Creating a Dark Fantasy Campaign (Read 1st post)

[LostSoul]

3-dimensional characters are a must.

In a strange way, I think morale checks and reaction rolls would help. It makes you sit up and take notice of the fact that violence isn't pretty, that most creatures would rather not jump into potentially lethal fights, and if things don't go their way they'll turn tail and run. NPCs won't draw steel and leap into battle as soon as they see the PCs. They'll attempt to parley; if battle begins, morale checks mean that you won't have them fight to the last man very often.

I find that, without those mechanics, "attack on sight" and "fight to the last man" become the default instead of a very rare occurrence. (Probably because I'm a lazy DM/I've got too much else to focus on.) When random slaughter isn't common, bloodshed tends to stand out.

 

[kitsune9]

• Tough choices. There should be few choices that lead to better/easier outcomes than others. This isn’t to say all choices must be negative, but the PCs should have to really work to determine the optimal path and the optimal path should never be the easiest one to take.
  
• Moral ambiguity. Even though PF uses alignment, generally speaking, things are more morally gray.
  
• Ruthless bad guys. The PCs aren’t facing four-color comic hero villains from the Silver Age of comics, bad guys to bad things – and they often times are being done to good people/innocents.
  
• Corrupting influences. Things like the 7 Deadly Sins (already in canon per the Runelords) are NPC/villain motivations just as often (or moreso) than Evil as Sauron-style influence. When Outsider-style/otherworldly evil is in around, it’s reeeeaally bad.
  
• Violence isn’t pretty. It’s bloody, destructive, and not always the best solution.
  
• Competing factions. Many people find security in group affiliations and many groups are at cross purposes with each other.
  
• Prejudices. Many people have them & they can be based on just about anything. Those that have them often aren’t shy about displaying them.
  
• The PC’s actions have lasting consequences. Whether it’s the death of a NPC that might have been saved, the destruction of a village or town, there should be demonstrable consequences of the impact to the setting caused by the PCs actions. Many times, making things better for person/group A means severely impacting person/group B in a detrimental way.

Hey, I'm running a Kalamar campaign too! And I'm switching to Golarion too for the next campaign! We must be long lost brothers or something.

I think you nailed it terms of wanting to be an M rating. Another thing is that the PC's can be moral, but just about everyone else is either lacking it or seriously flawed in some way. Essentially, the PC's will encounter very few people like them that have the same sense of honor or scruples that they do. And the player who chooses to play a paladin finds that he's a dying breed.

 

[Whisper72]

Well, my take on ideas for a 'dark' campaign:
- very powerful institutes in the world. Think inquisition. Not necessarily really 'evil' but only look after own interests and/or have very strict codes of conduct and expect others to adhere or punishment will follow. Little real justice exists
- not midnight style lost cause, but a general decline in civilization. Not really evil hordes, but more like barbarian hordes, goblinoids (in most of my campaigns orc, goblins etc. are not truly evil, merely 'not civilized', crude and have little value for life) etc. who have swept across large parts of civilization and threaten more
- corruption, again not necessarily truly evil, but more driven by greed and fear, are rampant, rulers and justice cannot be trusted, bribes are needed everywhere to get stuff done
- magic is practical and mundane in nature and/or not very common. 'low magic' means that ppl have to solve problems largely on muscle, guts and smarts, things are not solved by an Elminster saving the day with a few powerful spells...
- the gods (if they are at all real / existant in the campaign) are also looking out primarily after their own interests. Really selfless / goody two shoes gods do not exist. Even the 'good' gods are more concerned consolidating and defending their own powerbase then making the world a better place. Thay are just a bit more scrupulous about it than the 'evil' gods are...

Just some ideas...

 

[Derren]

When you already use video games as inspiration might I suggest The Witcher and Alpha Protocol?

The last one is not a fantasy game, but currently the best example of though choices which are not simple good/evil decisions.

 

[Herobizkit]

I would say: keep the 'fantastic' to a minimum. Really impress upon your players that this game will not be your standard dungeon crawling, kicking doors down, taking loot and being heroes type of game.

Keep your races limited to human, elf, dwarf (and halfling if you want). This will make things more 'real' in the player's heads. The half-elf trope of two worlds/not belonging in either doesn't need to come into play, nor do silly gnomes.

Evil is Evil. Orcs really are slobbering killers that eat children and defile wives. THIS is where your two worlds/no home trope comes in. You'd expect there to be more half-orcs, yes? Not if the mother 'takes care of business' before or even during the birth of her new half-orc spawn.

... Plus everything [MENTION=17339]Whisper72[/MENTION] said.

 

[Derren]

Evil is Evil. Orcs really are slobbering killers that eat children and defile wives. THIS is where your two worlds/no home trope comes in. You'd expect there to be more half-orcs, yes? Not if the mother 'takes care of business' before or even during the birth of her new half-orc spawn.

I think that would be counter productive. When you have absolute evil like this in the world it is very easy to become shining heroes just by fighting it. And in the case of orcs its rather easy to fight them.

 

[Aramax]

For my Dark Fantasy I use Lovecraft,most of the other planes have been destroyed and some fragments of them remain the gods have mostly been killed and only minor dieties such as Munin,Odins raven atempts to fill the void.In desparation the pc's asended a +7 Holy sword to godhood and now Hope is the main bastion of the good gods.currupt magic is rampant,with dark pacts quick and painless to achieve power .The pc's are often forced to make deals they want no part of.They are hero's on their own w/little help and less knowlege.I think this last part is key The pc's need to feel like they are totally on their own and they never have enuf information.
This leads to a feeling of alone and in deep water(thats black and full of icky things.

 

[ruemere]

In my campaigns dark tone is often set by the following elements:

• Clash of two opposite, yet well-meaning parties.
• Choices based on scarcity of resources
• Clash of priorities: honor vs reputation, innocence vs sacrifice, heroism vs lesser evil

Base story ideas:

• Uprising of slaves accompanied by indiscriminate slaughter by both sides of the conflict.
• Famine and plague. Soldiers charged with protecting scarce resources. People starving to death.
• Counterespionage. Nobles forming secret organization to betray current ruler. Discovery that one's own family is involved in the conspiracy.

Mix both and you're likely to get a nice dark campaign. Minus the nice.

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. If you like anime, Fullmetal Alchemist series (both) are examples of very dark stories.