How do you do "edgy" right?

Dictionary says you're wrong mate.

Never understood the number of dead cops.
Are we talking about the Guardsmen planet?

> Yfw one of your player want to play your DMPC

do it

Huh?

Dictionary my ass. Living language and memes, do you know what those are?

Respect the material.
The problem with attempts at dark subject matter is that for most gamers, stuff that fits into the grim and noir section are fairly common in other genres due to the new trend in subversion.

An NPC death should be impactful. Silver linings should be bittersweet in and of themselves. Edge depends on a mechanic of reliable and expectable stability that is overturned at the right moments to give extra weight.

Look at ways to build suspense. Foreshadow terrible things. Have an insignificant event. Something most people would put off until it bites them in the ass. The player's car keeps breaking down, but they always get it back onto the road. When they really need it, it doesn't start though. Not during a chase scene, but just after they've gotten news that X is in danger and needs help asap.

Subtlety and helplessness are what make some of life's greatest obstacles the worst we face. The characters should be the root cause of one or two terrible things. Don't waste a death until the final arc. Even a random NPC should have a tangential connection with BBEG or the players. Maybe all the people the PCs talk to refuse to talk to them again or wind up dead in their own beds.

Horrible things should be exposed quickly, but with lasting repercussions. Rape victim goes on with their life, but won't make eye contact or talk with anyone. Survivors of a murdered friend show guilt, jealousy. Some attack the PC.

"Edgy" subject matter doesn't need a lot besides respect.

It must suck to be some edgy teen who makes a stupid picture and end up immortalized as a meme for years and years, long after you've grown up enough to realize how cringe it was.

You don't do it at all. Be a real badass, not an angsty sphincter that says 'hardcore' shit and wanks off later on in the shower about how cool he sounded delivering banter while My Chemical Romance blares in the backdrop.

Why yes, things that you can interpret however the fuck you want to win arguments on the internet

I think "being real badass" is probably what he means by "doing edgy right".

Edgy in the older sense of the word, not the parody sense of the word.

Lameass constructs of Libral mindsets?

But the thing is that any le edgy meme guy thinks that he is a badass, and the whole "edgy" thing is people denying him attention

>How do you do "edgy" right?
ironically.

Well like I said, that's more the meme term that came to parody the concept.

The term 'edgy' wasn't always used derisively. You could (or at least used to be able to) describe a movie as an 'edgy thriller' as a way to say 'it's gritty' rather than 'it's a tryhard movie'.

Ragna is pretty much the only time edgy has ever been done right.

On the surface, he is edge incarnate. Dark aesthetic, corrupted by a dark power. Parent figures murdered. He is a reincarnation/pre-incarnation of a fiend that consumed billions. Yet he works for some reason. It could be that he still has emotional range and relatable qualities.

its bootleg shirts gone horribly funny.

First step of arguing is defining the word being argued about. And it was defined right here:

Oh, well in that sense I would say doing edgy right would be to have a fighter who is stoic even in the face of severe bodily injury. Someone that manages to fuck up a lot of people emotionlessly and barehandedly dispite having sustained several nasty, freely bleeding wounds.
Who then afterward, isn't an insufferable banter-slinging cunt.

Why is the thread still going after this guy?
/thread

I am really happy that the internet was in its infancy when I was 15. No permanent record except a few family photos exist of my cringe.

On topic
has it iright. It's all about subtlety and contrast. Lord knows I had more than one evil henchman covered in spiked armor fall flat due to me expecting his description to be enough to strike fear into the players in the past.

Instead, try to lead up to it. Lets take a common scenario for Fantasy - the characters are en route to village just to find out it is currently under siege by the BBEGs minions.

>early signs
The refugees that the players inevitable meet on the road to the place should not be exposition-potions. Think not only about what they have seen, but also the rumours of an approaching army they may have heard before. During the siege, they probably did not see much and instead either heard cries and grunts from outside while hiding in their basement or felt the heat of their home burning behind them as they ran in sheer panic without looking back.

A common mistake I see in those situations is that the refugees are literally waiting on the players to fall back into total panic. Instead, have the refugees be in a more realistic state depending on who they are. [...]

[...] The father of a family may be the strong man, more or less calmly explaining what happened and asking for tangible help by repairing a wagon wheel while the mother of the family is handing out water while in a Zombie-like state and the son of the family is covering in the back of the wagon, slightly rocking his body.

>Initital edge
When getting into the vicinity of the village, don't go overboard with gruesome depictions of death. Instead, focus on a few impressive sights. Remember why Alien was so much more scary than Aliens? A single Xenomorph is a lot scarier than dozens. Have the village be quiet, the bodies burning in piles and the only sign of enemy presence be laughter and cheering from the local tavern instead of MONSTERSEVERYWHERE. Introduce a simple "edgy" symbol here, like a specific method of murder seen on some of the bodies or just a rune painted on every door.

edg·y

ˈejē/

adjective

1.

tense, nervous, or irritable.

In the context of genre, that means you are talking about thrillers, horror and noir. Think Hitchcock. The viewer/players need to feel appropriate stresses. There should be looming threats and hidden antagonists.

Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't edgy in Predator. Being hunted by an inescapable force of nature was the edgy bit.

Casablanca wasn't edgy because of Bogart. It was edgy because of the mystery and intrigue starting in an upscale night club.

An edgy character or villain, does not, in itself, make the work as a whole edgy.

Well, what about the sort of people who are 'evil' for a reason rather than the standard 'I'm just being a dick for the sake of it'.

Would you consider, for example, a zealous paladin who comes to a heathen village, demands they convert, and if they fail, locks the heathens in their heathen temple and burns it, edgy? Obviously you'd think if the character was playing "a thief who hates the law and is only out for himself heh...." who burns down a church with people in it it'd be the epitome of edgy, but when you introduce genuinely held ideology I think it makes it something else. I've personally always been a fan of the characters with a ideology stalwart to the point of irrationality and cruelty that they can't see past, where they can only see the world through their version of black or white. They're convinced they're moral and just because they're operating on a completely different spectrum.

>Initial meetup with edgy element
Wether or not the edgy element is a single character, a group of people or a place like a summoning shrine dedicated to a demon, don't spout exposition immediately like in your animus. On the other hand, don't allow the players to get too familiar with that element either. If they see the BBEGs lieutenenant in the village, describe him briefly, then have him send some of his less scary minions after the players and disappear for now. If you want it to be a group, have them dismiss the characters without too much grandeur - "You missed some" and a laugh is more than enough for some edge without getting comical.

Oh shit. He got us.

...

I want to play Dante expy. He's plain, vanilla human, has got katana and a pair of pistols, white coat and is ginger. I will make him do typical hack and slash stuff, combos, some fluff-wise qte etc.

He spends most of his time either at home with his parents and siblings or in the city, helping poor people, buying them bread etc. He treats the fight as last resort, because he's afraid of collateral. What's more, he will reject any offer of power from both demons and angels, confident in his skills.

Am I edgy?

Are you the same faggots who say that "high fantasy" means "not on Earth"?

>Edgy is wrong by default.
Ugh no.
As a DM edgy player/character tend to mention - even ever so briefly sometimes - some edgy/tragic past. As a DM you fucking latch onto that and RUN with it. Usually an automatic way to to get players invested in your game, which IS a DMs number one priority. And this hate-player type HANDS it to you on a golden-goth-lip-stick-painted platter.

Bring one and bring all Edgy lords to my table. For they are easily manipulated and incorporated into stories. Once they relinquish control of their tragic past to you, you can start molding them into less of an edgy-dick. 90% of the time there is nothing but win with edgy player in your group. Unless all you do is sit back and bitch about it.

That said I will admit to corner cases of players sometimes just being edgy without backstories. As there is no warning to their behavior most people tend to call these people "That-Guys." In which case see That-guy threads and problems.

Traditional Edge-lords are a blessing in disguise to any and all GM.

Slayer Characters aren't that edgy. See Geralt and Grey Wardens.

You have your character come bundled with another one that's boisterous and comedic.

basically more Tarkus and less Avitus

This

You have to think of your characters as a human being with human emotions and events that turned them into an "edgelord". Evil for the sake of evil does not exist unless they're demons or something, there's always motivation for evil acts.

An assassin who was a veteran of a war and realized the only thing he was good at was killing other people and found by chance through war that his upbringing allowed him to take life without the trauma and baggage that other people have.

Fallen paladin turned lich who's been around for centuries and at one time was the white knight good guy but realizing you're one man against millions of wicked was enough to make him subscribe to the ends justify the means and if he has to do some collateral damage to raise his undead army in order to enforce peace and goodness down the line then he sees it as worthwhile.

Absolutely deranged and mentally broken wizards who have seen more realities than the average man could dream of that warped his mind beyond repair to the point that he's so out of touch with reality that he doesn't have a moral code anymore. He may do bad shit but it's because he no longer knows any better and those evil acts make sense in his abstract head.

You get the idea. There has to be something to make them commit atrocious acts. *teleports behind u and slits ur throat kid* isn't a character, it's a caricature.

make the character actually realistic instead of "Hollywood realistic" or "anime realistic"

>only angry and sad when he needs to be rest of the time he's calm and neutral
>not pessimistic, but not idealistic/optimistic either, if the situation is normal he's normal, if the situation is fucked he's not going to sugercoat it or assume it will get better
>if he has tragic backstory, he will only dwell on it when he's reminded of it
>he's not smug about anything, he knows he doesn't know how to fix everything, which is why he's skeptic towards those who claim such
>he actually is stoic and badass, things don't get to him unless it's really bad (or the aforementioned reminder happens), and when things need to be done he doesn't talk, he just does it
>he actually is smart he understands the situation at hand and tries to find the most reasonable actions to take
>remember that "realism" is only a relative thing. relative to the characters around him and the rules the world has (if the world is idealistic he's also so he's just putting a bit of logic into it, if the world is grimdark he will be grimdark with it while trying to maintain his humanity).

I always do that by accident with something intended to be a 1-off combat NPC or some shit.

My DMPC is an incorporeal AI that only provides technical and moral support

What makes it a DMPC over an NPC, then?

>How do you do "edgy" right?
Make your character sympathetic by establishing reasons for their edgy behavior. Giving them enough self awareness to not be serious 100% of the time helps, too.

Pic related is a good example from recent vidya. Despite being edgy, Matkina is actually likable and relatable, unlike, say, Callistege, who isn't edgy but is kind of a bitch.

That is not a DMPC you git. A DMPC is the GM having his own PC.

Is just pure hate of the poor just because they are annoying a motivation?

>provides technical... support
Have they been asked to try turning it off and turning it back on again?