Most recently inspired by this thread (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/blackbirds-rpg/), but this topic has been stewing in my head for a while.

Let me say at the outset that I understand genre distinctions can be fuzzy, especially sub-sub-genre distinctions like this one, and I know a lot of people find them pointless. I still consider them worthwhile, because when you're looking for something specific, it helps to have a name to put on it. To paraphrase the YouTuber "Perg Productions": If you tell me a band plays "rock", I have no idea what that means, but if you tell me they play "technical death metal", I now have a pretty clear expectation of what they're going to sound like.

In a previous thread, Eric Diaz linked to this (quite good) blog post: https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2021/03/my-weird-dark-twisted-fantasy.html
I can't stress enough that this post is NOT a shot at Eric, but that post uses the common definition of "dark fantasy" as the combination of fantasy and horror. That definition has never sat well with me. All of the "dark fantasy" properties which I Iove definitely include an element of horror, but it's often fairly minor, and it's a very specific kind of horror. Eric reconciles this in his blog by expanding the definition of horror to include tragedy as well. A good start, but it doesn't reconcile the issue for me.

There's a semi famous quote from Demon's Souls/Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki, where he talks about maintaining "a certain level of refinement and elegance" in the design of his games. And that, I think, is getting at the core of what separates "dark fantasy" from just "horror fantasy ". When I think about what I would consider to be iconic examples of "dark fantasy", such as Elric, Berserk, or Dark Souls, they aren't overly grotesque, nor are they relentlessly miserable. The mood is if anything more melancholy than horrific, and the moments of grimness are balanced by moments of bombast and grand mysteries.  They also tend to be fairly self-serious. Not without their moments of levity, but veering away from parody or meta-humor.

So that's my definition. "Dark fantasy" takes elements of horror, and infuses them with the scale and scope of "epic fantasy", often with themes of tragedy, entropy or collapse. It largely eschews irony, gross-out and shock value, in favor of a greater focus on mystery, spectacle and splendor. Even the horrific elements of "dark fantasy" often (though not always) have an element of grandeur or beauty to them. The horrific elements aim to attract, rather than repulse. It's that balance of tone which separates it from both "horror fantasy" and "epic fantasy", and the straightfaced-ness which separates it from "weird fantasy". Though arguably, it's a hybrid of all of the above.  "Dark fantasy" is not about zombie plagues, serial killers, or politics (though it may include those things). It's more about strange, magnificent landscapes, mad gods, doomed heroes, and fallen kingdoms.

Since this is more about tone, and tone is difficult to put into words, let me give some examples from various media:
A short virtual tour of the world of Dark Souls 3:


The album art for Stormkeep's "Galdrum" EP


A splash page from Berserk:


The cover art for the "GODS" RPG project, by Bastien LeCouffe Deharme


Art from the boardgame "Kingdom Death"


To bring this back to tabletop games, I don't think I've yet played or read a game that really nails this tone. Old-school D&D is too mundane (and often too gonzo), and new school D&D is too safe and cheerful. I'll concede you could probably homebrew any fantasy game to try and accommodate it, but I can't say I've seen anyone get it right "out of the box". There are a few possible reasons why:

The most obvious reason might be a lack of demand. The fantasy RPG market seems to be divided into two broad groups. Those that want their light-hearted, quippy marvel/anime style modern fantasy, and those that want either weird fantasy or pulp sword-and-sorcery style. This is a little odd, though, as in other mediums (comics, videogames, books, and visual art) dark fantasy is absolutely booming.

Another issue might be that tabletop games traditionally struggle with doing the more epic side of fantasy, without falling into the trap of becoming superhero games. This may be why games set in dark fantasy settings such as WFRP or Black Void tend to focus the action on more street-level or political conflicts. The concrete numerical nature of tabletop games makes it hard to have characters that can travel the cosmos and credibly square off with a demon king, but also won't just run roughshod over the rest of the setting. There was a game I was checking out called "Demongate" that seemed to get the tone right, but I watched some actual play and the PCs seemed to be ridiculously overpowered. 

The "dark fantasy" tone also requires that it be played straight, and ttrpg games have a tendency to rapidly trend towards silliness. Partially, this is just an obvious side effect of sitting at a table with your friends to play a game. Partially, I think it's just too hard to maintain a dark or serious tone over the length of a proper tabletop campaign.  Drama, like horror, tends to work better in shorter-form mediums.

Anybody else like or engage with this kind of fantasy, or can you recommend tabletop games that set out to do it and make it work?

Ehhh.  I'm in a several months old Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign, and so far it's been pretty good.  It does have a bit too much humor baked in to some parts (my goblin rolled "flatulence" as a personality quirk during character creation).  But, overall, it's been pretty good about the balance between despair and defiance of evil.  I actually think the hardest part about "dark" fantasy is not the game system; it's the players.  If players are looking for the right tone, you can get a good horror/dark fantasy vibe from just about anything, from Deadlands to Beyond the Supernatural to SotDL.  It's really a function of whether the players react to the setting and situation in a genre-appropriate manner, or whether they fight the conceits of the setting or adventure.  It doesn't matter what system you use if your players can't (or won't) act, think, or behave appropriate for the genre...

Berserk and Dark Souls not being relentlessly miserable? I guess in the sense that not literally every milisecond is filled with agony.
I know less details of Berserk, but I consider it pretty miserable.

Dark Souls mocks the very nature of existence. Death is coming, it will not be quiet, or pretty, or elegant. It will be painful agonizing and sorrowful. Then on top of that any attempts to avoid death will be met with just more horror and any and all sources of justice or kindness are either fraud or failures. Nothing lasts, but misery and horror will last longer.
Dark Souls is one of the most cruel fictional universes I know of. It makes up new rules to be cruel in new ways. The Universe implodes into a cacaphony of eternal suffering before at the same time burning out into double nothingness.

Edit: I guess Dark Fantasy is defined by pretty images and intense misanthropy, nihilism and sadism.

>>"Dark fantasy" is not about zombie plagues, serial killers, or politics (though it may include those things). It's more about strange, magnificent landscapes, mad gods, doomed heroes, and fallen kingdoms.<<

This makes me think Skyrim (and Oblivion) is Dark Fantasy?

The re-release of Dragon Warriors RPG was Dark Fantasy, where the original game was just regular British Fantasy like '80s Warhammer Battle.  I think the American audience sees British stuff as inherently dark. I never thought of eg Elric as Dark Fantasy until now.

I guess a defining aspect of Dark Fantasy seems to be something like: Everybody goes to hell when they die.
God exists and he explicitely HATES you. Good people and goodness exist as a small insignificant candle to make a warehouse of horrific shadows more visible.

Id argue you can have a Dark fantasy world with the grotesque, and also lacking bueuty but a core premise has to be the rejection of a just world, and often the rejection of even a just death.

Karl Edward Wagner coined the term dark fantasy and his Kane books aren't really horror. They are like nihilistic Swords & Sorcery.

Where's the line between Dark Fantasy and Horror Fantasy?

What is Ravenloft? Or Warhammer Fantasy?

the problems it presents for tabletop

Dark fantasy doesn't have to have horror. There's nothing that commands such. Dark fantasy falls in a wide spectrum of mature fantasy, experimental, etc. It's that simple. As long as players know what they're getting into it doesn't present a problem at all.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 08, 2023, 06:03:52 PM
Berserk and Dark Souls not being relentlessly miserable? I guess in the sense that not literally every milisecond is filled with agony.
I know less details of Berserk, but I consider it pretty miserable.

Dark Souls mocks the very nature of existence. Death is coming, it will not be quiet, or pretty, or elegant. It will be painful agonizing and sorrowful. Then on top of that any attempts to avoid death will be met with just more horror and any and all sources of justice or kindness are either fraud or failures. Nothing lasts, but misery and horror will last longer.
Dark Souls is one of the most cruel fictional universes I know of. It makes up new rules to be cruel in new ways. The Universe implodes into a cacaphony of eternal suffering before at the same time burning out into double nothingness.

Re: Dark Souls, I suppose that's a question of interpretation. I've always read the central theme of those games as being the importance of finding meaning in a meaningless universe. Admittedly, that's more true of the first two games than of the third one, which does double down on the futility of the cycles of existence (though it still ends with the possibility of something new). I suppose I was more thinking of the experience of playing them, which is peppered with little victories and moments of peace throughout.

Berserk I think is actually more upbeat than people tend to remember it as. The Black Swordsman and Conviction arcs are super bleak, but not only is Puck present throughout to lighten the mood, but the Golden Age arc is more mixed, and the Millennium Falcon and Fantasia arcs are mostly about Guts reclaiming his humanity and rebuilding his little surrogate family.

Quote from: S'mon on July 08, 2023, 06:37:13 PM
>>"Dark fantasy" is not about zombie plagues, serial killers, or politics (though it may include those things). It's more about strange, magnificent landscapes, mad gods, doomed heroes, and fallen kingdoms.<<

This makes me think Skyrim (and Oblivion) is Dark Fantasy?

Possibly? There's certainly a Moorcockian flavor to the Daedric princes, and some of the aesthetics match up.

Quote from: S'mon on July 08, 2023, 06:37:13 PM
The re-release of Dragon Warriors RPG was Dark Fantasy, where the original game was just regular British Fantasy like '80s Warhammer Battle.  I think the American audience sees British stuff as inherently dark. I never thought of eg Elric as Dark Fantasy until now.

On the flip side, it would never occur to me to apply the Dark Fantasy label to Dragon Warriors. I guess I can see it, since it incorporates some horror elements, but I would call it "folk horror". Again, it's a question of interpretation, but I read the horror elements in DW as being more in the vein of traditional ghost stories than what I associate with "dark fantasy".

the difficulty of classifying the Elric stories is a major part of why I care about this topic to begin with. I've toyed with instead using the term "cosmic fantasy". i.e., fantasy which incorporates sci-fi-esque ideas like deep time, cosmic entities, multiple dimensions, and space/time travel, while not quite crossing over into being science fiction. That might be the better term, as it would fold in both Berserk and arguably the Souls games (particularly Demon's Souls and Bloodborne), as well as things like Planescape and Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. It would also reconcile the fact that my previous definition of Dark Fantasy explicitly excludes certain examples which others consider squarely in the genre (such as A Song of Ice and Fire).

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 08, 2023, 10:22:18 PM
Where's the line between Dark Fantasy and Horror Fantasy?

What is Ravenloft? Or Warhammer Fantasy?

The way I was proposing it, the distinction would be in the scale, and the emotion intended to be invoked by the darker elements. Put in basest terms, horror fantasy is intended to be scary, and dark fantasy is intended to be impressive. Of course it's a fuzzy distinction, and more of a sliding scale than a binary, but I think people know it when they see it.

Ravenloft I would put in the Horror Fantasy basket, possibly in the sub-sub-subgenre of "gothic horror fantasy". Warhammer kind of rides the line. The setting definitely includes the kind of grand cosmic elements I associate with Dark Fantasy, but the day-to-day of the RPG has more of a horror flavor to me. Maybe I'd say the wargame is more Dark Fantasy and the RPG more Horror Fantasy?

Quote from: Ruprecht on July 08, 2023, 06:58:53 PM
nihilistic

This is what defines Dark Fantasy. Life is meaningless and there is no hope.
"strange, magnificent landscapes, mad gods, doomed heroes, and fallen kingdoms" are just the Gonzo dial cranked up higher for the setting.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 08, 2023, 05:30:18 PM
Ehhh.  I'm in a several months old Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign, and so far it's been pretty good.  It does have a bit too much humor baked in to some parts (my goblin rolled "flatulence" as a personality quirk during character creation).  But, overall, it's been pretty good about the balance between despair and defiance of evil.  I actually think the hardest part about "dark" fantasy is not the game system; it's the players.  If players are looking for the right tone, you can get a good horror/dark fantasy vibe from just about anything, from Deadlands to Beyond the Supernatural to SotDL.  It's really a function of whether the players react to the setting and situation in a genre-appropriate manner, or whether they fight the conceits of the setting or adventure.  It doesn't matter what system you use if your players can't (or won't) act, think, or behave appropriate for the genre...

Yeah, SOTDL has always been too silly to be what I'm looking for in Dark Fantasy. I agree with you that player buy-in would be essential to the tone, but I think that player buy-in is much easier to obtain if a game presents itself the right way.

Quote from: Ruprecht on July 08, 2023, 06:58:53 PM
Karl Edward Wagner coined the term dark fantasy and his Kane books aren't really horror. They are like nihilistic Swords & Sorcery.

I did really want to include the Kane books in the way I think about the genre, as they are famously important examples. Sadly, I still haven't been able to find copies of them.

Quote from: Melichor on July 08, 2023, 11:42:21 PM

Quote from: Ruprecht on July 08, 2023, 06:58:53 PM
nihilistic

This is what defines Dark Fantasy. Life is meaningless and there is no hope.
"strange, magnificent landscapes, mad gods, doomed heroes, and fallen kingdoms" are just the Gonzo dial cranked up higher for the setting.

I've always understood Gonzo as being defined by level of ironic self-parody. It's self-consciously goofy, which is not what I think of with Dark Fantasy

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 08, 2023, 04:17:29 PM
Let me say at the outset that I understand genre distinctions can be fuzzy, especially sub-sub-genre distinctions like this one, and I know a lot of people find them pointless. I still consider them worthwhile, because when you're looking for something specific, it helps to have a name to put on it. To paraphrase the YouTuber "Perg Productions": If you tell me a band plays "rock", I have no idea what that means, but if you tell me they play "technical death metal", I now have a pretty clear expectation of what they're going to sound like.

Yeah, but I feel like that gets used more often to dismiss something. I'll listen to almost any genre of music, but as a rule I hate 99% of every genre. I only like the stuff that strikes me as especially fresh, original, inspirational, or in some way impressive. And so when I find a band I like and see someone label it Power Metal, I can't help but think that's a monumentally clueless label applied by a potentially dishonest individual and completely misses entirely what makes the band special and why you might want to give them a listen.

In RPGs, "standard fantasy," "high fantasy," "low fantasy," all seem to be terms relative to some weirdo's D&D campaign that looks nothing like my D&D campaign and I rarely find these useful points of references.

To wit:

QuoteTo bring this back to tabletop games, I don't think I've yet played or read a game that really nails this tone. Old-school D&D is too mundane (and often too gonzo), and new school D&D is too safe and cheerful. I'll concede you could probably homebrew any fantasy game to try and accommodate it, but I can't say I've seen anyone get it right "out of the box". There are a few possible reasons why:

I'd suggest for starters reconsidering old school D&D. Or probably what I should say is Gygaxian D&D, since even "Old-School" is a term that's subject not only to the relativity of some weirdo's idea of D&D, but also relative to some weirdo's idea of what's actually old. Or maybe even a more precise term than Gygaxian D&D might be Gygaxian Fantasy.

Allow me to make the case. I would describe Dangerous Journeys: Mythus as being the logical continuation of AD&D. Like if Gary actually got to be the one to write the 2nd Ed, it would look a lot like DJ. He'd hinted at he was going to go with a percentile skill system. Some of the new classes he leaked in teasers in Dragon Mag appear by the same name in DJ. I think the idea of "reversible" spells was subtly kicked up a notch in DJ. Like Evil Priests could bestow curses and Good Priests could remove them. But Priests of the Ethos of Balance had a spell that you would cast on a cursed individual and it would cause the caster of that curse to themselves become cursed. But what a lot of people don't know is that while Mythus was the only setting published for Dangerous Journeys, it was not the only setting written for DJ. And it wasn't even the first. The original game title was Unhallowed, which was more of a pulp supernatural horror genre. A bit Cthulhu-esque. Perhaps enough so to remind you that Cthulhu mythos was originally included in Deities & Demigods, which was originally envisioned as one of the core set of AD&D books.

And then there's Lejendary Adventure, and with this one, he wasn't going for a continuation at all. It was more like a do-over. And he wanted to get back to simpler rules with fewer moving parts but something that had a strong spirit to the game. And there are hints and notes, most notably in some of the powers characters could use, in some of the monsters, and in some of the modules, that this really is its own unique universe. The power curve was a lot more subdued. And there would be certain oddities that gave the game a darker feel if you actually absorbed those details. One thing I often cite were he boldly returned to older ideas in D&D that were later abandoned was illusions that could hurt you, making it clear and in no uncertain terms that it could cause wounds to spontaneously open "as stigmata do." There's definitely a darkness that runs through the game, and you often find the same roots in pre-1983 D&D.

One place where he didn't return to his roots but rather went in a different direction is, in the Gygaxian Fantasy series, he mentioned he changed his view on, basically what you might call "evil clerics." You could see in Greyhawk you had good gods and evil goods, good clerics and evil clerics. Good gods had good religions and good cleric followers. And Evil had the equal and opposite everything. But he said that in doing research, he couldn't find much historical support for evil religions. Yeah, there were always cults here and there. But they never grew to the same scale, and it seemed the reason for this was because people just would not be dedicated on a large scale to religions aimed at death and disease and their own destruction. And so there wasn't this equal-but-opposite symmetry. Evil cults were often more hidden and secretive. And to me, I think that gives a darker bent to the bad guys. Because they're secretive, they could be anywhere.

QuoteThe "dark fantasy" tone also requires that it be played straight, and ttrpg games have a tendency to rapidly trend towards silliness. Partially, this is just an obvious side effect of sitting at a table with your friends to play a game. Partially, I think it's just too hard to maintain a dark or serious tone over the length of a proper tabletop campaign.  Drama, like horror, tends to work better in shorter-form mediums.

I've seen the meme, where players start out acting like it's Lord of the Rings, but then it ends up being Monty Python. I always thought the secret was to flip the script. The #1 reason I see campaigns turn absurd is the players taking their characters waaaaaaaaaaay too seriously. Any time some touchie-feelie asshole talks about how they like point-buy or beginning with a character concept, I roll my eyes and say, here we go again. I think real, complex, sophisticated characters that feel real need to emerge from interactions. I don't think anyone should begin too attached to their character or taking their character too seriously.

This isn't old man with a pile of crust in his undies talking points about how PCs died 3 times walking uphill in the snow. It's simply if, your character is fresh off the press, no matter how much time you put into it, those details only had the benefit of your brain. It's not going to be a fully formed 3-dimensional character even if you think you wrote a 3-dimensional character. And so if you take too seriously to properly roleplaying your character, the play is going to be too stiff and sooner or later it's going to lead to absurd results.

If you do it the other way, start with a character who can laugh and be laughed at, then let him become forged when the shit hits the fan, hopefully into someone who rises to the occasion, that's how you get an awesome character. It's almost like if you decide at the start of the game that you're going to do a silly game, then it might actually become a pretty heavy game you can take seriously. I thought this is how the Futurama series played out, where it was all goofy antics and hijinks, but by the 4th season, the characters had some real depth to them and it started to seem like a legit sci-fi show with jokes rather than a comedy cartoon with a sci-fi theme.

For what it's worth, the first thing that came to my mind when I hear "dark fantasy" is Gremlins. Obviously the mogwai is a fantasy creature. And although it is ostensibly set in the contemporary real world, the town there is itself a fantasy idyllic type of town (this is emphasized more in Gremlins 2 which is set elsewhere). Obviously the movie has some dark moments. But it's also fun and funny and upbeat at times and really a great family movie. So you might also forget just how dark the movie actually is. In case you need that reminder of the dark tone, here's the one part of the movie that always stood out the most to me:



So I think you can have a range of emotions, tones, and feels in dark fantasy. I think that it's actually required to be such to seem real. Real people have all those facets to them. And the real is important because it's not horrific or dark if bad things or corruption happens to a caricature no one can relate to.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 08, 2023, 11:40:37 PMRe: Dark Souls, I suppose that's a question of interpretation. I've always read the central theme of those games as being the importance of finding meaning in a meaningless universe. Admittedly, that's more true of the first two games than of the third one, which does double down on the futility of the cycles of existence (though it still ends with the possibility of something new). I suppose I was more thinking of the experience of playing them, which is peppered with little victories and moments of peace throughout.

I mean "Meaningless" universe would be charitable way to call the dark souls universe.
"Intrinsictly meant to punish all sentient life" seems more accurate.

Find meaning or not, the universe will bring you back to suffer. If you die, it will bring you back again and undo anything that you did. Found meaning? Cool. Now go insane and kill your children. There is NOTHING the DS universe will not defile. Over and over and over as it brings you back even after you tripple died. Whatever you did will be undone.
The pretty imagery is a distraction for how truly vile and sadistic that universe is (to a masturbatory degree). It's grotesque. A calvinball of suffering that will make up new perversions to ruin anything anyone ever did.
That it doesn't even have the mercy to end with everything dead is more the sick joke rather than an ubeat note.

"Yes everybody will suffer eternal hell for no fault of their own, or for crimes only as bad as not wanting to die, but look - pretty gothic architecture!"

QuoteBerserk I think is actually more upbeat than people tend to remember it as. The Black Swordsman and Conviction arcs are super bleak, but not only is Puck present throughout to lighten the mood, but the Golden Age arc is more mixed, and the Millennium Falcon and Fantasia arcs are mostly about Guts reclaiming his humanity and rebuilding his little surrogate family.

Again thats if your the mercy to be the main protagonist. Everybody else gets to go through hell.
Also Im not sure how cannon it is, and if Im even remembering it correctly, but isn't it a universe that punishes you for thoughtcrime? That the evil god is born of human thought for the crime of wanting an explanation for suffering? Again that was a long time ago and I heard the author kinda maybe stepped away from that explanation.

Also Kingdom death also literally has a diety that makes humans to suffer for kicks. There is no escape. Not even in death. Also there are monsters that will rip your dick off.

I guess your idea of Dark Fantasy Id say are only "pretty" if you put absolutely no thought into how everybody else is suffering and the meaningless of even trying to find meaning in a world that actively hates you, and will personally smash any meaning you find.

I've always included the Dark Fantasy aspect of old school Warhammer when running WFRP. If the Warhammer world is ice cream, it has dark fantasy swirled through it, top to bottom. It should also have a certain grimy brutality.

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Greetings!

Dark Fantasy is an interesting genre. I tend to think Dark Fantasy relies more upon art, music, and elements of gritty, mature, heroic realism, mixed with the nihilistic. There are victories, but always at a cost. Elements of horror, savagery, and degenerate aspects are encountered throughout. I would also agree that it is often Doom-laden and Nihilistic—but it does not require that. The Warhammer Novels, for example. The protagonists usually win—whatever they are trying to do—but unlike Heroic Fantasy, there are always costs, and typically some severe casualties along the journey. Dark Fantasy is very different in theme and tone from Heroic Fantasy. The Kane books are an excellent example, of course.

I also tend to think that many interpretations of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Historic Fantasy books such as by Jack Whyte, and Bernhard Cornwell, Dark Fantasy is something you can definitely see in literature, art, and perhaps music, but somewhat less so as distinguishable a *game genre* Having said that, I generally view Dark Fantasy gaming as a genre or sub-genre that is much like standard fantasy gaming, but more adult-themed, with darker themes and atmosphere. The themes can be heroic and meaningful, but it is not especially geared towards children, or happy, neat endings, or even nice, happy journeys. The process and atmosphere are very different from standard fantasy, or Heroic fantasy. Dark Fantasy embraces darker themes and grim topics, from warfare, torture, rape, insanity, sex, horrifying abuse, dysfunctional relationships, cruelty, madness, to more complex emotional and spiritual elements of hatred, jealousy, envy, spite, vengeance, damnation, as well as redemption and hope. Some pretty heavy stuff, as I mentioned, more geared for adults.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK