Why do DM's like Dark, gritty worlds and players the opposite?

[Desdichado]

Why do DM's tend like Dark, gritty worlds and players like colorful worlds where they can do/play anything?

THey don't. The more interesting question is: why do you think that's true?

 

[Azgulor]

I've been fortunate in that for most of my gaming life, my players didn't follow the example Emerikol cites. They too, like the grittier worlds rather than having a world that looks like the cantina scene from Star Wars.

That aside, however, I think the issue can develop due to the following reasons:

GM-bias:
Shouldering the story/adventure-development burden, we look to other media for inspiration: movies, fiction, TV, etc. All of those media have the common thread of storytelling and when you're telling a story you need it to be as tight and coherent as possible. In short, as a GM, you require conflict to tell your stories. If there's no racial tension, scheming factions, nefarious kingdoms, etc. it's hard to come up with stories. The more sources of conflict your game can support, the longer it can be sustained. Too few sources of conflict, typically represented as the BBEG ala Sauron, and you may have just stamped an expiration date on your campaign & setting.

Perfect Example: Star Wars. Yes, you've got the Expanded Universe of new threats & conflicts but a lot of Star Wars fans tune out once there's no longer an Empire to beat on.

Also, as a GM, if you're reading setting or adventure material, you're more likely to be grabbed by characters and stories that make your GM-mustachios twirl with glee than a vanilla Evil contained solely within the dungeon.

PC-Bias:
1. PCADD or the new character/race/car smell. "LOOK! I've got a shiny new rulebook with new races in it! I can't wait to try <x>".

2. The "Don't do to me what I do to NPCs & Monsters" Syndrome. Yeah, the PCs love to take the fight to the bad guys. They typically don't like it when the bad guys can take the fight to them. Some players are wimps this way.

3. Hopelessness is depressing. This one's a legit concern IMO. Some GMs like to take the darkness & grittiness to 11. It's all-gloom-all-the-time. As a GM, you may never intend to take it there, but some players have been burned and are cautious as a result.

It's mostly 1 & 2, though.


In my experience, the best campaigns are the ones where the GM & the players discuss the style/theme/approach of the game up front so everyone goes into it with the appropriate expectations. This sometimes mean that the new player joining such a campaign either needs to conform to the pre-established campaign style or accept disappointment.

The game/campaign/setting shouldn't be derailed just because they want to play a dragonborn/deva/githyanki/illithid/whatever just so they can try their new book out. A GM shouldn't have to shoehorn everything in.

Conversely, if humans are going to be persecuted slaves, the GM has a responsibility to inform the players of that before characters are made.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Everyone's going to tell you that this doesn't match their experiences, because that's what people do in these sorts of threads.

Of course, you could say that about any sort of thread. If I said "X sucks", people who do not believe so are going to tell me that this doesn't match their experiences, because that's what people do in these sorts of threads, and also because it does not match their experiences.

However,

dark, gritty worlds tend to have a lot of "shades of gray" choices. And its easy for those to turn into "gotcha" moments. "Do you save the girl, or do you uphold your oath? Either way its gonna suck!"

is certainly true.

I have known more than one GM who has mistaken "Damned if you do/damned if you don't" as being "grim 'n' gritty". IMHO, a world is gritty if there are real villians, if the choices you make have believeable consequences, and the backdrop includes grey moral areas.

Grey moral areas do not have to be, and should actually seldom be, real gotchas. IMHO, real life is gritty, and we make greyish choices all the time. Sometimes they come back to bite us, but not nearly so often as to paralyze us from making any choices at all.

Some types of choices -- trusting a potential patron, helping an NPC, being decent to other people, parlaying with intelligent creatures, leaving your backyard, choosing what to do -- have to be mostly safe to make, or players will not want to make any choices at all.

"Should we kill the baby orcs or allow them to grow up?" isn't really a choice if the same anvil falls no matter what you do. It is a real choice, though, if you can reasonably guess the consequences of either, and especially if you can take steps to mitigate against the most obvious negative consequences of the choice you make.

This isn't to say that these games automatically suck. But its not hard for them to suck.

Universally true, regardless of whether the game is dark or rainbow-flavoured, what system, what edition, whatever. It is easier to set up a game that sucks than one that does not. You simply need to lead with your ego.....from either side of the table!


RC

 

[TwinBahamut]

I can't say I agree with the premise since I am a DM and have never been fond of the grim and gritty style. From the rest of my experience, neither players nor DMs really fall toward either extreme of that spectrum. Most of the people I have played with tend to sit somewhere in the middle and enjoy being flexible.

 

[Dannager]

I agree completely with the DM's premise - it's something I've noticed before, too. It's not that all DMs operate that way. Indeed, few do. But the ones who have problems with gritty worlds are almost invariably players because, let's face it, making a world dark and gritty is a potential obstacle to the player's range of fun, not the DM's.

THey don't. The more interesting question is: why do you think that's true?

You have no way of knowing they don't either. So right back at you: why do you think that's not true?

 

[GSHamster]

As with Cadfan, this matches my experiences and observations. I have two explanations:

1. We get tired of losing all the time. In a gritty world, the DM gets to win sometimes. I know D&D doesn't have a formal winning or losing, but in actual practice the relationship is sometimes adversarial. A DM can't obviously win by throwing dragons at a level 1 party, he has to win within the confines and expectations of the game. A gritty game or world allows the DM to come closer to winning than in a more normal game, and that is attractive, even if we don't like to admit it.

2. There is a "knowledge" mismatch between players and DMs. Since a DM knows everything, there is a temptation to gravitate towards complex plots, to keep the game interesting for the DM. Simplistic, straight-forward plots can be very boring for a DM. However, I've found that the players actually see or understand much less than the DM thinks they do, so they prefer to keep things simple so that they can actually grasp the whole.

It's like the story of the blind philosophers examining the elephant. The DM is not blind, so she immediately sees the elephant, and isn't very surprised. So maybe she spices things up by making the elephant some sort of demon tiger/elephant crossbreed. The players are blind, and trying to figure out what the creature is by touch. They're far more likely to guess that the animal is a regular elephant than some wacky abomination that they've never heard of.

 

[Remathilis]

Everyone's going to tell you that this doesn't match their experiences, because that's what people do in these sorts of threads.

This DOES match my experience. I think there are two issues here.

First, dark, gritty worlds tend to have a lot of "shades of gray" choices. And its easy for those to turn into "gotcha" moments. "Do you save the girl, or do you uphold your oath? Either way its gonna suck!" Its better to be the guy inflicting the "gotcha" then the person who's been got.

Second, dark and gritty worlds tend to have restrictions on the amount of awesome available. And guess who gets to dole it out? Its better to be that guy.

This isn't to say that these games automatically suck. But its not hard for them to suck.

I've found this generally true as well. The "moral quandary" moments most DMs try to set up often come down to choosing a kick to the head or a kick to the testicles. However, that's dime-store morality; any DM can set up a can't win situation.

The second is what gets me. I found a lot of grim, dark, low-magic GMs come real close to saying "This world is grim and dark. FOR YOU! I will continue to use the Monster Manual and create NPC wizards as normal" I don't mind settings where the deck is stacked, or even where magic is rare and NO one really has any, but settings where you are expected to fight liches with only a party of fighters (no rangers or paladins allowed), a half-sorcerer/half rogue (mandatory equal levels) and a +1 butterknife is NOT the definition of fun I like.

 

[Rykion]

1. We get tired of losing all the time. In a gritty world, the DM gets to win sometimes. I know D&D doesn't have a formal winning or losing, but in actual practice the relationship is sometimes adversarial. A DM can't obviously win by throwing dragons at a level 1 party, he has to win within the confines and expectations of the game. A gritty game or world allows the DM to come closer to winning than in a more normal game, and that is attractive, even if we don't like to admit it.

Really? I've never as a DM thought of winning or losing the game. In my games, the challenges are there for the players to overcome. I get frustrated with Tom and Jerry because that smug little mouse almost always wins, but I've never thought anything like that towards my players. RPG's really are games that I've always equated winning as everyone having fun.

 

[Barastrondo]

I think there are a few potential tells for players who like worlds with a generally more optimistic status quo. (I don't agree with any of that "I win button" theory; I have several players who don't care for grimdark yet still love adversity.) Within most player archetypes, you can find some of them who like "lighter" worlds for reasons that correlate to what they want out of the game.

- Explorers. Some explorers like to have the freedom to wander the world and see all its cool sights. There is more leisure for them to do so if they aren't trapped in a constant battle for survival.

- Defenders. Some players lean toward wanting to be champions and heroes of the "save the village/princess/city/world" mold. They often are more interested if their targets are worthy of saving. Sticking their necks out for wretched hives of scum and villainy appeals less.

- Relationship builders. For those who like interacting with NPCs and building relationships, anything from romances to guilds to families to rivalries, some, again, prefer having a setting where they can find more NPCs that they like and respect to work into this.

And of course, there's the "I get that in the real world" side of things. Some women don't find roleplaying the struggle agaisnt sexism all that awesome because they have plenty of it away from the table. Same with racism; if a player has some firsthand experience with the stuff, he may not derive much emotional pleasure from a setting where it's enforced that some races are just The Other, and can expect to be treated like rubbish.

But man, players vary so much. Even with in my group there's a spectrum of preference.

 

[weem]

Why do DM's tend like Dark, gritty worlds...

My experiences as a DM, and playing with others does not reflect this - but then again, I don't play outside of my group of 12 or so people very often so I can't say I know how it typically is.

As a DM I tend to like running worlds that, on the surface, seem bland and boring - until you (players) get sucked into something bigger than you thought was possible there that makes you open your eyes and say, "whoa... what have I, and everyone else been missing out on... I had no idea this kind of thing was happening" etc.

...and players like colorful worlds where they can do/play anything?

I can see this, and from my view this is true some times, but not always.

Based on your description of this style of play, or game preference, I could say I fall into that stereotype... kind of...

...I like having options as far as races, classes available etc. For example, if you tell me "in my world there are humans and elves only", I will not immediately be excited.

On the other hand, the desire to always play the lost prince, or wealthy noble etc I do not get. I prefer to come from the bottom - the very bottom - and work my way up from nothing.