A Little Less Grim, A Little Less Dark

A Return to Hope in Fantasy

I get it and to some degree, I’m a fan of it too. I think that if you’re an OSR person you kinda have to be: Grimdark is pretty cool. There is something appealing about a harsh fantasy setting where only the strong survive. Most RPGs are, at heart, power fantasies so it stands to reason that by creating a setting where success and even survival are not forgone conclusions that PCs in such games would fulfill that power fantasy even more than in more “standard” and “traditional” roleplaying games. I mean, after all, sure it’s cool to defeat a dragon in the Forgotten Realms - but if you overthrow a Sorcerer-King in Dark Sun then that’s an accomplishment.

All that is to say I’m not trying to shit on grim, gritty, brutal roleplaying games nor am I trying to begrudge those who prefer them. They’re clearly popular and understandably so. Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Mork Borg, Pirate Borg, Call of Cthulhu, and Shadowdark are testaments to its success and legitimacy. Brutal fantasy has a place at the table.

That being said, can we have a little hope now and again? I’m tired of grim, gritty, brutal, bloody, and hopeless fantasy. The world is dark enough, grim enough, bloody enough. I don’t need hopelessness during my fantasy - I’ve got enough of it every time I turn on the TV or open a web browser, thank you very much.

Maybe its the tint of nostalgia glasses, but I feel like fantasy used to have a lot of hope. I was a fan of the Drizzt Do’Urden books as a teenager and went I revisited the first book in that series (The Crystal Shard) a few years ago I was shocked to find Drizzt wasn’t the perpetually angsty uber-swordsman I recalled. He was a jovial swashbuckler on a grand adventure. Luke Skywalker when from iconic hero of a generation whose hope and compassion were so fundamental to his being that he believed the most evil man in the galaxy could be redeemed to a bitter, isolated hermit who believed every dream he ever had should die. Even Superman himself, literal symbol of hope on his chest, became an angst-ridden alien hated by the world and living in a perpetual state of self-doubt and pessimism.

So, I guess it only makes sense that given these trends in comics, movies, and gaming, that grimdark would become ascendant. And it’s true. We do live in dark times. Divisive times. Fearful times. But I think that’s all the more reason to lean into hope and optimism and make them an explicit part of the games we play and how we spend our leisure time.

The world’s not all doom and gloom.
We’re not all screwed.
The black pill is a lie.

So, please, have a little hope. Just a little. You don’t have to think everything is going to turn into sunshine and rainbows, but try to think how you can make tomorrow a bit better for the people you care about. You have that power. It might be in a cup of coffee you bring a tired spouse. A compliment you offer a stranger. Those things can make all the difference, and in roleplaying games - in power fantasies - we have the power to make deep, meaningful change in a fantasy world with the swing of a sword and the casting of a spell. For me, it’s not just that you survive a grim, brutal world - it’s that you actively choose to make it a little less grim, a little less brutal.

Sometimes, we just need to go out of our way to sit down with few good friends, a fist full of dice, and a great game to remind us how to do that.