townsfolk, it takes a real monster to make them want it and turn on the adventurers who just saved them from what was basically the greatest psychic escape from their sorrows they'll ever get.

[Crafty Cultist]

I think a fantasy world should have a balance of light and dark, and be fairly realistic. society should seem alright on the surface but beneath that organized crime, cultists, corrupt officials and serial killers can make the world a dark place for those in the shadier parts of society(such as adventurers). of course, the common folk are unlikely to get involved in these circles, so society goes on

[Shademan]

I'd like to play one thats Berserk dark, if you know what i'm sayin'?

[Requiem Star]

I played in an 4e DnD game. We rolled up our characters fairly standardly. I made a warlock. Another person made a paladin. We didn't get the details beyond that. So about a month in we're doing fairly well clearing out some goblins when we capture some women and children. We are all for letting them go. The paladin objects. I point out that it would be wrong of us to just slaughter them. He agrees.

He wants to sell them as slaves. Now the fighter and wisard are VERY greedy fellows. They go right along with it. That leaves me and the cleric. So we force some of the goblins to chain up the survivors and march them to a city where the paladin sells them for some decent money. The fighter laughs and says, 'We should do that again.'

We do it again. Only this time we do it with human women and children taken from the "Evil Empire." Oh. And he selects two eight year old girls as a part of his harem. And he NAMES them and has them eat with us and comments on how their training is coming.

Over the next month we wipe out the local criminals and set up our own vice based criminal empire. IC I'm indifferent and OCC I'm agast. He finally takes over the city council and bribes them into naming him king. We purge the temples to gods of light and hand them over to devil cultists. And we end that campaign as the minor lords with him as king and paladin of Bane.

The twist? He and the GM discussed in advance to see just how far he could go before we turned on him and killed him. The thing was, we never did.

[Rankar]

Linking to TV tropes?

I lost five minutes just now. FIVE.

That's...

actually not that much. Huh.

You only got lost for five minutes? I'm still browsing!

[Shademan]

In my typical setting, I start off with a world where the heroes ride magical ponies, drink from rivers of milk and joust with candy canes. Fights are ended with hugs and kisses.

Then I take that setting and rape the hell out of it. :smallamused:

I want to play in your game

[Masaioh]

I like my setting kinda dark. Mature themes abound and most actions have serious consequences. However, my NPCs are usually larger-than-life like characters from a classical tragedy. If DnD were to become grimdark like 40k, I dunno if it would be as fun.

[barteem]

I am currently running a campaign that is recovering from the gates of hell being blasted open in to the prime material and then saved by the last set of heroes (Who didn't survive).
Now the world is recovering, but there is a lot of things that have become very dark and dangerous since the damage was done.
My comic is also darkly themed.

[Dienekes]

I GM dark. I've been told it makes Westeros look like Happy Fun Land.

But that's because I like my games pseudo-realistic. In the medieval ages the loss of a baby was considered less important than a bad crop or crippled horse, the popular form of entertainment was listening to a bag of cats burning, a conquering army destroys and loots, no matter which side they're on, ect.

My players seem to like it, and I can't stand hugs and kisses setting, so that's how we continue to play.

[Indon]

I like my settings undark. Instead of traveling to the Shadowdark to fight Demons, my party travels to the Happylight to fight the incursion of the Meanies. We ride unicorns upon rainbow paths to battle and unleash the pact-forged powers we gained from the Shiny Happy People of the Puregood (above the Happylight, below the Awesomesauce).

But seriously, my campaigns tend not to be dark, and I prefer it that way. "Darkness" in a campaign is about player impotence - no matter what you do, all your efforts are in vain, and it all falls apart no matter how hard you try to hold it together. That might be fun every once in a while (I have played one CoC campaign and I'm in a WHRP with the darkness toned down - it's gritty, but there is in fact a possibility that we might accomplish something if we don't die), but it's not something I want to make a hobby out of.

You aren't a hero if you aren't accomplishing something. And if you can't be a hero, while there may be a point for your fictional character to try and fail in tragic style, I don't see much point for you as a real player to bother.

[Meek]

I don't find much joy in childishly dark settings. I like my settings to run more or less in a neutral-to-good zone with varying problems. Whereas D&D 4e started calling the typical crapsack world "Points of Light" in an overwhelming dark, I prefer my settings to have "Points of Darkness" in a fairly neutral world. The points of darkness might be numerous, but they are not the dominant mode of thought or way of being. Evil isn't so common you can find it by going anywhere outside the village fence. I feel that this gives strength and drama to an evil or immoral act, unlike it being committed in a total crapsack world.

[Dienekes]

But seriously, my campaigns tend not to be dark, and I prefer it that way. "Darkness" in a campaign is about player impotence - no matter what you do, all your efforts are in vain, and it all falls apart no matter how hard you try to hold it together. That might be fun every once in a while (I have played one CoC campaign and I'm in a WHRP with the darkness toned down - it's gritty, but there is in fact a possibility that we might accomplish something if we don't die), but it's not something I want to make a hobby out of.

You aren't a hero if you aren't accomplishing something. And if you can't be a hero, while there may be a point for your fictional character to try and fail in tragic style, I don't see much point for you as a real player to bother.

I disagree, a dark setting is not about denying you characters the ability to be heroes. It's about showing your players just how hard heroism truly is. In a dark setting (other than CoC, or so I've heard) the goals for a character simply need to be more realistic and the players need to realize that it will be hard, and perilous. Which simply makes the accomplishment that much more fulfilling.

[Tyndmyr]

I played in an 4e DnD game. We rolled up our characters fairly standardly. I made a warlock. Another person made a paladin. We didn't get the details beyond that. So about a month in we're doing fairly well clearing out some goblins when we capture some women and children. We are all for letting them go. The paladin objects. I point out that it would be wrong of us to just slaughter them. He agrees.

He wants to sell them as slaves.

Im normally a bit lenient on alignment...but how did he not fall? Has paladin been severely loosened up in 4E or something?

[SurlySeraph]

I like a range, but I tend to prefer worlds where there's a lot of grim horribleness but dedicated effort can change things. "An orc army shows up and burns all the towns and starts killing everyone" is fine, "You can't save even a single child after casting all your spells for the day and getting beaten half to death by the orcs to distract them while he fled into the woods" is not. Verisimilitude is what matters; if it seems like the world's twisting itself to make things worse, I get annoyed. If it's just a horrible place but you can make it ever so slightly better, that's fine.

[spamoo]

This will likely end now that I'm creating a persistent world, but I like to watch as the world is corrupted around the PCs just to see if they are corrupted along with it. Often my players will "win" just to find themselves and the world around them in a darker, more perilous situation. It's a point of personal satisfaction when that LG character finds himself repeatedly performing evil acts in the name of "the greater good". I guess I'm just sadistic like that.

[FoE]

Im normally a bit lenient on alignment...but how did he not fall? Has paladin been severely loosened up in 4E or something?

1) Paladins no longer have to follow the Lawful Good alignment. There are paladins of Bane, Vecna, Asmodeus ...

2) Paladins no longer "fall". They may face swift retribution from other followers of their religion/their own gods for "straying from the path", but they do not fall.

[arguskos]

My personal world is modeled on the idea that the universe is pitiless. Entropy rules all, and the sooner the players realize it, the better off they'll be. It's a bleak, savage, cruel world, where heroes are rare, morality is gray at best, and any truly good deed never goes unpunished. I like it, but I haven't gotten a chance to really dig into it yet with a game, so it's as of yet untested. It's also unfinished, so :smallbiggrin:

[Rixx]

Man, you guys all need to lighten up.

[Foryn Gilnith]

I mean the Default setting for 3.5 is the Goldern Age, not dark at all.

That's how I roll. I will make my villains/characters/et cetera suitably ruthless, but the world at large is a nice place. Full of evil bastards who bring their little slices of hell to those in their path; but that's no different from our world and we get along well enough. Despite rampant banditry/cults/warfare, the world is moving on. Damn well they should after millenia of medieval stasis.

[lesser_minion]

My group IRL tends to like fairly idealistic - not only is it possible for the net suffering of the universe to decrease, but it actually happens fairly regularly. This applies even in Call of Cthulhu (I have lost characters in CoC, but I don't keep six or seven backups) and Paranoia (we've only had one player clone executed, and they were pretty catastrophically mutated).

I'm not really sure where I fall on the scale, but almost every game I've played has been a lot more idealistic than might be expected. We usually employ grit rather than grimdark.

Saying that, I might consider playing a game which was closer to the bleak end of the scale.

[Knaight]

I like dark, as in bleak. You need to gain political favor, which doesn't necessarily mean you have to do something terrible, but you do have to turn a blind eye to the fact that the government a) runs a slave trade and b) is essentially run by an enormous crime syndicate.

To me, Dark doesn't mean "horror" or "disturbing" but rather "very little you can do in the world." See the movie "Pay it forward." It's dark, but there's only a couple of spots of violence when the little boy gets stabbed and when the teacher explains the story of him getting lit on fire, the dark part is that despite the little boy's giving and giving, everything stays the same. The drug addict goes back to doing drugs, etc. etc.

*THAT'S* dark, *that's* psychological. Guts strewn along the walls is spectacle.
I agree with this hugely. My darkest campaign was one where things were on the brink of a nuclear holy war (as mentioned previously), and the players were playing one of the secular groups trying to stop it. They held it off, and eventually got one of the leaders to admit that they were wrong, and shouldn't have committed all the atrocities that they did. This lead to the war starting up, and nuclear holocaust on all sides. Plus there were moments where they were seeing atrocities, and were helpless to stop them. Terrible lawful execution for things that weren't even crimes for instance.

Basically, it made Song of Ice and Fire look bright. I usually don't run stuff anywhere near that dark though.

[blackseven]

I don't find much joy in childishly dark settings.

I agree with this.

I think I prefer my settings to be darker grey, but high contrast. Meaning, in general the world is in decline, but those fewer heroes are generally genuine heroes. Sure you have a lot of antiheroes too, but I like to see incorruptible heroes in a setting that makes them stand out more.

I really don't like settings where pretty much every hero is supposed to die early uselessly or to fall into corruption. That's not the only definition of "dark" but it seems to be the one in vogue today.

[alchemyprime]

Shaded.

What do I mean by shaded? You know the dark is dark. You go to the Shadowfell, your party is gonna be all "well yeah, its bad, its the Shadowfell, stay the hells outta there." But then they think "the Feywild, its all pretty and lively. Its gotta be nice!" Then they have a feyhound eating the cleric's face.

The only thing you can trust to be nice in my campaigns is yourself, but by necessity of my design, you must rely upon the kindness of strangers. In my last campaign, we had a gloaming rogue with a *touch* of nymphomania (we always said no details, she agreed unless we knew the people who showed up could handle them).

Well, one campaign, she seduced a troll to get out of having the swordmage eaten. That one worked. One time she seduced a barmaid for free beer. Hag in disguise.

I also enjoy having different NPCs have different themes. In the house of a paranoid old aristocrat, do not steal when he besmirches you.

The drow sorcerer tried to kill the fighter so he'd get his share of the loot. The old man saw this and held back the drows part of the reward. The drow stole a bag of coins from the old man in vengence. The old man cursed the sack to teleport it and the holder to the prison if the password wasn't said at the county line.

Because I know my players. And I knew the drow would throw a hissy. So I came prepared.

So, shaded. Everything is either darker or lighter than your first impression, but you never know which until its too late...

[oxinabox]

DArk must be subtle.
There is no horror in a n iron maiden.
There is horror in seeing your savior, who you are sworn to rescue in turn, tourchered through his own eyes for letting you free

[chiasaur11]

Gotta say, there's dark, and then there's grimdark, you know?

The first one, fine. Bad stuff does happen, and all you can do is deal with it as best you can. A lot of darkness makes heroics shine brighter, ect.

The second one...

seems to be coming up a lot in this thread. If you're playing it for yuks, great. Grimdark done deadpan can be absolutely hilarious. If not...

Look. If the best thing I can do is murder a kitten so it can have a brief respite before demons come and devour its soul, I don't care how serious you take the setting. My next character is going to be a devotee of Gork or Mork, and the whole setting is pretty much past taking seriously. You want me to care, you gotta give half a chance to make things better.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I played in an 4e DnD game. We rolled up our characters fairly standardly. I made a warlock. Another person made a paladin. We didn't get the details beyond that. So about a month in we're doing fairly well clearing out some goblins when we capture some women and children. We are all for letting them go. The paladin objects. I point out that it would be wrong of us to just slaughter them. He agrees.

He wants to sell them as slaves. Now the fighter and wisard are VERY greedy fellows. They go right along with it. That leaves me and the cleric. So we force some of the goblins to chain up the survivors and march them to a city where the paladin sells them for some decent money. The fighter laughs and says, 'We should do that again.'

We do it again. Only this time we do it with human women and children taken from the "Evil Empire." Oh. And he selects two eight year old girls as a part of his harem. And he NAMES them and has them eat with us and comments on how their training is coming.

Over the next month we wipe out the local criminals and set up our own vice based criminal empire. IC I'm indifferent and OCC I'm agast. He finally takes over the city council and bribes them into naming him king. We purge the temples to gods of light and hand them over to devil cultists. And we end that campaign as the minor lords with him as king and paladin of Bane.

The twist? He and the GM discussed in advance to see just how far he could go before we turned on him and killed him. The thing was, we never did.

Did you even KNOW what god he served?

[Crafty Cultist]

I think a game world requires variation. if everything is dark, it becomes the norm and villains no longer stand out as much. the lighter your world, the more unsettling an evil becomes

[Solaris]

Dark must be subtle.
There is no horror in an iron maiden.
There is horror in seeing your savior, who you are sworn to rescue in turn, tourchered through his own eyes for letting you free

Agreed. All of the things I mentioned in my campaign are things the players don't know. Yet. I was never one for having someone tortured, children maimed, etc, etc. Like others have said, that's just being sensationalist. I prefer the more psychological things, stuff where the player looks at it and says "Man, this is all kinds of wrong."

[infinitypanda]

I usually run it pretty light. Whenever it does get dark, it's usually darkly humorous. Sometimes it strays into dead baby comedy, but mostly just with off-the-cuff NPC comments rather than, you know, actual dead babies.

Can we get a trap that dumps two tons of dead babies onto the party statted? That would be intense.