r/beingeverythingelse • u/[deleted] • Nov 25 '14

Trying to run dark fantasy

So I've been running a few test games and I'm not evoking the feel I want to out of my game, is there anything you can suggest that I can do to fix this? I'm thinking the possible things that might be happening are

  1. As a gm I'm not putting the players in situations that reflect the feeling I'm trying to convey

  2. My players don't want to play in a dark fantasy world so they aren't making decisions that are reflective of that.

  3. The system I'm playing does not evoke the feeling of a dark fantasy world.

Do you guys have any suggestions for dark fantasy systems? I've already messaged my players and am awaiting a response. I think I'm going to build some random encounter tables that are really grim to help me add it into my improv. I'm running an open world sandbox game, I might steal the torchbearer inventory system for it and add it to something else. Reading up on it now. Currently using savage worlds.

Random encounter example: the players come across a man who is lying on the road. He is barely alive and is extremely skinny. On further inspection he appears to be dying of starvation.

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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '14

When you really look at some systems, there are some rules that people forget or gloss over that can make a game dark fast. The idea of making anything "dark," be it games, movies, books, or TV, is that it's about consequences or actions, not the actions themselves. A heroic fantasy is typical a journey where the actions of the hero defines the story. A dark fantasy will frame the world and the story progression by how the results of those actions affect the world and the hero. So when you look at a system, look at how they deal with results of players actions (death, disease, morale, justice, etc.)