[Rant] Is Grim n Gritty anything more than prejuidice?

[Mark]

(...) the gritty portion of grim and gritty is as a sort of value neutral criteria so that where heroic fantasy should always have some level of gritty it varies a great deal over the range of the genre.

(...) gritty has both a high lethality/threat constant and a variable bad ass action factor.

And what do you think now about the "Grim" portion?

 

[Inspiration_Seeker]

I've been invited over from a completely different set of forums to join this discussion. I hope that nobody minds my intrusion.

First, there's something I have to correct before moving on.

Joshua Dyal said the following:

And why would an antiquarian get better at understanding ancient artifacts because he gets in a bunch of gun fights with cultists? For one thing, an antiquarian already has a pretty decent check on any ancient artifact Knowledge check he has to make, assuming a decent INT score and max ranks in Knowledge (ancient artifacts) or (archeology) or whatever. And for another thing, whatever he learns during the game won't really be the subject of Knowledge checks anyway; it'll be specific knowledge that will just be roleplayed out.

The original BRP system of CoC is skill-based. You have a chance of improving a skill every time you use it, and it becomes harder to improve that skill as you get better at it. <shrug> This does not convert well with the latter d20 version, where you must level up (by presumably shooting at cultists) to get the skill points to improve your skills.

First, I think I need to note that grim and gritty are independent of each other. It's quite possible to have a grim game that isn't gritty (as previously noted), and equally possible to have a gritty game that isn't grim.

Nearly all my games are gritty, but only a few are grim. So I'll focus on what a game needs, IMO, to be gritty. Gritty isn’t merely a power level, although it involves that. It’s an expectation of how the world works.

The game system must model reality. I cannot overemphasize this point. <grin> Which is a good thing, because I'm about to beat it to death.

A sword through the heart, is still a sword through the heart. How it happened is immaterial. Whether it was thrust from behind by a skilled thief, from in front by a callow youth, or merely a sword swallowing exhibition coinciding with a case of the hiccups, the result is the same. A sharp implement designed for killing people is something to be careful of.

Physics must relate to reality. It doesn't matter how tough you are, jumping off a 100' ft cliff on to sharp rocks is a bad idea.

There is only so much that the human body is physically capable of. Slap an Olympic-level long jumper in armor, put a loaded knapsack on his back, and see how far he can jump. Don't expect your character to be able to do better.

A point of diminishing returns. Mastering something is hard. There comes a point where you are expending more and more effort to achieve smaller and smaller gains in competence.

A chance of failure. It doesn't matter how sneaky your thief is, he's human and fallible. Attempting to sneak past a series of alert guards (regardless of respective levels) should be a very tense episode.

Consequences must be lasting. Death is the most obvious, but maiming, appearance, sanity, reputation, wealth and loved ones all fall under the same requirements.

No man is an island. The character isn't often an orphan, and even if he was, *somebody* raised him. He depends on others, and others depend on him in turn. He probably has a job, rent, bills, and hope of getting both a wife and a permanent place to live. <shrug> Characters that willingly drop everything to "go adventuring" probably aren't right in the head, are actively running away from something, or have a very compelling reason.

The rules applying to PCs and NPCs must be the same. For instance, some systems, it's amazingly hard to rationalize what class and level such a "stock" character as a bartender should be, what skills he possesses, at what level of mastery, and by what mechanisms he improves them. It's instead, simply assumed that the bartender is of little interest, and a certainty that nobody would ever want to *play* one.

The gameworld must be internally consistent. I'll pick on D&D for an example. Monks wield "peasant weapons", but the peasants themselves are specifically referred to as "European peasants". So why are Monks using eastern martial arts weapons? Why not flails, pitchforks, scythes, sickles, daggers, and bills instead?

The necessities of life cannot be ignored. Take food and water with you when you go adventuring. You’ll need them. Don’t expect to be able to sleep just anywhere. And be careful with your money. Getting more can be extremely difficult. Try to avoid people dying of strange diseases. And mysterious men rarely, if ever, go into a bar looking to hire you for some uncertain purpose only darkly hinted at.

You aren’t a pawn of fate. You may have delusions in that regard, but your choices, and their consequences, are all up to you. Likewise, don’t expect the gods to intervene on your behalf.

You will not be saving the world. If the world required saving every X years by a party of adventurers, it would long since have been destroyed. Kingdoms may fall. Genocides may occur. But the world will keep right on spinning, and not even notice.

Good and evil are fluid concepts. You may be able to detect when somebody wishes you ill, but that’s about it. A person can be said to be "good" based upon their actions, and very well may be. But there is no way to know for certain, and good people can strongly believe diametrically opposed things. Or do incredibly harmful things out of the best of intentions.

Encounters will not scale as the party increases in power. After adventuring for a while, you’re not going to suddenly stop encountering goblins and start encountering gnolls instead. At least, not without some compelling reason for this to be the case.

Magical travel is the stuff of legends. Don’t expect to ever own a flying carpet, and forget about going Bamf.

Life is a trade-off. Becoming good at one thing, means not getting good at something else. Powerful magic will have equally powerful drawbacks/costs. One-Eye’s spear took years of crafting. Nearly every magical item mentioned in the Silmarillion has a cost associated with it, but few more than the sword Anglachel/Gurthang.

Being good at something is its own drawback. If you are focused on fighting, you will probably enter fights you shouldn’t. If you’re good at talking yourself out of trouble, you will probably keep talking long after you should have started running. If you are good at magic, you will tend to overlook mundane solutions.

Being outnumbered is a very bad thing. Avoid it at all costs.

Being ambushed is a very bad thing. Avoid it at all costs.

<shrug> As you can tell, level-based game systems, and D&D in particular, don’t readily lend themselves to this type of gameworld. But a skill-based system like CoC/Runequest’s BRP, CORPS or GURPS works wonderfully.

 

[Wayside]

With respect to the other thread and my complaint, which I still do hope to ressurect at some point, I think as a result of it it may be that my complaint is levelled solely at the afficianodos', as you might define it, interpretation of GnG in terms of any context larger than a gaming style.

Well, do you have a complaint against, say, high fantasy, if it is thought of as anything more than setting fodder, since that's all it really is? I can agree that GnG is merely a style, if we understand that plot, setting and style are not hierarchized with respect to one another, that none is more or less important than any other, or that if one is more important it has to be plot, since we can set the same plot in a variety of settings and tell it in a variety of styles. But I also think that, at some level, in the hands of any half-competent storyteller, plot, setting and style ought to become so confused in one another that they are inextricable, with the result that GnG generates plot and setting; that is, with the result that it gives as much to plot and setting as it gets from them.

 

[Andor]

Well, do you have a complaint against, say, high fantasy, if it is thought of as anything more than setting fodder, since that's all it really is? I can agree that GnG is merely a style, if we understand that plot, setting and style are not hierarchized with respect to one another, that none is more or less important than any other, or that if one is more important it has to be plot, since we can set the same plot in a variety of settings and tell it in a variety of styles. But I also think that, at some level, in the hands of any half-competent storyteller, plot, setting and style ought to become so confused in one another that they are inextricable, with the result that GnG generates plot and setting; that is, with the result that it gives as much to plot and setting as it gets from them.

This comment about the setting/style division made me think of 'The hidden fortress'. It might be fun to do that sort of thing. IE: A grand Forgotten Realms adventure is taking place with Archmages and Twinky Drow and all the rest... However you guys a just a bunch of unwashed shlubs who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time and are trying to get out alive and, if possible, eat.

 

[Lalato]

I've been invited over from a completely different set of forums to join this discussion. I hope that nobody minds my intrusion.

First, there's something I have to correct before moving on.

<<<<snipped>>>>

<shrug> As you can tell, level-based game systems, and D&D in particular, don’t readily lend themselves to this type of gameworld. But a skill-based system like CoC/Runequest’s BRP, CORPS or GURPS works wonderfully.

Welcome to the boards!

That said... if I'm ever at the same gaming table as you... remind me to back away slowly to the door... and then run for my life.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

And what do you think now about the "Grim" portion?

I don't know much, but I am certain that if gritty is the level at which things are unrealistic, then grim is the level at which you qualify unrealistic things as belonging to the club. At the same time I think that because grim is the exception it's the stricter aesthetic sense. As even Inspiration-seeker's prohibition based idea of gritty implies there is a range on gritty. I think that because grim is inherently a poor partner to gritty people want less of a range on it.

I do think that where gritty seems to have two related concepts at included in it, Grim seems to have two related but exclusive meanings as used by its afficianados:

Grim as something very specific - ie, X-files with fewer ties and more swords and bulging muscles. Where things are mostly actually rational even where they seem not to be and where they aren't there lies terrible terrible madness!

-note that I even think that rational means something very very specific in this sense of Grim. Sea monsters that are actually dinosaurs, invisible sex-starved space smurfs that live on the top of mountains, and gods that are actually gorillas aren't rational either, but it's in the style to call them so.

Grim as something more in the line of flavor. The Black Company would not be considered grim in the above sense, but it does fit in this more general sense of doomitude. At the same time Wuxia has many or most of the qualities listed for grim even in the above post but this idea of Grimm is still exclusive enough to kick it out. I would actually say that there are a number of things from the above idea of gritty that probably belong in this sense of Grim.

I think the reason they aren't reconciled is that its pretty easy to switch between them at your leisure and according to the necessities of your argument. I do think the first definition has a higher level of prestige than the second.

Wulf Ratbane implied an ultra-violent aspect to Grim in the other thread when discussing why Zorro wasn't Grim (which would also presumably disqualify his knock-off Batman though I don't know that Wulf would actually say that). The ultra-violent qualification is a problem for me, since I think it would disqualify Fafrhd and the Grey Mouser which is the other half of the commonly used hardcore grouping of Conan and F/GM. That wouldn't be a problem if ultra-violence goes in the gritty category but, strictly speaking, ultra-violent is a style of rather than strict necessity of reality. I mean regardless of the consequence of putting a sword through a guys heart, by the reality standard falling down when someone shoves you is an even more basic consequence of reality but fighting styles that have a focus on pushing people over rather than running them through seem to be innately un-GnG so there has to be a stricture somewhere.

It may simply be that F/GM is less strictly hard core GnG than I thought and goes into the second sense of GnG rather than the first. Which would also support Wulf's assertion that Zorro is very very un-GnG in light of my argument that he had to go into the same category of something as F/GM and Conan since I'm pretty willing to say that where all of them are pulpy only Conan is ultra-violent but both F/GM and Conan are grimly supernatural where Zorro is not or only rarely so.

Sorry about the length of this, I definitely have a better handle on gritty.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Welcome to the boards!

Indeed welcome, that's a one of the best posts I've seen so far. I hope we can provide you with some of the stuff you seek.

I don't know that I'd run screaming, but I wouldn't climb anything over a story.

<Shudder> GnG falling damage rules seem too terrible to contemplate for a wuxia, hiking, and 'stupid sports' fan such as myself.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Well, do you have a complaint against, say, high fantasy, if it is thought of as anything more than setting fodder, since that's all it really is?

Sometimes, yes, I think that at its heart high fantasy as a term is probably a lot more stable, coherant, and interesting than GnG, but GnG has a level of vitality, youth, and easy application that high fantasy lacks.

Which is both a good and bad. On the one hand the theoretical high fantasy snob is easier to dismiss than the theoretical GnG snob simply because everyone's been dealing in high fantasy for forever.

On the other hand(only two hands here people I swear), everyone's been dealing in high fantasy for forever. The term is so loose at this point that, while not nearly meaningless, it's not nearly as meaningful. It's impossible to tell when someone first uses the term, for instance, whether they mean high fantasy in terms of high moral drama or high fantasy in terms of high magic. Plus its so conceptual that it's hard to make a high fantasy RPG that doesn't feel sort of generic. Blue Rose had to go all the way over to the other side and call their game Romantic fantasy.

If GnG has a problem on this level it's the opposite in that GnG seems too potent and unified. Everyone has a theory on what high fantasy is and is willing to debate it, which is cool when you're trying to figure out how to do it but not cool when you're trying to figure out what everyone is talking about in the first place, GnG seems to have a tendency to go, 'well, we all know what it is so let's not hash it out,' which is cool when you are trying to get stuck in in the action, trading things, and building up a group with similar tastes not so cool when you're trying to think out the action ahead of time, buy something, or deal with a group with different tastes. It's one of the reasons I think most literary examples of GnG tend to be older since its hard to figure out what actually fits into the category without waiting for consensus, whereas with high fantasy it's hard to say what new thing doesn't belong.

Look at how hard Mieville has to shout to feel like he can be distinguished from Tolkien or Celebrim's arguments in the fantasy thread that, you could uncharitably say, argue that all fantasy is high fantasy.

Worth pointing out, however, that GnG's culture of 'old media' probably makes it easier to make an RPG. You say high fantasy RPG and noone really knows what you're deriving it from. You say GnG and everyone goes, 'Ah, Conan! Fafrhd and GM! Rock on! Fart's Stink!*' and that's about it.

*Having admitted defeat I do intend to run this into the ground. You know who you are... and you should love yourselves for it.