What's an example of a grimbright setting?

I think most people use low vs high fantasy to denote power level and to a certain extent tone, I believe your definition is the academically correct one though

>Mfw Marche is literally Plato

>55154763
Shit, top tier bait.

Grimbright is an otherwise noblebright setting, but heroics don't really matter and people are generally shitty. Nausicaa (manga) would be other, but it could also be grimdark or even nobledark depending what you think about the ending. Another example would be IRL if you're stuck in a shitty job and your friends are assholes, but you still live comfortable first world life.

Ah forgot the first example. It was supposed to be Morrowind. Ghost in The Shell was kinda grimbright too and so are many other cyberpunk settings.

Probably the best Nobledark/Grimbright setting I can think of is Mutant Chronicles.

It borrows pretty heavily from Warhammer 40,000 with it's Days-of-Future-past Dieselpunk setting but once you get into it you quickly realize that MC is the Anti-40k.

Whereas characters in Warhammer 40k are all too eager to abandon their humanity, adopting monstrous tactics in the face of equally monstrous enemies, characters in MC struggle to hold on to that humanity.

A good example of this is the Brotherhood's Inquisition. The Second Directorate do hunt down anyone who traffics with the Dark Legion, branding them Heretics, but the Second Directorate try to SAVE Heretics whenever possible. Their methods are definitely not pleasant, but it's a far cry from the Imperial Inquisitions "KILL FUCKING EVERYONE" approach.

It's not only about power levels. Low fantasy by definition is always more realistic (less magic, monsters and shit) than high fantasy which is more fantastic. Not necessarily set on real world though.

That sounds like your nobledark. People are noble, but setting is dark. Grimbright has setting that is not dark (on surface atleast), but people are grim in general. It might have noble heroes, but in the end what they do doesn't matter or even causes more bad than good.

But magic by default is not ever realistic unless it's like some nanomachines shit and even then it's more science fantasy than realism. Also, making magic part of natural laws in your setting doesn't make it realistic because definition of realism is something that imitates our world.

The Brotherhood is, in general, pretty awesome. In a very 90s cartoon way. 'Here we have our magic ninjas, valkyries and precognitive fighter pilots'. I would love to see 40k take more from them for the ecclessiarchy/SOB.

Because it's beautiful and colorful aesthetically as opposed dark and ugly. Also, Valley of Wind is a very comfy place where people live peaceful and very comfortable lives despite there being literally hell outside of it. I understand your point though because in general it's definitely more nobledark or even grimdark, but the Valley is such a good example of certain style of grimbright, I had to mention it.

What about setting that are BOTH grim and bright? I mean like Zardoz where you have grimbright bored immortals, but grimdark brutals. Is it grimdark because most of world is like that or grimbright because story and themes focuses on immortals?

If you kill your enemies, they win.

That's retarded logic. Only reason Batman doesn't kill is that he was originally strictly kid's comic character and even then he used to kill more (also used guns a lot) in 1940s before Comics Code.

Comics code ruined comics forever.

He's not evil, strictly. His moral argument is at least arguably sounds and he did not intend genocide, as some argue.
He inarguably IS reckless and terrifyingly negligent, because at the time he started smashing crystals he had absolutely NO proof that the world actually was an illusion. He made a guess and staked the world on it. The fact that he guessed right doesn't excuse his disregard for the possibility of failure.

Nah, it only directly ruined superhero stuff and that stuff was never good to begin with.

But it also killed off the other stuff that used to be popular and forced writers into just doing super heroes.

t. Canadienne

I know, but luckily non-superhero stuff eventually recovered and we have had many good non-super comics since the 80s. Superheroes never recovered though and probably never will given that Watchmen didn't manage to fix them despite trying so hard.

Why did it matter that the world is an illusion when it felt real to everyone involved, and they were better off for it?

Marche's actions would be more justified if we actually saw people getting fucked over by the new world, but the only ones who did were the bullies who became zombies. And they had it coming.

>mfw when posters near me deny the epistemic privilege of root ontological reality

>if we actually saw people getting fucked over by the new world
Every single person living in the jadgs
Every single person sent to jail because of a retarded law

It's not that or the CCA. It's the simple, everpresent foe: Status Quo, which is itself powered by economics. The moment Joker stops printing money as a Batman villain he can be killed off or stop escaping from Arkham.

Mirror's Edge is one of the best examples for a Grimbright setting. The second in particular. Other than that, Eclipse Phase is also there. Post-cyberpunk, in general, tends to be grimbright.

Mewt and what's-her-name were legitimately running from solvable problems and Marshe was right to kick their asses for it.

His brother, though, was 100% in the right for wanting to stay in a world where he had functional legs. That's not a problem that any amount of hard work can fix; he was crippled, permanently. Dragging him back with the same escapism argument was a dick move.

Brave New World

The Stars Without Number default setting is a bit grimbright.

Sure, the Terran Mandate collapsed in the Scream, and most advanced tech was lost in the chaos, but humanity survived, they are rebuilding, and most worlds are a decent place to live.

But he started Walking in the end

There is no cure for the type of pussy that Mewt is, other than a full magazine and some privacy.

>grimbright

you're living in one

Escapism is bad because it's a distraction that isn't actually as fulfilling as living a healthy life. All of Marche's friends led fulfilling lives in Ivalice that were for all intents and purposes real for them. It's not like they wired their brains to computers and got fed intravenally while jacking off to hentai. They became fantasy heroes and led active lives with friends and adventures. The game was poorly written; it falls flat as an escapism allegory, and Marche is objectively a cunt.

The final scene features him in a wheelchair IIRC, discussing final fantasy with a new friend.

Mostly because the whole escapism plot was shoehorned in at the last minute due to media coverage of a couple teens who died while playing games for days on end.

They "permanently" kill people relatively often, you know.
Then there's a universal reset or crossover or something.

There isn't one. "Grimbright" doesn't exist.
>Grimdark comes from the 40k tagline, to describe anything that's tonally similar to 40k
>Noblebright is a play on grimdark, meaning the opposite
>Nobledark was invented to describe settings that include elements of both
Then dull, pedantic twits who think these sorts of semantic games make them clever decided "grimbright" must also exist and went about creating a convoluted, unnecessary classification system to invent a definition for it.

Could a brightdark settting exist and what would it be like? How about noblegrim? Figure the latter would be just nobledark lite, but first one mentioned seems more interesting.

Start by defining "bright" and "dark"

This. This need to keep selling the same comics is one of the two main things ruining comics, together with the constant author/artist switching.
I've been saying for years that they should just do clear, self-contained, set story runs, say "DC 2020-2030" where nothing is off limits. The Joker can get introduced at the stort, get thrown into Arkham, stay there for two years, get out and then fucking die in a blaze of glory because Red Hood, Damien, Azrael or even just Dick or Bruce don't fuck around with an insane mass murderer. Then Bruce has an existential crisis, figures it out and that's that for the Joker for this run. Then do something else the next runthrough. Be upfront with it, "This run last from here to there".
Sadly, I'm not rich enough to buy DC.

Only in the first world and even then it might be nobledark depending on your occupation and morals. Third world would be pretty much all the way grimdark. There's no place that's noblebright in real lifd though.

I'd love that. I tend to only buy trades of arcs that i find interesting for that reason rather than trying to keep up with individual comics

It's retarded.
Grimdark came from the 40k tagline.
It essentially means darkdark or very dark.
"Noble" isn't even antonymous to "grim" or synonymous with "bright."

But in any case when you mix the bright with the dark you get brightdark which is just meaningless.

Orion's Arm

Couldn't brightdark actually be like some setting has both grimdark and noblebright settings within the same world? Perhaps as opposing sides fighting eternal battle. I can't really think of any examples. Maybe Star Wars Expanded Universe (because sometimes dark wins, unlike in canon).

It's more about tone, context, and the relevance of the fantastical nature of the world. The book definition of high and low fantasy is useless for actually categorizing and explaining media, as technically LOTR and Conan are low fantasy, due to taking place on "very far in the past" earth, while down-to earth medieval settings like early Berserk and ASOIAF are high fantasy due to simply not taking place in our world.

The most useful way to divide them is by how, well, fantastical they are. LOTR is very fantastical, what with the elves, orcs, dwarves, hobbits, and wizards are being just part of life for most humans, while most of ASOIAF is full of people who believe their world to be completely mundane, with only a tiny fraction even believing in magic, let alone experiencing it.
But it doesn't fit perfectly, and many series evolve over time. Still works better than "primary vs secondary worlds"

It's not accepted. Nesbit's definition is almost universally rejected in the RPG community in favor of Jackson's, and a massive argument ensues any time someone tries to force Nesbit's definition on people on Veeky Forums

This is Nesbit's definition, but even then nobody can agree about anything. Supposedly "earth exists" = low fantasy, but many academics disagree with Tolkien about middle earth being low fantasy. Despite him saying so himself. He actually got in arguments with people over it, IIRC.

Its also not practical because nobody today gives a shit if earth exists, they want discriptive terms describing how the setting works. When Conan, DBZ, Lot, Harry Potter, Marvel Comics, and Star Wars are all low fantasy and arslan senki is high fantasy, it doesn't describe what people actually are trying to communicate.

So, In the rpg community, instead of using Nesbit's definition, people tend to almost universally use the definition used by Steve Jackson in gurps fantasy in '86, that has to do with how prevalent the fantasy/mythological elements are and how magical the world is.

But regardless of which definition you're using people can't agree about shit. The Wikipedia low fantasy article calls conan high fantasy under Nesbit's definition and low fantasy under the more common one, even though it is literally set in Europe either just before or just after the last ice age (depending on which REH scholar you ask), with Cimmeria smack dab in the middle of doggerland.

But i suspect you knew all this and you're that one same troll who always starts this argument.

Traditional definition also fails badly on classifying various very hard sci-fi settings (such as Wings of Honneamise) as high fantasy just because they take place in fictional planet with no relation to earth. I don't argue that such settings aren't partly fantasy, but they're definitely extra low fantasy rather than any kind of high fantasy.

That's basically the case with arslan senki, too. It's basically just a bronze age world that isn't earth (though there are some rare minor magics).

But even with literally no fantastical elements, "a bronze age world that is not earth, and there's no mention of real world earth existing in-setting" is high fantasy under Nesbit's definition.

Hell, you could set it in modern day new York, and if the planet is called something else in the book and there's no mention of earth then it's high fantasy under Nesbit.

So yeah. Nesbit's definition is not 'accepted', it's actively rejected and called out as worthless.

Well, according to wikipedia it is the only definition, but wiki is biased as shit and is uneditable in recent years. Who knew that when a website made great by letting anyone edit it, starts heavily restricting how articles can be edited, gets bad?

>only definition
The low fantasy article mentions both definitions. Iirc there's a troll who watches the high fantasy page and deletes any mention of the other definition.

>The early 21st century is seeing an increase in prominence of the work of authors such asGeorge R. R. MartinandJoe Abercrombie, whose high fantasy novels (works set entirely in fantasy worlds) have been referred to as "low fantasy" because they de-emphasize some typical "high fantasy" elements such as magic and non-human races in favor of a more gritty portrayal of human conflict. Fantasy writerDavid Chandlerconsidered this "rise of 'Low Fantasy'" to reflect the contemporary reality of theWar on Terror—characterized by "secret deals", "vicious reprisals" and "sudden acts of terrifying carnage"—much as thehorrorgenre reacted to theVietnam Wara generation earlier.[8]
Chandler is wrong, the usage is older, as mentioned later in the same article.
>For their own purposesrole-playing gamessometimes use a different definition of low fantasy.GURPS Fantasydefines the genre as "closer to realistic fiction than to myth. Low Fantasy stories focus on people's daily lives and practical goals ... A Low Fantasy campaign asks what it's like to live in a world of monsters, magic, and demigods."[19]The book acknowledges the literary definition of the genre with "some critics define 'low fantasy' as any fantasy story set in the real world. However, a real world setting can include the kind of mythic elements this book classifies as high fantasy."[20]

>Tl;dr: Nesbit a shit.

Not to mention, ASOIAF started in the 90's, while the show didn't get made in 2012, at the very tail end of an unusually bright and cheerful time in a lot of pop culture

If you read it, chandler isn't talking about when asoif started, he's talking about when it got popular, and when people started using "low fantasy" this way.

But he's still wrong, because gurps fantasy 1e came out in '86.

Startrek.
It's portrayed in a generally hopeful and optimistic light despite most of the major powers in the alpha quadrant being warmongers and despots. It's a galaxy filled with malevolent or indifferent god-beings, evil cabals, high-tech criminals and raiders and constant political turmoil across major and minor worlds.

The Federation is the only definitive power with a significant sense of morality or a desire to make the galaxy a better place. But still they seem confident they can succeed, the people that lie there seem generally happy. In spite of all the crazy shit that happens or could happen, most people in the startrek universe seem to do the best with what they've got.

It got popular when the show started. The Linkin Park/Shadow the Hedgehog era (which was a direct reaction to 9/11 and the Iraq war) had already come and gone by then.

It's not the Batman's job to deliver the death penalty. Ask why Gotham's court system hasn't either mandated a thioridazine/haloperidol cocktail or a one-time dose of potassium chloride.

Why are the police trying to catch Batman if he's just exercising citizens' arrest?

The usage has been the common usage in rpgs and fantasy fiction circles for far longer than that, and Jackson's gurps fantasy 1e had it in 1986.

What? I'm talking about ASOIAF

Shadowrun

>So a realistic setting where magic is treated correctly
So magic doesn't exist and is treated as a superstition

I'm honestly surprised this thread didn't immediately derail due to Marcheposting

Does it not work anymore?

Grimbright is the Sims. Your life seems to be all right, and everything seems good, but ultimately nothing you do matters as the Gods exist and you are nothing but playthings to their alien whims.

It was working until someone said "high fantasy"

An. I thought you were talking about the other usage of "low fantasy", which he claimed came with the recent popularity of asoif. That's what I was talking about. He was wrong, that usage predates asoif's first book publication.

Is always weird when they have you play as an irredeemable zealous villain and act as though he's right. You may as well be playing as Hitler.

But 'high fantasy' is clearly the subject of this thread.

Star Trek campaign where you play Starfleet Academy drop-outs doing odd-jobs for the Orion Syndicate and Ferengi Gangsters because you're bored with Utopia.

Oh that's a good example

Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas. New Vegas is definitely grimbright, an argument could be made that 1 and 2 are closer to noblebrigh, but if so they're in a sort of limbo between the two

One of the two things ruining cape comics, you mean. There's an entire world of non-Big 2 comics that are getting better all the time, and even the mainstream non-cape comics are often pretty good.

It makes me sad that so many people think Marvel and DC are the only companies that make comics.

There are thousands of reasons magic doesn't rule the world, they are known as witches and wizards.

It's not Batman's job to capture criminals either. That is kind of what vigilante means. He isn't supposed to be doing any of it.

I always thought that the grim part was that there are no real heroes. The bright is the general direction things are going. I've heard that The Sims is a perfect example of grim bright.

People still go on about Marche being the bad guy in FFTA? Lord.

Doned was referred to as sick, not paralytic. Nothing indicates he was wheelchair bound permanently or due to spinal damage.

>implying that some pencil-necked alchemist can rule effectively through cheap party tricks
ok

grimbright is not a thing. stop making it a thing.

anything can be a thing as long as people acknowledge it. All terms can have meaning when people give them meaning.

Happens all the time. Just needs to catch on.

It's not like Final Fantasy isn't filled with characters making really stupid decisions. I think people just pick on Marche because they personally want to live in an escapist fantasy and get angry when they see someone put in their ideal scenario who doesn't want it.

>sdfasdjk mdrg
>dfgmd
;slkjf aerj sadk mcmvs ipsroeifmspa

It's all about cromulence. I don't think grimbright has enough or is capable of having enough cromulence to stick.

>Just needs to catch on.

Even cromulence has meaning attached to it and you know why you used the word the way you did.

Yeah, context clues can help for a lot. Personally, I'd agree that grimbright lacks a certain level of cromulence compared to the others.

Marche did nothing wrong

eh, if someone wanted to destroy our real world so it would revert back to a boring but peaceful place with less suffering I'd probably be inclined to oppose them if it was within my circumstance to do so.

Fallout 1 is definitely nobledark and 2 is noblebright. I don't really know how I'd claasify Vegas as it's tone changes wildly during game especially with self-contained stories of DLCs. I mean OWB might be grimbright, but Dead Money is definitely grimdark and Honest Hearts is like noblebright.

I think it serves a purpose. Most of things are easily classified on noble/grim and bright/dark scale, but there are things like Brave New World that defy classification on that scale. Grimbright if you consider it like that grim refers to state of culture/people and bright to state of world.

Arcanum did this well and managed to make it also so that you definitely don't want to side with the villain.

Adventure Time.

...

academy city from a certain magical index