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View Full Version : Light, Lighter, Happy Fairy Unicorn Land... who here likes cheerful settings?



BarbarianNina
2009-10-23, 07:19 PM
Edit: Just to clarify, the title is tongue-in-cheek. I'm looking for conversation about anything that probably falls in the lighter, happier, or more uplifting half of roleplaying games-- not just the Happy Fairy Unicorn Land settings.

Obviously, this comes out of reading the thread about dark campaign settings. I was wondering who here prefers light settings, and what you think that means.

I'd define a 'light' setting as one where:
a. Geniunely upsetting events are rare and
b. Most bad things that DO occur can be fixed or prevented by the PCs, who are reliably heroic good guys.
Feel free to argue with this in subsequent posts.

I've played in a variety of campaigns with a variety of moods, and I've definitely found that I prefer lighter settings, both as a player and as a DM. Some questions that have come up for me:
How do you make a genuinely wicked villain without darkening the mood too much?
How much goodness on the part of NPCs is believable, and what's overdoing it?

I'd also like to hear anecdotes from campaigns you personally consider 'light,' or what you thought was fun about it.

Johanas
2009-10-23, 07:30 PM
I tend to find as a DM I love the darker settings. Love 'em. However, as a PLAYER, I do find that I side with the lighter settings. I guess I just like inflicting harm on others, but can't take it myself. Alas. One thing of note is that if you're trying to make a genuinely evil villain, keep in mind evil is relative. Take a charismatic villain for example. You could have the bloodsucking Strahd....or he just be kind of a deusch, much like Jafar. Disney, whether you love 'em or hate 'em, DO do a good job of making happy worlds with evil villains, but without the villains subtracting too much. Hercules is a good example. The world was fun and exciting, but Hades was just so much fun...and (please pardon the pun) evil as hell.

drengnikrafe
2009-10-23, 07:53 PM
Do I like cheerful settings? Yes, sometimes. But, like everything else, in moderation. Being able to keep the bad events of the world in the palm of your hands could get kind of old, and everything being at peace... it's hard to stay attached.

Brendan
2009-10-23, 07:54 PM
dark in my opinion is more fun to roleplay, as you can cheat and extort other PCs. However, one campaign was cancelled by a DM of mine simply because we were too evil. I almost killed another PC, and a friend of mine took over permanantly another.

shadow_archmagi
2009-10-23, 07:54 PM
I was just watching this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgVc2uEY6E0&feature=PlayList&p=CF68E26749BD5A5A&index=0&playnext=1) because it has Doctor Horrible in it and is really awesome, and I was thinking

"You know it might be fun to play in an incredibly campy setting. Like, where villains always use nonlethal weapons against guards and say things like "WITH THE POWER OF THE ARKENBEAM, I WILL CREATE MASS CHAOS! WAHAHAHAHA! THEN I'LL SETTLE THE SCORE!"

BarbarianNina
2009-10-23, 08:15 PM
Disney villains are definitely memorable, and some of them can be quite scary, especially as a little kid. There's one problem with Disney, though-- their characters tend to win at least partially by being the good guys. Bad guys are bad, but they if they die at all, they tend to die by falling off convenient cliffs-- which is fine in a children's story, but not a particularly nice DM move. There are exceptions, of course.

Come to think of it, 'Mulan' did a pretty good job of showing a village that had been wiped out by the Huns, and evoking an emotional response, without showing-- or even narrating-- anything that had happened there. And the Hun general was a darn good bad guy.

'Mulan' spoilers :smallamused:
And, come to think of it, didn't Mulan get to kill him deliberately? That's a rare thing in a Disney film.

Draz74
2009-10-23, 08:50 PM
'Mulan' spoilers :smallamused:
And, come to think of it, didn't Mulan get to kill him deliberately? That's a rare thing in a Disney film.

Yeah, they still didn't show the death up-close-and-graphic, but it was definitely one of the rare Disney cases where hero kills villain. Not the only one though ...

Sleeping Beauty is the other big main exception.

JonestheSpy
2009-10-23, 09:12 PM
I find I have a real prediliction toward settings that the characters would really want to defend. I don't think that precludes wicked and horrifying villains, but it does mean I don't have the villains lay waste to towns and swaths of countryside just for dramatic effect - or at least not towns full of the characters' friends and family. And NPC's can just simply be decent people who want to live their lives - they don't all have to be singing nuns. Hell, they can even be kind of small minded and annoying like many of the hobbits in the beginning chapters of the Lord of the Rings, but show their real strength of character in hard times.

I enjoy a Mad Max or Zombie Apocolypse style setting sometimes, but even then it's about helping the remaining pockets of decency, not just the grimdark, no hope stuff that seems so popular in certain circles, i.e. Ravenloft or World of Darkness.

Paulus
2009-10-23, 09:19 PM
Oh I love lighter side! I love it to death. Second only to realism survival games. Kick in the door, save the princess, save the day, return to the town, big nasty is terrorizing it, beat the big nasty, save the town, even bigger nasty who sent the big nasty reveals itself, defeat the even bigger big nasty and save the world! YEAAAAHHH!! Thees and thous and knights and dragons and all of that! love it love it loooooooOoooOOOoOOOOOooovve it!

but I also love the satirical side of like, knight rescues princess who turns out to be the dragon and ran away. woops! suddenly knight falls in love with dragon princess. or goblin farmers are attacked by human barbarians, or unicorns start terrorizing school children, makes me giggle, makes me smile, I'm all for it.

Far too much 'dark and gritty' in the world. I love happy endings and everything about them. Sugar coat, sappy sweet. HOORAY!


but you know what I love more then either of these three types? All of them at once.

a grim and gritty world were there is no norm, where the nonsensacal can be possible, where the great evil slays kings, ruins towns, goblin farmers home burned down, the princess is brutally beaten and captured. Our hero straps on his armor, picks up his sword and marches in blood through the armies, slaughtering visceral foes and hanging onto his own life through a blood soaked thread. He looses fingers, his body is broken several times, still he continues, still he marches on... at the doorsteps of the great keep, he sneaks in, past the armies, past the welling darkness in the land, he quietly slits the throat of those he can not pass. He find her there, beaten, bruised (but never used... never.) and carriers out as best as he can. Only to happen upon the great evil, laughing at them, mocking his mortal attempts, scoffing at his goals, and thus he flings him aside with one fell swat, and our hero is smashed against the wall.

The princess falls to the ground, and evil simply smirks, lamenting the folly of the insignificant fools who dare to dream.. but wait... the hero still stirs. Blood flows past his lips, his teeth broken, and his eyes hardly seeing, slowly, he rises. Curious the great evil allows him to stand, remarking on how brave and noble his will, the hero fall again... crawling to her side, to take her hand, and the great evil laughs far more heartily then before. And the hand on his throat ceases his laughter. Shocked, the great evil marvels in stunned silence as the broken fingers grip his neck, tighter, tighter, how could he have let his guard down? no matter, another swat shall finish him. the blow strikes true, but his legs do not buckle, his head drops, but the hand remains... tighter... tighter... the great evil, grips his writs, claws tearing at the flesh to the bone, his dark powers which were enthralled the world to bow before him, all pulse forward, blood flows freely, flesh and armor fall in heaps... still the hand remains, tighter,.. tighter... The great evil, so great in his fear, now feels that fear in itself. All is unleashed a torrent of evil power! great hurricanes, the very walls shake and rage, his coked screams rattle the very bones... still the hand, tighter... tighter... and then, he looks up. "No more." and it is over.

A soft snap, almost gentle, and it is done, all that power all of that evil, foolish in it's strength. Gone. The black mass falls to the floor, followed by the bloody heap of our hero, and as the castle begins to fall around him, as the armies of evil screech in terror and confusion, delicate beaten hands reach forward and pull at the body of our hero. The sun rises, and it has been days since the black fortress fell, a beautiful princess, tight though her eyes may seem now, smiles warmly at a figure dressed in full wraps, an eye patch, yes, some teeth gone yes, and one leg beyond repair. yes... but all returned. Whole again, new again, but so tired. New teeth smile upon a new world, a world of sunshine and hope. The birds sing outside the door, and all is well in the land.

.
.
.

yeah... I love that.

Master_Rahl22
2009-10-23, 10:11 PM
I prefer darker to neutral settings. Lighter settings don't draw me in as much. It's more interesting when it's a realistic setting, or when things are dark and gritty. The feeling that the whole world sucks and my character has to struggle to make it is what makes the game for me.

Je dit Viola
2009-10-23, 10:56 PM
I like it when the story has realism, but the kind of Never-Say-Die realism...so it's like a Heroic Fantasy, in a way. Where, even though everything is hopeless, the grand evil has conquered the world, and, no matter how many times the Paladin gets knocked down, no matter how broken the spirit of his friends are, no matter how many allies have betrayed him, he looks evil in the eye and says "I'm not dead yet. Want to have one more go?"

That's the kind I like.

So, basically, I love exactly what Paulus said. If you haven't read his post yet, you should.

Starscream
2009-10-23, 11:04 PM
I like things to start out fairly pleasant for the PCs. Sure, there are monsters to fight, bad guys to defeat, the occasional dragon that needs to be whacked, but ultimately good is sure to triumph over evil, right?

Then something bad happens. Real bad. And the PCs are the only hope, and victory is far from assured.

I do it mainly for roleplaying reasons. If your setting is a Crapsack World, it's hard for the PCs to really feel like they are accomplishing something, and they become jaded. Even the Paladin may act a little Chaotic Neutral when it's clear that things are always gonna suck.

But if you start things out nice and then blow them to hell, the players (and their characters) get pissed. That's when they are ready to stop bickering about treasure, forget about their XP totals, draw their swords, and charge at the villain with everything they've got. You'll get more Crowning Moments of Awesome then you thought your players were capable of, because they care.

Inhuman Bot
2009-10-23, 11:13 PM
I don't trust this sort of setting.

The last game like this started out nice and such, but then got darker and grittier as time went on. Sort of like Eversion.

Hell, it went from "No killing, no lethal damage" to "If you kill with a crit, everyone in a 10ft AoE around the victim has to make a reflex save, or the blood spray blinds them."

The reaping mauler/monk managed to do really well, as the monk got a few changes though. He got a crowning moment of awesome, when he lept through a window (We thought he was dead at that point), fell to the ground and was at 0 HP, ran to the BBEG's dragon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon), and grappled him to death before dieing.

Solaris
2009-10-23, 11:15 PM
I find I have a real prediliction toward settings that the characters would really want to defend. I don't think that precludes wicked and horrifying villains, but it does mean I don't have the villains lay waste to towns and swaths of countryside just for dramatic effect - or at least not towns full of the characters' friends and family. And NPC's can just simply be decent people who want to live their lives - they don't all have to be singing nuns. Hell, they can even be kind of small minded and annoying like many of the hobbits in the beginning chapters of the Lord of the Rings, but show their real strength of character in hard times.

I enjoy a Mad Max or Zombie Apocolypse style setting sometimes, but even then it's about helping the remaining pockets of decency, not just the grimdark, no hope stuff that seems so popular in certain circles, i.e. Ravenloft or World of Darkness.

Agreed. My setting's pretty nasty, but it's more about the points of light and the possibility of unfusterclucking the whole 'dark and grim' parts of the setting.

BobVosh
2009-10-23, 11:16 PM
I like things to start out fairly pleasant for the PCs. Sure, there are monsters to fight, bad guys to defeat, the occasional dragon that needs to be whacked, but ultimately good is sure to triumph over evil, right?

Then something bad happens. Real bad. And the PCs are the only hope, and victory is far from assured.

I do it mainly for roleplaying reasons. If your setting is a Crapsack World, it's hard for the PCs to really feel like they are accomplishing something, and they become jaded. Even the Paladin may act a little Chaotic Neutral when it's clear that things are always gonna suck.

But if you start things out nice and then blow them to hell, the players (and their characters) get pissed. That's when they are ready to stop bickering about treasure, forget about their XP totals, draw their swords, and charge at the villain with everything they've got. You'll get more Crowning Moments of Awesome then you thought your players were capable of, because they care.

This. This is what I like. Although Paulus sounds cool, it works better in books than in RPGs from what I have found. Perhaps it was my DMs.

Curse of the Crimson Throne module by Pathfinder seems to be very good at it. Although that may be our DM (he is the best one in the group). Starts fairly peaceful, idyllic, and the more you dig the more crapsack it appears to be.

dragonfan6490
2009-10-23, 11:48 PM
I'm with Starscream and BobVosh, it gives the campaign more of a Heroic Fantasy feel to it and gives the PCs some really good motivation.

Pyron
2009-10-24, 12:54 AM
Personally, I've had too many bad experiences with dark campaign settings that are genuine crap sack worlds. I've been in campaign where PCs get murdered by children and plunging the world into the nine hells can be considered an improvement. I talking about worlds that made 8-Bit Theater look like Candy Land.

I realize that it's not the norm, but it's made me skeptical with 'darker' settings in general. I wouldn't mind a lighter campaign world just for a change of pace.

Zaydos
2009-10-24, 01:05 AM
My campaign worlds tend to be on the lighter side. The PCs are representatives of light, the peasants are friendly and decent people, the kingdoms are typically well ran; or at least the kingdom(s) the PCs are from. I usually have some lawful evil empire(s), a place ruled by a red dragon (they're pretty shush), some demon worships, etc. These are the bad guys and my players generally either 1) don't pay enough attention to know they're there, or 2) want to play the light characters so they do.

That said when I did have a darker game, it became a joke about how they brought death and destruction wherever they went, usually by doing something 8-Bit Theater style, and while the party started out evil they purposefully became good (while still accidentally releasing a ghoul plague on the 1 prosperous city they'd ever ran into).

tl;dr: I like lighter worlds and fail with darker ones.

krossbow
2009-10-24, 01:09 AM
In The Grimdark Future Of Grimdark, There Is Only War.


Strap Some Chainsaws To These Unicorns And Paint Them In The Blood Of Your Enemies And You Have A Campaign!

Pyron
2009-10-24, 01:12 AM
Strap Some Chainsaws To These Unicorns

A Sawacorn!
Unicorns with chainsaw for horns - awesome!

MCerberus
2009-10-24, 01:12 AM
My games usually appear bright on the surface. The town needs you to save them from rampaging goblins and all that jazz. Unfortunately my players are sadistic freaks that enjoy taking this and twisting it to an unfortunate end.

One of these ends was actually them selling unicorn meat as a cureall. They poisoned it, killed most of the town, and used it as their own private playground and sanctuary from a supernatural plague that they could have just stopped. I still have their sheets, due to the campaign setting needing a total overhaul (at which point there will be less fluffy happiness to go around). I think they'd respond well to a Call of C'thulu game set in Stormalong Harbor.

Tempest Fennac
2009-10-24, 01:17 AM
Games which I DM normally have that sort of setting due to the fact that I don't find dark settings to be fun at all, and I definitly prefer to play in Light games (I prefer to leave depressing things in real life when I'm doing something that's designed to be enjoyable).

Nai_Calus
2009-10-24, 05:53 AM
Shadowrun is as grimdark as I get, and that only because happy cheerful cyberpunk kind of doesn't work.

D&D? Ugh get your grimdark moral ambiguity the world is already screwed up beyond repair you might as well give up now crap away from me. :<

If the world has been a hellpit longer than my 400-year-old elf has been alive, Do Not Want. If the world has been a hellpit longer than a year or so, in fact, do not want.

If the world has recently gone to hell and it's something we have a hope in hell of stopping, fine, gotta have some conflict.

But I like nice happy worlds. When I ran a campaign it was happy cheerful sunny land. The kingdom was prosperous, the elven subraces all got along in their happy little holy city, the Big Problem facing the world at the present moment was politics, the odd bit of human/elf animosity due to said politics, the occasional monster attacks and the intermittently appearing island in the middle of a now-deserted lake where the far realm was slowly seeping through into reality and corrupting things around it. Mostly the politics and trying to make sure the nice guy who liked the elves and wanted to work with them became king instead of the massive jerk who hated them and wanted to drive them out. (Half the party were elves so it worked out since they, unsurprisingly, had a rather strong interest in not having their homes be destroyed and themselves and their friends and family driven out of the kingdom.)

But yeah, I like the world to at least start out nice and happy. Something bad can happen, sure, kind of needs to or I might as well just take up a normal career, but for the love of the gods, give me a chance to prevent it, or to fix it if I can't. I don't want hopeless grimdark. I get enough hopeless grimdark in real life.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-24, 05:57 AM
I like Alpha Complex. It is a very cheerful setting where everybody's happy.

Unicorns are treason.

Nai_Calus
2009-10-24, 06:01 AM
I like Alpha Complex. It is a very cheerful setting where everybody's happy.

Unicorns are treason.

*giggle*

Elves are even more treasonous, though.

ZeroNumerous
2009-10-24, 06:04 AM
*giggle*

Elves are even more treasonous, though.

Insinuating anything treasonous is slightly more acceptable than something treasonous is treason.

Tengu_temp
2009-10-24, 06:26 AM
My games are usually more on the idealistic side, but they still have thousands of people dying in wars and other similar elements, so they're not exactly light and cheerful - in one of them the whole humanity has been engaged in a destructive, hopeless war with aliens for 5 years, but the PCs managed to lay their hands on weapons that let them slowly turn the tide. So not very cheerful, but heroic.
And there's also the Nanoha PbP game I'm running. In case you're unfamiliar with the setting's tone, here's a short summary courtesy of TV Tropes:

The Magical Girl genre is idealistic. Super Robot Wars, as mentioned under Video Games, is idealistic. Put them together and you get Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, where villains who can be redeemed will be redeemed after they get beaten around a bit, anyone who acts human will be treated as a person regardless of how they were born, all orphaned and artificial children will eventually find a loving family they can go home to, and all Smug Snakes will receive a well-deserved (and painful) end.
I've been running the campaign for over a year now, and apart from people's backstories not a single person has died yet, even though there's a lot of combat and the antagonists are pretty much a (misguided) terrorist organization. One of the PCs is an ex-enemy who has seen the error of her ways and has quickly become friends with the rest.

Kris Strife
2009-10-24, 06:56 AM
A Sawacorn!
Unicorns with chainsaw for horns - awesome!

I wouldn't be surprised to see this in in either DLC or a sequal to Brutal Legend. I wouldn't be upset either.

Personally, I enjoy worlds that are or were cheerful; and have a dramatic final showdown in the castle of the BBEG like what Paulus had in his post. I enjoy settings where Hot Blood, Rules of Cool and Funny and Power of Love, Friendship and Metal can, and do, make a difference. If any PC decides to make a last stand while the party runs out of the castle with the Damsel in Distress while the castle collapses around them, I want there to be a chance that the figure that comes walking out of the smoke and rubble is their friend. I don't mind a PC or important non-evil NPC dieing, as long as it is sufficiently awesome, serves the story and/or has some important meaning to it.

Or, of course, if they do something Darwin Award worthy.

Dienekes
2009-10-24, 09:03 AM
Once I really played in a happy joy land setting. It was a one shot of some sort of Marvel comics game where you rolled percentiles. I thought it was rather average of a game system. But anyway, the GM of the time was taking pages out of the old Batman series with Adam West. It was hilarious, completely making a mockery of the setting.

It was a fun game or two, but I (or the GM or the other players) really didn't feel much of a reason to continue playing after most the good jokes were told

Indon
2009-10-24, 09:08 AM
I prefer lighter settings.

By that I don't mean what's actually in the setting, mind you. I feel that setting 'lightness' and 'darkness' is about the degree of hope and confidence that your players have in regards to achieving their goals and making some real change in the world.

Take Exalted. Slavery is common, the universe itself is steeped in bureaucratic corruption and reality is slowly disintegrating around the edges, let alone all of the wildly potent forces poised to tear it apart one way or another for their own ends. The lives of the millions of mortals of Creation are often absolutely miserable, and perhaps one-fifth of all the magical relics in the setting are literally made out of souls.

And yet, Exalted's default setting is quite light, because for all those ludicrous problems, you're a mothafuggin Exalt! You want to fix the universe? Do it! Kill thirteen ludicrously powerful demigods threatening the universe? No problem, you got this! A trillion demons from an alternate dimension invade? We'll be done before dinner!

Now, though, if you play as heroic mortals? Things can get real tragic, real quick.

It's kinda like the classical division between Comedy and Tragedy.


Shadowrun is as grimdark as I get, and that only because happy cheerful cyberpunk kind of doesn't work.

Yes it does.

It's just more like a Bond action movie than a gritty espionage film. More Total Recall with its' clear villain and with the hero at the end actually fixing something, rather than, say, Bladerunner.

Gamerlord
2009-10-24, 09:18 AM
By a Happy & light campaign do you mean the attitude of the players or the theme of the world?

Wulfram
2009-10-24, 10:06 AM
The world needs to contain bad guys for the party to fight and thus can't be all that nice.

Well, unless you've got an evil party.

Temet Nosce
2009-10-24, 10:20 AM
I only like lighter settings in the case that the party is evil or neutral and it's a sandbox game. At that point the light setting just means that the world is ripe for the plucking.

In more normal games... why? There's nothing to do in light settings which becomes just plain annoying even if the DM inserts a couple things anyways. I prefer my typical campaign settings to be as dystopic as possible.

Pyron
2009-10-24, 10:27 AM
By a Happy & light campaign do you mean the attitude of the players or the theme of the world?

I think it has to with the theme of the world. Indon said it best about it being the "degree of hope and confidence that your players have in regards to achieving their goals and making some real change in the world."

Players having the potential to make a difference is what make the campaign worth playing. However, in my experience, some DMs do not understand that concept. Often times, the setting is so utterly and completely hopeless that the PC have no ability to achieve any victory or even make a last stand. This is important because I, as a player, like to think that my PC can accomplish something.

Another problem I have with dark settings is that they make things 'dark and edgier' just for the sake of it. You can a campaign world where bad things can happen, but when everything has irredeemable corruption, suffering, evil and embraces Dark Helmet's philosophy - then it becomes a gimmick. What's the point?

Gamerlord
2009-10-24, 10:47 AM
Well in my worlds the PCs are usually heroes who are genuinely just trying to do their best to help a dying world, does that count as happy and fluffy and all that?

Tiki Snakes
2009-10-24, 03:22 PM
I'm not really sure about all this. Lighter Happy Unicorn-Land has really seen better times, ya know?

http://www.ectomo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/mat_brown_fire__845_48.jpg
Kinda let itself go.

Gamerlord
2009-10-24, 03:23 PM
I'm not really sure about all this. Lighter Happy Unicorn-Land has really seen better times, ya know?

http://www.ectomo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/mat_brown_fire__845_48.jpg
Kinda let itself go.
AGGGGGGGGGH!!!
YARGHABBLE!

THAT IS NOT A UNICORN! :smalleek:

hamishspence
2009-10-24, 03:42 PM
Disney villains are definitely memorable, and some of them can be quite scary, especially as a little kid. There's one problem with Disney, though-- their characters tend to win at least partially by being the good guys. Bad guys are bad, but they if they die at all, they tend to die by falling off convenient cliffs-- which is fine in a children's story, but not a particularly nice DM move. There are exceptions, of course...

Ursula. Death By Impalement- on the broken bowsprit of a ship, no less.

Alright, so she'd grown a whole lot bigger at the time, but still...

Aldizog
2009-10-24, 05:18 PM
Yeah, I think this could be fun as a change of pace as long as the party is good-aligned. It would be nice if the world seems like it's a pleasant enough place to be worth saving. For the hobbits in LotR, the Shire was a generally happy place and well worth saving. Star Trek: TNG presents the Federation as Lighter Happy Fairy Unicorn Land, for the most part. And the Disney movies, as mentioned.

I think it works best if the PCs believe that doing the noble and heroic thing will usually work out for the best. If letting defeated enemies go after getting their word to reform won't come back to hurt the party; if offering hospitality to a stranger in the night won't lead to a TPK; and if giving up potential loot to save innocents ends up paying off in some way.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-10-24, 05:22 PM
I'd define a 'light' setting as one where:
a. Geniunely upsetting events are rare and
b. Most bad things that DO occur can be fixed or prevented by the PCs, who are reliably heroic good guys.
Feel free to argue with this in subsequent posts.

B I'm pretty good on; the PCs generally have enough influence to police whatever they care about (not high-level enough to shepherd the whole world), and there aren't too many terribly tricky choices out there to corrupt them.

A fails my world tests, though. There are villains. Nasty villains. The PCs can stop them, and if so inclined raise the victims and send them off for psychological healing (they're too cheap to do it :P). But their actions will often be upsetting.

Nai_Calus
2009-10-24, 07:53 PM
Yes it does.

It's just more like a Bond action movie than a gritty espionage film. More Total Recall with its' clear villain and with the hero at the end actually fixing something, rather than, say, Bladerunner.

I don't think of Total Recall as Cyberpunk, to be honest. I think of it as (really bad) sci-fi. I hated the movie though, so I may be slightly coloured by that. >_>

Vorpal Soda
2009-10-26, 07:25 PM
Personally, I prefer settings with full potential for lightness, even if the themes are fundamentally rather dark.

The RPG I was involved in but has somewhat slowed down a lot is an example of this, being set in a city full of crime, where the players are wanted for crimes they did commit, and are constantly being dragged into or otherwise barging into situations where they face supernatural threats.

The catch however is, that there aren't actually any always evil races, even the various creatures considered to be daemons have the full range of alignments, and evil isn't actually constantly stepping on good unchallenged. So whilst the situations often get brutal, the world isn't actually intrinsically evil or dark, and you never have to kill a child just for being a certain race.

So, I don't mind lots of bad things happening, I vastly prefer such things to be a product of free will, as opposed to being a fundamental force of the setting.

Zaydos
2009-10-26, 07:31 PM
I don't think of Total Recall as Cyberpunk, to be honest. I think of it as (really bad) sci-fi. I hated the movie though, so I may be slightly coloured by that. >_>

The movie was... completely wrong. The short story was good and surprisingly enough for Phillip K. **** relatively happy and light. I'd have to be more familiar with Cyberpunk to actually comment on whether it was in genre or not, and reread the story but it was a good story (completely different from the movie in every way except for the main character being amnesiac).

Might actually be confusing/combining it with Paycheck I read them both in one sitting a few years back now (I love Phillip K. **** what can I say).

Edit: Oops they censored the author's name...