Latest / Sessions Canceled / What Makes A Grimdark Campaign Work?: Ep. 189

Transcript

What Makes A Grimdark Campaign Work?: Ep. 189 · Sessions Canceled

0:15
Hey everybody, so we we rocked up for session 1 today.
0:18
We were expecting some fun, you know, high fantasy adventures
0:21
and fabulous Ultima, but instead the GM dropped Warhammer Fantasy
0:25
on us, which really didn't even make sense because no one read
0:29
this rule book. And now we have characters that
0:33
we made that we just can't use. So I I I guess sessions
0:38
cancelled I just go home? You know, I really wanted you to
0:43
make a joke about the GM getting the GMSDND beyond account
0:47
getting hacked. Why?
0:53
Why? Why?
0:54
Because of what happened this morning.
0:56
Because Brett keeps getting fucking hacked, yeah.
1:01
Bro, I woke up this morning, I look at my phone, I was like a
1:04
message from Brett. What the fuck?
1:06
And then I see it's like Mr. Beast Dollars.
1:08
Oh boy. Bro OK so I was in a server with
1:11
Brett and the hacker really went crazy on that one so I woke to
1:15
like a machine gun vibration as it pinged every chat in the
1:20
server with the fucking beast. The the beast, whatever the
1:23
fucks and cryptocurrency and I literally texted and was like
1:27
dog again. You got hacked fucking again.
1:32
For a brief moment there, because I was, it was like 9:30
1:35
in the morning. I'm looking at my phone.
1:36
I'm like just waking up. I'm like, I'm like, is Brett
1:40
trading crypto dog? What the fuck?
1:44
Like for a brief moment I was like, what?
1:47
Bro, I, it's, it made me laugh because I was like, bro, you got
1:50
hacked. And he was like, what the fuck
1:51
are you talking about? And I sent him a screenshot and
1:54
he went, oh, I see. Like God damn it.
2:01
Oh, so funny. It's, I feel a little bad.
2:04
Everyone's been like every server we've been has been
2:06
ragging on him today. So I feel a bit bad about it,
2:08
but it was still quite funny. He won't.
2:12
He'll hear this ragging in a week.
2:14
So it's. True, true.
2:15
It's like a delay. It'll be delayed, so it's fine.
2:19
He'll be over it by then. Oh no fucking buddy, let's be
2:25
attacked again. Oh my God bro, I'll cry if I
2:29
have to wake up to another one of those fucking Mr. Beast
2:31
things. You know Mr. Beast Coins?
2:33
Let's go, baby. Can't fucking stand Jimmy.
2:36
Anyway, I'm. Gonna make some beast dollars
2:38
with the the dead eyed sociopath himself.
2:44
Tell me he doesn't look like. There's a lot of no I.
2:47
Like every time I see an image of him I'm like what the fuck?
2:51
No, yeah, he, he scares me. Yeah.
2:55
You know, no, I'm not. Let me not.
2:57
Let me not. We're on the Internet.
2:58
Let me not saying. Let let let you not say that
3:00
Mister B says definitely has skeletons in his closet.
3:03
Somewhere, well, you know, I was, I was going to say a part
3:06
of him rides me with the fucking mayor guy from Castlevania
3:08
season 3, but it's fine. Hey, yo.
3:13
Yeah. But yeah, you know, I was.
3:20
I found myself. Let me set the scene.
3:22
Boom. OK, we set the scene.
3:23
So I was creating cleaning my dad's grill for money this
3:26
weekend because I'm sad and broke and I'm about two minutes
3:30
from turning tricks on the street corner and I came across
3:33
a video from a creator I enjoy quite a bit, Zach the Bold.
3:39
If you've not heard of him before, you should check him out
3:41
because he's fucking hilarious. And in that vid he was talking
3:47
about go on. That that man needs to be on
3:52
whatever the opposite of Adderall is.
3:53
I bro, he just, I help the fuck down.
3:57
I he yo his, he's got some energy that I really appreciate.
4:03
I appreciate it. I was not ready.
4:06
I watched the video. I was like damn brother, calm.
4:09
The fuck bro I I really I don't know what we would talk about,
4:12
but I would want him on podcast. They just want that energy.
4:14
I don't think he probably has that energy like in person, but
4:16
I want it. I want AI don't know but I.
4:18
Just want those vibes. I do, I do.
4:20
I really want those vibes. Zach the bull, if you're
4:22
listening. So we'll figure it out.
4:25
But in his video, he talks about how TTRPG groups will fall back
4:34
into like strict party comp setups as opposed to having fun
4:39
or, or doing like experimental builds in order to survive a
4:42
campaign that has been touted as difficult and brutal and dark
4:47
and fucking edgy. And it, it, it's a great video
4:54
and I like it a lot. And it it touched on the idea of
4:57
like outside of just mechanics. It created neurons.
5:03
Frazer, it did it did it activated the shit out of my
5:07
almonds because I have bitched about the idea of brutality and
5:13
grim dark in games does not always have to mean meat
5:17
grinder. So it was cool on that front,
5:19
but it it made me think more into the idea of grim dark as a
5:25
sub genre of media and how a lot of people don't fucking
5:28
understand it, especially when they're running games and they
5:32
want that like Warhammer fantasy vibe.
5:35
So I figured we we could we could dedicate a whole episode
5:38
to it. Before we get into it, though,
5:41
follow us on your podcast platform of choice and, you
5:44
know, maybe shoot us a dono over at the coffee at the link.
5:50
Appreciate it help help pay Brett so he doesn't get hacked
5:54
anymore. Nice.
6:01
But with that that out of the way, I figured the the best
6:04
place to start from from the avenue of understanding grimdark
6:08
is talking about what it is as a genre of media.
6:14
I, I do think we should say briefly it, his video wasn't
6:22
necessarily about like the idea of grim darker games or anything
6:25
like that. So we're kind of extrapolating,
6:28
yes. From.
6:29
The the video itself, I took the video.
6:31
And and he. Called, you know, Isaiah honed
6:34
in on a specific bit. Yeah.
6:35
Well, 'cause like, here's the thing, I'm not just going to
6:37
pair it with, Zach said in his video.
6:38
Like, that video was fantastic and you should watch it.
6:40
I like I I, I care more about games from a narrative
6:45
perspective. Anyway.
6:46
This is not a new opinion from me on this podcast.
6:49
You know, yeah, he was, he was really talking about like
6:53
shoehorning your, your players in terms of like mechanically
6:57
what they're playing and how they interact with the game and
7:00
stuff, which is like a different thing.
7:03
I I'm I'm just saying in case anyone goes and like watches
7:05
said video and is like this isn't about the same topic what
7:10
we are extrapolating here. Yes, yeah.
7:12
I mean, I, I, I'm taking a, a small chunk of his video where
7:16
he talks about how bleakness in a campaign is not brutality,
7:20
it's indifference, which is like peak grim dark.
7:23
And it, it made me think about my personal misgivings with grim
7:27
dark as a misunderstood genre basically.
7:33
So to that point, what is Grim Dark beginning?
7:40
It's first utterance is in I believe the 1st edition of
7:45
Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, where they utter the, you know,
7:49
super famous term or or phrase in the grim darkness of the 41st
7:53
Millennium. There is only more and the
7:57
Oxford Dictionary describes the term grim dark as follows.
8:01
A genre of fiction, especially fantasy fiction, characterized
8:05
by disturbing, violent, or bleak subject matter and a dystopian
8:08
setting. I think that's a good start.
8:11
I I I don't think that's anywhere close to a complete
8:16
understanding of what it is, but if you want a good jumping off
8:18
point, I think that definition works pretty well.
8:23
It does, as you can expect to leave out a good amount of the
8:26
nuance that I think is necessary to parse out the truth of what
8:29
the sub genre really is. Other definitions I searched up
8:34
included taking note, taking time to mention the general
8:39
failings of traditional heroism, the moral ambiguity of its
8:43
characters, and the perceived ultimate futility of fighting
8:47
the inevitable fall into entropy, with victories often
8:51
being Pyrrhic in nature. And I think we're getting
8:57
closer. We're getting there, people.
8:58
This is good. I would personally add that the
9:04
ultimate futility of the situation leads many of the
9:07
stories to shift from a macro scale down to a micro scale.
9:11
Right the the ordinary and the ordinary and extraordinary.
9:16
Individuals in such settings are often trying to change their own
9:22
situations for the better, often at the cult the the cult, the
9:26
cost of others. You know, look back at the moral
9:28
ambiguity thing in in most fantasy or sci-fi.
9:34
You know, take something like Lord of the Rings and Dune where
9:38
the stories follow the exploits of like one or more chosen one
9:41
style characters as they try to shift the scales of good and
9:44
evil for either like the world or the region or the Galaxy in
9:49
in Dune's case. And they're doing what they can
9:55
to, to enact meaningful large scale change in a traditional
9:58
sense, grim dark star stories are not that more often than
10:04
not. And you, if you are viewing a
10:07
piece of grim dark media, you are viewing the struggles of an,
10:11
of an ordinary person, right? The the struggles of a lone
10:14
soldier and his men fighting a hopeless battle to let like
10:17
refugees survive and make it onto a ship.
10:20
And maybe him and his men die, and maybe some or most of the
10:25
refugees die, but someone survives.
10:29
And in grim dark worlds and settings, that one person is
10:33
enough. That is the Pyrrhic victory.
10:38
Anything like that? Little things.
10:43
So it's the little things along the way that you have to take
10:46
your take solace in. It is, yeah.
10:50
Like the idea of small victories is such a big part of of like.
10:55
Yeah, you're not saving the whole universe, you're saving
10:57
like. This one farmer and his shit
11:00
hurting family or whatever. Yeah.
11:04
And there are, I mean, we'll talk about more later on.
11:07
There are instances where the grim dark, you know, the
11:09
victories can expand. But another key part of the grim
11:13
dark again, is that there is always a catch.
11:15
Victories are never clean cut. They're Pyrrhic or they're
11:18
complicated or messy or morally Gray.
11:23
And that is a, a fundamental part of, of achieving success in
11:29
some way, shape or form. Now that we have a good bassist
11:36
and a little bit of nuance, I think it's worth extrapolating
11:39
on a little bit because I. Think this is the Internet.
11:42
We don't want nuance. I I do, I want nuance.
11:47
I think that a lot of people find that a piece of grim dark
11:54
media, just by nature of it being grim dark, mean that it's
11:58
incapable of being anything else for fear of subverting the
12:02
brutalist, edgy nature of the media in question.
12:04
Right. Like when people try to create
12:08
media that replicates grim dark and they do it poorly, you get,
12:14
you know, you don't get berserk. You get, what the fuck?
12:19
I can't stand one Greg Garth Anuses.
12:21
You get crossed, right, which just fundamentally misses the
12:26
point. Yeah, it just fundamentally
12:28
misses the point on every level. Well, the boy's comic
12:31
specifically, because the. Show stuck the way.
12:33
Different tact. Much better, so much better.
12:36
I I've seen stuff on the some of the stuff going on for Season 5
12:41
and like it's so much better, dude.
12:46
It's, I mean, yeah. It's, I think the show realized
12:55
it's a rare, it's a rare example with The Boys where the the
12:58
showrunners understood the thing that made the original comic hit
13:04
better than the actual creator did, and so they were able to
13:08
capitalize on that. Exactly.
13:10
Yes. I I could not have put it better
13:13
myself. Yeah.
13:13
Because, well, because Garth Anus is just a fucking
13:18
pessimistic ship bag is really what it comes down to.
13:20
It certainly fucking feels that way, doesn't it?
13:23
But yeah, the the the point being is that a, a work of
13:31
fiction is almost never a monolith of what it is, right?
13:38
It it you can't have an action series that has no comedy or no
13:45
suspense or no horror or no romance.
13:49
It just doesn't work right. You're it your brain demands
13:54
novelty and explosions are a novelty that get old extremely
13:59
quickly. The same rule applies for
14:02
everything sucking, right? Everything sucking is a good
14:07
shock factor, right? I think you know another
14:11
situation that doesn't do this super well, but the rest of the
14:15
show is a is goblins layer. I'm, I'm, I'm kind of calling
14:18
out goblins layer here because episode 1 of goblins layer in no
14:23
way, shape or form actually informs what the rest of that
14:25
show is. If you watch the rest of the
14:28
show, you, you would like you're just like, this is just D&D
14:31
adventure times. This isn't grim dark fantasy
14:33
anyway. Not as dark as it sets out.
14:36
No, yes, because I, I think, and this is fair, I as heavy-handed
14:42
as the Magaka was, I think there was a clear understanding of
14:45
this shit will get old and it'll lose its shock value.
14:48
So I'm going to use the shock value to pull people in, and
14:52
then I can give them a more mellowed out, if not slightly
14:55
darker, you know, D&D fantasy thing.
15:00
Yeah, I mean. Like it it is.
15:04
Definitely. Go on.
15:06
Well, I, there's this, I think that's one of the biggest
15:09
problems with doing the grim dark thing and, and people
15:12
getting tired of it. And 'cause there is a, there's a
15:21
reaction that you get from people online where if you say
15:26
that your game is gonna be like, if you put it on roll 20 or
15:28
something like that, right? Like I was like a public game
15:32
and you say it's going to be grim dark.
15:33
There is a reaction you get that is very like, oh geez, not a
15:38
fucking another one, dude. And I think the reason for that
15:43
kind of a response really does come down to the fact that when
15:46
somebody tries to do a grim dark game, it's like it's 24 sadness
15:52
depression simulator with absolutely no.
15:55
Fucking blows. Yeah, there's just no, there's
15:58
no, there's no break. It's just the same tone all the
16:02
way through. But it's honestly the thing
16:05
that's kind of funny. This isn't actually a problem
16:09
with grim like grim dark as a concept.
16:11
This is just a problem with people not understanding the
16:13
idea of like genres. Because if you did 24/7 of any
16:16
genre get like, if you have a romance show and all they're
16:20
doing is like fucking making out and doing the will, they won't
16:23
they bullshit. And that's the entire series.
16:26
You're gonna even the horniest women on the planet are gonna be
16:28
like, all right, this is getting a little ridiculous.
16:30
Can we do literally anything else?
16:31
You know what I mean? Imagine, if you will, apothecary
16:34
Diaries with none of the detective or actual doctoring
16:36
and it's just. Right, right.
16:37
None of the. Doctoring none of the puzzles,
16:39
it's just. The weird romance.
16:41
Yeah, yeah, it sounds terrible, like, oh God.
16:47
I think for some reason though, people try to do the dark and
16:51
edgy thing and forget that. No, I, I don't think they
16:56
forget. I think they're afraid.
16:57
I I think the idea, my personal theory, like I said, is I think
17:02
the fear with injecting any other genre into a grim dark
17:06
story for people who don't understand grim dark stories, is
17:10
that if you make it anything other than this thing, it
17:13
inherently isn't grim dark anymore.
17:15
Which just isn't the fucking case.
17:18
It's just not true at all. Sure.
17:20
I, I, I, I, I just don't understand why people would
17:23
think that over like any other genre or or sub genre or
17:29
anything like that, you know what I mean?
17:30
Because I think I, I think grim, dark as it is, create I.
17:36
This word's going to lose all meaning by the end of this.
17:38
Oh yeah, this is going to be like when I use the word
17:40
diegetic too much. Yeah, yeah, It is unique in its
17:45
output of being explicitly bleak and, you know, unhopeful and and
17:54
nothing ever goes well. But that belief just isn't true.
18:00
And when you are clever and when you have good elements of comedy
18:08
or horror or romance or action takes center stage in a piece of
18:13
grim dark media, it creates a point of juxtaposition within
18:17
the world and if it's done correctly, highlights the grim,
18:21
gritty nature by comparison. Right.
18:23
Like, you know, to, to Josh does the sex thing.
18:26
I'm gonna I'm gonna do an art thing real quick when you're
18:30
learning to draw with charcoal. Right.
18:31
Don't, don't, don't. Put me on blast like that.
18:33
I'm putting you put yourself on blast enough, it's fine.
18:37
I know, but I also do the art. Thing when you're drawing with
18:41
charcoal, right, you create a base layer of Gray over whatever
18:45
medium you're working on, you know, paper or what have you.
18:49
And as you're creating on that that baseline, you create your
18:53
forms, you create your shapes and now you have good line work,
18:56
but there's nothing to fill out that value.
18:59
And if you just keep going darker and darker and darker and
19:02
darker, then you just create a page of black and then there's
19:05
nothing there. So you need Points of Light in
19:09
this point, points of brevity and romance and fun to create
19:13
that stark contrast between how shitty things really are and
19:17
what people are trying to make of it.
19:20
One of my personal favorite examples of this is like
19:24
contemporary grim dark is the Vermin Tide games slash dark
19:27
Tide games, I mean. You're not wrong, but to
19:31
simplify it down a little bit, ultimately what you're just
19:34
talking about is you need to have contrast to create
19:36
interest. Yeah.
19:38
Which is one of the core one of the key principles to making a
19:46
drawing of any kind appealing. Exactly.
19:49
Yeah. And this you go goes the exact
19:50
same for writing. You need contrast to create
19:53
interest. But I I guess the thing that I'm
19:56
still like, the thing that I'm just not getting or I feel like
20:01
isn't adding up is why, why does that point get lost when you're
20:07
talking about the grim dark thing, but not in other play?
20:10
Like I don't, I don't understand why people seem to like forget
20:15
it in this one scenario. You know what I mean?
20:18
I don't. Necessarily think it's this one
20:20
scenario. I think you see it across the
20:24
board at the FAR ends of any particular like, genre spectrum,
20:30
right? You have like the the same
20:32
people who think like Marvel movies are just brainless action
20:36
and there's nothing there when Marvel has like very good
20:40
examples of romance and comedy and suspense and sadness, you
20:44
know what I mean? And there are the same people
20:46
who think like all horror is like schlocky slasher horror
20:53
when that just clearly isn't the case.
20:54
I don't think it's the the only one, but I think it's the one
20:57
that arguably has it the worst in my opinion.
21:03
Right. But why?
21:06
Why? Why?
21:07
Because I think it has a reputation.
21:09
I, I think, I, I think it's the reputation of what it is,
21:11
mismatching what it actually is. I think it's just a, a, a.
21:18
It is a failure of media literacy, basically.
21:21
Well then my next immediate question becomes how did the
21:26
misinterpretation get so rampant?
21:30
I think yes. Well, so I mean, Warhammer
21:35
doesn't. No, no, it's fine.
21:36
I think Warhammer, the start of this sub genre doesn't do itself
21:41
any fucking favors because Warhammer has 18 trillion
21:44
authors who all interpret the idea of the sub genre in a
21:48
different way. And I think personally, a lot of
21:52
them don't do it amazing, right? Like you have you, you have the
21:57
like Kings of the castle of Black Library, right?
22:00
You have, you know, ADB and and Sandy Mitchell and and all those
22:04
guys who are doing current black library stuff.
22:07
But then they also have these weird offshoot books that I
22:09
think completely missed the mark.
22:13
So. I don't know, this is probably
22:18
too much of A rabbit hole to start thinking about it in any
22:23
complete. It just feels like it's it feels
22:26
like the grub dark thing has created a weird unique bubble
22:29
and I just can't. Like, nothing you've said is
22:32
wrong, but I also don't feel like I've satisfyingly reached
22:34
an answer either. You know what I mean?
22:36
Well, I think it it, it has the unfortunate nature of not
22:40
literally being the most contemporary, but it sort of
22:44
feels the most contemporary with how far Grim Dark has come from
22:49
this small thing in the pages of White Dwarf in the 80s to like
22:54
what it is now having like mainstream for the first time
22:58
with the release of Space Marine 2 and like Secret Level and shit
23:01
like that and an Amazon show coming on the way.
23:07
I guess. It's like I, I, I had a great
23:12
professor in college who basically was like, people
23:15
fundamentally don't understand science fiction.
23:23
Science fiction, when it was created, was more than just what
23:28
is the future, but it was a cautionary tale of what it looks
23:35
like when good ideas are brought to their worst logical end.
23:41
Right, you have. Science fiction is looking at
23:43
the future and analyzing the our current timeline through the
23:47
future. Lens exactly.
23:49
So you know, you have early sci-fi where it was like, you
23:52
know, you know, the original I robot where the idea of
23:56
automation becomes the robots who are doing all our jobs for
23:59
us take over and now we're the slaves until one guy can save
24:02
us, right. Like I think you just see this
24:06
sort of shift. Well, the only answer I have
24:14
really. No, I know.
24:17
I, I, I, it's just, it's just one of those funny things in the
24:21
back of my brain where I'm just like, grim dark seems to have
24:24
this weird unique little spot where it exists.
24:28
And something about that just tickles my fancy in a weird way
24:34
where I'm like, what what's going on here?
24:36
What are people not getting? It it's something that I
24:39
probably will do some more research on.
24:41
Maybe we'll have another episode on it.
24:43
That's where I will go off about where things got fucked up along
24:46
the way. Kind of like when we were
24:47
looking at a high or low fantasy.
24:49
You can sort of tie tie that back to a a some sort of cut off
24:52
point. Yeah.
24:56
Maybe, maybe that's worth doing a little deep dive on.
24:58
But to an earlier point, I think a really good example of
25:01
contemporary grim dark is the Vermontide slash Dark Tide
25:03
games. I wrote Vermontide twice, which
25:05
is funny, but Vermontide and Dark Tide because within them
25:10
terrible things happen to the goodish people of the Empire
25:14
slash Imperium, right? Like the onset of Vermontide is.
25:18
Good as a strong. Escape and blight, right?
25:20
The end Times, the apocalypse where 10s of thousands of people
25:26
are dying horribly to the weird rat monsters and Dark Tide is
25:30
arguably worse because on planet of people get hit with a zombie
25:34
plague that is from the actual literal personification of
25:38
fucking hell itself. And yeah, and that seems like a
25:43
pretty shit time for everybody involved, and it is including
25:49
for the protagonists of the game.
25:51
But it doesn't always seem like it, which is important here,
25:57
right? In in Vermontide and Darktide,
25:59
the characters that you play as treat the situation with a level
26:03
of candor and humor that might seem off base and, you know,
26:08
crass. Given the situation, however, it
26:12
fits perfectly right? And you see this in real life.
26:18
In times of great grief and horror, things like human or
26:23
humor often thrive as a coping mechanism for people going
26:28
through it. Ask any veteran you know, past
26:32
or present, and they will tell you some of the most insanely
26:35
out of pocket jokes you have ever heard.
26:38
And given this situation of brutal, violent war, how could
26:43
you not, right? How could you not find humor in
26:48
the absurdity of what you're doing?
26:51
You know, I mean, yeah, you're just talking about gallows
26:54
humor. Exactly, yes, that's exactly
26:56
what it is. It's gallows humor.
26:58
And you'll see in situations of people running these dark gritty
27:03
campaigns, your characters make jokes and everyone looks at you
27:07
like you've got 6 heads or, or characters will be goofy or
27:13
funny and they will be treated like outcasts.
27:15
You know what I mean? Like weird pariahs.
27:17
Like why aren't you getting with the program?
27:20
But brother, that is the program.
27:23
Everything sucks. Nothing means anything.
27:25
It's time to get stupid, because what else are you going to do?
27:32
Yeah, yeah, I mean, the when people are in incredibly shit
27:38
situations, they make goofing up, goofing UPS to cope.
27:42
That's I mean that has that has nothing to do with any kind of
27:47
writing or anything. That's just, that's just how
27:49
people do. Right.
27:51
The point of this being is like, you can look to reality on how
27:57
to inform people when they're at their worst and a lot of them
28:00
get really funny because again, there's nothing else you can do
28:04
in this situation. You just have to laugh at the
28:06
absurdity of the bullshit you find yourself in.
28:09
Nothing beats. Fighting giant swarms of
28:12
murderous rats. Kind of hilarious.
28:15
Yeah, where else are you going to hear the like?
28:17
Have you often pondered about what the start of our race was?
28:20
And Marcus had he was like frogs.
28:23
He was frogs and saltpire doing the.
28:25
Frogs. Frogs.
28:26
Just kidding. It's true though.
28:34
It is, it's true. But like that, that situation is
28:38
funny in spite of itself, but it's also funny because of how
28:42
just like, casual they are, right?
28:47
Like the, the, the, I can't remember what they're called,
28:49
but like, the protagonists of Vermontide are fighting for
28:52
their life in the apocalypse. They know that they are fucked.
28:56
There is no hope. They're just trying to get as
28:58
many. People shit isn't gonna hit the
29:00
fan. Shit is actively flying around
29:02
the room at this point. Yeah, and still they're just
29:05
like, you ever wonder what made us and Marcus knowing there's a
29:09
witch hunter there and how this guy is going to crash the fuck
29:12
out? It's like, hey, it was folks.
29:15
Yeah, yeah, I heard it was frogs.
29:20
It's, it's wonderful. It's it's such an uplifting
29:23
moment and it's such a shit situation.
29:25
And, you know, because we know how the end times end, all of
29:30
the characters you are playing as are going to fucking die.
29:33
But it doesn't matter because they don't give a fuck anymore,
29:36
you know? Oh do they Does does Vermontide
29:40
end with Big L? No, but we know how the actual
29:43
end times of Warhammer fantasy end and it's Big L You either
29:48
were lucky enough to get brought to the new universe by actual
29:50
literal Sigmar the God king and if you didn't the world got big
29:53
crunched so you're. Fucks I see.
29:57
And people didn't like that. And like 3 years ago they were
29:59
like, well, actually this magical bullshit happened in the
30:02
old world is back, but Age of Sigmar is still here.
30:05
And it's two different universes.
30:06
So we can sell you double the models, guys.
30:09
Huh. Uh huh.
30:10
Right. And don't you love that guys,
30:12
guys. Yeah.
30:13
So it's a, it's a level of, of humor you can find when shit
30:18
literally can't get any worse. And that's peak grim.
30:25
Another very good example at this time using romance.
30:29
And we're going to have to, we're going to time stamp this
30:30
one because I'm a a massive spoilers for Transistor, a 12
30:35
year old game by Super Giant Games.
30:36
Probably 1. Of my top three spoilers,
30:38
particularly for somebody who I know is listening, who I want,
30:41
who should play transistor. So I'm just gonna the warning is
30:45
now look in the description, click the time stampy and hold
30:50
on. Actually, before hold, hold,
30:52
hold that thought hold that thought holding, hold that
30:54
thought. Holding, holding.
30:56
I'm giving you time. 31 minutes. OK, all right, all right, all
31:06
right. OK, go ahead.
31:09
So in one of Isaiah's favorite video games of all time,
31:11
Transistor, at the end of the series, the At the end of the
31:15
game, rather the protagonist Red is driven to the brink by the,
31:20
you know, the weird encroaching cyber corruption known as the
31:23
Process. At the point where you fight the
31:27
creator of the Process, Royce Brackett, much of the world
31:30
outside of this weird little haven that Royce has created has
31:34
been just flat out obliterated. Nothing exists anymore but a
31:39
white expanse of nothing. And after you beat and kill
31:44
Royce, you do stop the process very explicitly, but you don't
31:49
reverse anything. Nothing gets better.
31:53
Nothing changes. You don't get the world back.
31:57
The world is your character. Red knows it.
31:59
The pizzeria she loved, the stage she spent most of her life
32:02
on, the oceans that she would visit with her husband just
32:08
don't exist anymore. And you know, to most people
32:13
listening, you're like, that fucking sucks.
32:14
What's the point of the ending? And I'll tell you because not
32:21
all hope is lost, not not exactly.
32:24
Within the titular transistor exists the lives of every person
32:30
that has been killed or absorbed by it.
32:32
And at that, the point at the end of the game of assuming
32:34
you're playing it the way you should and absorbing those souls
32:36
so you can get the extra abilities.
32:39
There's quite a few people in there.
32:41
And within the transistor is kind of like an afterlife.
32:46
It, it's called the country and it's in a, an artificial little
32:50
world inside of this weird sword key thing distinct from a
32:55
keyblade. And it's, it's revealed that
33:01
the, the person within the sword who turns out to be Red's
33:03
husband, you know, fan named Blue, is just there with
33:09
everybody you saved. And rather than exist in the
33:13
blatant fucking hell hole that Red finds herself in, stabs
33:17
herself with the transistor and dies and is absorbed by it and
33:21
is just brought to these, this afterlife, whichever one could
33:24
fucking exist. And yeah, it's artificial, but
33:30
does that matter? Because the world outside is
33:33
fucking dead. And at least she finds some form
33:37
of happiness with the person she loved, you know, like that's
33:41
peak fucking grim dark fam. PS Isaiah got a little misty
33:47
eyed while writing this part of the script, so fun facti for
33:50
you. But with this in mind, and we
33:56
can, you know, queue end of of thing, you can see why people
34:03
struggle so much. End of thing.
34:05
You mean spoilers over? Yeah, spoilers over, you can.
34:08
See queue end of thing. It's fine, you know what I
34:11
meant. You can see why people struggle
34:14
so much to create worlds that feel anything like the world's
34:20
that create them, simply because they lack the diversity and the
34:24
brevity and the feeling and emotion that separates Grimm
34:29
from boring, bleak from pointless.
34:35
And as Zach puts it in his video, brutality and difficulty
34:39
don't make something dark. It's mundanity, right?
34:43
It it's just the the complete fucking indifference to the bad
34:47
shit that happens in a world that you're creating that's
34:51
trying to focus on grim dark should normalize the darkness
34:56
that that the bleakness that encroaches on everyday life.
35:00
And the best way to do that is by creating something for it to
35:03
contrast against, which could be literally anything from the
35:08
players themselves to shit that happens in the stories.
35:13
What matters most are those themes that all things
35:17
inevitably succumb to. Evil, maybe entirely, but not
35:21
exclusively and not always controversial Take Grim dark
35:26
stories can have happy endings. See Transistor above.
35:29
And honestly, half of fucking super giant games.
35:33
I mean I would say debatable on transistor having a happy
35:36
ending. I think it's happy for those who
35:40
find happiness in it. You know, like we can't go back
35:43
into it because we already promised spoilies, but like take
35:48
a a good another good example and I I I don't think lead is
35:51
going to play this one, but pyre pyres ending can suck.
35:58
Well, yeah, Pyre has a couple different endings.
36:00
That's kind of a weird one. But if you really try, it
36:04
doesn't have to. And even like if you really try,
36:07
you know, the whole point of Pyre is that your character is
36:10
spoilies again for almost 10 year old game, but your
36:14
character is sent to this like exiled lands where people have
36:17
to play competitive magical soccer to like win the ability
36:21
to get out. And the people are sent there
36:24
are often not actually guilty of crimes.
36:25
They're just sent there because the evil overlords send them
36:28
there. And as you get your homies out
36:30
who are actually resistance fighters, you'll see the the
36:34
ending start to change. You know, one person is, you
36:37
know, curring favor with the nobles.
36:38
The other one is rallying the guards.
36:40
One person is like holding the merchant's Guild to your side
36:45
and assuming you did everything perfectly, the game tells you
36:48
Congrats, you did it. You overthrew the overlords.
36:51
But assuming that you got most of them, it says things are
36:53
looking good, but we don't know how it turns out.
36:56
And that's the game just tells it's up for you, fam.
36:59
It's up to you to tell to to say what happens.
37:01
Do you think you succeed or not? That's awesome.
37:07
But Isaiah, I hear you ask, and. You know, that's something also
37:11
ends arguably kind of sad and ambiguous.
37:13
I didn't finish that one. All right, well, you know,
37:18
that's fine. I guess I'll just.
37:20
I'll just. Yeah, I'm gonna just.
37:21
I'm gonna just jump out the nearest window.
37:23
It's. OK, so little little fun facti
37:26
turn turn your. Short the shortest one.
37:28
I I know it is. Hold on, when did Bastion come
37:31
out? It came out, I think 2009, 2011.
37:37
So back back when Bastion came out, another game released right
37:42
alongside it called From Dust, which is a God game that I enjoy
37:46
quite a bit. And I was a poor boy and could
37:49
only afford one of these games and I really wanted to play From
37:52
Dust. So I never had a chance to play
37:54
Bastion until I was much older. And the game feels a little jank
37:58
nowadays, like it's their first game.
37:59
It's fair. But I played it for like an hour
38:02
or two. It was just kind of like I'm not
38:04
vibing and then put it down and I picked it back up.
38:08
Oh, you have wounded me deeply, but OK.
38:11
Look from dust. It's just a really cool game.
38:12
I just like the game a lot. Leave me alone.
38:13
I like God games. I like being able to help my
38:15
little my, my little go up shadows do things.
38:19
I fucking guess. I am a benevolent overlord.
38:21
I will. I won't strike you down with the
38:24
natural disasters unless you piss me off, and even usually
38:28
then I'll just smite the guy who did it specifically.
38:30
Just drop his ass to the ocean and watch him drown.
38:34
I wasn't the person who like took the ladder out of the pool
38:37
for their Sims, but I am the one if one of my Sims pissed me off,
38:42
had them get struck by. At least it was quick.
38:48
Yeah, you might be the name Isaiah, and I'll don't say my
38:51
full name. What should I do if I want my
38:55
game to feel a grim dark and brutal and edgy like my favorite
38:58
series? That's a great question.
39:01
I got you bud. So let me set the scene for you.
39:04
Boom. Let's start with your initial
39:07
world building, presumably, assuming you know how to make a
39:12
world feel shitty to live in. You've got a good start, right?
39:16
You've created your base coat. Things are Gray now.
39:20
Let's let's judge it up a little bit.
39:22
I had to look up how to spell judge, by the way.
39:24
I mean, judge isn't a word so. It's fine.
39:28
It's, it's, it's a slang term. What?
39:30
I had to look it up. It's ZHUZH by the way.
39:34
Well, I I was kind of saying my point was that it's it's a slang
39:36
word, so you kind of can spell out however the fuck you want.
39:39
Yeah, but like, I didn't know how to start.
39:40
Like I'm pretty good at spelling, but I was like how?
39:42
How does 1 ZHUZH? Sure, if life in a grim dark
39:52
setting is terrible for everyone all of the time, you need to
39:57
give them things to do to cope with it.
40:00
Are brothels popular? Are Taverns raucous and lively
40:04
on the weekends? Maybe there's a single night a
40:07
week or a month or a year where all the villagers in the town to
40:11
come together and party because the world can just fucking end
40:14
tomorrow. Let NPCS lean into things like
40:20
gallows humor. And have them maintain a general
40:23
laissez faire attitude towards life, for better or worse,
40:26
right? Maybe theft is common, maybe
40:30
murder is common, and in either scenario they're done with a
40:35
level of nonchalance rather than dreary somberness.
40:40
This is truly the key to creating believable everyday
40:44
life in a shit situation. It should be the indifference to
40:48
trauma and the coping mechanisms that everyday people use to get
40:51
through the day. Now, if everything is Gray and
40:57
mundane, who serves as the contrast to the status quo?
41:02
You know, maybe you can have. And I'm not talking about
41:04
heroes, I'm just talking about NPCS who you set up to create
41:07
contrast points. Maybe you have like a foolish
41:10
but ultimately good handed band of Knights that goes around and
41:14
against all odds and incredibly dwindling numbers, tries to be
41:17
heroes at the world's need. And every battle another brother
41:21
or sister is slain. Every day their haul goes a
41:24
little colder and a little emptier, but Despite that, they
41:29
carry on for a chance that are better tomorrow.
41:32
Maybe the group is an insane balls to the wall group of orcs
41:36
that are pillaging villages, but when you confront him, the only
41:40
thing they want, the only thing that drives them, is a right
41:43
good cramping for the what? Maybe that's it.
41:48
Well, that was that was a lot, yeah.
41:52
Where mundanity rules did you lean?
41:54
Back on that one, I. Did I had to?
41:55
Yeah. Yeah.
41:57
Where mundanity rules, revel in absurdity, have weird shit
42:03
happen because that is what's going to make memorable moments
42:08
when everything is Gray. And do you have any questions,
42:14
any thoughts? In regards to which part?
42:21
Did you know? Generally painting some contrast
42:24
in the other rise Gray mundanity of life in such a setting.
42:29
I don't know, listen, I'm not particularly deep into this
42:35
genre. I mean, I mean, I like dark
42:39
fantasy, but I don't know, it's, it's slightly different.
42:43
Like, I don't know, like I well, I guess.
42:47
Would you consider the Witcher grimdark?
42:50
I would not, I, I think no, right, No, I, I would just call
42:53
that gritty fantasy, but I would call grimdark.
42:57
Sure, sure. The Witcher's It's getting
43:01
there. It's close.
43:02
Yeah, but I seriously, I also I wouldn't call people call Game
43:06
of Thrones grim dark and I just I I don't see it if that's just
43:10
historical fantasy with Dragons, like, and I guess you could
43:14
argue that historical like, you know, history is kind of grim
43:17
dark in the medieval like just a fucking fair enough, but.
43:21
I mean, I, I get what they mean when they call it grim dark, but
43:25
I don't know if I would necessarily would call it that.
43:29
But I'm, I'm not, I'm not super deep in the sauce on this
43:33
particular sub genre. But yes, I do know that the idea
43:38
of it's got to be the idea of the bleakness needs to be ever
43:45
present. But yeah, it needs to be
43:47
contrasted, especially because a big part of making the whole
43:53
thing work too, is that if you know, like at the end of the
44:02
day, you're, you're dealing with players who are pretending to be
44:05
other people, right? So the players know that when
44:09
the game's over, they get to pack up and go home and go to
44:11
bed like normal. You know, there's no actual
44:14
stakes. So if you if you hammer them
44:18
with the hot, the not the hot and heavy, if you hammer them
44:23
with the dark and heavy all the time, at a certain point as
44:29
people in real life, they're going to get kind of numb and
44:33
bored of the premise because they know nothing's actually
44:37
happening to them. And so it's not really going to
44:41
hit anyway. And the only way to make it hit
44:44
again is that contrast of you throw in an NPC they really,
44:49
really like and they love him lots.
44:50
And then he dies horribly and brutally.
44:53
And then he gets murdered by like a, a stake being shoved up
44:56
his ass and he's stuck outside the King's castle.
44:59
And then they're going to be like, ah, now it feels sad and
45:04
depressing again, because you gave us the moment of hope
45:06
because we made a new friend and now he's brutally dead.
45:09
They're like, yeah, you got to have those contrast points no
45:12
matter what, because otherwise you're just sort of otherwise
45:18
everyone's just going to get kind of numb and.
45:19
Bored. They will.
45:21
Yeah. And like, you know, using
45:22
Berserk, which everybody loves Berserk.
45:26
It's the favorite thing that tears your heart out every time
45:29
Guts has an egg. Just remarkably shit one for his
45:33
short, like, 27 years of existence.
45:36
But you can point. Over again.
45:38
Non-stop. It's impressive, but you can
45:41
point at every point in Guts's life and you can see the brevity
45:46
right when he's in the Band of the Hawk.
45:47
You have Corkus being a complete fucking Jackass.
45:50
You have Pippin being the big like.
45:52
I mean, they get, you don't even need to get specific to any
45:54
characters or anything. They get moments of like they're
45:57
treated like royalty. They go to big lavish parties
46:00
and they hang out and they have fun times together and like they
46:04
take some easy missions where they beat the shit out of the
46:06
enemy and they're like, oh, that was sick dog like easy money.
46:09
You know, they have all sorts of good times.
46:12
Ultimately, the thing that does make Berserk depressing is that
46:14
all the good things that Guts gets get ripped away from him.
46:18
They do, and they still come back, you know?
46:22
Costco being like the prime example.
46:24
I bro, I that last one, that last abduction, really, I was
46:29
like, guys, please, We're, we're pushing it now.
46:32
I mean, yeah, like, I mean, he even, she even gets ripped away
46:35
from him. Like he finds her again, but she
46:39
don't remember who the fuck he is.
46:40
So he she's like he he gets all of five seconds to be like, Oh
46:44
my God. And then JK, you're like, yeah,
46:50
well, yeah, there's there's a lot of that Berserk.
46:55
It's a lot of like moment of hope and then take that shit
46:59
away. And there's also a lot of people
47:02
banding together in tiny little insular bubble situations and
47:07
just like, doing their damnedest.
47:09
Well, so I was Guts basically collects a fucking D&D party at
47:12
one point. I was going to say, you have E
47:16
Cedaro, you have Puck, you have oh God, what the hell is his
47:20
name? You got the rapier.
47:25
Oh God, what is the rapier guy? I can't remember his name.
47:28
It starts with a not it's not AP and you have Farnese like they
47:35
sort of serve as Guts's comedic relief and or injection of
47:39
normalcy into his life. And at this point, Serpico,
47:42
Serpico, thank you. And you're, you know, will all
47:46
of them die? Maybe.
47:47
Will some of them die? Almost certainly.
47:49
But for sure they provide much needed contrast to Guts's life
47:54
and the story, because without them, as much as you might find
47:58
Puck or EC Doro annoying, if they weren't there you'd be
48:01
bored, which is even worse. Well, or you'd be kind of just
48:06
like numb, right? You just kind of not even
48:12
necessarily bored. You just like, don't give a shit
48:14
so much because you don't want to have a story where you don't
48:17
give a shit about the characters.
48:19
Like, you know, true. Yeah, you don't want that.
48:21
So yeah, you, you kind of, you hit a limit of you would hit a
48:24
limit of caring because you'd be like, oh, if it's not even going
48:27
to give me time to feel like something slightly better than
48:31
like, why am I putting any energy in at all?
48:33
I, I have a perfect example of this and I, I, I, I'm not going
48:39
to say Game of Thrones 'cause I think Game of Thrones actually
48:40
does get you to care quite a bit.
48:42
I did not give a single solitary fuck about anybody in Attack on
48:48
Titan. OK, I mean, I, I, I, my gut
48:54
instinct is that that's a hot take, but I haven't watched
48:56
Attack on Titan, so I can't say. Fair enough.
48:58
I I didn't give a single shit about ever anybody.
49:00
No one. I had no reason to care about
49:02
any of them. And when they all started
49:04
dropping like rocks I was like, well that one's dead.
49:09
I don't think the series did enough work to be honest, but
49:12
that's just me. Like I said, I can't really say
49:16
it, but that certainly comes across as a hot take.
49:19
I hope so. I hope I get someone in the
49:20
comments. Well, in back to the point of
49:27
all right, life is shitty and sufficiently interesting.
49:32
I need to make villains. I need to make bad guys who are
49:34
believable and interesting in this grim dark setting.
49:37
Bad guys. And this is actually the easiest
49:40
part, frankly, Because villains should vary as any good story
49:47
should have, right? Lean.
49:49
You know, if you lean too far into the cold, brutal evil, and
49:53
the evil starts to feel really samey in one note, and if you
49:56
lean too far into the absurd, you'll risk some Ludo narrative
50:00
disco biscuits. You need to have villains of all
50:03
types who inhabit all strata of the evil corporate ladder, as I
50:07
put it, you know, on on the lowest tier.
50:11
Have your, you know, Kefka Palazzo style psychotic
50:15
mastermind lead of village militia in search of like
50:18
witches and heretics. Maybe have them hunt down a
50:21
young child accused of witchcraft while, you know,
50:23
villagers make jokes and wagers about what awful thing they're
50:26
going to do to them. Have, you know a demon stalk the
50:31
alleys of a large city, silently and brutally dismembering its
50:34
populace while local guards think of silly nicknames to call
50:37
the monster? Maybe 1 Lone Knight is the only
50:40
person who actually cares enough to find real justice and shit on
50:44
the highest level. Have the evil or Overlord, you
50:46
know we're going, we'll call him Jack, commit the most evil
50:49
atrocities because he believes that this World of Darkness and
50:52
entropy is better than whatever unchecked bullshit chaos can
50:55
bring. Why are you going with Jack?
50:58
Garland. Oh, I see, Jack.
51:05
Garland OK, I want you know I set this one up like a landmine
51:08
for you. I.
51:12
God I hate that his name is Jack.
51:15
I'm really just. Like a bouncing Betty, it's just
51:19
too late. Why did they name him Jack?
51:24
I don't know. They couldn't.
51:25
Have even done they couldn't have even hit him with some
51:27
fantasy nonsense like Jack, Aquanthus, Jacquatius, Jacai
51:33
like. Just Jack.
51:36
Just Jack. They were just like Garland.
51:38
Jack. OK, nailed it.
51:40
Fucking what? On the on the topic of of random
51:45
overlord Jack, let's say that you know him and his evil
51:49
overlord NIS. He's created this like
51:52
unknowable hydra of an evil empire that will outlast him
51:56
even if he stopped. And maybe stopping him actually
51:59
does nothing, but that's ultimately for the players to
52:01
decide, right? Well, I think the yeah, the,
52:05
the, the trick that needs to work is that you can't dismantle
52:09
the evil empire, but you can like dismantle an arm of it for
52:15
the sake of this one little area where everyone lives or
52:18
whatever. Like this one spot.
52:20
Like maybe the evil overlord lives like he doesn't live in
52:25
the area that the PCs live, right?
52:27
He lives like across the sea in the, in the, in the, the main
52:31
head pipe, like the main empire city, but they destroy the
52:35
little arm of the empire that is terrorizing the main town they
52:40
live in. And so like, they're, they're in
52:42
a little small insulated bubble of safety, even though like
52:46
probably some other bad shit's going to come down the road.
52:48
But you know, they bought themselves time, whatever.
52:51
I think, you know, again, I don't think the Witcher is grim
52:54
dark, but I think the Witcher does a great job of exemplifying
52:56
this right on the lowest level. You know, you have Leo Bonhart,
53:03
generational psychopaths and, you know, enjoyer of butchering
53:09
the children. And he's awesome young adults,
53:13
young adults, and he's awesome because he doesn't exist.
53:18
And later on he does. But like, when, when you see
53:20
him, when he's doing all the things he's doing, he's just a
53:24
bounty hunter. He's just a guy.
53:27
Whatever he can accomplish, he's going to do with his wits, his
53:31
sadism, and his fucking sword. But then you go up the ladder
53:36
and you have people like Amir, right, Who is doing some clearly
53:41
weird. Evil shit.
53:43
Some horrible shit. Just some heinous things, but
53:48
you know he's a king and that's on a much higher strata than
53:52
Leo. But then you go arguably even
53:55
higher and you have it tries to be suave, isn't really suave.
54:00
Vilgefort's and he's like world ending machinations.
54:07
Well, Vilgefort's also kind of wants to be an evil king, but
54:10
yes, he also want to wants to smash the spheres together.
54:13
Yeah, and you have comedically diabolical, you have unhinged
54:24
believe you're the own hype evil king and then you have a balls
54:29
to the wall bananas evil wizard shooting lightning out of his
54:33
Dick. And that all exists within the
54:37
Witcher, which again, I think is just dark fantasy, but it the
54:40
point still stands. Hell, you're going to use
54:42
Berserk as a good example, right?
54:44
You have plenty of villains to fall back on.
54:48
On the lower end of you have the tutor like Lords, and some of
54:51
them are a little incompetent or some of them are the like evil
54:55
machinators. And you have, what's his name?
54:57
Julius, who's basically just a mirror without the without the
55:02
Siri part. Without the without the incest.
55:05
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, and then you go a little
55:12
bit higher and you have the apostles, and there's a
55:15
bajillion apostles like the horse.
55:19
I mean, of course, don't bring up the horse, not the horse.
55:25
I I mean, taking both Berserk and and Witcher is an example of
55:29
what it kind of what I was saying is, you know, Emir like
55:33
doesn't ever get stopped like Nilfkar.
55:39
So all right, I guess I'm going to spoiler time stamp this one
55:44
too, because I feel like I'm about to say some shit.
55:46
So like, I'll just all right, hold on, hold on.
55:50
I'm going to. I'm going to make a note for
55:51
myself. 56 minutes. You got it. 56 minutes.
55:55
Yeah, so at the end of The Witcher 3, you there's no
56:03
stopping Nilfgaard. Like you can't, there's no so
56:09
like Nilfgaard has invaded Ridania and Tamaria and they
56:14
took over Edurn and like the whole king caboodle.
56:20
There's no, there's no ending where you stop Nilfgaard in any
56:25
capacity because like, Geralt is the main character simply can't,
56:30
you know, like the Nilfgaard is just an incredibly powerful
56:33
invading army and like Geralt is Geralt is effectively dude MC
56:37
guy. He he simply can't stop them.
56:40
So the only scenario where you end your options are basically
56:48
Amir kind of low key gets what you want, what he wants because
56:51
Radovid is dead because Geralt kills him.
56:53
Well, Geralt helps to kill him, I guess.
56:57
Siri becomes Empress alongside Amir and like he chills out a
57:03
little bit. Not really.
57:05
Or Amir just keeps doing his thing and somebody else takes
57:10
over Ridania and they continue to fight.
57:13
So like, there's no ending where it's like MILF guard was pushed
57:16
back and everyone was freed. Like that's just not on the
57:19
table, Right? Yeah.
57:21
It's kind of that idea of like Garrow gets his little minor
57:25
victory of like protecting Siri and protecting yet for interests
57:28
and everybody gives a shit about.
57:29
Although you could argue that's a big victory because they do
57:32
push back the Wild Hunt. But the Wild Hunt, even if the
57:37
Wild Hunt got what they wanted, it wasn't like they were going
57:39
to instantly destroy the world or anything.
57:41
They were just going to invade, which is not like it would just
57:47
be another war, you know? So it's like, yeah, there's this
57:52
little insular victory that Geral gets alongside himself and
57:55
everyone else. It's kind of that that same
57:58
idea. Where it is also a little
58:00
pyrrhic because they lose several friends along the way.
58:04
Oh yeah, a lot of motherfuckers be dying.
58:05
Yeah. And the Berserk, it's like,
58:13
yeah, you could do all this bullshit you that you want, but
58:16
ultimately the God Hand is still, you know, out and about.
58:22
You're not really stopping them. You're not, no.
58:25
And I talk about this with Paladin from time to time.
58:28
He really wants Guts to get like ultimate revenge against
58:32
Griffith, but that's just not Rindar.
58:36
It's just not what the genre is. And I wish it was right.
58:40
I want as much as anybody to see him kill Griffith because I
58:44
don't think there's any redeeming Griffith right?
58:45
I, I, I disagree with the take that Griffith was always an
58:48
irredeemable psychopath. I that's just not true.
58:51
He just had a very stark and very steep moral decline when he
58:54
was confronted with decisions that he had to make.
58:58
But as he is now, Griffith is completely self proposedly
59:04
irredeemable. Wait, and on The Witcher
59:07
spoilers, by the way. Fair enough.
59:12
And. But yes, yeah, the ultimate
59:17
revenge again, Griffith is probably not on the table.
59:22
I mean, maybe it is in some capacity, but yeah, I don't
59:26
think he's just going to cleanly like, kill him or anything.
59:29
I don't even know if Guts would kill him to be honest, even if
59:32
he could. Well, yeah, I don't think he
59:33
would because. Well, so maybe now.
59:35
But you know, I I don't know. I spoil these again.
59:39
It's fine. Well, don't be spoiled and
59:41
berserk for me. Fair enough.
59:44
There. There is a point before manga
59:47
has like, you know, it's not that it's ended, but it's it's
59:50
stopped that Guts is kind of like, maybe I'm OK with my
59:54
status quo right now. Maybe, maybe this is OK.
59:59
Maybe I don't need revenge anymore.
1:00:01
Like if the if the manga ended right there, which is pretty
1:00:06
much where, you know, Intara Miura passed away, I think that
1:00:11
could be a perfect ending to Berserk.
1:00:12
I think it would have worked perfectly.
1:00:14
That's just being like, it's it's not worth it.
1:00:17
I have what I want, what I've been like looking for, what I've
1:00:20
been trying to avenge. I have it now.
1:00:23
And, you know, the story demands that that status quo be upheat,
1:00:27
you know, upended. But of course, didn't have to be
1:00:32
assuming they hadn't done it. Like it would have been a
1:00:33
perfect ending. Yeah, yeah.
1:00:41
I, I, I, I don't know the end. I can't say anything.
1:00:43
So I hope experiment just jump in on that, no?
1:00:45
No, I I kind of realized that a little late.
1:00:46
It's fine. Now moving on to to my final
1:00:51
points. The heroes of grim dark stories
1:00:58
are rarely chosen ones. Like I said, more often than not
1:01:01
they are just normal people with either the right skills or
1:01:06
enough luck to survive the bullshit that's coming at them
1:01:10
and allowing them to stand up for what's right.
1:01:13
Yeah, it's usually just people caught in a real bad day.
1:01:16
Yeah, people caught in a really bad day who just aren't going to
1:01:21
put up with it anymore. And again, they have.
1:01:24
To be guts is the epitome of that.
1:01:26
Yeah. And you have to, in those
1:01:28
situations, the characters that do end up coming out on top are
1:01:33
the ones who are smart enough or tough enough or lucky enough.
1:01:39
And Guts is really owned. The latter 2 to keep it moving.
1:01:45
You know, when you look at, at what your characters are, if
1:01:52
you're going into a grim dark setting and I, I am 100% what?
1:01:57
The player characters are yes. I'm 100% guilty of this going in
1:02:03
trying to change the world and. Oh yeah, You know, that's
1:02:08
actually a really big problem with the post apocalypse games
1:02:11
too, is players want to be like, I'm going to fix the apocalypse.
1:02:15
It's like, no, motherfucker, that's not on the table.
1:02:19
Right, it's not on the table. It's just not on the table,
1:02:22
Doug. And in my case, my, my change
1:02:25
the world for my character was, you know, was to become a famous
1:02:28
gunsmith and modernize war because the encroaching, you
1:02:33
know, IG M took a lot from Warhammer Fantasy, right?
1:02:36
The the encroaching Vikings from the north.
1:02:38
My character's whole thing is, if I can patent a a good enough
1:02:45
useful enough, reliable enough firearm and we can revolutionize
1:02:49
war against the evil Vikings, then the people I care about
1:02:53
will be safe. You know, he wasn't trying to
1:02:56
stop the Viking threat or the the evil demon threat that was
1:02:59
squarely out of his hands. But what he did say was, well, I
1:03:04
know what I can do and I'm really good at making.
1:03:08
Controlling. Controlling your small locus of
1:03:11
control and and understand. Trying to figure out and
1:03:16
understand what you could do within it.
1:03:18
Yeah, and I think maybe my my character's goal, like I said,
1:03:22
was a little too grandiose. Maybe it would have been better
1:03:26
if my goal was, you know, I can make good guns and I can defend
1:03:30
my family's castle and city. You know the campaign.
1:03:34
That's not that grandiose. You're effectively like, I'm
1:03:36
going to make a cool invention for people to use.
1:03:38
Also, I'm going to make some money off of it.
1:03:41
The money thing was important. I think by the end of that
1:03:42
campaign Alias patented like it literally patented like 5 or 6
1:03:48
weapons and I never saw the dividends from that, but it
1:03:52
happened and that was enough. Yeah, I mean, I don't think
1:03:56
that's too grandiose for a, for like a, a darker setting.
1:04:00
That's a reasonable especially because even if, even if your
1:04:05
character was able to get a, a weapon like proficient, you
1:04:10
know, let's say your character invented the six shooter, even
1:04:15
if they were able to get like 6 shooters ubiquitous enough that
1:04:19
they started to be mass produced, your characters, the
1:04:22
character wouldn't really see the the the end result of that.
1:04:29
They wouldn't really see the, the fruits of their labor,
1:04:31
right? They would only really see the
1:04:32
early, the early stages. Probably true.
1:04:35
So that's not really that grandiose.
1:04:38
They're sort of like, all right, I did what I tried to do.
1:04:40
Hope it works out. Yeah, fair enough.
1:04:44
So I guess maybe I can redact that.
1:04:45
But either way, you know, returning to the the the earlier
1:04:53
idea of the villains in the Kafka scenario, maybe the
1:04:57
players have defeated the zealot witch hunter, but you know,
1:05:01
there's an entire Kingdom and a government full of people just
1:05:04
as evil and psychotic as that guy in the demon scenario.
1:05:08
Yeah, sure, maybe the players killed the demon, they saved the
1:05:11
town or the city, but maybe they're unaware of a greater
1:05:14
threat of demon summonings, and that's a whole army of demons,
1:05:18
and they're just as powerful, if not more, the next city over.
1:05:22
The the thing you're kind of talking about is the idea of you
1:05:26
can't beat the system, right? You could, you could beat little
1:05:30
elements of it, but you can't take down the system.
1:05:33
It's or at the very least your little cadre of four dip fuck
1:05:38
murder hobos can't dismantle the entire system.
1:05:42
It's more complicated than that, yes.
1:05:45
As opposed to a game like Final Fantasy where, you know, you
1:05:48
could just dismantle Christianity because that's kind
1:05:53
of what happens in Final Fantasy 10.
1:05:55
Yeah, it's fine. In Final Fantasy 7, you tell
1:05:57
Lockheed Martin to go fuck themselves.
1:05:59
Yeah, yeah. So it's like, yeah, that's not
1:06:02
that is the crazy over the top heroic fantasy shit the Final
1:06:05
Fantasy does. But yeah, at a grim in like a
1:06:07
grimmer setting, it would be like, well, we can't dismantle
1:06:11
all of Christianity, but we can kick it off of our you know,
1:06:14
Kick It Out of beside Isles and make sure it doesn't bother us
1:06:17
here anymore, right. That would be like the
1:06:20
different, the more the darker version of that and like, you
1:06:25
know, Sin is still out there, but you know, we're we're
1:06:29
working on it. That's also another thing I feel
1:06:31
like a lot of grim dark stuff tends to the ending tends to be
1:06:36
we're working on it. Like, we didn't kill the
1:06:39
ultimate demon lore, but we made some good progress, you know?
1:06:42
Yeah. And that's all you can ask for
1:06:43
is, is we held back the tide today.
1:06:48
Today, yeah, we're working on it.
1:06:50
That's really like I said, it's all you can ask for.
1:06:52
I think there is, those are always my favorite stories and
1:06:58
things like 40K, right? Like the whole the devastation
1:07:01
of Ball, I think is one of the best examples of this.
1:07:03
It's it's a newer book and the whole thing is about how the
1:07:06
turn the Tyranids are coming to absolutely ream the Blood
1:07:10
Angels. And they do all this
1:07:12
preparation. They call every successor
1:07:15
chapter of the Blood Angels. They all get them to surround
1:07:17
the planet. They create a massive blockade.
1:07:19
There's like 15 chapters of them.
1:07:22
There's 15,000 space marines against a high fleet and by the
1:07:28
end I think they lose 7 full chapters.
1:07:34
The planet is almost destroyed. All of the next generation of
1:07:39
space marines, you know, all the gene seed is destroyed.
1:07:43
The moon is completely uninhabitable.
1:07:45
They used a bunch of chemical weapons on their planet so
1:07:48
chunks of the planet are uninhabitable, and ultimately
1:07:52
they only stopped a splinter fleet of Leviathan.
1:07:55
They didn't even beat the whole thing, but they survived.
1:08:02
Mission accomplished, boys. Yeah, literally.
1:08:04
Mission accomplished, boys. And it's so sick.
1:08:07
There's a great bit at the end of that book where Dante fights
1:08:10
the swarm Lord, the, you know, the big hive tyrant and he's
1:08:17
exhausted because he's been fighting for like 16 hours
1:08:20
straight. And his armors, like, you know,
1:08:23
he's got the gold Angel armor. All the gold paint has rubbed
1:08:27
off from all the combat. And it's just the like ceramite
1:08:29
Gray and is like Power Pack is failing.
1:08:33
So the armor isn't moving as fast as it should and he's
1:08:37
falling to the black rage. And it's such an uplifting scene
1:08:41
despite the madness, because he's losing himself to the
1:08:45
craziness of the black Rage. And as he's fighting, he's just
1:08:48
screaming at the hive tyrant. My name is Dante.
1:08:50
My name is Lucius Dante. And he's just try not to make
1:08:54
himself go nuts. And he said he does it.
1:08:56
He gets this fucking close to like, just losing the chapter
1:08:59
master, but he does it. And it's it just seeing Dante,
1:09:03
OK? You're like, that's all I'm
1:09:06
asking for. All I needed was my boys.
1:09:10
He's alive. And he it's, it's funny because
1:09:14
even him living is grim dark because the only thing Dante
1:09:18
ever wants is to die so that his service can finally end.
1:09:23
And he does technically die. His heart stops and he's like
1:09:28
entering the afterlife. And he sees his Primark
1:09:31
Sanguineas. And he's like, I'm done, I'm
1:09:35
done. I'm finally, it's over.
1:09:36
It's finally over. And Sanguineas goes about that.
1:09:44
You are just a little too competent to let you die.
1:09:47
So I'm, I'm going to need you to go back, son.
1:09:48
And he's like, no, no, fucking surely not.
1:09:51
I didn't. Need you to go back.
1:09:52
I'm done. I'm sorry buddy, you can't.
1:09:55
No breaks for you, bud. He looked back in their chip.
1:09:57
It's so sad. He's begging and crying.
1:10:00
He's like just let me fucking die dude and say quit.
1:10:03
He's like I'm I'm sorry. I just, I can't, I can't let you
1:10:06
do that. I'm sorry son.
1:10:08
You'll be here one day, but it's not going to be anytime soon.
1:10:12
And he wakes up and he's fucking hysterically crying because he
1:10:15
was like, that was it. That was my chance.
1:10:17
That was my out. I was.
1:10:18
Free. That's awesome.
1:10:21
Even the character you wanting the character to survive is grim
1:10:24
dark because he wanted to fucking.
1:10:26
Die. He's like bro, just let me know,
1:10:32
I'm just trying to die. It's awesome.
1:10:37
And you know what we were saying before, right?
1:10:39
You wouldn't with the in the scenario with Jack, the evil
1:10:42
overlord, Yeah, they kill him. But you know, it's Aquinius,
1:10:46
Sir. Aquinius.
1:10:49
I would. Joaquin, I said whatever the
1:10:52
fuck I said. When, when you defeat Joaquin
1:10:55
Phoenix. Yeah, yeah.
1:10:58
You know, the the Empire he has built was built to survive him.
1:11:04
It's not Star Wars. It's not the Empire falling with
1:11:06
the death of Palpatine. All right, Yeah, you cut the
1:11:08
figurehead off and he was an evil space wizard, but now you
1:11:12
have to deal with bureaucracy, and that's even worse.
1:11:15
Joker's not afraid of anything, but he's afraid of the fucking
1:11:17
IRS, You know what I mean? Like.
1:11:22
What a reference. It's one of my favorites.
1:11:27
Your players, the players, the characters need to be happy with
1:11:31
making meaningful change, whatever that looks like.
1:11:36
And tiny change, I think, is the important thing.
1:11:39
Well, yeah, you know, change meaningful to them, not
1:11:42
necessarily meaningful to the overall plot or world.
1:11:46
And you know, if by some miracle they succeed in doing it all,
1:11:53
you know they have to ask themselves what damage is left
1:11:56
in their wake. The sacrifices, the destruction,
1:12:00
the infrastructure. Like Euroism comes at a cost,
1:12:04
and who's left to pay it? That shit is grim dark.
1:12:14
I should be a fucking scriptwriter.
1:12:23
That's really all I got. I I like we kind of talked about
1:12:26
the finishing notes or like like my closing thoughts with the
1:12:29
warmer stuff. That's this, that's it.
1:12:36
And that's grim dark too. But this, it just ends.
1:12:37
It's over. I mean, yeah.
1:12:43
You wanted a. Roughness of ending can also be
1:12:45
a thing. Yeah, look.
1:12:46
You wanted some emotional like you want, you wanted like a like
1:12:48
some aftercare after all that deep, meaningful, really
1:12:52
depressing shit, you're not going to get it, bud.
1:12:55
Follow us on your social media platform of choice,
1:12:57
motherfuckers. I think the the important take
1:13:00
away is it it can't be 100% shite 100% of the time that you
1:13:09
need to mix in some other stuff, whatever that looks like, in
1:13:16
order to make the the bleach shit actually hit.
1:13:22
A good painting requires extremely high contrast.
1:13:27
You need light lights and dark darks.
1:13:28
If you don't have both of them, then you got Gray nothing.
1:13:35
Basically, yeah. Bars, peace, motherfuckers.
1:13:38
I'm out. Bars, he says.