Sup teegee, I come in need of counsel and advice

Sup teegee, I come in need of counsel and advice.

I recently decided to come back to GMing, got some people and about to start planning for a 5th edition D&D later next month. Everyone seems decent and exited and all would have been well but for one thing.

The players expressly indicated that they want the campaign to be grimdark.

Now I am used to running "grimdark" in CoC/Delta Green games but that's in no way applicable to fantasy 5e (even simply by virtue of me not being able to blow a PC's brains out in one hit by sheer and not too uncommon accident).

Can any of you gents recommend me an approach to take when building a setting and adventures for them?

>tl:dr How do I make a grimdark campaign

Are we talking grimdark fantasy or sci-fi? You can also do a warhammer mash up.

Luckily for you D&D makes it pretty damn easy to run grimdark. There's plenty of monsters in the MM that can correlate with the setting.

Mindflayers are a must. They add body horror and sci-fi to the mix. Perhaps in the future of some world Mindflayers rule the world and they're humans in a resistance.

You can make mutants pretty easy by adding some traits to bandits and describing them as horrifying abominations.

I'd really suggest looking at the underdark creatures. They're all some flavor of grimdark.

Fantasy. I would have been more comfortable with sci-fi because of the plethora of horror media I consumed throughout my lifetime.

The problem I am seeking is building a coherent setting for it. I can just take a pre-built module like Curse of Strahd but that seems like cheating.

I hate to be that guy, but are your players ok with not playing 5th edition D&D? Pre-3.5e D&D would work better imo

You could also switch to a different system altogether like WHFRP or Mythras

I hear you on that.

Dark Sun is a really great example of grimdark in a setting. Unfortunately there's no conversion for 5e.

You really want to emphasize the hopelessness of the campaign. Is magic gone? Are the gods dead? Maybe there's a brutal warlord that lives inside the skull of a fallen god.

You can go completely post apocalyptic or a rebuilt society that's super backwards.

I'd emphasize a couple things to maximize grimdark

> settlements are few and far between while there are plenty of ruins.

You want to emphasize how hard survival is. Maybe there's a central settlement or just a few small ones

> use a smaller setting to make the larger world more mysterious.

Set in a kingdom or a smaller area. It would be very hard for them to explore the whole continent. Do it like Fallout 4 or 3. You see the devestation and hear the rumors of the rest of the world but never explore it fully.

> emphasize the parties food and water intake and measure exhaustion.

You want the party to feel the struggle of scraping by. D&D makes it pretty easy. Making weapons wear out is also a good way to make the party feel struggle.

> despotic rulers, blood thirsty bandits, and powerful necromancers are your friends.

Depending on what you decide nothing emphasizes the grimdark more than expressing the ruthlessness of survival and bringing out the inner evils of humanity.

> monster, monsters, more monsters

Worms the size of busses, mutants, zombies, hillbilly canibals. The party should always be at odds with the environment, the surroundings, etc.

Grimdark is a lot of fun. If you emphasize the right things it should ultimately be pretty easy.

>I would have been more comfortable with sci-fi because of the plethora of horror media I consumed throughout my lifetime.
Literally steal your favorite sci-fi horror setting and replace it with fantasy.
Pandorum works, flavored like the Mines of Morria.
Give it a shot.
Let's hear it.

If the grim aspect can be removed with the use of the force, then most likely campaign will not be grimdark. I think it would be better to make 'grim' inevitable.

You can build a setting in the middle of apocalypse. Not a flashy and loud kind of armageddon, but a slow and painful one. Create a story about last moments of known world together with the players. Make them explore the world where all living retreat to safe harbors that get smaller and smaller, while the mainland slowly decays into obscurity.

Not sure if D&D will work such campaign, though. This system works best with heroic fantasy, but grimdark implies a more gritty approach.

>If the grim aspect can be removed with the use of the force, then most likely campaign will not be grimdark
I think this is my primary problem. It's easy to be grimdark when the PCs are at their rightful place in it - at the bottom of the barrel, ready to be (fairly, not by use of fiat) snuffed out at a moment's notice.

D&D 5e is pretty much a supers game disguised as fantasy and I originally wanted the game to be a noblebright story, but that's out of the window now.

>Literally steal your favorite sci-fi horror setting and replace it with fantasy.
Sounds like fun, I will give it a shot. Eclipse' Phase's detachment of mind from matter (and its absurdist consequences) immediately springs to mind hue but justifying it would be interesting.

That's a whole bunch of useful stuff, thanks. I will probably work around a small, waning kingdom within the Quiet Year-like state of decay.

I was the one to suggest 5e because it's a new group whom I don't know and it seemed like a safe option for a fun fantasy romp. I am not sure how well suddenly switching to, say, Labyrinth Lord or AD&D would sit with them and how it would make me seem whimsical and fickle (which a GM shouldn't be seen as imo)

>D&D 5e is pretty much a supers game disguised as fantasy and I originally wanted the game to be a noblebright story, but that's out of the window now. I was the one to suggest 5e because it's a new group whom I don't know and it seemed like a safe option for a fun fantasy romp. I am not sure how well suddenly switching to, say, Labyrinth Lord or AD&D would sit with them and how it would make me seem whimsical and fickle (which a GM shouldn't be seen as imo)

Tell your players this and see what they say... they might change their mind on the grimdark thing or prefer a darker system.

I hate to sound like that guy, but I think D&D can work well in almost any setting if enough thought is applied. D&D will always be the best system for new players. It's easy to access and understand. The books are easily available at local book stores etc. I love Pathfinder, but as a GM if I'm playing with new players it is always 5e.

>I think this is my primary problem. It's easy to be grimdark when the PCs are at their rightful place in it - at the bottom of the barrel, ready to be (fairly, not by use of fiat) snuffed out at a moment's notice.

If I'm interpreting this correctly you are having trouble with late game ideas? If that's the case you just have to remember that in every grimdark game a victory is almost always also a loss.

Players could kill a evil ruler and throw the town into chaos. Emphasize the pain and suffering of the villagers when describing the victory.

Grimdark is all about suffering. No matter what that's a constant.

High level play just means that there's bigger things for the party to take care off. Society also always resets. You could do a FNV situation where there's a ocean of calm that's in a sea of chaos.

Grimdark play and fantasy superheroes are absolutely not compatible without railroading away player agency. "Wow I didn't intend for you to save those villagers... huh look at that I guess they were infected by some eldritch horror"

>wanting to play D&D

Wow. Whats up with that pic? Boy necromancer who won't let go of his family members who died in a tragic accident?

Extending your logic, wouldn't all "grim" setting models ultimately rob players of their agency, at least if my understanding of "grim-noble" scale is a given character's ability to make a meaningful impact on the world?

I don't agree.

Grimdark emphasizes human suffering and highlights the negative aspects of humanity. As a GM your players can absolutely retain agency.

I would be pissed if a GM did what you described, but what if the villagers resent the heroes for freeing them. A ruler still brings stability even if its negative most of the time. You can talk about the chaos of the region being destabilized.

Negan is a great example of a grimdark ruler. Is he brutal as fuck? Yeah. He also runs a tight ship, and I'm sure more than a few saviors would be upset if they were freed.

Narrative can happen naturally without railroad.

It's definitely not my first personal favourite but it does its job when it comes to groups of fairly new players, most of their experience being 3.5/pf. Thank fuck at least I've outright refused to run that.

In my ideal world I would have ran a L5R game or an Eclipse Phase game. Or some Delta Green. But the only thing to reliably get players in an environment without an established base is D&D.

>D&D will always be the best system for new players.

I don't like system wars, but I strongly disagree with this. There are much more simple and accessible systems. D&D is popular, there are a lot of supporting material, but that's about it.

Plus, I personally believe that D&D cultivates bad habits in both players and GMs alike, but that's mostly subjective opinion.

It's all about the smaller scope imo. In grim settings your impact is smaller, but it's still there.

Maybe you help a water merchant get through the ruins. He'll always remover you and a town gets drinks

Maybe an old woman gets her favorite food scavenged by the PCs.

It's all about the good or bad the player injects into the world. That's why smaller settings are your friend.

While there's merit to your post, let's do exactly as you've suggested and not start edition wars.

Assume that for now I am stuck with D&D 5e, unless everyone in my group is comfortable with other systems - I will discuss it with them in two days when I meet them for coffee. Any other advice as to how to build a grimdark campaign? Maybe some personal experiences?

Enlighten me?

I'm always looking for better systems.

What habits do you think it cultivated? I'm curious.

>PCs are protectors of a small community
>The way world works is that every other 5/10/100/whatever years, the sun sets and does not reappear for a large period of time
>What ones used to be days and weeks has with centuries untold turned into years
>It only gets worse and some scholars say that one day the sun will set only to never return
>With night come terrors that lurk within, as well as the natural hazards
>The temperature drops, navigation becomes extremely difficult, crops fail and people succumb to madness
>The choice between the PCs is either to subsist and protect their charge, fightning an uphill battle that may not even be won
>Or perhaps to set out on a quest to find out what can be done in a long term - perhaps even how to bring the sun back
>Of course, that will involve leaving the community behind, exposed to threats unimaginable

What do you think? Too bland?

I'd play the hell out of that campaign. My only suggestion would be to set it several years after the sunset. That way the horrors would have awhile to set in and the atmosphere could be even more "grim". That's just my opinion though.

Would play/10

Yeah, that was my idea. It was inspired by the Quiet Year (of which I am quite fond of) when writing this up. I imagine having at least a year of "prep time" - to fully realise the futility of your
actions.

>No matter how much food you stockpile - it won't last you until the end?
>How can you say that you have enough fuel if even now, months away from it, sleeping away from a fire is uncomfortable at best?
>How can you protect us from the evil, if those dozens of people running away from Western lands refuse to even stop and tell about it.
>When darkness falls, the barns empty and all hope seems folly, how can you protect us from yourself?

Just looked that up. I'm going to have to buy it now. That looks fun!

You could easily do a session zero to establish characters and establish the sense of dread as the world ends quietly with a wimper.

You could also add a fog to the world that tricks and plays games with people.

Don't forget about disease. Talk about the filth. Let them know most live in squalor. Finding a decent Inn outside of a major settlement or a safe place to rest is difficult. They'll need to work out a watch schedule and rationing.

Average every day needs for a common human being to live comfortably must be difficult to ascertain or hoarded by the powerful. (Only the rich and forceful have common access to food, water, shelter, security, all come at a price.) Commoners don't dare enter nature to survive for fear of monsters.

The populace shouldn't trust travelers very much, especially those in a group, from fear of raiding parties. The Party should be careful who they take jobs from or make allegiances to, people don't forget that sort of thing.

Grimdark is about making the most out of a truly terrible situation. Make sure bad things happen to common people, and if the party wants to help them, they can't due to circumstance. Unless they are truly selfless. About the only party members looked up to in any sort of way should be Paladins and Clerics of certain deities. Nothing else should inspire the populace, and worse, the parties skills may even instill fear.

Good luck with the game!

I don't think grimdark means what you think it means. If you want D&D to be grimdark, just use Dark Sun.

You are everything wrong with tabletop gaming community, and you should probably kill yourself. D&D only works well in a very specific kind of setting. Outside that, it works badly or not at all. Further, it's not at all a good introduction to tabletop games, people only think it is because it's popular.

I prefer systems that concentrate on doing one thing rather than being universal and doing a ton of things, but I think for a new group it would be nice to try one of these.

I personally like D6 System. It's versatile, simple and fast-paced. It's not very intimidating and quite easy to learn. If you want well-rounded system, I would recommend going with this.

Folks on Veeky Forums love to bash Dungeon World, but it's pretty fun game. It may be limited a little bit, but it's incredibly simple to learn and run. If I would want to have a bigger focus on narrative, I would pick this.

Savage Worlds wight be a bit wonky, but it's still pretty easy and fast-paced. However, SW is mostly suited for relatively simple action stuff like Sword & Sorcery. I had experience with SLA Industries conversion to SW and I found it to be decent. If you want a middle ground between previous two examples, then try SW.

>What habits do you think it cultivated?
As I said, it's mostly subjective opinion, but it's based on my experience with other players and GMs.

A lot of times when a person starts with D&D, he mostly sticks with D&D, and as a force of habit a lot of people are hard to convince to play/GM something other than D&D.

D&D has it's own specific structure and formula, and because of system's widespread status a lot of people project D&D play-style on other systems, even if they deviate from aforementioned skeleton.

Generic nature and popularity of D&D evoke a lot of metagaming in D&D itself.

I'm not saying that D&D is a terrible system, but from what I saw, those problems often arise when a person starts with D&D and plays it almost exclusively. A lot of those habits come from inexperience with other systems/play-styles, and they don't automatically mean that someone is a bad GM or player. However, it takes a lot of time for some people to overcome those habits, and because of that I advice not to start with D&D.

Sorry OP, Curse of Sthrad is too pozzed and lackluster in that classic D&D 2e Ravenloft charm to meet your standards.

Buy Curse of Strahd and run that.

Worst idea of the thread.

If you don't mind 3.5e, look at these books for inspiration or actual adventure hooks:
Book of Vile Darkness
Heroes of Horror
Elder Evils
Exemplars of Evil
Libris Mortis

Even if you're sticking with 5e, you could try and adapt some of these.

Stuff like Cancer mages, Demon thralls and demonoligist make great villains, it's a shame that 5e has so little material for it.

Almost exactly what I was running at one point, but I set it after a century of darkness with everyone living in a partially warded cave system to keep out the worst of the horrors that also lurked withou and using magic to barely survive.
The sun was about to start rising again but that would only last 10 years before 1000 years of darkness and the probable end to all things because after 100 years they were 90% fucked and they were going to try and find a means of long term survival while they could travel the world above.