How much Grimdark would you like in your P:E?

[ImRhoven]

I'm not a fan dark just for the sake of being dark, but I do enjoy a grim sense of realism. Most stories just don't end with a happily ever after for everyone involved. So something on the level of the Witcher, or a Joe Abercrombie's First Law books would be nice.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

See, but I don't see why the existence of a path where things turn out well somehow negates the legitimacy of a path where things don't turn out as well. It's like saying the existence of light-side paths in KOTOR and KOTOR II means the dark-side paths aren't viable. Why? I've never found it to be true. I DO feel it when there is no light side path, as well as when there is no dark-side path. How does the option to choose automatically make it light-side?

 

Because if there exists a clear-cut 'right way' to do things, the objectively 'best' path that leaves everyone satisfied and everything set to clearly the best outcome, then the message sent is that this is a world where all that is needed for everything to turn out all right is for you to do the right thing. There is no conflict except whether or not you feel like being a d*ck.

 

Take Dragon Age. You've got the quest where the little boy is possessed by the demon. The options, as I recall, amounted to 'kill the little boy or let someone sacrifice him or herself to save him.' Quite grim, as originally presented. Immediately shoots up to fluffy when it becomes clear there is a path in which you can save everyone and get rid of the demon at the same time. If you do anything other than that, you're not making a hard choice; you're just being a d*ck. The game itself remains rather fluffy for allowing you the easy out without the hard choice.

[Tamerlane]

@Tammerlane- Man I remember seeing that game and thinking "A Squaresoft game about a Dragon Knight? This will be awesome!"

 

I was profoundly disappointed.

Yeah, I couldn't finish it. Most of my knowledge of the game - and all of my knowledge of its sequel - is culled from The Dark Id's excellent LPs.

 

Also, I can't stop looking up these god damn weapon backstories:

 

[HeedlessHorseman]

Somewhere in the vicinity of these My Little Ponies:

 

 

 

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Taking as a definition of Grimdark: `Not only is the world awful, but it can't be improved` (eg. 40K or 1984), I'd have to say no. What I'd like is a World Half Full type setting, where the world is pretty crap, but not without hope - Fallout is one of the better examples, as well as anything `dark` done by Bioware. For a serious RPG, neither min nor max Grimdark work: In `boot-stamping-on-a-human-face-forever` works, we tend to get Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, and a happy mario style world cannot be taken seriously, and either is bad for Willing Suspension of Disbelief, which is utterly critical. Give us some darkness to curse, please - but give us an option to light a candle. Or a flamethrower. Flamethrowers are good too.

Edited October 14, 2012 by TheTeaMustFlow

[Zu Long]

See, but I don't see why the existence of a path where things turn out well somehow negates the legitimacy of a path where things don't turn out as well. It's like saying the existence of light-side paths in KOTOR and KOTOR II means the dark-side paths aren't viable. Why? I've never found it to be true. I DO feel it when there is no light side path, as well as when there is no dark-side path. How does the option to choose automatically make it light-side?

 

Because if there exists a clear-cut 'right way' to do things, the objectively 'best' path that leaves everyone satisfied and everything set to clearly the best outcome, then the message sent is that this is a world where all that is needed for everything to turn out all right is for you to do the right thing. There is no conflict except whether or not you feel like being a d*ck.

 

Take Dragon Age. You've got the quest where the little boy is possessed by the demon. The options, as I recall, amounted to 'kill the little boy or let someone sacrifice him or herself to save him.' Quite grim, as originally presented. Immediately shoots up to fluffy when it becomes clear there is a path in which you can save everyone and get rid of the demon at the same time. If you do anything other than that, you're not making a hard choice; you're just being a d*ck. The game itself remains rather fluffy for allowing you the easy out without the hard choice.

 

But that's an issue with the design of the quest. What if sacrificing the little boy gained you something extra? What if your run to the Circle had a time limit, and if you don't make it EVERYONE dies? For the record, I sacrificed the mother the first time because my character didn't think going all the way to the Circle and back was a realistic option.

 

There are ways to make choosing between good and evil difficult within the confines of the game. And again, I think you can design it so that to some extent it's the player's choice. For instance, going back to our example of the run to the Circle in DA:O. Suppose it had been timed. No problem, just reload if you don't make it, or lower the difficulty, right? But now you throw the Path of Iron and Expert options on there. No reloads. No going back. You get to choose. Can you make it through the whole thing on hard difficulty in time? Would it be better to take the sacrifice in order to be sure?

 

See what happened? The players own choices, both in game world and out controlled how dark the setting was, and there's STILL the option to make it through if you're skilled enough. That's what I mean when I say grimdarkness should come from the player.

[HangedMan]

On the "my little ponies" to "Warhammer 40K" scale, I want this game to be, about a 6, with some of the more traumatic story events going up to 7 or 8, and the comedic relief moments to be a 4-5.

[Savvy30039]

Yeah, I couldn't finish it. Most of my knowledge of the game - and all of my knowledge of its sequel - is culled from The Dark Id's excellent LPs.

 

Oh man, his Resident Evil LPs were great, I might have to check this out.

 

As far as endings go, I am not a real huge fan of unhappy ones in games. Make me really work for it sure, making tough choices and sacrifices along the way, but it's hard to not feel like you wasted 60 hours of game time if you can't at least get a sense of accomplishment out of it.

 

I'm not adverse to unhappy endings altogether. Movies like Seven would be totally ruined if it had a happy ending, and there's a strength to not allowing the viewer any catharsis. But, how do you pull that off in a game without making the player feel cheated? A smattering of quests with no good outcomes here and there is realistic, but all the time? As the ultimate conclusion? No thanks.

[HeedlessHorseman]

Yeah, I couldn't finish it. Most of my knowledge of the game - and all of my knowledge of its sequel - is culled from The Dark Id's excellent LPs.

 

Oh man, his Resident Evil LPs were great, I might have to check this out.

 

As far as endings go, I am not a real huge fan of unhappy ones in games. Make me really work for it sure, making tough choices and sacrifices along the way, but it's hard to not feel like you wasted 60 hours of game time if you can't at least get a sense of accomplishment out of it.

 

I'm not adverse to unhappy endings altogether. Movies like Seven would be totally ruined if it had a happy ending, and there's a strength to not allowing the viewer any catharsis. But, how do you pull that off in a game without making the player feel cheated? A smattering of quests with no good outcomes here and there is realistic, but all the time? As the ultimate conclusion? No thanks.

 

The other difference is that Seven was only around 2 hours. The much longer length of this game might make the constant darkness become overbearing and tiresome.

[TheOptimist]

I'm going to add another voice for the fluffier side of things, mainly because it's so irritating to me when even in a game of high fantasy, the heroes can't win. This is not to say that your choices should not be difficult, or that every single quest should end in sweetness and light, because that simply doesn't make for very good story telling. But at the end of the day, provided I did everything right, (and doing everything right should definitely be both difficult and time consuming) I want to be able to see the heroes walk into the sunset having unambiguously made the world a better place. Now by all means, if you feel like playing a blood-drinking slaughterer of the innocent or an uncaring mercenary in it for yourself, I'm all for the option being there to do just that. But I play games to win, and would really prefer the story to have an ultimate victory condition.

Taking as a definition of Grimdark: `Not only is the world awful, but it can't be improved` (eg. 40K or 1984), I'd have to say no. What I'd like is a World Half Full type setting, where the world is pretty crap, but not without hope - Fallout is one of the better examples, as well as anything `dark` done by Bioware. For a serious RPG, neither min nor max Grimdark work: In `boot-stamping-on-a-human-face-forever` works, we tend to get Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, and a happy mario style world cannot be taken seriously, and either is bad for Willing Suspension of Disbelief, which is utterly critical. Give us some darkness to curse, please - but give us an option to light a candle. Or a flamethrower. Flamethrowers are good too.

 

Haha, Terry Pratchett. Good times.

Edited October 15, 2012 by TheOptimist

[rjshae]

I don't know about total grimdark; Fallout 3 was depressing enough to finish... I had to take a few breaks along the way. Plus heavy negativity starts to feel like railroading: whatever you do you can't change your fate. I just enjoy a good balance of reality with some level of positive accomplishment.

[NOK222]

No please, Grimdark should have been left behind in the nineties. Life has bad and good moments.

[Jaesun]

Grimdark is fine, provided it does not insult my intelligence, or done just for the sake of being grimdark, Though Obsidian is one of the best studios with some very talented writers of which I think Obsidian could do some interesting stuff with this.

[ilhdr]

I don't expect nothing less than a world on the eve of destruction

[Badmojo]

I prefer leaning toward GD, but going up and down the scale. It should have moments of dark depressing horror, then change to moments of hope/joy/humor, going up and down the rollercoaster. I think there is nothing wrong with yoru character influencing the direction, making it more brighter or darker and all the shades of grey in between. That is the point of most RPG's, to influence the world, I do not want another DA2 where your actions did nothing in the game. As for GM, I don't really thing the DA series had that much GD, it felt mostly just a normal fantasy setting, there was a few token GD moments, but overall nothing special.

[Wolfenbarg]

Keep it in line with New Vegas or Planescape. It should be dark in a mysterious way, not follow this new trend of games that are just dark and tragic for the sake of being dark and tragic. Keep the mix of comedy and levity that has existed in Obsidian's other games. If it's just totally dark and unsettling from opening to closing, then this project will be a bust.

[khango]

I'm against MLP world, but otherwise I mostly care about coherence of vision and consistency, not that it fall somewhere particular on the 'why so serious' spectrum.

[Slaunyeh]

I play Dark Heresy. A lot. So I like my games pretty dark. That said, for a fantasy game like PE, I'd liked the Arcanum level of darkness. On the surface, the setting wasn't terrible dark, but the plot got pretty creepy on occasion. Also, gnomes suck.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Slaunyeh

[Terror K]

I would like a certain degree of darkness, but not the faux-dark that is grimdark, coming across as cruel, morbid and malicious for the sake of it. Proper darkness that actually explores the appropriate themes, emotions and nature of real darkness is fine.

[Jarmo]

Not total and not for the sake of it (meaning no grimdark at all).

 

I don't like the trope of human opponents who're all "buahahaa, I'm doing this because I'm evil and insane and totally like joker only edgy and dark and rad".

If it's demons from hell or something like that, then why not, make them as repulsive and insanity inflictingly horrible as possible.

 

But if I'm supposed to feel some motivation, don't make all the people I'm supposed to protect to be pedophiles and cannibals.

DA:O was actually pretty good about this, if it wasn't dark enough then too bad. It was toned down, not a horror game by any stretch.

[jarpie]

Grimdark has very much tendency for being ridiculous, game can be darker without being stupidly melodramatic or over the top. Bleak and dark games has been overly done to the death, I'm so tired of them that I won't even glance at them because I already know how they will be. I like game which has balanced tone and mood, with darker moments and then a bit lighter moments as well for the balance.

 

One shouldn't mix up game being serious and dark together.

 

Someone in here said that grimdark was in the 90s but I have to disagree, grimdark started to appear in the latter part of the 2000s.

[FlintlockJazz]

I'd like a good story, and everything else to be determined by that. Grimdark and fluffyness should therefore be determined by what is best for the story, though from personal experience grimdark is usually bad and contrived.

[Vargr Raekr]

Why did I ever bother?

Edited July 22, 2018 by Vargr Raekr

[phimseto]

The world needs to feel sustainable...like it could have existed for as long as its histories tell and that it can go on existing. As long as they attend to that properly and don't have anything too out of whack, the level of grimdark vs. cutesy (or whatever) should be fine.