Can anyone explain the concept of 'grimbright' to me? It seems poorly defined

Actually that's nobledark.

Grim = people are assholes(as opposed to noble = most people are basically good)
Bright = the world is a nice place(or would be, if people weren't assholes). (as opposed to dark = the world is inherently shitty place. Bad things happen, deal with it)

Go and watch Kono Suba.

I think it means a shity world where "a lot" of things suck but not "everything" sucks, where there is still a good vs evil and not a grey vs evil and grey. Also a world in which there is hope of things becoming better rather then worse.

Oh, I like this.

Let's use this one.

Brave New World.

Mirror's Edge isn't Grimbright.

The way I see it is that Light/Dark is how good things are in the setting at the time and Noble/Grimm is the trend of where things are going.

Fairy Meat.

Grim = Protagonists generally have selfish or less-than-savory intentionsassholes
Noble = Protagonists generally have selfless or heroic intentions

Bright = The setting at large is generally a good place. Things are actually pretty okay, or there is a somewhat functional eutopia in place.

Dark = The setting at large is generally a shitty place. It could be that people are assholes, it could be that there are horrors encroaching on civilization. Whatever it is, it's indicative of the setting, not the protags.

I understood it as Grim and Noble referring to the current/past, and Dark or Bright referring to the future and general potential.

Grimdark is a setting that is shitty, and all signs point to it remaining shitty, regardless of whether the protagonists attempt to clean it up or serve themselves.
Grimbright is a setting that is predominantly shitty, but with the help of the protagonists or others that are gaining power and motion, it can be returned to goodness. A bright future.
Noblebright is a setting that's all (or mostly) sunshine and butterflies, and will stay that way.
Nobledark is a setting that's on the decline. Goodness and fairness are on the way out, because of or in spite of the protagonists. They might consume the world to further themselves and stay above the downwards spiral, or try to eke out a bastion of hope.

Of course, the antagonists of the setting attempt to steer things in the other direction and provide the conflict necessary. Noblebright settings are boring until a conflict with the evil warlock who doesn't like hugs threaten to change the balance. Grimdark settings are boring without the occasional ray of light or at least lighter gray that inspires people to continue on, no matter how futile in the end.

It's a stupid term used by stupid people who thought the D&D alignment system wasn't stupid enough already.

wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/

Singapore is grimbright.

A seemingly beautiful utopia filled with horrible people.

>04.01.93
>April the 1st

I'd agree that the distinction between "grim" and "dark" is definitely poorly defined. People love to categorize things, so I guess we'll just try to work with this and see what we get.

Siding with ;
I think the best you can do is assume the "dark-bright" axis is describing the setting whereas "grim-noble" axis describes the players' characters (and maybe their allies).

You'll see the line drawn at "environment" vs. "people" for dark vs. grim discussion, but when do people not contribute to the environment they live in, regardless of resource shortage, climate change, governments, or whatever might make a setting "dark"?

The origin of all of this was making fun of 40k's one liner about the grim, dark future of the 41st millennium and everything that has happened since the product of someone not getting the joke. So it's going to be poorly defined because it's based off of a joke that someone wasn't told about.

You've got it backwards, as says.

Grimbright is a world of petty self-interested and heavily flawed people who live in a world where life is easy and comfortable, and often wondrous. It's more common in anime than in western media, and more common still in manga, especially seinen.

We already have been for like half a decade, mate.

This is kind of true as an extrapolation of the original use, which is as describes.

The fact that you understand it poorly doesn't mean it's poorly defined.

>when do people not contribute to the environment they live in
In this case.

>resource shortage, climate change, governments, or whatever might make a setting "dark"?
We're dealing with setting thematics, not causality. That shit is irrelevant.

It's to my simple brains like this:

>Noblebright
The people are heroic, the world is just
>Nobledark
The heroes are heroic, the world is dark
>Grimbright
The people are selfish, the world appears just but isn't
>Grimdark
The people are horrible, the world is dark, everything is bad and heroes die without achieving anything.

Nobledark looks the most fun to campaign in.

It does have that innate conflict build in to the concept for the heroes to fight against. Even a small light shines bright if everything else is dark.

The true answer.

Warhammer meme plus autism

It's not a real term

Idiotas made it up

Are these terms used anywhere else?

I doubt it

These definitions don't impact anything and we have extensive interpretation-fights over it, because there is no authority on the matter.

It's just a 4chanism from 2009

That's nobledark. Grimbright is a prosperous, advanced and beautiful world full of selfish wankers trying to screw one another over.

Nice and succinct, thanks buddy.

>Can anyone explain the concept of 'grimbright' to me?

youtube.com/watch?v=3mbBbFH9fAg

It's basically the world of American Psycho. Patrick Bateman and all the people he meets are corrupt, self-interested, and apathetic to all the things the viewer finds moral and important. Meanwhile, the world seemingly carries on with fancy dinners and high-profile business, and the people inside the world *seem* normal.

ayoo hol up

the world is nice in a 'bright' place but isn't when the people are making it 'grim'?

Doesn't that mean it's just dark?

>Doesn't that mean it's just dark?

Not that guy, but I think the implication is like in 40k nothing you do can unshit the place up. You might save some people and do some good, but you can't unfuck the whole joint.

...

accompanied by this.
As always, remember that the D&D alignment system is almost entirely nonsense.

Grimbright is a place where you have everything you could ever desire so long as you fall in line and be a good little sheep. You'll have a warm bed, hot food, nice job and access to great medical care but you'll never have freedom, and saying the wrong things can make you disappear to reeducation camps, or entirely if you piss off the wrong guy.

Grimdark is everything sucks, including the people. Nobody dies of old age, whether it's because they all die at 30 or because you got cursed to be unable to die, but you continued to age so you're now 732 years old, you haven't been able to see or speak for 500 years, you've been incontinent for 600, and you can't remember the taste of food it's been so long since you were fed by anything but an IV.

>More common in anime than western media

Bullshit. Logan's Run, Brave New World, Silent Running, 2001 A Space Odyssey, just about any science fiction dystopia or cynical work from the sixties and seventies fits the "grimbright" mold.

Noblebright: OS Star Trek and Next Generation. All-Star and Silver Age Superman. The Last Unicorn. The Tempest. The Sword in the Stone part of the Once and Future King.

Nobledark: The later parts of The Once and Future King, particularly Candle in the Wind. A lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs works. Original trilogy Star Trek. Robert E Howard Conan. Chris Claremont X-Men.

Grimbright: Logan's Run, Kiba, Brave New World, Fallout Vaults.

Grimdark: William Gibson's Sprawl books, PKD's Maze of Death and Eye in the Sky, Ridley Scott Aliens, Blade Runner

ARE THESE GOOD EXAMPLES?

>Can anyone explain the concept of 'grimbright' to me? It seems poorly defined.

Because it has no definition.
Some guy one day saw people using "grimdark" which essentially means "bad bad" and decided that there must be a counter and so "noblebright" was created, even though noble is not an antonym of grim.

SO there you have your "bad bad" and your "good good" but some retard decided that these must exist on a D&D style alignment axis. So "grimbright" means "bad good" which means "jack shit."

But it's not poorly defined. It's been elaborated upon dozens of times. People just don't bother looking anything up.

QFT

Basically, it's the same as grimdark,but in a bright setting.

Imagine Blade Runner if it was set in a sunny, good looking, aseptisized world, but everything else was the same.

I think Demolition Man might be a good example, but it maybe too shlocky to be considered grim by some people.

Noblebright: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Nobledark: Fucking nothing

Grimbright: Fucking nothing

Grimdark: Warhammer 40,000

Oh, and Logan's Run. I think that's a perfect example of "grimbright."

So, like some other user said, Paranoia.

It's tons of fun. But it's hard to pull off because players tend to be amoral in general, by dint of imperfect integration with the world that their characters experience, and making a dark vibe that's not trite or contrived is quite hard.

Occasionally, but not commonly.

So pretty much the same as they're used elsewhere.

Veeky Forums is a non-trivial influence on tabletop gaming discussion communities as a whole. Things spread from here. And the system isn't perfectly clear, but it works better than the D&D alignment system it's based on which has been widely used and discussed as well.

Grimdark is a whole bunch of communist rebellion anarchy where order is wanted. Grimbright is a whole bunch of fascist order where anarchy is wanted.

Why communism and fascism? So that you can draw historical parallels

Grimdark: Call of Cthulhu
Grimlight: Paranoia
Grimhopegrey: Twilight 2000
Hopedark: World of Darkness
Hopelight: Ghostbusters RPG

Since everyone is making shit up, I thought I would too.

This image is probably the source of a lot of misconceptions about the system.

Grim Dark is Nolan's Batman
Grim Bright is Superman Returns

I always thought Grimdark meant that something was more serious, more cynical and more gritty.

I think Grimbright would be that, but without the gritty part? So the same as Grimdark in tone and characters, but the setting would be clean and beautiful. At least on the surface.

>more serious
lel nope. The term comes from 40k.

Anyway read the thread.

Nailed it

Grimdark is maximum edge rampant rape, murder, conspiracies, insanity and so on. What you're describing is just regular dark.

... North Korea is grimbright?

The upper echelons of Best Korea society are, anyway.

I'd say Nolan's Batman is dark, but not specially grim, since there's all sorts of motivations and there's a lot of hope. Remember when they were evacuating Gotham by boats? Most of the population isn't bad and even criminals aren't completely without redeeming features.

Grimdark is a bad world with relatively "bad" characters. Think Gibson's sprawl books where mercenaries and drug addicted hackers fight a future controlled by the military industrial complex. Or Fallout.

The protagonists are strong anti-heroes at best. If they started acted noble the setting would be Nobledark. So if you played a Fallout game as a total good guy you'd be playing Nobledark. If you played as a neutral or evil you'd be playing Grimdark.

Why the fuck does everything need to be labelled and categorised? Nothing kills imagination faster than stuffing it in a box.

I'd class less-edgy stuff into Grimdark, otherwise Grimdark would run define only stuff that descends into self-parody like Warhammer and Doom. Blade Runner is Grimdark. Bokurano is grimdark. Sophie's choice is grimdark.

Would a story featuring the total failure of a hero against a dark world be considered grimdark or noblebright? I'm talking kafka stuff like The Trial or Brazil or stuff like Johnny got his Gun which is just pure BAD END.

I think the grim/noble axis needs to take into account the actions of characters in the setting as a whole and not just the character of the protagonist however. Otherwise The Village would be noblebright, because the protagonist is a hero who never gives in to the Village which is grimbright to the core in terms of aesthetics and intent.

Autism/OCD?

Anyway, it could be useful to categorize settings like that if you make your own scenarios, maybe? Or to give the players a frame of reference so they can match their actions to the tone the GM is aiming for? Idk...

Because it sparks discussion of how setting, tone, and theme compliment each other. They're just heuristics user. No one is arguing that they should be used beyond that. We're not TV tropes. Should we ban associating works with genre categories just because people take it to autistic extremes?

This. That image is why we can't have nice things. Whoever made it either didn't understand the concepts, or he was overextending them severely.

Good for quickly and conveniently communicating what kind of tone you're looking for.

Did you even play the game? It's a futuristic, beautiful city where everything is provided to the citizenry, and they pay for it by living under a terribly oppressive and manipulative regime. You can't get much more GB than that.

With "Grimdark" and "Noblebright" and everything in between, think of it where the first part is the narrative constraints of the setting and the second the nature of the characters.

A "grim" setting is one where, no matter what else happens, a bad end is coming. A "noble" setting is one where good will always triumph over evil. "Dark" characters and "Bright" characters are exactly what you'd expect.

>bright
not really, no

That's wrong. Good endings happen in grim works. A better way to put it is a grim setting doesn't deserve a happy ending.

...

WARNING: MAXIMUM AUTISM

We're dealing with more than two dimensions.

1. The level of human development and comfort. Dark means third world and basic needs might not be met. Bright means your needs are met at the standard of a modern developed world if not more so.

2. The tone of the setting. This is a tricky one, because a setting can have high human development and yet be about pure human misery. Think Glass Menagerie or Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf. Characters have their needs met but tear each other's lives apart because they're flawed humans. And on the flip side a story about struggling dirt farmers can be charming and hopeful. Think Grapes of Wrath. The tone can be "dark" or "bright" independent of category 1. I suppose you could say the tone is either hard or light

3. The level of violence. How often are people fighting each other? Is the setting peaceful or chaotic?

4.The level of seriousness. Does the setting take its mythology and characters seriously or do they wink at the camera? Is the setting campy or serious?

5. Characters. Are the characters in the setting selfish or are they altruistic? Grim or noble? I'd argue that the actions of the protagonist be separate from the grim/ noble axis.

Hard/Light

Grim/Noble

Dark/Bright

Serious/Camp

Chaotic/Peaceful

>Star Wars Neutral
>LOTR Nobledark
>Neutralbright being a thing

NO

"Grimbright" is not "a thing". Mirrors Edge is a parkour game. Everything else about is stylistic. You have an opressive regime\ society that I don't know that much about, and as the main character you run and jump across the rooftops, free of normal constraints. Like a bird through the sky. That's why it's bright.

You are more likely to be a homosexual than the general population.

YES

LotR is pretty quintessentially nobledark actually.

And what do you have against neutralbright specifically? Please contain your autism.

Mirror's Edge being a parkour game has nothing to do with it being called Grim Bright. Describing game mechanics with these terms isn't what they were meant for, and indeed I don't think anyone has ever done so before you just now.

It's about the setting and the story.

Protip:

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5881187/

This is where it all began. If you disagree with the descriptions given in that thread, then you're an idiot.

>World featuring a galactic empire and a long civil war that claims planets
>Less dark than LOTR which has Tom Bombadil and a benevolent creator deity.
>LOTR is equated to Halo which has most of humanity killed off by Jihadi aliens until only Earth remains and hive mind zombies that want to rape everything

>World featuring a galactic empire and a long civil war that claims planets
At least they also have the technology to live comfortably. In Star Wars they just get a replacement hand. In LotR they get eaten by orcs.

>Less dark than LOTR which has Tom Bombadil and a benevolent creator deity.
Really? Are you forgetting about MUH FORCE?

Really hard to chart five axes though, for those of us who can't see in that many dimensions.

Except no-one can agree what any of the terms mean.

They're as useless as the D&D alignment system.

So Borderlands should be grimdark, right? What a weird thing to think about.

Level of violence, seriousness, and the distinction of characters to other people are all irrelevant to an system which isn't supposed to be measuring those things.

Grim Dark is defined by 40k and that universe is a completely non-serious joke.

Yes, because a bunch of people brought out their competing definitions to the words. In the days that they gained popularity, they were still useful.

dystopian shit..
think THX 1138, ex machina, or any other cyberpunky stuff that shows the sterile pristine side of a future that would generally be a utopia if it werent for some gov/company that has control over everyone in some fashion. You dont get that pretty without getting rid of the trash somehow, and also lots of elements of surveillance usually. I do like the theme, but i dont see much come of it often and when it does come about, its not done well usually.

but grimbright isnt a real term and dystopian works fine.. that covers the dark lowlife side of things like bladerunner but also the clean white side of shit..

> Grimdark is a whole bunch of communist rebellion anarchy where order is wanted. Grimbright is a whole bunch of fascist order where anarchy is wanted.
If you want to go full retard /pol/, it will be something like this:

Noblebright: Communists won and managed to deliver.
Everyone is a nice person and world is a good place to live in.
Examples: old Marxist Star Trek and Soviet Sci-Fi in general.

Grimbright: Capitalists won and managed to delivered.
Everyone is an asshole, but invisible hand made everything good and prosperous anyway.
Example: implied aftermath of Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Nobledark: Revolution in progress.
World is crap, but there are good people who can change things (PCs are probably among them).
Example: the most common political non-dystopian fiction

Grimdark: somebody won, but everything went as their opponents predicted.
World is crap, everyone is an asshole and PCs don't have much of a hope of changing anything, even if they wanted to (but they don't).
Example: pretty much every dystopian novel, from 1984 onwards

>That's wrong. Good endings happen in grim works.
True, but the overall momentum of the universe must be negative. Even a good victory is momentary, fleeting. At the end of a grim story, the protagonists might have won, but overall they will have failed to make any meaningful changes to the way the world really functions.

A Song of Ice and Fire ("Game of Thrones") is a fine example. Sure, Robb Stark manages to win some battles, but at the end of the day he still gets stapled to his dog.

>Communists won and managed to deliver.
That's basically Cuba. The literacy rate and life expectancy are world class and institutional discrimination is eliminated. That's what they said they were going to do, and they did it. Sure, standard of living and human rights are still Africa-tier, but those were never the priorities.

They have also forgotten God. You can't just forget that.

Cuba actually recently allowed the distribution of bibles.

100% this. Everything but grim dark is the result of extreme autism. Grimdark itself is a War hammer meme.

So grim dark is only an adopted child of extreme autism? I don't know, they feel too closely related for that.

I'm showing why it is grim and bright in the first place. Because it's about parkour which is about personal freedom for which you need oppression to have something to be free of.

Whatever the story is it's secondary to the stylistic choices of the game that are made because it's a parkour game. All the setting needs is oppression of some sort. And then the visuals and feel of soaring above it all.

Practically everything about Mirror's Edge is unique to that game and says nothing of whichever things you contrive to be grimbright.