defining a world type.

[big teej]

greetigns playgrounders,

I was discussing how things are in my campaign world/setting/thingy with one of my players, and I mentiond that the average person's life is rather brutal. and I stopped myself short of using the term "grimdark"

but now it occurs to me.

I used to not consider myself a "hardcore" gamer (until I learned how the term was defined by society at large)

so now I can't help but wonder if I am making a grimdark world, albiet unknowingly.

so I'm curious.

what are the hallmarks of a grim-dark world?
please provide specifice examples, not something as broad as "like warhammer"

also, what's the cutoff point as far as "just brutal" vs "grimdark" or something similar.

tl;dr
what are the hallmarks of a grimdark setting?

[Ravens_cry]

In grimdark, there is an active effort to strip away all hope and joy. It can never get better, it can only get worse. If you think it can better, it is only setting you up for an even bigger fall.
Any and all toil to bring peace, hope and happiness, is for naught, or will result in an even greater evil, and any effort to change the statu quo results in failure, at best. There is no good guys, but there is lots of bad guys. Everybody in fact is a 'bad guy'. The people who seem nicest are harbouring a Terrible Secret™. Atrocities that would make Attila the Hut blow chunks are everyday events. The only miracle is that everyone in the setting hasn't committed collective suicide from sheer hopelessness. Failure is the only option.
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever"

[flumphy]

I agree with Ravens_cry that it's mainly defined by the level of optimism. you can have a very brutal world where the good guys still have a chance of winning out in the end, where things have a possibility, however slim, of improving, and the players have hopes of their characters actually suceeding in that goal. That sort of setting is not grimdark.

[big teej]

well that's comforting at least, as there is certainly hope and happiness (and most definilty "good guys") in my world.

it's just a rather..... "unsafe" world.