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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8265565" data-attributes="member: 18">I'd definitely say the impression that most people are using arrays or point-buy is correct. I haven't seen a survey in years and years (maybe a decade or more) which didn't put those as the majority, and I think 5E is carefully designed to support those and doesn't actually support rolled stats well - it's more unbalanced than previous editions using rolled stats (imho - though that is a somewhat boring subject!).On the other hand I agree re: TtoM. Reading online accounts or watching people play or w/e most people seems to say/show they're using minis (though surveys say something different), but 5E was clearly designed to support TtoM where neither 3E nor 4E were (3E was easier to do TtoM but not but as much as people often claim, having played both both ways, and both were clearly primarily aimed at grid combat, unlike 5E).I know nobody asked, but I gotta go with [USER=86653]@overgeeked[/USER] on this one. Grimdark is more or less defined by the absence of light. "In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only war." being the origin phrase, and the entire point being "there is only war" - i.e. there's nothing else, no hope, no life, just war. And that was something that 40K, from 3rd edition onwards particularly, really dug into (it wasn't entirely true in Rogue Trader or even really 2E, but 3E, holy naughty word, that was full grimdark). You can have grimdark which is intensely personal too - a good illustration of this is the works of the author Joe Abercrombie, not all of his stuff is grimdark, but the original First Law trilogy and some of the other books, particularly the monumentally grimdark Best Served Cold, absolutely are. Best Served Cold couldn't be more personal, and couldn't be more grimdark. It got to the point by the end that I was hoping the "baddie" would win because at least he was less twisted and nihilistic and joyless than the "hero".It's definitely wrong to say grimdark is defined by evil for the sake of evil or for the sake of gaining power. A lot of grimdark stuff involves people doing evil for highly personal but no less despicable reasons, or even doing horrific evil for "good" reasons. Hell, part of what makes Warhammer 40K (which again, is where grimdark comes from) so particularly grimdark is that it stars the Imperium of Man, who will casually as hell wipe out literally billions or tens of billions of people rather than take a risk on them or make any effort to evacuate them or the like (it's notable that despite the endless warships the Imperium possesses, they have basically no evacuation ships - human lives are essentially meaningless to them).Whereas I'm reading a sci-fi novel right now about an Imperium-esque empire, motivated by similar ideas (purity, purges, etc.) but it's very differently structured and whilst being pretty grim, there is a spark of hope, a sense that there might be a way out - not "only war".</blockquote>

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