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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 4974618" data-attributes="member: 3649">I think many people's bad experiences with 'grim and gritty' campaigns stems from a GM that really doesn't understand the 'grim and gritty' genre but thinks he does. Here's an analogy. Frank Miller wrote a wonderful Batman tale called 'Return of the Dark Knight'. It was a stand-alone book not integrated into any of the Batman titles. It was dark, grim, very much outside the vein of what many mainstream comics were at the time. It made a pile of money, and so that inspired many imitators. They got the 'dark hopelessness' part right but that's all they ever saw. Similarly, I think many GMs who attempt 'grim and gritty' see only the horrible things that happen to the PC's and not the positive things, such as trials that prepare you for travails that normally you would fail at otherwise, or rewards that come from suffering for a cause, etc. I think many of them look at it as some kind of modern 'save or die' mechanism. 'Oh, you forgot to set watches in your room at the inn. Thieves come in and slit your throats and steal all your stuff*. What? It's a grim-and-gritty world, guys...'*actual play anecdote</blockquote>