D&D General In Celebration of Over The Top Violence in D&D

[Argyle King]

As a counterpoint to that other thread:

I don't like realistic violence. I have been too close to real wrold violence to enjoy it as entertainment.

But glorious, ridiculous, over the top ultraa-violence? Bring it on.

When the PCs take out a monster, I want blood spraying across the dungeon walls. I want bones cracking and gobs of gore flying. Spells should shatter teeth and boil eyeballs and set clothes, skin, hair, horns, scales and flesh afire.

The heroes should end fights knee deep in mud, blood and offal and be smiling like Billy butcher in The Boys.

D&D is metal. It is 80s B-movies. It is grimdark military fantasy. It is Garth Ennis comics. Or, at least, for me it should be.

On a scale of Superfriends to The Boys, where do you like your D&D violence level?

I'm fine with 80s Action movie violence -to an extent.

By all means, exaggerating things is part and parcel for fantasy, but I also like to be able to buy into it.

Pro Wrestling is a good comparison for about where I think D&D should be. Plenty of things in pro wrestling are ridiculous (i.e. Irish Whip, Undertaker being a wrestling undead; many finishing moves); however, there is still some semblance of trying to look real as an underlying basis. When it is done well, I can buy into it and feel an emotional connection to the story; part of being "done well" is showing me exaggerated violence but still not violating plausible-ish action to such an extent that I'm mentally turned off.

For example, I can (to an extent) buy into Kane being a demonic wrestler fueled by hellfire and brimstone that makes him difficult to take down. (It helps that he's 7 feet tall and 300+ pounds of muscle). There are some established in-universe rules for how the character functions. He has both strengths and weaknesses defined in terms of how WWE tends to work. In contrast, Bray Wyatt's (RIP) "Fiend" character, while very similar in concept, was supposedly able to be hit directly in the head with a sledgehammer multiple times without effect, yet would still somehow be defeated by a basic wrestling manuever - which doesn't particularly make sense, even in the context of what is essentially combat theatre.

Also, I've found that repeatedly nonsensical combat decisions can take me out of it too. The Star Wars shows 'Book of Boba Fett' and 'Mandalorian season 3' both include supposedly highly trained combatants making decisions that didn't make sense. Examples include Boba apparently forgetting that he wears a jet pack and being "trapped" by two flanking enemies in a street; Mando 3 includes a group of militant cultists having zero idea about how to prevent their children from being eaten by local megafauna. If I needed to offer a wrestling example here, I'd say that the contemporary cliche of a bunch of guys lazily meandering together near the ring and watching as one guy takes forever to climb the ropes and jump onto all of them.

TLDR: I'm on board for exaggerated violence, but style of presentation matters. I'm good with 80s-movie style action, but there needs to be some semblance (even if exaggerated) of basic plausible-ish enough baseline to buy into and whatever in-universe rules are set for how things work should usually be consistent.

 

[Xamnam]

Verbs I tend towards: pierces, slices, cleaves, slams, collapses, slumps, reels, fades, keels

I personally stay away from descriptions like rends, tears, shatters, maims, amputates, crushes, caves in, spurts, gushes

The middle ground is probably stuff like describing blood smeared across their face, trickling down armor, being spit from their mouth.

 

[Shiroiken]

While not quite Deadpool & Wolverine level, I do tend to put my violence descriptions into the R rating.

 

[bloodtide]

I go Dark Beyond Dark, very much "Unrated".

I use Die Hard as the classic example of what a hero should look like at the end of an encounter/adventure.

But I would say 80's A movie (not B movie) : Predator, Total Recall, Robocop, Commando, Cobra, Road House, and Invasion USA. Really, nearly all the action movies of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Eastwood, Norris, and that 'Expendables' group.

And a lot of the 70's legacy as Sudden Impact(Dirty Harry), Death Wish 3, and Aliens came out in the 80's. And a bit into the 90s with movies like Demolition Man.

 

[TiQuinn]

The violence, or describing what the violence entails, is not the point for me.

 

[Reynard]

Just tonight in Shadowdark, the dunefiend gorged itself on poor Puyth's innards while the halfling died gurgling and crying. It was lovely.

 

[Remathilis]

(checks to see this isn't a + thread)

I don't like excessive gore. If I do use it, it's for effect. I once played in a game where the DM has so much viscera in the scene that has called for Dex checks to avoid slipping on all the blood on the floor. I wasn't amused by it.

 

[Scribe]

I once played in a game where the DM has so much viscera in the scene that has called for Dex checks to avoid slipping on all the blood on the floor. I wasn't amused by it.

See, if I was stunned by the description, I would have burst out laughing in tears at the 'thats a Dex check'. I just cannot take games seriously. Too old, too tired, just here for the laughs and big crits.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

My kids just played a game in which I broke out giant spiders, minis and all.

They got a real kick out of dealing killing blows and being coated in juice from the spiders abdomens! Ew gross! With lots of laughs.

I would probably not talk a lot about the entrails from orcs but you never know.

The game is a circus…Roman style sometimes…

 

[Bohandas]

so I visualize most of the violence with B-movie camp. Much more like Braindead or Monty Python and the Holy Grail than Saving Private Ryan.

I think that the genre it fits most closely is anime. Somehing like Fairy Tail or Seven Deadly Sins where everyone's taking ridiculous amounts of punishment but still fighting at the top of their ability until they're suddenly not