How do you write a "dark" character the right way? Pic related is pretty much my benchmark example

Stories that do "dark" characters right don't actually glorify those characters being dark. Yeah, it may look like they're being glorified if you're like 14 and think they're a badass because they're super powerful in a fight or whatever... but the stories that do dark characters well make a point of how fucked up, and weak, and pathetic, and destructive those characters are and how it's unhealthy to them and everyone around them. This is why the resolution to those stories almost always involves the characters becoming less shitty people, or dying so they're not a blight on the world anymore.

Actually, do what this man says.
The #1 thing you need is a character that you and your party enjoy playing with.
Don't make shitty characters that can't or won't play with the party

This, "dark" characters often get conflated with being badasses, but it's almost always because they value their own lives and the lives of everyone around so little that they're willing to take suicidal risks or resort to violence at the drop of a hat because they have nothing to lose.

This is not "good" or "healthy". It's the sign of a character who's damaged and too prideful or nihilistic or depressed or lacking humanity to show it. Normal, sane, emotionally healthy, people don't act this way for a reason.

I disagree. He is Illidan levels of edgy in many moments.

Well you're right but I mean can you quote a single dark character that hasn't been edgy at least once?

You can't because Edgy is just Dark done badly, and Dark is just Edgy done well. They're too sides of the same, ultimately somewhat ubjective coin.

Yeah whatever just stop circling around the question and give us names.

The difference between good dark and bad edgy is less about the character themselves, and more about whether the world around them calls them out on their retarded bullshit or not.

Enrico Pucci, Griffith, Paradise Lost Satan, Letters from Earth Satan, etc.
This isn't true at all, and your interpretation seems to stem from your inherent dislike of the character archetype.

It has nothing to do with a personal dislike. It has to do with whether the setting treats the characters like they're "cool" for being homicidal maniacs, or sees them as disturbed and damaged individuals who represent someone they would never want for themselves or anyone important to them.

>like they're "cool" for being homicidal maniacs, or sees them as disturbed and damaged individuals who represent someone they would never want for themselves or anyone important to them.
Okay, now that you've elaborated I can kind of agree with this. I don't think that's necessarily the only factor though. I think what you describe has more to do with the quality of the work and what people are supposed to get out of it.

Define "the right way".

"The right way" is any ways that doesn't have you end up with a ridiculous edgy character.

My benchmarks for shitty edgy characters are : Sasuke, Hiei, Any mofos from the Phantom Troope in HxH, Joeffrey, Shadow the Hedgehog.

youtube.com/watch?v=lyMS4qJ8NXU
This is how I write my "dark" characters. If your grim, gritty character doesn't have a soft side, somewhere, buried, perhaps too far for to be reached yet still there, then they're just plain unapologetic evil. Or they completely lack an alignment, like a wild animal.

One of these

you dont
you write a character that has no other choice but to do what they have to do

The only real dark character I've done is a neutral evil alcoholic ranger.

Too many days and nights alone on patrol made him bitter and unsociable and the wine made time go by faster. Eventually after seeing enough of nature he concluded "yeah well, everything dies. big deal." and generally disconnected from any greater morality.

I saved it from just being a generic 'First time the hobbits meet Strider' broody dark ranger by really making the character. I had a facial expression, voice, posture and body language that I used. Sometimes he would give brazen or crass advice to quest givers that only someone who is hammered would even think to say. Other times he was the party heel that got things settled that our face could not.

He eventually had a small redemption arc after rescuing the cleric from a fatal fall. Shortly thereafter he died holding the pass against a small army while the party and the people they were escorting escaped. Cleric girl got IRL misty eyed during his last speech to the party and the GM had me play out every turn while they escaped to see how much time was bought. It wound up being pretty rich stuff.

Guts would scream edgelord if he came to any table as a PC, especially lost children arc or prior. Not only is his backstory filled with rape, death and betrayal but his personality is a nihilistic asshole that seems to only enjoy killing thing and crushing any kind of optimistic world view in the people around him. And by the time his mood lightens he doesn't really have a personality anymore, just a bunch of repressed sadness and anger, that literally manifest as some weird shadow demon dog. Like holy shit if a player came tot he table with Guts it'd send up immediate Red flags.

Now Griffith, he ironically sounds like a far more reasonable PC.

Make them not defined by the horrible events of their lives, but how they deal with those events. Think Vash the Stampede vs Sasuke Uchiha.

Bro you shitting on Hiei
By the end he's more tsundere with everyone than edgy, just to prideful to admit he cares about others
Plus he's an actual demon
Granted he does has edgy moments i'll admit that much but he does grow over the shows course

>Joff being shitty

He was a spoiled, inbred little shit who quit listening to the only people who may have been able to reign him in as soon as he became King. Its a story that has played out many times in actual history, if not exactly then near enough to it.

Without the introspection and quieter moments berserk is definitely overly edgy. You have to read the books in totality because otherwise the plotpoints revolve entirely around vicious murder and guts' undying hatred. Guts being sad or vulnerable, even tender in rare instances is necessary for him to be a complete character.

"I'm the bad guy? How did that happen?"

>but his personality is a nihilistic asshole that seems to only enjoy killing thing and crushing any kind of optimistic world view in the people around him

The world he lived in when he acted that way was literally what he said. He was telling people the truth.
He ALSO got better and the world is going to a better place already. So Guts isn't a nihilistic asshole, he is a honest, traumatized person. Who was -right- to say the world is in the shitter.

He got better once he realized he was a nihilistic asshole that only enjoyed killing things and crushing other people's optimism. He decided to quit focusing on his misery and shoot for maintaining what little happiness he had left, and unsurprisingly it worked, even in berserk's shitshow of a setting. The lesson of "being a shit because the world is shit doesn't help anything" couldn't be clearer.

And I would argue the world hasn't actually gotten better; there's fucking dragons and troll rape caves now. The story just doesn't focus on the rampant tragedies anymore because Guts doesn't. And Rickert was just fine and peachy in his mountain retreat the whole fucking time, almost as if it is actually possible to live happily ever after in that setting.

>Now Griffith, he ironically sounds like a far more reasonable PC.
Hows that ironic?
Why wouldn't an innocent paragon of virtue sound more reasonable than a fucking murderhobo on a rampage?

>innocent
>virtue

Don't write him as "dark", write as you want him to be. The real challenge is to make all his decisions consistenty and to make him change little by little, being affect by what happens around him.

>Griffith
>Not edgy ever

It has to have some purpose. Any arbitrary choice in creating a character will lead inevitably to a trite, unenjoyable experience.

Not exactly a purpose, but some guidelines, even if it's just "he's darker than black". Purpose, rules, ethic code, moral code, modus operandi, etc. Something that makes his core, even if there is no reason behind, you just have to be consistent with it.

Guts was a character first.
He was done right because he slowly changed and started to become noblebright before the eclipse happened and took everything away and making him reasonably grimdark.

No, I think that’s insufficient. Every character must be in service to the theme of the campaign

Just finished the golden age arc.
Why do people like Griffith?
He's easily the most narcicisstic manipulative bastard i've ever seen in a work of fiction.

Memes

Well, imo the character at the begining is pretty much a blank slate. You have some guidelines but you have to "find" who he really is and where the player wants to go along the adventure. Everything on his background is just a base, the real story is writen while you play.

He is a Mary Sue. There a deleted chapter where he talks to God and is explained that everything was arranged to him, he is basically Berserk's Jesus. Miura decided to cut this chapter because was too much of a spoiler in his opinion

They do it as bait, my man.

So it's basically like the fall of Lucifer at the eclipse?
Brightest angel into the darkest buisness?

Certainly, the character should develop as the campaign progresses. The emotional impact of the story comes from that. But they shouldn’t come in tabula rasa. Maybe they don’t have a pre-written character arc, or a well-defined destination, but there is something more than nothing in creating a character.

I can tell that we play with different sorts of people. You make sense, but it’s not how my group plays.

Some guy made a short movie about it. If you want to find the printed version, it's called "The Idea of Evil"

youtube.com/watch?v=5vGqiynv01c

Berserk's God is just a really huge asshole created by the human subconscious.

Yes, I agree with you, but since OP seems lost, maybe he just need to roll with all he wants (being edgy and dark I think), and then find what he really wants from this.

A good talk with the DM it's also necessary, maybe together they can sort out what he want from his character.

The God is called The Idea of Evil, and he is the collective conscious of everyone in Berserk world so he is really really fucked up.

Since he is a huge omnipotent asshole with nothing better to do he decides to create the perfect being, Griffith, just for fun.

>Why do people like Griffith?
there is a reason that griffith posters are generally rebuked.

Stop spitting buzzwords around.
Edgy person is the one who tries hard to look evil and intimidating (when he is actually not), so hard it becomes a laughable farce. Edgy character wants to make an impression of being dark and fails at that. Simply being a grim psycho doesn't make a character edgy. You don't call serial killers edgy, you don't call corrupt political edgy.
All that, of course, if you use the slang definition of edgy, not the dictionary one (being tense and irritable). But even if you do use the dictionary version - you still push bullshit.

>politician
sorry, I am on my tablet

>Edgy character wants to make an impression of being dark and fails at that.
>Implying that isn't tbe entire rape scene motivated by him still throwing a temper tantrum because Guts beat him
>Just so happens it's all keikaku

Darkness exists for a reason. It's not just an edgy quest for revenge it's driven by SOMETHING. The entire Golden Age arc redeems Berserk as a whole for example as it makes Guts' edgy revenge quest somewhat relatable. You get what it's about.

Also, Golden Age Guts was already a dark character, but one trying and somewhat succeeding to find his place in the world. A dark character is still a character. If he walks into a tavern with his mates he doesn't just lean against a wall to look cool and brooding, he has fun. With his friends. You know, friends? Maybe he's a bit more stoic than most, maybe he doesn't get as drunk as the party bard and maybe he manages to look more cool while stumbling back to his quarters, but he isn't dark and brooding every time all the time.

In fact, watching an otherwise dark character dealing with situations he isn't used to may be quite interesting. Imagine a dark character escorting a spoiled brat of a prince. Once you realize just choking the bastard isn't an option, imagine how he would react to it. Would he angst the kid into silence? Bite his tongue and bear with it? Humor the kid just to make things easier for himself? Earnestly try to get along with him? Take the entire escort off-road and take a detour through the darkest, most forsaken and goblin infested valleys in the known world in order to teach the spoiled princeling to be a real man like his father was, developing a soft spot for him as he grows and learns? The way he deals with such scenarios learns us a lot more about who he is and even how he copes with his dark past in a way.

>Y-you can't leave m-me! I own you!
>What you beat me? Impossible, better fuck all my years of hard work and planning
>Oh wow, I'm basically a useless gimp now, it's all Guts' fault.
>Demon angels want me to kill all my pals? Sure why not, all in the name of the dream I ruined myself
>Fuck you Guts I'm gonna rape your gf
>Also I'm your son now
People only like Griffith to be contrarian.

People hate him because he's a narcissistic, evil, manipulative, ruthless, prettyboy Gary Stu.

People love him because he's a narcissistic, evil, manipulative, ruthless, prettyboy Gary Stu.

So, it's not about being dark, but going dark for a reason. That's a nice approach.

>revenge is edgy in intself
Fuck man, exactly what I'm talking about.

>Implying that isn't tbe entire rape scene motivated by him still throwing a temper tantrum because Guts beat him
I'm not implying that. It was a hysterical, short-sighted decision - you are right. But it wasn't edgy. He desperately wanted to feel in control at least over something, but he wasn't showing off in front of Guts or the rest of the band.

>He wasn't showing off in front of Guts
>All the monsters are specifically holding Guts down and Griffith is looking right at him
Yeah nah

pretty much came to post this. being "dark" shouldn't be their defining characteristic nor should all their defining characteristics be the result of or to define them as being "dark." make a more normal character, then start adding some dark to it.

once you got the basis covered, then figure out why they're dark and how that influences their character. trauma is an easy way to justify this but there are other ways as well. assuming you're playing a character for your average campaign, this doesn't have to be ultra original and super well written so you don't have to completely throw tropes out the window, but making them interesting sure goes a long way towards making your character non-edgy.

just ask yourself a few questions. why are they the way they are? what kind of flaws may result from their troubled past? how do they react in a situation that would contradict their dark, bleak worldview?

Oh fuck, I probably mixed you with the dude who said about princess rape. Sorry.
Yeah, he was making a statement in his Femto form back then. But it had a practical value, at least I think it had, defiling Guts baby and all. And, well, he didn't fail at that, didn't he? Guts went berserk after all, Femto was legitimately horrible in that scene.

Guts is more balanced than this, it's just that a shonen manga will have way more pages devoted to gory action than anything else. Guts is also supposed to be an orphaned teenager for the vast majority of the manga's run and that's the stereotype that is being played up. Angry, loner teenager. Any character that had Gut's backstory would necessarily have to be at the point where he actually gains an adventuring party and has left his mercenary lifestyle and hence worldview behind. Guts was never nihilistic, he was just parochial and young. He knows nothing else and he copes with his own personal tragedy by contextualizing it as the part of the world and life that he knows, which is war.

Basically as soon as Guts becomes ingratiated with his Raiders he changes and becomes more human, and after the Eclipse by the time he has assembled his full crew of fellow travelers he also humanizes again. Guts' so-called "edginess" is obviously portrayed as a coping mechanism and when he no longer has to cope it fades off.

At worst you could accuse the player who had such a dark backstory of being edgy but the character himself in the manga is not at all an edgelord.

Griffith is unplayabl because his entire presence is based upon things outside of a player's control. No one can actually play these master manipulators who never lose, always engage in explicitly evil acts in the name of evil for its' own sake and still be worshiped. It's totally contrived as it is and is far and away the "edgiest" thing in Berserk.

He's totally over the top even before becoming King. In a setting which is supposedly disdainful of black and white characterizations he's a totally black character without a hint of any redeeming qualities.

It had a value, but the core there was all to the end of getting back at Guts. The whole scene reeks of it because Guts was unnecessary at that point. Griffith could have gone and done it to anyone or anything and the end result would be the same. He chooses to keep Guts alive and picks Casca specifically to show how he's above Guts now.

>innocent

...

Well, the thing about edgelord characters is that they’re assholes first and everything else second; whatever “dark” attributes have been tacked on to them exist solely to justify the fact that they’re assholes. This is how you get the character who burns down an orphanage and blames it on his inner demons, or the character who can’t sustain a normal conversation for longer than a minute. So I’d suggest you figure out the trauma first and then add the minimum degree of resulting derangement, if you’re looking to create a serious character rather than a lolrandom one or a Chaotic Edgey archetype.

>In a setting which is supposedly disdainful of black and white characterizations
You misunderstand, asoiaf is just disdainful of white characterizations. There's several pure black characters running about.

What makes Guts a good example? The only thing I could see is that he fights something so baby-eatingly evil that he is a good guy in comparison.

Dark characters generally come about because the world they're in is darker than they are. Otherwise, your character will either be straight up a bad guy or so thematically out of place that there's no way a character would be like that. Nobody will take you seriously if you're an edgelord in a relatively noblebright setting.

Guts doesn't do anything that makes him a bad guy though, he's just a grim person. He has only ever killed other humans when he was a mercenary, hired to fight in a war, and when a bunch of soldier came at him. He never commits evil acts or does bad things outside of that, his circumstances just cause people to see him as some heinous monster

I mean, I've been kind of working on a character concept, but I worry he might be edgy, even though I just want him to be kind of dark.

>Lawful evil
>Grew up pretty normally, no tragic backstory
>Left home at 16 to pursue his own path
>Ended up mixing in with the wrong crowds, and found out he's really good at hurting people
>Over the years gets involved with careers that involve thuggery, banditry, vandalism, piracy, burglary, and even raiding, just a long path of criminal escapades
>Became so good at being a cruel and violent criminal that some of the people he ran with called him the Vandal King
>Left crime to start working as a mercenary, seeing it as more "honest" work that still suited his talents for violence
>Is not a good person, takes joy in hurting people, getting into fights, stealing and breaking stuff, but also lives by a personal code (such as never hurting or killing folks that he doesn't have a beef with yet, or don't bother stealing from folks who have nothing) which helps keep him from being a total monster
>Is still a greedy and selfish man who only cares for things that matter to him
>Enjoys all sorts of vices (quit gambling though cause he got sick of waking up broke, even carries around a sword he got off some schlub as a reminder to kick his habit)
>Wears 'edgy' clothes, consisting of black leather and spiky armor, but it's all very patchwork, as he doesn't wear a normal suit of armor and just grabs what he likes and attaches it to himself, so he's got mismatched armor on his body that's just hanging on by straps, and the spikes are there cause it helps to hurt folks when you kick them with spikes
I enjoy the concept, but I don't want it to turn into "that guy" in terms of character ideas.

>Guys my character is called "the black swordsman" and I was born from a literal corpse
>I was found by a crazy woman who later died from plague, then her boyfriend raised me but hated me so I was constantly abused
>he was a mercenary so taught me to fight, but purposefully trained me wrong as a joke by making me fight with an oversized sword, but I'm just so good I succeeded anyway lol and that's why I'm strong enough to wield a fullblade even though only demons and shit can get fullblade proficiency in this setting
>also I was raped by a big burly black guy my dad sold me to once but I shot him in the eye lol fuck niggers amirite
>I also killed my dad after he tried to kill me cuz he blamed me for him getting crippled in battle, then I spent years as the most badass orphan merc that everybody wanted on their team but I didn't care about nothing so I just kept fighting then leaving cuz I'm so cool
>I finally got conscripted by some pretty boy who was probably homo for me but he had an emotional breakdown when I left him too and fucked up his decade long plan to become king just as he was closest to reaching it
>I had to come back and save my old crew but then my homo buddy became a demon king and killed all of them except my girlfriend who he literally raped stupid
>now I'm a badass loner with a robot hand cuz I lost the real one to a demon but I can still wield my massively oversized swords even though I can't actually grip anything with it
I mean sure, in context with the nuances of the actual writing Guts can get away with all that shit, but if someone came to a table with this as their character they'd instantly be labeled That Guy.

He doesn't actually do evil things, but a character that has his outlook on the world would be out of place in a world where everything was butterflies and rainbows. That's what I was getting at. Heroes need to be bright in comparison to the world they're in to be the "good" guys. If a world is as dark as it is in Berserk, the heroes don't need to be shining paragons. They just need to be a dark grey to the black that is the world around them.

Griffith's manipulations aren't actually all that mindblowing. His whole plan was just based on being a good merc captain and winning favor through victory in battle, which is what any PC party does in the first place. In the noble court the only sketchy thing he did was assassinate one of the heirs, who clearly tried to do the same thing to him first. The princess courtship is basic pauper to prince shit and was probably the GM's idea anyway, and pretty much everything behelit related is clear GM meddling. The only unlikely part is getting the PC to say yes to the bargain, since up to that point he seemed to actually care about his party members. You'd need a dedicated RPer or a total asshole to get him to fuck over the other players like that.

to be honest i can't imagine more than a tiny minority of 'professional adventurers' not being this, in any world that's not a fairy tale. life by the sword selects for them, both in who takes it up and who lasts more than a month in it

that's why i never had a problem with murderhobos, at least as an in-universe concept

Not edgy for the sake of edgy.
Add a non standard code or moral they go by. Shit they would never do or they seriously dislike doing.
Make them have funny and tender moments, like sprinkles of lucidity that show you that this character would have been a pretty nice person had his life not spiralled down a terrible path.