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

[Nifft]

Well, naturally not for the second part, since "save the world/kingdom/damsel" plots are out of place in a grim'n'gritty setting.

"Strangers in a Bar/Tavern get hired for a slightly-dodgy-but-temptingly-lucrative job by a morally ambiguous patron", on the other hand, fits right in.

I dunno. You could save the world/kingdom/damsel from a horrible fate, and thereby gift them with a somewhat less horrible fate.

Some shades of grey are still darker than others.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Garthanos]

One thing I discovered playing GURPS was that by allowing and encouraging players to play characters to are part of the societies of the game world.. Political officials and Police and similar elements I could easily have adventures that werent greed motivated.. not sure how that exactly comes in on the grim and gritty scale.... but it makes things more heroic to me. In a fantasy setting D&D for instance you might let them be princelings and equip them starting out as 1st level characters with equipment like 5th level.. then just dont reward tons of treasure.. it fades a bit allowing different stories to be told.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In RCFG, if you refuse to accept an earned reward of 5,000 gp you gain 500 XP.


RC

 

[avin]

OP describes my experience.

I like dark gritty games, most of my players just wanna make jokes on their characters...

 

[Garthanos]

OP describes my experience.

I like dark gritty games, most of my players just wanna make jokes on their characters...

Funny thing I have found was that excessive seriousness on my part has sometimes resulted in players responding to it with lack of seriousness conversely I have introduced comedy relief npc characters and the players had there characters get all prim and serious.

 

[Belen]

Then again, for me 'Grim 'n' Gritty' is about the PCs being beacons of hope in a dark world - I want the PCs to be heroes, and the heroes to win. I just want it to be a damned hard road for them to travel to do so.

Thank you. This sums it up nicely. I like a dark world and I often restrict races and even classes in my games in order to fit the world itself.

I have had players that tried to push the limits or who did not like the restrictions and we either worked it out or the player was free to find a new game.

I don't know about other GMs, but I run the kinds of games that I wish someone would run for me. Since nobody does, I run them myself.

Exactly.

However, I have run into the entitlement crew that attempted to brow beat GMs into "if its in the rules, the it's legal."

 

[Moon_Goddess]

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.

I gotta say the cantina scene itself and everything leading up to it is damn near as gritty as it gets... That's what gritty is like, remember, "hive of scum and villany"

 

[Desdichado]

Well, naturally not for the second part, since "save the world/kingdom/damsel" plots are out of place in a grim'n'gritty setting.

Not without some kind of subversion, at least.

My most successful campaigns (that I get calls to revisit too, I might add, from "happy, colorful prefering players" have all been gritty and dark. Sure, I'm not necessarily killing PCs right and left, but I sure am screwing them over every chance I get.

The secret is twofold I think. 1) Mature players who recognize that bad things happening to their characters does not equal bad things happening to them personally. After all, characters going through hard times are what makes fiction of all kinds entertaining, and 2) an awareness by the GM that this has to be fun for the players. Simply giving them the finger because by golly you're the DM and they're the players will suck for everyone.

So what do I mean by gritty, then? My campaigns feature a lot of betrayal. Hardly anyone can be trusted. The PCs are often faced with choosing the lesser of two evils. The PCs often are not themselves the lesser of two evils; I don't really use alignment, but if I did, I've had plenty of PCs that would fairly have to be called pretty darn evil. Motivations and personalities are shady at best. Wizards aren't kindly old helpers like Gandalf, they're power-grabbing bastards like Thoth-Amon. Traffic with demons is par for the course. Assassination, exploitation, slavery and human sacrifice are common. PCs get cursed and the curses stick with them for lengthy periods of time.

:shrug: Like I said, my experience is that players love that kind of stuff.

 

[pawsplay]

Well, naturally not for the second part, since "save the world/kingdom/damsel" plots are out of place in a grim'n'gritty setting.

Sounds like you need to be introduced, at a minimum, to Mordred's Curse and the Black Company series.

 

[Desdichado]

Black Company didn't really save any damsels, kingdoms or worlds.

They threatened a lot of the above, though. Caused the destruction of a world or two, overthrew a few kingdoms along the way, and the damsels turned out to be horrifyingly powerful and evil sorceress-queens.