Can High Fantasy and Grimdark Co-exist?

[Amphetryon]

After recent events, my Players have indicated, by their Character proposals and backgrounds, an apparent interest in a sort of gritty, 'grimdark' game with angst, pathos, and tension. . . in 3.5. . . starting above level 6.

Is the attempt to mesh these elements a fool's errand? How would you, personally, go about it, if you would?

[Sir Chuckles]

The main problem is that, for Grimdark to function properly, the player has to have both a sense of urgency and helplessness. If you lack the second one, it becomes nothing more than set pieces and jump scares. A Grimdark setting is not hard to do in D&D, and many things in the system, from Blood Hulks to Glooms (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/EPIC_Gallery/Gallery5a/44167_C5_gloomman.jpg).

They can exist together, and the most simple and inelegant solution would be to do mass class banning. It's neither grim nor dark when the Wizard just decides to travel to a different plane, or can kill anything and everything on a whim.

[Kennisiou]

After recent events, my Players have indicated, by their Character proposals and backgrounds, an apparent interest in a sort of gritty, 'grimdark' game with angst, pathos, and tension. . . in 3.5. . . starting above level 6.

Is the attempt to mesh these elements a fool's errand? How would you, personally, go about it, if you would?

Houserules. Probably a lot of them. Look at the taint rules and see about using similar rules to make the players lose some level of control over their characters, no save, based on corruption or insanity. Not a lot of control, mind, but enough to make things scary and make the players not trust eachother. That's a biggie for powerful characters: loss of control is a big deal. If the players are on-board and willing to play alignment shifts or have secret agendas against other party members, work with them to foster those agendas as things get darker. And make detect alignment spells not a thing. Now they don't know who's good and who's bad. Powerful or even not very powerful items should carry drawbacks. The strongest characters pay the biggest price.

[nedz]

I would need a lot more information than you could reasonably supply about the players, as well as the characters, to give you concrete ideas. Essentially I would approach it from an almost theatrical angle where you press the player's buttons.

From a mechanical perspective: high tier characters can trivialise some challenges that might otherwise be scary.
Have any of them pitched in with high tier character concepts ? This could be a problem.
Tier 4-6 PCs against high tier NPCs could be a start since it forces the players to be very creative or very good at running away.

Really though it comes down to RP and play-styles as to how you can pull this off.

[Gemini476]

Well, you could also implement a whole bunch of rules that make combat more lethal, like that wound point system in UA.

You need to restrict character classes, though. Look at something like Fantasy Flight's Warhammer 40k RPGs - the GRIMMEST AND DARKEST ones are Dark Heresy, where you play as the scrubbiest of scrubs, and Black Crusade, where you play as the bad guys (and thus get to be overpowered whilst fitting the tone). Rogue Trader is nowhere near as grim, and that one where you play as inquisitorial Space Marines that I can't remember the name of isn't really that dark since you're playing as Space Marines.
I'm not that familiar with Only War, but yeah.

If you want to have things be GRIM and DARK, problems need to be real, common, and unsolvable. So powerful magic is straight out. You want things to have consequences, so stuff like most of the casting classes are also out since magic in D&D 3.5 is consequence-free. Bring in complex skill checks from UA so things aren't solved quickly and easily, bring in monsters that are of the kind that the PCs need to run away from (but give them the heads-up on that in advance), and I dunno maybe have Binders? Binders seem like they could fit something like this fairly well. Truenamers would fit with the unreliable magic part, but you need to seriously retool that system if you want it to work.

Oh yeah, and 90% of a grimdark campaign has nothing to do with rules and everything to do with tone. You could have the rules be as gritty as can be, but if the campaign is spent saving the princess from a dragon's lair then it's not really grimdark.
For something that's relatively easy to do in 3.5, set the campaign on an Outer Plane. Preferably an Evil one, although plumbing the depths of corruption present in an Upper Plane could be interesting. Play up the casual horror of the place, and the way that Good is not even a thing.

Oh yeah, and if you can't help but have your players be powerful then just roll with it and set them up as the bad guys. Evil is allowed to win in grimdark, so just have the hopelessness of the situation be caused by them rather than to them. They're the ones that asked to play in a grimdark campaign, after all.

[Windstorm]

I've done something like this once in a test session for the setting I'm currently making. I don't think class banning is necessarily required, but one thing is: make magic have a cost. by this I don't mean have it cost the wizard extra gp or some other tangible thing, I mean make it so that it has some other impact on the world around the magic user to make them really consider if that is the appropriate tool for the job. the same thing applies to magic items.

in the setting in question, the use of magic in ages past was the source of several frostfell, maelstrom, and desert waste "hot spots" that continue to grow as the magical energy is literally abused and sucked right out of the material plane. I had originally planned this as just a flavor/background thing to justify some irregularly placed environments, however my players upon learning about it commented that it was the first time they had ever felt vulnerable and responsible while playing casters.

there is also the darksun setting, which is I think as classically grimdark as you can get.

[BWR]

eh, not really. Grim and rough, but not really grimdark.
You might want to check out the Midnight setting. Think LOTR if Sauron had won.

[Sir Chuckles]

I've done something like this once in a test session for the setting I'm currently making. I don't think class banning is necessarily required, but one thing is: make magic have a cost. by this I don't mean have it cost the wizard extra gp or some other tangible thing, I mean make it so that it has some other impact on the world around the magic user to make them really consider if that is the appropriate tool for the job. the same thing applies to magic items.

in the setting in question, the use of magic in ages past was the source of several frostfell, maelstrom, and desert waste "hot spots" that continue to grow as the magical energy is literally abused and sucked right out of the material plane. I had originally planned this as just a flavor/background thing to justify some irregularly placed environments, however my players upon learning about it commented that it was the first time they had ever felt vulnerable and responsible while playing casters.

there is also the darksun setting, which is I think as classically grimdark as you can get.

Try one of the Planar magic settings. I like Wild Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#wildMagic) if we're going for riskiness.

Looking it over, you'd want to bump the caster level check DC up for high levels. 9th level spell by a 20th level caster is a +20 vs DC 24.

[Roog]

High fantasy and grim (but not gritty) can exist together just fine. Just make sure:
- the cost the PCs failing to achieve their goals is high
- success in doing so is uncertain
- the PCs regularly fail to achieve the goals in full, so that (a part of) the cost of failure is demonstrated
At higher power levels the main cost of failing may be met by society rather than the PCs themselves.

The issue that would appear to make grimness difficult to achieve in D&D is the PC's exponential increases in power. The threats they face would need to not only scale up, but also be foreshadowed as potential scaling up faster than the PCs can handle.

There's no need to de-power magic users, as long as achieving their goals is sufficiently difficult. The more powerful the PCs are, the bigger the cost of failure (or even of success) can be.

[Zalphon]

You can live within a world where those with power are unable to use it or too far removed to care.

Perhaps the barriers between the Hells and the Prime Material Plane are wearing thin... Perhaps the few high level wizards with the power to resolve this issue have resigned themselves to it. Perhaps they sit atop their ivory towers and wish to watch as others struggle for survival.

[HammeredWharf]

There's even a setting for it: Ravenloft. It doesn't support epic levels well, but anything below that is fine. It also has lots of setting-specific rules that make the life of even high-level PCs difficult. As for pathos and tension, it has rules for giving bonus points for them.

Of course, Ravenloft is primarily horror, although it can be used for other things, too.

[PhallicWarrior]

The key to fitting them together is remembering that the essential helplessness the PCs feel in a Grimdark setting (since the term originated in WH40k, I'll use it as an example) is not necessarily due to their own weakness; PCs can be highly-capable fantasy heroes, as long as they're ultimately insignificant in the face of the overbearing nihilism of the world they inhabit. In Dark Heresy, it's entirely possible to build a tremendously powerful character with a buttload of deadly weapons, but it ultimately doesn't matter. One Inquisitor can't change the fate of humanity. Even discounting the cosmic horror elements of the setting (the Necrons, the Chaos gods, the Tyranids) the simple fact is that Humanity is doomed and it's just circling the drain before it dies out completely a dozen millenia hence. (A pitfall to watch out for is the tendency to segue into cosmic horror. That's not to say cosmic horror is bad, but Grimdark is depressing, not existentially terrifying.)

[Windstorm]

Try one of the Planar magic settings. I like Wild Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#wildMagic) if we're going for riskiness.

Looking it over, you'd want to bump the caster level check DC up for high levels. 9th level spell by a 20th level caster is a +20 vs DC 24.

I looked at it, but one issue I have with the wild magic stuff is the failure rate for even common spells. the effect isn't meant to be a "magic is unpredictable" as much as it is "magic is just as easy as standard setting, but the plane doesn't have limitless amounts of it" so far in the major test and a few smaller discussions, the players I have talked to have liked it because it achieves a low/no magic feeling for the overall setting, encourages mundane solutions, while not actively limiting options if high-level magic is the only way to get something done.

there is also the fun wrench that not everyone knows or cares about the whole magic-draining aspect, which creates a lot of interesting interactions.

[Vetril]

Grimdark: A bunch of warriors tries to escape from Carceri. Done. :)

[Larrx]

I've done something like this once in a test session for the setting I'm currently making. I don't think class banning is necessarily required, but one thing is: make magic have a cost. by this I don't mean have it cost the wizard extra gp or some other tangible thing, I mean make it so that it has some other impact on the world around the magic user to make them really consider if that is the appropriate tool for the job. the same thing applies to magic items.

in the setting in question, the use of magic in ages past was the source of several frostfell, maelstrom, and desert waste "hot spots" that continue to grow as the magical energy is literally abused and sucked right out of the material plane. I had originally planned this as just a flavor/background thing to justify some irregularly placed environments, however my players upon learning about it commented that it was the first time they had ever felt vulnerable and responsible while playing casters.

there is also the darksun setting, which is I think as classically grimdark as you can get.

That is one of the most interesting ideas. You are my new hero.

[Amphetryon]

There's even a setting for it: Ravenloft. It doesn't support epic levels well, but anything below that is fine. It also has lots of setting-specific rules that make the life of even high-level PCs difficult. As for pathos and tension, it has rules for giving bonus points for them.

Of course, Ravenloft is primarily horror, although it can be used for other things, too.
I think this boils down to how you're defining 'horror.' In my experience, Ravenloft is considerably closer to Bram Stoker/Mary Shelley Gothic horror than the horror of, say, Stephen King or Freddy Krueger, or even more modern 21st century approaches to the genre. . . . Hmmm, I appear to be hijacking my own thread. Sorry. Carry on.

[Eldan]

There's even a setting for it: Ravenloft. It doesn't support epic levels well, but anything below that is fine. It also has lots of setting-specific rules that make the life of even high-level PCs difficult. As for pathos and tension, it has rules for giving bonus points for them.

Of course, Ravenloft is primarily horror, although it can be used for other things, too.

Ravenloft isn't Grimdark. It's grim and dark, but it's primarily gothic horror.

Remember, people. Grimdark, as opposed to just a dark setting, means someone has to be absolutely, ridiculously over-the-top in its darkness. There can't be a machine in the setting not powered by the souls of orphaned kittens.

[2xMachina]

I see no reason why grimdark can't happen even with lvl 30+ epic characters with Divine ranks.

You just scale the threats above them, and make the world full of horrible horrible eldritch abomination. You can kill millions of them, and you haven't make a dent in their numbers.

They need to save the entire multiverse. But every country they win in, they'd have lost 10 worlds to the enemy. When they go to another country, the 1st has been suborned. And every place the enemy wins, feeds their strength.

[HammeredWharf]

Ravenloft isn't Grimdark. It's grim and dark, but it's primarily gothic horror.

Remember, people. Grimdark, as opposed to just a dark setting, means someone has to be absolutely, ridiculously over-the-top in its darkness. There can't be a machine in the setting not powered by the souls of orphaned kittens.

True, but the topic is about grimdark games, not grimdark settings. You can make a grimdark game in Ravenloft just fine, because the (relatively) normal lives of farmers aren't what D&D tends to be about. On the other hand, the guy who lives in the castle nearby, eats newborn babies for breakfast, wears armor made of distilled pain and made a hobby of torturing the souls of orphaned kittens can be the focus of a Ravenloft campaign.


I think this boils down to how you're defining 'horror.' In my experience, Ravenloft is considerably closer to Bram Stoker/Mary Shelley Gothic horror than the horror of, say, Stephen King or Freddy Krueger, or even more modern 21st century approaches to the genre. . . . Hmmm, I appear to be hijacking my own thread. Sorry. Carry on.

Both are horror. What I meant is that grimdark games can also focus on other things, like the story of A Song of Ice and Fire.

[Amphetryon]

True, but the topic is about grimdark games, not grimdark settings. You can make a grimdark game in Ravenloft just fine, because the (relatively) normal lives of farmers aren't what D&D tends to be about. On the other hand, the guy who lives in the castle nearby, eats newborn babies for breakfast, wears armor made of distilled pain and made a hobby of torturing the souls of orphaned kittens can be the focus of a Ravenloft campaign.



Both are horror. What I meant is that grimdark games can also focus on other things, like the story of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Is it your contention, then, that setting has no impact on the type of game being run? In other words, does the fact (you acknowledge as such, above) that Ravenloft is Gothic horror rather than a Grimdark horror setting fail to force the game toward a Gothic, rather than Grimdark, type of game?

[Shinken]

I don't think anyone ever wants grimdark, since that is AFAIK a derrogatory term.
I think your players just want dark fantasy and happen to be playing 6th level characters iun a D&D game. You should be fine - that's pretty much the second half of Dragon Age in a nutshell.

[Talakeal]

IMO Grimdark is really easy to pull off. Simply change all NPC's alignments to stupid evil, lawful stupid, or foolishly naïve. The latter should be completely inept.

Most Grimdark settings aren't actually that different than normal settings, it is just that all the people in power act evil even if it isn't in their best interests, and even the "good" people are overly paranoid and judgmental.

[Amphetryon]

I don't think anyone ever wants grimdark, since that is AFAIK a derrogatory term.
I think your players just want dark fantasy and happen to be playing 6th level characters iun a D&D game. You should be fine - that's pretty much the second half of Dragon Age in a nutshell.

This may be your belief - even your experience - but it is not mine, as I've used grimdark without derision, and have heard others do so, as well as had folks explicitly ask for grimdark.

[Lord Raziere]

Yes.

High Fantasy is an aesthetic genre

Grimdark is a tone.

they work on different layers: You can have all the magic in the world and it could be Grimdark- most probably because its the magic thats making it so. Dark Sun is grimdark high fantasy for example- wizards, psions and druids all exist, sorcerer-kings rule whats left of the world, and outer planes exist, they just are ruined or dark as well.

and Warhammer 40,000 is basically grimdark high fantasy IN SPACE! The Emperor is godly in his power, so are all the Chaos Gods, there are Daemons and Psykers everywhere, and so on and so forth- but despite all their power, it didn't stop people from falling to their flaws and foibles and thus making everything fall apart anyways.

All that is required to make grimdark high fantasy really? give a bunch of people lots of magical power then stop assuming they will automatically make everything better just because they have it.

[HammeredWharf]

Is it your contention, then, that setting has no impact on the type of game being run? In other words, is the fact (you acknowledge as such, above) that Ravenloft is Gothic horror rather than a Grimdark horror setting fail to force the game toward a Gothic, rather than Grimdark, type of game?

Yes. Most settings steer the game towards a certain genre, but don't force it. For example, Ravenloft is generally Gothic horror, while Forgotten Realms is generally standard high fantasy. However, nothing prevents one from running a horror game in FR or a high fantasy game in Ravenloft. It requires slightly more imagination, but is easily doable.

Additionally, while Ravenloft is generally a Gothic setting, it has some very non-Gothic parts. Rokushima Taiyoo is a bunch of oriental islands with lots of angry samurai. For a more grimdark example, there's Necropolis, which is almost an embodiment of death, madness and despair. Most people only know about Strahd and Barovia, but there's more to it than that. Similarly, most other settings have some off-the-grid places that are unlike the rest of them. In FR, you could make a Lovecraftian horror game using the Far Realm, etc.

Edit:


Dark Sun

This is a good choice, too.

[Shinken]

This may be your belief - even your experience - but it is not mine, as I've used grimdark without derision, and have heard others do so, as well as had folks explicitly ask for grimdark.

I guess what I mean is that I don't understand what you mean by grimdark if it is not derogatory.

[Blightedmarsh]

I would say that if you where going to have magic then I would limit the power of the magic they have free access to. Under these systems a grim dark magic user would be something like a warlock with invocations for his got to spells but ritual magic for his specialist stuff.

Ritual magic would take time, require preparation and components. So summon and bind a demon would automatically require human sacrifice.

Magic items would have to have been made horrifically and using them or being around them is nasty. For example a wand made from a child's bone.

[Ravens_cry]

Grimdark . . . is like Orwell's famous "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever", only the boot has lots of spikes and skulls. You'd really have to do a lot of homebrewing and banning to make D&D work with this, as magic in D&D is far too empowering and safe.

[Amphetryon]

I guess what I mean is that I don't understand what you mean by grimdark if it is not derogatory.

To use TVTropes terms, Grimdark here references a combination of Black & Grey Morality with Crapsack World, where No Good Deed Goes Unpunished and the best outcome the protagonists can generally hope for is to temporarily inconvenience the bad guys; the protagonists can generally only achieve this outcome at great personal sacrifice. See also: Most of the protagonists of Frank Miller's Sin City.

[Thiyr]

To use TVTropes terms, Grimdark here references a combination of Black & Grey Morality with Crapsack World, where No Good Deed Goes Unpunished and the best outcome the protagonists can generally hope for is to temporarily inconvenience the bad guys; the protagonists can generally only achieve this outcome at great personal sacrifice. See also: Most of the protagonists of Frank Miller's Sin City.

With this in mind (I was having the same issues figuring out what to do with the term Grimdark, oddly enough because of TVTropes stating it as a subheading of the Darker and Edgier trope), I find my best suggestions tend to involve finding as many sources to pull from and crib elements out of. In this case, first thought is most of Eternal Darkness. Each win (and every loss) tends to come at great personal cost, oftentimes leaving the hero becoming a tool of the villain they sought to stop. Similarly, while certainly not the entire setting, Ptolus' Jabel Shamar (The fortress atop the Spire) could be a solid place to draw from as well. a place with so much evil concentrated there that the earth itself said No. Where the place itself seeks to corrupt, and it is truly impossible to purify. All that you can hope to do is delay evil from leaving.

The big take away I can see is to make the problem seem insurmountable but leave it solvable in the short run, make it a long-term issue that will outlast their solution, and make it very much involve personal cost to the players. This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?116836-The-SilverClawShift-Campaign-Archives) is probably a solid set of examples on the first part. Last part, I have a bit less to suggest.

[Perturbulent]

As one of said players, I would like to express, I have no problems with the definition provided by TVTropes there, but I am faintly less than pleased with the idea of hopelessness of being able to do much of anything that some are expressing.

I do like the idea of including horror elements, and by all means if trying to fix things complicates and causes much craziness, cool. I even like some of the ideas of potential sanity issues with some more crazed elements of the world. However, "you lose because there is no way to win" is no fun.
TVTropes Link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption) That said, situations which generally would call for a third option (whether a third option is possible or not) sound like a fabulous inclusion.

[Tengu_temp]

Gritty game with angst, pathos and tension != grimdark.

Grimdark means that the setting is so stupidly, hopelessly dark, that unless you have the mindset of an EDGE-obsessed teenager it's not possible to take it seriously. And yes, it's pretty much a derogatory term; you don't want grimdark, unless you play it tongue in the cheek.

[Amphetryon]

Gritty game with angst, pathos and tension != grimdark.

Grimdark means that the setting is so stupidly, hopelessly dark, that unless you have the mindset of an EDGE-obsessed teenager it's not possible to take it seriously. And yes, it's pretty much a derogatory term; you don't want grimdark, unless you play it tongue in the cheek.

As I indicated earlier, while I understand that definition of the term exists, I thoroughly reject the notion that it has but that one, derogatory, definition.

Comments from Perturbulent duly noted.

[3WhiteFox3]

As one of said players, I would like to express, I have no problems with the definition provided by TVTropes there, but I am faintly less than pleased with the idea of hopelessness of being able to do much of anything that some are expressing.

I do like the idea of including horror elements, and by all means if trying to fix things complicates and causes much craziness, cool. I even like some of the ideas of potential sanity issues with some more crazed elements of the world. However, "you lose because there is no way to win" is no fun.
TVTropes Link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption) That said, situations which generally would call for a third option (whether a third option is possible or not) sound like a fabulous inclusion.

As a GM, I've found it to be very important to make sure that my idea of grimdark is aligned with my players. Most people play RPGs to overcome obstacles and challenges, to do something within the restraints given to them. Grimdark doesn't allow that, everything is awful and sucks. Now, I enjoy grimdark elements in my stories... A good example of this is the Empire Strikes Back, the film ends on a very depressing note, and if that were the last entry in the trilogy, everyone would have probably hated it, because it seems like very little good has happened out of all of the bad. Luke's lost both his hand and possibly his Jedi training, Han is possibly dead, the Empire is pretty much unhampered by the efforts of the heroes. The only truly good things that happened were that Luke saved most of his friends (and gaining Lando), and him learning more of the force. Even then, Vader is still out there, the Emperor is still untouchable, the heroes didn't actually do much besides mitigate their losses and had no real victories.

However, few people think of the Original Trilogy as a sad or dark story, because all of those elements work to build up to a satisfying climax in the third part. The Empire Strikes Back would not work as well without Return of The Jedi.

Now, you could even take this up another notch. By having more than just the middle be dark and with major losses for every victory. Focus should be made on how bad things are, and the heroes should have periods of hopelessness. However, glimmers of hope need to exist in order to make the players want to invest their emotions into the game, even if that hope is not realized by the end. IMO, the best dark stories are grounded in reality, with both loss and gain, darkness and light, failure and victory. The heroes must work to never give up, even in the face of awful odds, and hope beyond hope that despite all the evil around, good may still yet triumph; even if it never happens or even the 'heroes' themselves are far from paragons of goodness.

[Telok]

The Tippyverse can make for an excellent grimdark D&D game.

Everyone lives in the huge planar bubble metropolis subsisting off of magic gruel and water traps. The police are Judge Dredd style awakened Shadesteel Golems. Anyone who wants to leave is Mindraped into fanatic loyalty to the ruler. Teleportation is trapped, scrying is illegal, and casting Evard's Black Tentacles is an offense punishable by a lifetime sentence in a Liquid Pain extractor. Every xp you earn pushes you closer to tenth level when you'll set off the epic level spell Detect Hero and the wizard-king's Ice Assassin Aleaxe's will come to drag you off for... something nasty.

High fantasy, utter hopelessness.

[Shinken]

The Tippyverse can make for an excellent grimdark D&D game.

Everyone lives in the huge planar bubble metropolis subsisting off of magic gruel and water traps. The police are Judge Dredd style awakened Shadesteel Golems. Anyone who wants to leave is Mindraped into fanatic loyalty to the ruler. Teleportation is trapped, scrying is illegal, and casting Evard's Black Tentacles is an offense punishable by a lifetime sentence in a Liquid Pain extractor. Every xp you earn pushes you closer to tenth level when you'll set off the epic level spell Detect Hero and the wizard-king's Ice Assassin Aleaxe's will come to drag you off for... something nasty.

High fantasy, utter hopelessness.

This, pretty much. The problem with such horror scenarios in D&D 3.5 is that magic is so powerful, but that's only a problem if the players have more magic than the opposition. Don't play fair, don't pull your punches, never use 4 encounters with CR = average party ECL. Make sure their actions have consequences, have laws restricting magic use, remember that there is always a bigger fish, use nasty monsters in nasty ways. That helps, but it will only help if the opposition has more magic than the players, as I mentioned before. Consider restricting them to bardic casting classes at most.

[Slipperychicken]

Maybe it's normally an E6 universe, but people (including the PCs) can only break the level-cap by selling their souls to various nasty patrons (running the gamut from the devil, to the insane faerie courts, to the hopelessly-bureaucratic celestials, to the unspeakable crawling chaos nyarlathotep) and typically sealing the contract with innocent blood, which naturally gives their masters a lot of power over them. So even the "good" guys need to submit to the dark chaos if they want to protect their world. Each patron has its own perverse goals, and all make constant demands of their minions. It goes without saying that those who accept such bargains invariably enact all manner of horrible depravities on normal folk. Doing too many good deeds will typically call down the hammer on you, which often comes in the form of every high-level monster and NPC within a 10 mile radius getting your name, location, and a nice bounty on your head.

You can play up the Blood War and its importance to the setting. Although the Pact Primeval is normally enough to keep the fiends out of the prime material, the conflict spills over at times as both sides pillage mortal lands with impunity until the celestials can file the necessary paperwork to start pushing them out (during which time the fiends wreak terrible devasatation). Trying to destroy either demons or devils would unleash the others' unstoppable wrath and let their hordes consume the world.

Also, reality itself might have started unraveling, meaning that the skies are filled with nasty beasts, like rocs, air elementals of various sizes, harpies, raptoran tribesmen, vrocks, and even things like lantern archons and beholders lighting up the sky with lasers.

You aren't likely to encounter many "normal" animals: They've mostly been displaced by grotesque, templated mockeries of the base creature. And also zombies. Especially plague zombies which infect the living.


D&D also looks a lot more grimdark if you acknowledge the implications behind random encounter tables: Hostile deadly monsters are extremely common in both wilderness and the city. Most people have probably lost at least one relative to the monsters. Their corrupt, desperate, barely-trained militias are all that stand between them and grisly death. That, and some good walls if they're lucky.

[NichG]

One way you can mix the two is by having there be things in the setting which, despite all the powers and abilities of the PCs, they literally cannot do anything about. In this particular case, the property of D&D 3.5 where everything has a remedy/counter works in your advantage - if you have a single thing where that is not the case, then it will be thrown into sharp contrast. It could even be something that isn't particularly threatening to the PCs themselves, but threatens everyone else around them - meaning they could end up as virtual immortals stuck in a hostile and lonely world after the Barghest Plague has rushed through, or other things of that nature.

Another way to do it is to have a world where things are falling apart so fast that usually there are two or three places that are about to fall into ruin at any given moment. Since the PCs can only be in one place in enough force to deal with the problem, they have to choose which of three places to save and which two to allow to fall into desolation. Play up the idea that despite the PCs' godlike powers, the world is like a body with sepsis and everything is failing simultaneously everywhere from independent causes - they can save a few things, but they can't save everything, and they have to pick.

But basically what it comes down to is that the thing that will make it grimdark is when the setting and system and everything create a situation where the PCs are faced with the fact that they can't protect everything they want to even if they do their absolute best. Take any particular set of 'cold hard realities' of the real world and turn them up to 11. Economics, scale, the inevitability of time/death, the inability to change the past, etc are all good inspirations for this.

[Vedhin]

Remember, people. Grimdark, as opposed to just a dark setting, means someone has to be absolutely, ridiculously over-the-top in its darkness. There can't be a machine in the setting not powered by the souls of orphaned kittens.

But did the orphaned kittens have cancer?





On a serious note, high fantasy and grimdark can coexist.
In D&D mechanics, the real trick is likely lack of resources. If the PCs feel that they can ill afford to waste anything, every expenditure feels tense. Ana as NichG said, multiple catastrophes happening at the same time is a good way.

You'll also want monsters that are just plain creepy. Monster Mayhem (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/archive.asp?x=dnd/mm,3) is good for that. Mindstealers are really scary when played right, as a previous DM showed me.

[Serafina]

Since Grimdark originates with Warhammer 40K, some relevant experience of mine from a wide-scope high-experience Dark Heresy campaign (with Rogue Trader material):

During the later stages of the game, our characters were really really powerful.
Between a Techpriest and Inquisitor, as well as the groups resources, basically every bit of knowledge could be obtained or was already known.
Combat was only threatening when fighting stuff like Chaos Space Marines and powerful demons, and those fights were won regulary. The more combat-centric members of the group could take on insane amounts of human-scale threats.
Politics and Intrigue were rarely direct obstacles - who's gonna mess with a Lord (well, Lady) Inquisitor after all?
Injuries were quickly healed and characters were very resistant to Insanity and Corruption.

Long story short, the characters had basically made it and transcended the elements of the setting that are commonly seen as grim-dark - the frailty of the PCs and their lack of power against greater threats.


But it doesn't have to be greater threats that make a story grimdark.
Sure, you can deal with the chaos cult in three different ways within the span of a week - but you just executed half the competent officials of the spaceport, so vital food deliveries will now be delayed and thousands will starve.
You can hold off the xenos horde and defend the macropolis - but not without such huge casualties (because you can't be everywhere) that its been all for nothing.
You can use surgery and/or psychic healing to save an innocent - at the cost of that person being cast out from their community due to association with witchcraft, and suffering severe depression because they can't fit in anywhere else - how could someone like that relate to someone like your group?
Removing all the incompetent officials of the city won't make it any more just - and trying to shut down the massive exploitation/slavery is impossible without catastrophic economic consequences for the whole planet.


In other words - its the setting itself that is flawed. You can be as much of a shining hero as you want - you just can't fix it. Prevent greater catastrophes, sure. Defeat foes, take revenge, certainly. But actually make improve anyones situation, let alone that of the masses?
That actually gets much more of an impact if your characters are powerful and not threatened by the grimdark conditions themselves.

[Spuddles]

40K defined GRIMDARK as a trope and is also extremely high fantasy, perhaps the highest of fantasies. It just happens to be IN SPACE. 40K is GRIMDARK high fantasy in space with a generous serving of OVER 9000.

You can totally have a high fantasy grimdark setting. Just because there´s a level million wizard that can fix everyone´s problems doenst mean he will. Chances are he´s actually the source of most of those problems.

[Urpriest]

The Tippyverse can make for an excellent grimdark D&D game.

Everyone lives in the huge planar bubble metropolis subsisting off of magic gruel and water traps. The police are Judge Dredd style awakened Shadesteel Golems. Anyone who wants to leave is Mindraped into fanatic loyalty to the ruler. Teleportation is trapped, scrying is illegal, and casting Evard's Black Tentacles is an offense punishable by a lifetime sentence in a Liquid Pain extractor. Every xp you earn pushes you closer to tenth level when you'll set off the epic level spell Detect Hero and the wizard-king's Ice Assassin Aleaxe's will come to drag you off for... something nasty.

High fantasy, utter hopelessness.


Since Grimdark originates with Warhammer 40K, some relevant experience of mine from a wide-scope high-experience Dark Heresy campaign (with Rogue Trader material):

During the later stages of the game, our characters were really really powerful.
Between a Techpriest and Inquisitor, as well as the groups resources, basically every bit of knowledge could be obtained or was already known.
Combat was only threatening when fighting stuff like Chaos Space Marines and powerful demons, and those fights were won regulary. The more combat-centric members of the group could take on insane amounts of human-scale threats.
Politics and Intrigue were rarely direct obstacles - who's gonna mess with a Lord (well, Lady) Inquisitor after all?
Injuries were quickly healed and characters were very resistant to Insanity and Corruption.

Long story short, the characters had basically made it and transcended the elements of the setting that are commonly seen as grim-dark - the frailty of the PCs and their lack of power against greater threats.


But it doesn't have to be greater threats that make a story grimdark.
Sure, you can deal with the chaos cult in three different ways within the span of a week - but you just executed half the competent officials of the spaceport, so vital food deliveries will now be delayed and thousands will starve.
You can hold off the xenos horde and defend the macropolis - but not without such huge casualties (because you can't be everywhere) that its been all for nothing.
You can use surgery and/or psychic healing to save an innocent - at the cost of that person being cast out from their community due to association with witchcraft, and suffering severe depression because they can't fit in anywhere else - how could someone like that relate to someone like your group?
Removing all the incompetent officials of the city won't make it any more just - and trying to shut down the massive exploitation/slavery is impossible without catastrophic economic consequences for the whole planet.


In other words - its the setting itself that is flawed. You can be as much of a shining hero as you want - you just can't fix it. Prevent greater catastrophes, sure. Defeat foes, take revenge, certainly. But actually make improve anyones situation, let alone that of the masses?
That actually gets much more of an impact if your characters are powerful and not threatened by the grimdark conditions themselves.

I came into the thread to say this, and this. The more negative interpretations of the Tippyverse are already Grimdark, and the nature of magic is that, while solutions are easy and safe, easy and safe solutions tend to treat others as objects rather than people.

The PCs can be powerful and the game can still be Grimdark because the PCs are the source of the Grimdark. Think of a Body Leech or a Necrocarnate, consuming others not just for the evuls but because it's the only way to get the necessary power to save the world. Think of a Cleric who calls in angels with Planar Ally, knowing that every death is a vast loss for the cause of good but turning the other way.

Use the PCs' power, let them do what players with too much Int and not enough Wis do, what everyone suggests as soon as a thread asks for advice on something tricky and personal (remember the "we have to support a baby" thread, where suggestions varied from Sovereign Glue and Polymorph any Object to Mindrape?), but this time, keep them aware of what they're doing. PCs acting like PCs can be plenty grimdark on their own.

[Vedhin]

Think of a Body Leech or a Necrocarnate, consuming others not just for the evuls but because it's the only way to get the necessary power to save the world.

I'd play in this campaign.

[NichG]

I came into the thread to say this, and this. The more negative interpretations of the Tippyverse are already Grimdark, and the nature of magic is that, while solutions are easy and safe, easy and safe solutions tend to treat others as objects rather than people.

The PCs can be powerful and the game can still be Grimdark because the PCs are the source of the Grimdark. Think of a Body Leech or a Necrocarnate, consuming others not just for the evuls but because it's the only way to get the necessary power to save the world. Think of a Cleric who calls in angels with Planar Ally, knowing that every death is a vast loss for the cause of good but turning the other way.

Use the PCs' power, let them do what players with too much Int and not enough Wis do, what everyone suggests as soon as a thread asks for advice on something tricky and personal (remember the "we have to support a baby" thread, where suggestions varied from Sovereign Glue and Polymorph any Object to Mindrape?), but this time, keep them aware of what they're doing. PCs acting like PCs can be plenty grimdark on their own.

While this can definitely be the case, I'd say its a different genre. The reason is that the PCs who pull this kind of thing usually don't think through the implications or really feel the consequences of those actions, so it might be grimdark to an outside observer but probably not at all to the players.

[ArqArturo]

Isn't Midnight the Ultimate grim RPG?.

[Urpriest]

While this can definitely be the case, I'd say its a different genre. The reason is that the PCs who pull this kind of thing usually don't think through the implications or really feel the consequences of those actions, so it might be grimdark to an outside observer but probably not at all to the players.

I feel like that's not so difficult an element to include, though. Just talk to the players beforehand, and emphasize that while they can come up with the same crazy plans PCs normally do, they should RP their characters as actually grappling morally with the consequences. If the group is good enough at storytelling it would work well.

[NichG]

I feel like that's not so difficult an element to include, though. Just talk to the players beforehand, and emphasize that while they can come up with the same crazy plans PCs normally do, they should RP their characters as actually grappling morally with the consequences. If the group is good enough at storytelling it would work well.

I dunno, I think if they were good enough at storytelling, then when they grappled morally with the crazy PC plans they'd decide not to do those crazy plans anymore. What's more likely (from campaigns I've played in where this kind of thing was made into a campaign element) is that the players will be divided between those that can't see why that sort of thing is dark and those who see it and get frustrated trying to stop the others.

For example, I was in a campaign where we'd all do fairly crazy stuff, but one player basically would do things with hugely horrible consequences and then just laugh it off - 'oh, haha, breaking that seal caused millions to die? Oops! haha'. It wasn't really grimdark, instead it was kind of ridiculous - the rest of us wanted him to stop or wanted to stop him, but because of the out-of-game considerations of 'this guy isn't going to play anything else, and if we kick this guy out of the party the next guy will be just as bad' there was a very meta-gamey status quo. The campaign didn't really manage a grimdark feel (nor was it intended to) despite the horrible consequences of PC actions being a weekly occurrence. It was a fun campaign in all, but I don't think it achieves what the OP was asking for.

I think there's a very subtle part of getting PCs to look at things a particular way. Depending on how the GM and campaign present something, it can be funny or horrific on a visceral level rather than just a 'hey guys, act like this is horrible' level. The actions of a PC cause faceless millions to die by accident? That's going to come across as funny, not horrible, because they're just an offhand comment. The actions of a PC cause people to die, including the party's favorite shopkeeper who keeps them supplied with cool stuff and gave them a good deal that one time they didn't quite have enough cash in exchange for teaching his daughter some cantrips? That's getting a bit closer to the mark. The particular way it happened was that the daughter tried to cast a spell she couldn't handle, directly as a result of the PCs teaching her? Even better.

But like everything that can be overplayed. If every merchant the PCs interact with drops dead of dramatic causes, its going to lose its sting. So it really needs to be broad strokes, where a lot of the campaign isn't actually all that grim day-to-day, but when it does get grim it goes right for the kill.

[Metahuman1]

Here is how you play it. Use Taint and Sanity rules to make characters constantly go through characters cause there always loosing control and/or taking looses in combat (see below.), and use LOT'S of high optimized Teir 1 casters against them all the freaking time.

Make sure they loose damn near every fight, and that surviving always means giving up there objective and baling and that this is always a choice that makes life worse but staying and fighting is certain death in 99/100 fights.

The 1 out of 100 or so fights you give them should be costly victory's no matter how much hand waving and butt pulling you have to do to make it happen, and should be so incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things they might as well have run and in this case would have been better off if they had and get to find that out afterwords.

Every choice is wrong and every option is bad and stinks with no exceptions. Using **** tones of Tier 1 casters at high/total op levels makes this easy, even if the party are all total op Tier 1 casters themselves, by simple virtue of numbers. It's like throwing 3-6 samurai against millions of equally trained and skilled and equipped Samurai. There's no way to win in the end.

If the PC's ever get a real advantage going, let them have it for a session or two, maybe three, then take it away and do a near party wipe in the process, can't have hope or a leg up after all.



Yes, you can make it high fantasy and still stupidly grimdark.

[Vedhin]

It's like throwing 3-6 samurai against millions of equally trained and skilled and equipped Samurai. There's no way to win in the end.

You underestimate the will of a samurai!


But it looks like your advice boils down to "Use DM fiat to prevent the party from doing anything that's not self-destructive. Unless it's to crush their hope later."

[Metahuman1]

Substitute the work DM for Author(s), and I don't think I've ever encountered a truly grimdark setting/story or world were it didn't feel like this is what was going on out the starting gate right up till the end. I just justified it mechanically in a way that uses less hand waving and ass pulling and more badly written game mechanics then normal.


And don't say "Game of Thrones didn't do this.". Game of thrones isn't actively trying to be grim dark, just trying for the absolute maximum amount of realism you can have in a low magic world, which, for a low magic world were magic is only starting to come back and for a medieval setting, requires a lot of bad **** to be happening all the time.

[ArqArturo]

You underestimate the will of a samurai!


But it looks like your advice boils down to "Use DM fiat to prevent the party from doing anything that's not self-destructive. Unless it's to crush their hope later."

Like all Call of Cthulhu games?.

[Blackhawk748]

There's even a setting for it: Ravenloft. It doesn't support epic levels well, but anything below that is fine. It also has lots of setting-specific rules that make the life of even high-level PCs difficult. As for pathos and tension, it has rules for giving bonus points for them.

Of course, Ravenloft is primarily horror, although it can be used for other things, too.

Second this, Ravenloft is wonderful as a setting, and it has multiple tech levels, also literally everything is scarier. Liches, nigh upon demi-gods of undeath, Werewolves, actually quite scary, Vampires, Dracula is the starting point here, Golems, the things are INTELLIGENT now and hate their makers, Demons/Devils, these just got even more frightening.

I havent actually looked to far into Mignight but it looked pretty sweet.

Also Dragonage, nothing nerfs mages like having everyone hate them.

Warlords of the Accordlands, not really grimdark, but pretty grim, its a 3.5 off shoot.

[Amphetryon]

UPDATE: We began, with an emphasis in the world on the Blood War having spilled on to the Prime Material Plane. The country's leaders put out a study indicating that "nearly 80% of the population is not personally involved in the Blood War;" hopefully you see how that's a less than comforting stat. We also clarified that CHA is PURELY personal magnetism, with healing having a 25% chance of causing long-term, but not permanent, scarring.

[Vedhin]

UPDATE: We began, with an emphasis in the world on the Blood War having spilled on to the Prime Material Plane. The country's leaders put out a study indicating that "nearly 80% of the population is not personally involved in the Blood War;" hopefully you see how that's a less than comforting stat.

Excellent. I assume that the Upper Planes and Center Planes (not an official name) are mobilizing their forces to make it a 17-way battle for the Prime? Obviously, the Upper Planes will be at a disadvantage, having not been expecting this.
You end up with the inexorable Modron war machine marching straight over obstacles, and the Slaad throwing monkey wrenches all willy-nilly.
Plus, both the Yugoloths and the Rilmani make a point of being (Summon TvTropes! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?343670-least-favourite-spell&p=17350642&viewfull=1#post17350642)) Chessmasters (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChessmaster). Thus you have two forces working at cross purposes to everyone else, and the Rilmani specifically want to stop anyone from making big changes in the Balance.

[Metahuman1]

UPDATE: We began, with an emphasis in the world on the Blood War having spilled on to the Prime Material Plane. The country's leaders put out a study indicating that "nearly 80% of the population is not personally involved in the Blood War;" hopefully you see how that's a less than comforting stat. We also clarified that CHA is PURELY personal magnetism, with healing having a 25% chance of causing long-term, but not permanent, scarring.

Great, while the other planes mobilize, here's an idea.

Have an army of devils and an army of demons open up stupidly big gates on either side of a major city the PC's are in just outside the wall, and then break through the rather massive walls the city has. Bonus points if this city was though to be so well defended and fortified that no matter what else happened it would stand, and now the PC's are seeing it breached on two fronts by two opposing armys who are slaughtering there way to each other so they can slaughter one another, and the city and everyone in it except maybe the PC's and a handful of NPC's who are there to make the catastrophic loss that much more tangibly painful, just have the piss poor luck to be between them and thus, get wiped out with no prayer of mounting a defense or counter attack that's gonna mean squat. More bonus points of anyone who dies goes to the Abyss or the 9 Hells regaurdless of were they should be going normally.


For Insperation, watch the first episode or two of Attack On Titan, were the supersized Titan breaks the wall for the first time and let's the human city suffer it's first attack. Think that except coming form two directions at once and you have the added horror of going to some version of hell no matter how you die in that place if your killed on top of an all but garonteed slaughter of almost everyone living in that city.

[Vedhin]

More bonus points of anyone who dies goes to the Abyss or the 9 Hells regardless of were they should be going normally.

I have to point this out: planar physics do not work this way. The amount of power it would take to do that is just crazy, not to mention that it would instantly draw the attention of every deity, ever. Plus, I think it's against the Pact Primeval, so Asmodeus isn't going to be doing so.

[Freelance GM]

Whoops, I had a pretty fun idea for you, but I missed the post announcing that you already started. Serves me right for simply skimming the thread. I'll leave the original brainstorm in spoiler tags in case anyone's interested, though.

I'm going to pitch the idea I've haphazardly thrown together. If you like it, feel free to run with it. But I like it so much, I might actually use it for my next campaign.

THE ELEVATOR PITCH: In a perfectly normal D&D setting, a group of adventuring Wizards hit Epic Level, then ruin everything by using Wish to take over the world. One of them accidentally triggers a global civil war, in which these spellcasting Rulers use Wish as a reset button any time another side comes too close to winning.


The world was perfectly normal for a High Fantasy setting. Adventurers were everywhere, trampling out dark cults, slaying dragons, saving princesses, and whatnot. Then, everything changed when a few spellcasters hit epic levels.

These arcane prodigies decided that they could rule the world better than the current rulers, and rather than start a bloody global conflict, simply cast wish, and made themselves "the undisputed rulers of the world." As a semi-intentional caveat of their wish, the gods were now forbidden from doing anything to question or overturn their undisputed rule. Although they still had their Clerics and Paladins active in the world, they were unable to prevent what happened next.

The new, self-proclaimed "Rulers" spent the better part of a century dividing the world up between themselves, and using their incredible power to perfect their Empires... Then, it occurred to one of them that at any point, any one of the other Rulers could simply wish that they were the absolute ruler. However, they could only cast wish if they could get their hands on a diamond worth 25,000 gold. This Instigator launched a preemptive strike; exploiting teleportation to attack every single major diamond mine on the planet capable of producing such a diamond. However, since Wizards don't make it to level 20 without being able to plan ahead, one of the other Rulers had such a diamond locked away, and used it to go back in time and assassinate the Instigator. Naturally, this made the other Rulers incredibly upset, not so much because of the would-be Instigator's death, but that the other Ruler had a contingency plan in place to do so. And so the world descended into total war.

No one is really sure how long the war has actually lasted; every time one of the Rulers comes close to winning, another Ruler goes and reboots the timeline- and the world's supply of wish-capable diamonds.
Millions of humanoids toil away in diamond mines, while millions more fight an eternal stalemate on the Empire's borders. If any Empire was to gain control of another's diamond supply, it would inevitably lead to another ruler rebooting the world again.

The player characters could be rebels from the borderlands. Perhaps, after growing up amidst the pointless carnage, they decided that as long as any of the Rulers are in power, the world cannot have peace. They might embark on an epic quest (in true High Fantasy style) to take a Ruler hostage, and force them to wish the world back to the way it was, before the war broke out.
Alternatively, they could be a Ruler's ace in the hole. Every Ruler fosters the development of adventuring parties within their own Empire, while assassinating the best prospects of the other Rulers. In this scenario, the PC's have been groomed from birth for their adventuring roles (hence, level 6). Similarly, they embark on an epic quest to defeat a Ruler, but unlike the previous scenario, where they are an unexpected wildcard, in this one, they are simply less-expendable pawns in the Ruler's game.


Some other quirks of the setting:
Divine Spellcasters, rather than Arcane ones, could be the ones who get hunted down and exterminated. Since the original Wish prevents the gods from interfering, divine casters are the only way for the gods to have any influence on the world anymore.

This setting keeps the epic quest and sense of hope from High fantasy alive, but it can easily be stamped out at any time by having a "Reboot" occur during the course of play. Do the PC's actions really mean anything, when a Ruler can "hit the reset button" at any time? Granted, that also adds an extra layer of pressure. For their mission to succeed, the PC's must capture a Ruler before that Ruler has the time to hit the reset button, AND before any of the other Rulers find out what they did, and hit their reset buttons.

[NichG]

I have to point this out: planar physics do not work this way. The amount of power it would take to do that is just crazy, not to mention that it would instantly draw the attention of every deity, ever. Plus, I think it's against the Pact Primeval, so Asmodeus isn't going to be doing so.

There's a PrC that could achieve it - iirc its schtick involved actually stealing bits of planes in a temporary fashion. If you stole the city and had the battle actually occur on the Abyss or in Baator, its quite reasonable that the plane could glom onto the escaping souls and immediately turn them into locals.

[Vedhin]

There's a PrC that could achieve it - iirc its schtick involved actually stealing bits of planes in a temporary fashion. If you stole the city and had the battle actually occur on the Abyss or in Baator, its quite reasonable that the plane could glom onto the escaping souls and immediately turn them into locals.

No. No it is not. That is not how planes work.

[Amphetryon]

No. No it is not. That is not how planes work.

. . . in your understanding of the RAW.

[Metahuman1]

I have to point this out: planar physics do not work this way. The amount of power it would take to do that is just crazy, not to mention that it would instantly draw the attention of every deity, ever. Plus, I think it's against the Pact Primeval, so Asmodeus isn't going to be doing so.

So the Dm gives each side one Epic Spell caster pulling this BS and it's been started by the demons who tend not to be big on rules and the devils are replying in kind to what is basically a nuke.

Boom, now everyone goes to hell or they abyss if they die in this battle, period, no exceptions. Only way to figure one or the other is depending on who kills you.

Heck, if you really wanna squeeze it, let it become public knowledge via a mage or something that if you kill yourself and it's not suicide by demon or devil, or your killed by other none demons/devils, that gets you out of a straight up garontee of going. Then you just go where you'd normally go. Thus, Suicide just became your best option.

[Psyren]

Isn't 40K both of these? What with all sides of the war being led by godlike jerks and all.

Or maybe the Conan-verse, specifically the MMO version where magic is a little more common?

[Vedhin]

So the Dm gives each side one Epic Spell caster pulling this BS and it's been started by the demons who tend not to be big on rules and the devils are replying in kind to what is basically a nuke.

I'd like to make the point that this should be beyond even Epic Spells, unless serious mitigation cheese is allowed. In which case, the question is "Who casts win first?"

[Metahuman1]

Really? I though on this board conventional wisdom was that if you can't due something with epic magic it's cause your not trying hard enough.

[Amphetryon]

Really? I though on this board conventional wisdom was that if you can't due something with epic magic it's cause your not trying hard enough.

To be fair, Epic spells are pretty much all characterized as "who casts win first?"

[Metahuman1]

Well, in this case, I'd say the epic magic being used to pull that little stunt is closer to a 20th level NPC caster casting Wish or Miracle to accomplish a major long term plan, that yes, likely puts them at odds with the PC's but that's a minor side effect. In the mean time, they got what they want. The demon's got an advantage for all of ten seconds before the devils fired right back at them and neutralized it, and cause the demon's weren't that well organized about it, that 10 seconds didn't really land them much of anything by way of advantage, but oh, how it screwed the PC's and large population caught in the crossfire over!

[Spuddles]

No. No it is not. That is not how planes work.

Depends on the setting. In some, devils, daemons, and demons actively try to capture unaligned or poorly aligned souls.

[Metahuman1]

Depends on the setting. In some, devils, daemons, and demons actively try to capture unaligned or poorly aligned souls.

It is sorta a major part of the whole idea behind evil outsiders and the things there based on most directly, or at least devils and demons for the most part. Both have designated tempters for a reason.