Pathfinder 1E How "grimdark" is your Golarion?

[Fauchard1520]

We’ve all heard about X-Cards and Session Zero tone setting, but I'm curious about how this mess works out in the wild.

In your own games, when it comes time to extract information from the hostages, how grimdark do you go? And even beyond the question of torture, how much of the bleak amoral awfulness are you prepared to allow into your own version of Golarion?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

 

[Green Onceler]

I'm currently running The Skinsaw Murders. It's pretty dark as written, and is good for our current group with little need for embellishment or sanitisation.

My last campaign was set in Irrisen, and that was very dark. But that's the only way to run Irrisen IMO.

 

[ccs]

Answer #1: Generally the same as any other edition of D&D has ever been. If I were giving it a movie rating I'd say PG13/mild R (general violence) - about what you'd get in a typical action movie.
This is what you can expect if I'm running something at the shop.

Answer #2: You've read a PF AP? That degree. Sometimes edited if played at the shop. Otherwise as-is.

Answer #3: Non-shop games - Depends upon the players. You have complete freedom in my games. But be aware that the darker & more awful you are to the enemies/NPCs, I promise you that your PCs will suffer similarly. So if you wouldn't want whatever you're considering doing to that NPC done to your character, check yourselves. Because I will carry through on that promise.
This approach tends to work pretty well.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I ran the Reign of Winter AP. The Irresen parts had some pretty grim implications. The players realised early on that buying meat was... fraught. They asked the butcher what sort of meat it was and the butcher was offended they'd even ask "Is meat," was all he would say. It's canonically no secret that the bread in Irresen is leavened with bone meal that includes human (sic) bones. The running gag was that the whole time they were in Irresen they lived on borsht.

I also got very graphic in a scene where the party rogue is slitting the throats of sleeping guards, but that was me rather than something inherent to the AP.

The bit of the AP in the Tsarist gulag is also very grim. Probably the grimmest single part of the AP even if the atrocities are mostly presented in the past tense. But it's not technically Golarion...

 

[Gradine]

I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that Golarion was pretty gonzo overall; is it really super grimdark by default (even by implication)?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

You're quite right - first and foremost the place is gonzo. Seriously, you can't park there, it's bat country.

But it does have its creepy/grim places. I mentioned Irresen. It's creepy, Slavic fairy tales. Complete with witches baking children into pies and putting their souls into soul bound dolls.

I haven't read any setting details for Ustalav, Golarion's gothic horror country, but I assume it's likewise creepy.

Don't forget these are the people who brought us things like the Skinsaw Murders and that part of Rise of the Runelords with the ogres who are straight out of The Hills Have Eyes.

 

[Voadam]

When I ran Carrion Crown with Ustalav as part of my mashup homebrew setting I was going for gothic horror with a bit of Lovecraftian and World of Darkness feel and elements thrown in. Still I made clear my ideal is Army of Darkness horror (and even a little tone) and not Saw. So PG 13.

Having the lighter tone and human level focus gave great contrast when things went dark and spooky or awful secrets were revealed.

When I ran the Reign of Winter Adventure path there was a whole paladin morally falling thing going on when the Ulfen paladin captured, instead of killing, the surrendering evil NPC Secrets cleric and turned him into a thrall. I was running a game with alignments as supernatural forces divorced from morality so it was a corruption of a good guy concept the player went with without screwing up character power and party balance.

 

[meltdownpass]

Generally I think D&D/Pathfinder doesn't handle it all that well. It's awkward when there is too much emphasis on graphic violence. When my character walks into an area and has to fight a bunch of mooks, and then in the next room there's a pit of dead children, and then fight a demon in the next room over, how am I supposed to roleplay this? My character can't go from battle, to vomiting from horror, to battle.

When my group ran through Runelords I just didn't know how to react to this kind of thing, so it fell quite flat. Particularly because IMO Pathfinder APs tend to be a bit meat-grindery. If roleplaying my character as being shaken & fearful leads to my character dying (or a party member dying) then I'm not going to do that very much.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I tend to shoot for a PG/PG-13 rating in my games. Especially since I'm DMing for two children right now.

Most of the bleakness in the world comes from the fact that the general population is ground underfoot by the ruling class. Heavy taxes, leaders/rulers more interested in their own gain than helping others, and no or little chance for upwards mobility. So, I tend to tell my players that their characters should be young go getters that are willing to try and shake things up and make the world a better place. My games also tend to be set on "the frontier" where there are not a lot of powerful NPCs around.

 

[Lwaxy]

It can get pretty dark with some of the official adventures, however, unless I have a crowd in for horror, which is not often the case, we stick to general descriptions. Currently running Wrath of the Righteous, and up to know that's the darkest it has ever gone.