The darker and Edgier of all dark fantasy

[S@tanicoaldo]

I really like dark fantasy. I think it is my favorite genre.

And the world I'm tring to build is dark.

But many friends said to me that dark fanatsy is way to popular now a days.

Is it true? What is the darkest game you guys ever played?

I mean I don't think that games like dragon age, Warhammer, Exalted or Two Worlds II are dark enough.

[Mr Beer]

Call of Cthulhu is probably the darkest game I've played. In the fantasy genre, Warhammer. Which is extremely easy to turn up the dial on BTW, it can be as grim as you like.

[Lord Raziere]

I mean I don't think that games like dragon age, Warhammer, Exalted or Two Worlds II are dark enough.

Exalted. not dark enough. wat. Dragon Age. not dark enough. wat.

Warhammer. not dark enough. WAT.

I genuinely curious as to what you think IS dark enough, because Warhammer is generally acknowledged as the most grimdark of all of them. there is not much darker you can get than the game that has a space opera spinoff that is so grimdark its basically a ludicrous parody of grimdarkness that you are not supposed to take seriously. and even then, WH40k is basically still fantasy, just in space and substituting magic with Psyker powers.

I mean really, if you don't consider Warhammer dark enough, I don't know what to tell you, there is not much darker you can go....

[MonochromeTiger]

Exalted. not dark enough. wat. Dragon Age. not dark enough. wat.

Warhammer. not dark enough. WAT.

I genuinely curious as to what you think IS dark enough, because Warhammer is generally acknowledged as the most grimdark of all of them. there is not much darker you can get than the game that has a space opera spinoff that is so grimdark its basically a ludicrous parody of grimdarkness that you are not supposed to take seriously. and even then, WH40k is basically still fantasy, just in space and substituting magic with Psyker powers.

I mean really, if you don't consider Warhammer dark enough, I don't know what to tell you, there is not much darker you can go....

well you could take the warhammer fantasy setting to its logical conclusion of everything that can die has died, everything that can't die is suffering in an endless back and forth fight due to a lack of other things to fight, and reality itself is collapsing into nothingness out of sheer horror..then add in magical darkness everywhere so that the "dark" part is taken literally.

[Lord Raziere]

Yea, and the reason why the PC's fight is so that they can feel endless pain and agony as opposed to going numb and not feeling anything at all, because they long ago forgotten the meaning of happiness or joy or peace. they have to eat the ghosts of all the innocent people that ever died to sustain their power so that they keep being immortal so that they don't die and go numb from no pain. and of course the entire world is nothing but rock and sand, even the plants are gone and any shred of hope you find your character feels an overwhelming urge to exterminate immediately because hope is such an alien concept to them, they don't want to feel the unknown emotion because its so unfamiliar and scary to them.

[MonochromeTiger]

Yea, and the reason why the PC's fight is so that they can feel endless pain and agony as opposed to going numb and not feeling anything at all, because they long ago forgotten the meaning of happiness or joy or peace. they have to eat the ghosts of all the innocent people that ever died to sustain their power so that they keep being immortal so that they don't die and go numb from no pain. and of course the entire world is nothing but rock and sand, even the plants are gone and any shred of hope you find your character feels an overwhelming urge to exterminate immediately because hope is such an alien concept to them, they don't want to feel the unknown emotion because its so unfamiliar and scary to them.

don't forget that they're also haunted by everyone they may have ever known or loved constantly tearing at the remains of their broken psyche and repeatedly driving them to more and more extreme cases of self endangerment as they're reminded at all times that they were never cared for and that their existence is a lie that serves only to bring suffering to those around them.

[BWR]

See if you can dig up Kult. Darkest game I could find without going quite far enough to be satire or parody.

[Red Fel]

I think there's a communication issue here - "dark" and "edgy" are terms with multiple definitions.

For example, some people see "dark and edgy" meaning horror, which is valid. Others see "dark and edgy" meaning gritty and grim, with true crime and violent and dark conduct. Also valid. Still others see "dark and edgy" meaning that everyone dies or goes insane, the PCs included. Also valid.

So let's start with that - what do you mean when you say "dark fantasy?"

Because I can think of games like Dragonlance, Exalted, or Scion that can be dark, or games like V:tM or W:tA that can be bright and cheerful. I find that while a setting and system may lend itself to one particular style and tone of gameplay, it need not be that exclusively; I could see even Call of Cthulhu being light, comedic, and epic in the hands of the right DM and players.

So let's start from scratch, S@: What exactly are you asking?

[S@tanicoaldo]

Exalted. not dark enough. wat. Dragon Age. not dark enough. wat.

Warhammer. not dark enough. WAT.

I genuinely curious as to what you think IS dark enough, because Warhammer is generally acknowledged as the most grimdark of all of them. there is not much darker you can get than the game that has a space opera spinoff that is so grimdark its basically a ludicrous parody of grimdarkness that you are not supposed to take seriously. and even then, WH40k is basically still fantasy, just in space and substituting magic with Psyker powers.

I mean really, if you don't consider Warhammer dark enough, I don't know what to tell you, there is not much darker you can go....

Well... First there is a clear distinction between good and evil.

The supreme good is a "Hope" for the world.

The evil is too much "Mwhuahaua I will burn the world cause i got nothing else to do!"

Besides how can you take a solider seriously if they are dressed like this:

Spoiler

Show

I mean how can they walk? It looks like they are wearing vaults.

[MonochromeTiger]

I mean how can they walk? It looks like they are wearing vaults.

genetic modification to nigh superhuman levels as well as it being specifically designed for use by them (there's a reason you don't hear about imperial guardsmen in space marine power armor). but really even then it's no more ridiculous than the billions of examples of fantasy armor and weapons that are highly impractical (example being every sword a final fantasy protagonist uses ever).

but yes as red fel said what are you actually setting as your standard of "dark" for this question?

[S@tanicoaldo]

genetic modification to nigh superhuman levels as well as it being specifically designed for use by them (there's a reason you don't hear about imperial guardsmen in space marine power armor). but really even then it's no more ridiculous than the billions of examples of fantasy armor and weapons that are highly impractical (example being every sword a final fantasy protagonist uses ever).

but yes as red fel said what are you actually setting as your standard of "dark" for this question?

Yeah I also hate huge swords.

I'm sorry guys I did not wanted to sound offensive.

Well, a dark place like real world dark ages. A place with slaves, but not non human slaves such as dragon age. A place with wars, but not war againts orcs and alien lovecraftian beings such as warhammer. A place with starvation and disease. A place where war is hell not a glorified thing.

Edit: i think that a place with no heros summarizes.

[Talakeal]

Yeah I also hate huge swords.

I'm sorry guys I did not wanted to sound offensive.

Well, a dark place like real world dark ages. A place with slaves, but not non human slaves such as dragon age. A place with wars, but not war againts orcs and alien lovecraftian beings such as warhammer. A place with starvation and disease. A place where war is hell not a glorified thing.

Edit: i think that a place with no heros summarizes.

I have heard a lot of good things about Midnight, although I haven't been able to track down a copy myself.

I am also writing a gothic fantasy game that my players feel is overly dark (although not nearly as dark as I could have made it) which I hope to release by the end of March, which I hope you will give a look /shameless plug

[SiuiS]

Changeling: the lost is a game at its core that is about being raped and abused, tossed into an uncaring world and forced to either be crushed by the traumas they cannot forget or wheel and deal politics with other trauma victims who don't give a damn how you feel.

Mage: the Awakening is a game where the truth of totality is revealed to you, and other than the gnostic ideal of it being important because it's objectively true, it's also meaningless and soul crushing in a very Lovecraftian way. You either get hunted down and killed and have your soul eaten or you join a bunch of factionalized muster cut religions who all revere the point in time when they could be jackasses without consequence, and your only choice is to accept it and become a jackass. Mage is a game where the nicest people end up as monsters because you have infinite power and nothing matters, god is dead and your enemies killed him or them and stole his throne, and the only reason the world hasn't been consumed by madness from beyond the veil is because the bad guys need the world to stay crapsack but intact because they today to god-emperors who deem it so.

Werewolf: the forsaken is a game about magical puberty. Doesn't get much darker than that.

[MonochromeTiger]

Yeah I also hate huge swords.

I'm sorry guys I did not wanted to sound offensive.

I didn't take offense, just mildly surprised that a setting known for how crushingly futile most "good" actions are wasn't considered dark.

Well, a dark place like real world dark ages. A place with slaves, but not non human slaves such as dragon age. A place with wars, but not war againts orcs and alien lovecraftian beings such as warhammer. A place with starvation and disease. A place where war is hell not a glorified thing.

Edit: i think that a place with no heros summarizes.

I may be misunderstanding but it sounds like you want a relatively low fantasy (by which I mean human centered) setting with standards on war a bit closer to real life?

[Tengu_temp]

Warhammer. not dark enough. WAT.

I genuinely curious as to what you think IS dark enough, because Warhammer is generally acknowledged as the most grimdark of all of them. there is not much darker you can get than the game that has a space opera spinoff that is so grimdark its basically a ludicrous parody of grimdarkness that you are not supposed to take seriously. and even then, WH40k is basically still fantasy, just in space and substituting magic with Psyker powers.

I mean really, if you don't consider Warhammer dark enough, I don't know what to tell you, there is not much darker you can go....

You're talking about WH40K. WFRP isn't anywhere near as grimdark, nor anywhere near as over the top. It's a dark fantasy system where corruption can be found anywhere, being a hero is hard (but not impossible), cities are dirty, villages are suspicious of outsiders, and adventurers have to deal with rusting equipment and infected wounds. It's a down to earth game where you're more likely to investigate a suspicious new cult in the city than fight a dragon to rescue a princess. For a long time it was the default RPG system in Poland.

[TheCountAlucard]

Just because Exalted's got heroes doesn't mean it's not dark - for one thing, it uses the old-school definition of "hero," as in, a person who does big important things that aren't necessarily good or evil. And there's definitely no objective morality.

Real sickness, real starvation? Check - the game has rules for cholera, not random-turn-to-snakes disease. Slavery? Check - the Guild is so successful at it that entire nation-states have become depopulated. War? Check - conflict spreads throughout the setting, and if you're only looking at the stuff happening with ghosts or Fair Folk or whatever, you're really missing out.

Try playing as mortals. It's gonna start looking a lot more like The Black Company.

Speaking of which, The Black Company, by Glen Cook. I recommend it!

[Mr Beer]

Well, a dark place like real world dark ages. A place with slaves, but not non human slaves such as dragon age. A place with wars, but not war againts orcs and alien lovecraftian beings such as warhammer. A place with starvation and disease. A place where war is hell not a glorified thing.

Edit: i think that a place with no heros summarizes.

Warhammer Fantasy with an emphasis on adventuring within the Empire can easily cover this. You need never see an Orc if you don't want to. The flavour is pretty much 'no real heroes' anyway.

Otherwise, just pick a system that the crunch you like and write your own setting based on the actual Dark Ages. Plenty of interesting things happened between 400AD and 1100AD, or whichever period you consider to be Dark Ages.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Mage: the Awakening is a game where the truth of totality is revealed to you, and other than the gnostic ideal of it being important because it's objectively true, it's also meaningless and soul crushing in a very Lovecraftian way. You either get hunted down and killed and have your soul eaten or you join a bunch of factionalized muster cut religions who all revere the point in time when they could be jackasses without consequence, and your only choice is to accept it and become a jackass. Mage is a game where the nicest people end up as monsters because you have infinite power and nothing matters, god is dead and your enemies killed him or them and stole his throne, and the only reason the world hasn't been consumed by madness from beyond the veil is because the bad guys need the world to stay crapsack but intact because they today to god-emperors who deem it so.

Ummm... Interesting it seems this is very similar to what I'm looking for! The Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade setting looks perfect. Just need to find the book and see if the rules are as good as the concept.

I didn't take offense, just mildly surprised that a setting known for how crushingly futile most "good" actions are wasn't considered dark.



I may be misunderstanding but it sounds like you want a relatively low fantasy (by which I mean human centered) setting with standards on war a bit closer to real life?

I think it is the fact that there is a always chaotic evil alien race on it one of the main reasons that makes me don't like it... Same goes with dragon age.

No don't need to be low fantasy I love Dragons, fey, giants and all.

You're talking about WH40K. WFRP isn't anywhere near as grimdark, nor anywhere near as over the top. It's a dark fantasy system where corruption can be found anywhere, being a hero is hard (but not impossible), cities are dirty, villages are suspicious of outsiders, and adventurers have to deal with rusting equipment and infected wounds. It's a down to earth game where you're more likely to investigate a suspicious new cult in the city than fight a dragon to rescue a princess. For a long time it was the default RPG system in Poland.

Ummmm... interesting.

Just because Exalted's got heroes doesn't mean it's not dark - for one thing, it uses the old-school definition of "hero," as in, a person who does big important things that aren't necessarily good or evil. And there's definitely no objective morality.

Real sickness, real starvation? Check - the game has rules for cholera, not random-turn-to-snakes disease. Slavery? Check - the Guild is so successful at it that entire nation-states have become depopulated. War? Check - conflict spreads throughout the setting, and if you're only looking at the stuff happening with ghosts or Fair Folk or whatever, you're really missing out.

Try playing as mortals. It's gonna start looking a lot more like The Black Company.

Speaking of which, The Black Company, by Glen Cook. I recommend it!

I dunno there is somethng about Exalted that just don't do it for me... I think it is the art. or I'm just retarded.

[Cikomyr]

The currently developping Grim Dawn is pretty bleak and dark..

Demon Soul's universe is also damn dark, if you consider that the true Big Bad is actually GOD EMPRISONNED, and he wants to get out and make everyone suffer for the Lols.

[Janus]

Darkest fantasy game I've played? Probably Dragon Age, but I'm currently downloading the Witcher from Steam right now. I'll probably have to change my answer later.

I really like dark fantasy. I think it is my favorite genre.

And the world I'm tring to build is dark.

But many friends said to me that dark fanatsy is way to popular now a days.

If you like it that much, just do it. Who cares if it's been done before? Have fun with it!

[Hiro Protagonest]

The currently developping Grim Dawn is pretty bleak and dark..

Demon Soul's universe is also damn dark, if you consider that the true Big Bad is actually GOD EMPRISONNED, and he wants to get out and make everyone suffer for the Lols.

Actually, that guy is more likely the equivalent of the World Tree. Corrupted by humanity's use of the Soul Arts and twisted into an evil being. It is true that the priests are totally misguided though.

The lady in The Nexus could be God, considering how she treats the BBEG.

I suppose if you want something dark that won't leave your group either depressed or gone long ago (because they don't play games to get depressed), something like a medieval era version of Call of Cthulhu would work.

[Ravens_cry]

Deadlands is pretty dark, especially once you start peeling back the layers of the world. Heck, the overarching goal for the players is to make small areas less dark.

[Talakeal]

One complaint I always had with WHFRP was that it was so simple and childish. Everything was all blood and skulls and mindless killing. There was no subtlety in the evil. I feel that treachery, rape, torture, and slavery are much greater c rimes than base killing, but warhammer never allows complex enough relationships to develop to allow any of this as everyone just kills everyone on sight. The biggest disappointments are the various curses and monsters devoted to Tzeentch or Slaanesh, which should be capable of such exquisite and subtle evil and pain, but always come down to murdering the victim in the most gruesome manner possible.

[Ravens_cry]

One complaint I always had with WHFRP was that it was so simple and childish. Everything was all blood and skulls and mindless killing. There was no subtlety in the evil. I feel that treachery, rape, torture, and slavery are much greater c rimes than base killing, but warhammer never allows complex enough relationships to develop to allow any of this as everyone just kills everyone on sight. The biggest disappointments are the various curses and monsters devoted to Tzeentch or Slaanesh, which should be capable of such exquisite and subtle evil and pain, but always come down to murdering the victim in the most gruesome manner possible.

Yeah, you need some contrast in order for the darkness to stand out. You can't break someone's trust if they don't trust you in the first place.
It's so over the top it's ludicrous.

[Tengu_temp]

It's so over the top it's ludicrous.

Once again, this is WH40K, not WFRP. There is nothing over the top about WFRP. It's a very gritty, very low fantasy. Huge swords that are constantly dripping blood and giant pauldrons with skulls is something you find in WH40K, and even in WFB, but not in WFRP. Most of the time WFRP looks like XV-XVI century Europe, with wizards and monsters added.

It's not completely grimdark either, and can be subtle as well as any other game. Look at the published adventures; some fit the mold of "rip and tear through bloodthirsty demons and orcs!", but you also get mystery investigation, a trip around the world, and even light-hearted shenanigans. Look at the various location books; there are descriptions of local festivals, taverns of all kinds, and temples where kindly priests give food to the needy. This is a dark world going through tough times, but it's not a hopeless, joyless world. It's very real.

[SiuiS]

Fair warning. Mage has possibly the worst book at a meta level. It actively works against providing the rules in a fun and engaging way. A lot of what the setting is seeps in at the edges. You're taught from core, about the fall of Atlantis (ignore the name), the sundering of the mortal world, and how everything used I be cool but some jackass ruined it and took over and now they're the bad guy, and this team of idealists are working to restore the world to its rightful glory!

Only as you read, you sit back and think "this isn't righteous. This is a religion based on a wizard Jesus" or "wow, these guys actively try to murder people for interfering with magic, like, conceptually".

The bad guys might actually be the good guys. And you'll never know.

[squiggit]

Only as you read, you sit back and think "this isn't righteous. This is a religion based on a wizard Jesus" or "wow, these guys actively try to murder people for interfering with magic, like, conceptually".

The bad guys might actually be the good guys. And you'll never know.

That actually seems like something I've seen pretty consistently with nWoD.

There is nothing over the top about WFRP.

Except for like.. Chaos vikings. And Dark Elves in general. And witch hunters in general. And Tomb Kings...

[Rhynn]

It's not completely grimdark either, and can be subtle as well as any other game. Look at the published adventures; some fit the mold of "rip and tear through bloodthirsty demons and orcs!", but you also get mystery investigation, a trip around the world, and even light-hearted shenanigans.

Also a demon named Dentist (Zahnartz). Although that adventure is far from funny - in fact, parts are pretty much painfully tragic. (WFRP mutants are always really, really sad to me.)

WFRP is awesome and can do grim & gritty (usually at the "nasty realistic" levels) perfectly, but you can deal it up or down easily.

Except for like.. Chaos vikings. And Dark Elves in general. And witch hunters in general. And Tomb Kings...

None of those, except witch hunters (on which I disagree) are really portrayed in WFRP, and certainly not very over-the-top. Don't confuse WFRP with WHFB.

[squiggit]

None of those, except witch hunters (on which I disagree) are really portrayed in WFRP, and certainly not very over-the-top. Don't confuse WFRP with WHFB.

Maybe I've just had weird DMs then. Every game of WFRP I've played (that hasn't ended in mass death very early on) has included chaos vikings. A lot. Dark elves slightly rarer and admittedly only once were there any tomb king shenanigans. But still.

And if we are separating the core setting from a specific game as much as possible you can still salvage 40k with Dark Heresy, which has pretty much none of the crazy stuff.

[Cikomyr]

Well, the Norse in WFRP do exist, but they are not exactly more cartoonish or over the top than other antagonist archetypes of the setting. In fact, it's establish that there is quite a number of Norse traders and outcasts who become bodyguards for high Imperial society.

And it's not even the majority of Norse who worship Chaos. There is quite a number of them, but it's not ALL of them.

Once you have taken that into consideration, what's so over the top about vikings? I personally find them to be more of a horrendeous threat than an over the top evil.