As the title says, are there certain system mechanics that make a Fantasy RPG feel grim, dark, or "low fantasy" to you? Or is it all about what you put in or leave out of the setting?

Example: Are any of the following must haves for you to make your Fantasy RPG feel perilous and more dangerous?
*critical hit charts
*wound charts
*slower health recovery/ longer healing times

Or do you handle it more by removing resurrection spells from you campaign world or eliminating most magical healing all together? Again, just examples

I would like to hear your thoughts on what you look for in a gritty FRPG (if you like that style at all).

For the record as a frame of reference, I have never played WHFRPG (though I want to pick it up) but my favorite flavor of D&D tends to be Dungeon Crawl Classic.

I think all of those ideas you posted lead to a game feeling more grim and gritty.  One of the most grim games that I've ever played happens to be Legend of the Five Rings: two swipes of a katana by a reasonably skilled bushi and you're done (or one iaijutsu strike by a skilled iaijutsu master from the Daidoji Clan.)

Quote from: ronwisegamgee;1074257I think all of those ideas you posted lead to a game feeling more grim and gritty.  

Yes.

I would certainly say you can't have a "gritty" game with easily available resurrection magic that does not have major side effects, unless it is routinely negated by the bad guys maybe, or (for grimdark a la The Matrix & Battlestar Galactica) only the bad guys can resurrect.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1074255For the record as a frame of reference, I have never played WHFRPG

Fix that. Warhammer Fantasy 1e is an awesome game, complete in one book.

If you like grimdark fantasy, also consider Stormbringer. Preferably the 3rd edition. It's hardcore grimdark, even darker than Moorcock's writings and tremendously fun. All magic is demonic...

Of course, DCC is the current king of grimdark.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1074288Fix that. Warhammer Fantasy 1e is an awesome game, complete in one book.

I second that. Depending on your flavor of grimness, I'd also look at Hârnmaster's wound infection rules.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1074288Fix that. Warhammer Fantasy 1e is an awesome game, complete in one book.

If you like grimdark fantasy, also consider Stormbringer. Preferably the 3rd edition. It's hardcore grimdark, even darker than Moorcock's writings and tremendously fun. All magic is demonic...

Of course, DCC is the current king of grimdark.

Thank you  for the recommendations. I plan to pick up a copy WHFRPG 1st edition on Ebay and will put Stormbringer on the shopping list as well.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1074297I second that. Depending on your flavor of grimness, I'd also look at Hârnmaster's wound infection rules.

Thank you, I will look at that as well. Are there different editions of Harnmaster or a certain one I should be looking at?

Quote from: S'mon;1074277Yes.

I would certainly say you can't have a "gritty" game with easily available resurrection magic that does not have major side effects, unless it is routinely negated by the bad guys maybe, or (for grimdark a la The Matrix & Battlestar Galactica) only the bad guys can resurrect.

Interesting, I had not approached it from that point of view and I am old school Battlestar Galactica fan. But you are right, this is the mechanism behind zombie apocalypse movies. The enemy, the zombies, have an ever growing pool of recruits and the living just keep supplying the enemy with recruits simply by dropping dead. A giant exponential spiral down the drain.... very nice and dark.

I don't usually get to play outside the fantasy sand box but the Matrix would make a great gritty campaign I would enjoy playing.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1074327Thank you, I will look at that as well. Are there different editions of Harnmaster or a certain one I should be looking at?

The editions are not too different. But consider if you really want to make players possibly lose a character to wound infection.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1074328Interesting, I had not approached it from that point of view and I am old school Battlestar Galactica fan. But you are right, this is the mechanism behind zombie apocalypse movies. The enemy, the zombies, have an ever growing pool of recruits and the living just keep supplying the enemy with recruits simply by dropping dead. A giant exponential spiral down the drain.... very nice and dark.

I played a campaign in the uber-Grimdark Midnight setting, where only Izrador God of Evil has power; the other gods are 'locked out'. So the only Clerics serve the Shadow - the bad guys can get rezzed but the PCs can't.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1074255As the title says, are there certain system mechanics that make a Fantasy RPG feel grim, dark, or "low fantasy" to you? Or is it all about what you put in or leave out of the setting?

Example: Are any of the following must haves for you to make your Fantasy RPG feel perilous and more dangerous?
*critical hit charts
*wound charts
*slower health recovery/ longer healing times

Or do you handle it more by removing resurrection spells from you campaign world or eliminating most magical healing all together? Again, just examples

I would like to hear your thoughts on what you look for in a gritty FRPG (if you like that style at all).

For the record as a frame of reference, I have never played WHFRPG (though I want to pick it up) but my favorite flavor of D&D tends to be Dungeon Crawl Classic.

IMO realistic, gritty, dark, and low fantasy are different things, I'd say.

A "gritty" RPG should have some lasting wounds IMO, and possibly death should happen somewhat frequently.

I've made a list about why I call my game "dark fantasy" here, but I don't think it is nor particularly gritty (for example, I don't think dark fantasy heroes should be killed by house cats).

D&D 5e is both gritty at lower levels and high fantasy.

For low fantasy gaming try, well, Low Fantasy Gaming.

Using Gurps for any fantasy setting can be petty grim and pretty dark.  I think the one thing that can make a fantasy setting really dark are rules for magic that make it a bit unreliable and dangerous to the caster in the event of a big failure.  I thought the Conan d20 rpg did about as well as possible in making D20 dark and dangerous with its sorcery rules and massive damage saves.  Gurps, Stormbringer, and WHFRPG are good at also making a fight you survive leave a mark in the form of a lost limb, eye, etc.  I think DCC is dark and grim as well, both regarding use of magic and the consequences of a fight.

A "perilous" game is one where PCs are expected to die, not necessarily from stupidity but out of randomness.

The badness in this becomes apparent when the game uses a convoluted, drawn-out chargen system to get up and running. This is something WHFRP and WH40KRPG (future ref: WHRPG) are most certainly guilty of. You may well spends upwards of 2hrs creating a character if your group are brand new to the system.And no sooner are you dropped into the game does your character die from a shoota' slug that just so happened to travel in the direction of the landing bay of the aircraft your character was descending from.

(That is something that really happened to another PC in the first game of Only War I played in. I found out the GM was running the premade scenario in the book only later when I started GM'ing myself -- the scenario encourages this type of gameplay from the start)

To be clear, for me this is very bad game design.

Other things which can render the flavor of a grim, dark, perilous world:

As stated previously by other posters, magic systems which are just as dangerous to the caster and their allies as they can be towards the caster's foes. This can be made more rewarding if the mechanics seek to "tame" the use of magic for seasoned, high-level casters (but this is not necessarily the case in WHRPG). Or such magic systems can be doubled-down and take on the function of explosive weapons a-la the video game series Worms. I personally don't think this is fun and the general infamy around WHRPG's magic systems bears this out as many group discourage or outright ban casters, especially if played by new players. That said, there's obviously a market for it.

Weapons generally do an insane amount of damage well out of proportion to the capacity of characters to be able to take that punishment OR their ability to direct it at other. Using bolters or plasma guns in WHRPG usually kills most low-mid level characters in one, maybe two hits. However, most characters are incapable of reliably hitting their targets for a long time due to how long it takes achieve simple competence. This is somewhat grim but is really more perilous in practice.

Corruption is certainly dark and can be potentially grim too. It ensures there are consequences for unethical or generally fucked-up behavior. In the first session I ever ran of Only War, a PC Sergeant brutally murdered a private as the taint of Chaos was beginning to seriously impact his senses and personality. The player had taken advantage of custom rules for chargen I provided (XP for Corruption Points) up to the max level which meant he had -- if I remember right -- had 33CP and a Mutation. He made a PC that was already a meanie and so I had him roll to resist rage, he failed and I judged he killed the NPC in a haze of red. It was swept under the rug (because the Squad was behind enemy lines) but it was stain on the PC forever after.

(OOC, the player was pissed and he made it known in the moment. The other players quickly told him to shut the fuck up and roll with it because that is how PrometheanVigil runs games and we're here because he doesn't let you get away with having fucked-up characters with no consequences. Same player actually stayed for another couple session before receiving a shift change at his job so we never really got to explore the character after the Squad got back to their FOB, which was a shame).

Quote from: S'mon;1074409I played a campaign in the uber-Grimdark Midnight setting, where only Izrador God of Evil has power; the other gods are 'locked out'. So the only Clerics serve the Shadow - the bad guys can get rezzed but the PCs can't.

I really need to host a game of this. Is it really as good as its supposed to be?

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1074255For the record as a frame of reference, I have never played WHFRPG (though I want to pick it up) but my favorite flavor of D&D tends to be Dungeon Crawl Classic.

Played it. You're not missing too much. I'd recommend Only War (or possibly Black Crusade) over WHFRPG, if for nothing else than a (moderately) more streamlined and (slightly) less fiddly system. I say this having both GM'd and played Only War and having played in others' WHRPG games (incl. 2nd ed WHFRPG).  The only reason you'd go for WHFRPG over WH40KRPG is because the former uses more fluid careers instead of the latter's implementation which is closer to traditional classes. Oh, and Fantasy Warhammer -- that's it, really (hah hah).

You would be much better off doing Shadow of the Demon Lord. I am hugely biased in favor of it because it is awesome and takes a new-school design approach but matey, is it ever good to run! See above for my take on "perilous" games. This is not that but it is most certainly grim (and dark with the default setting) but still rewards smart players.

Quote from: oggsmash;1074480Using Gurps for any fantasy setting can be petty grim and pretty dark.  I think the one thing that can make a fantasy setting really dark are rules for magic that make it a bit unreliable and dangerous to the caster in the event of a big failure.
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Gurps, Stormbringer, and WHFRPG are good at also making a fight you survive leave a mark in the form of a lost limb, eye, etc.

I agree with you on magic -- see above.

I am designing an alternate damage system to the one in my own system which includes an optional sub-system for decapitations. It's pretty much done and it's looking pretty hardcore -- can't wait to playtest it down the line!

You can have a grim setting easily.  Replace HP with Health and Sanity at 100%.  If either falls to 0% your character is dead.  That isn't important.

What is important is that if either suffer damage roll percentage dice.  If roll exceeds past the current amount roll mortality die.

Mortality die is just a d20.  Natural one instant death.  Two to three random limb loss.  Four to seven is attribute point is loss.  Eight to fourteen is suffer 1d4 damage.  Fifteen to seventeen is nohing.  Eighteen to nineteen is recover 1d2 health.  Natural twenty is "just a scratch" which you recover 1d4 health.

Sanity works the same way, but with trauma instead of limb loss.  Death would be your sanity is completely gone and your acting out your basic animal instincts.  Usually panicking in fear.

What do you guys think?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1074901I really need to host a game of this. Is it really as good as its supposed to be?

It certainly made an impression on me!

I'd say the 3e rules encouraged too much random PC death, much like your criticism of WHFRP. Plus my German female ex-bodyguard GM was uber-Grimdark herself (it was 2004 & at the time Blackwater was trying to recruit her for the Iraq occupation), and she made the setting even more lethal than baseline, eg she ignored the 'basic orc' stats (which are scary enough to a poor 3e Fighter like my PC), and made every orc an elite Fighter-2. Whereas the interesting thing about the setting was the moral & psychological implications of a 'world of evil', not just the survival horror.

I would say it would work well converted to 5e D&D though, where insta-death of mid-level PCs is very rare. Or you could convert to a non-D&D system; my GM eventually went over to using HeroQuest, which was ok but lost a lot of the grittiness. Then we had a falling out - GM fancied me, and I wouldn't cheat on my then-wife - so I left the group which I believe then fell apart.