Why are games getting so dark and negative?  Why are so many players looking to play evil, or at least amoral, characters?  Why so much post-apocalyptic, survivalist mayhem?  Even in superhero games, the bastion of unrealistic, but fun, heroic, moral action, violence and amoral actions seem to be winning out overall.

My hypothesis is that the world has gotten darker, people don't have much hope in the current economic situation, people are angry, dark games seem more realistic, and violent and evil characters are a way to strike out, get out some of that rage against reality.  I imagine people thinking, "'Goody-two-shoes' doesn't work in the real world, so why should it in fantasy games?" 

Am I the only one who uses gaming to escape, to imagine a BETTER world?  Am I the only one who remembers days of gaming with friends, playing uber-heroic characters, rescuing the innocent, not caring about the rewards, fighting against evil even when evil NPC's are the ones making the laws and providing the rewards, dealing with difficult moral choices and choosing to do the right things?  Am I the only one left who wants roleplaying to be a fun, pleasant experience, a way to escape the dark, real world and play a real hero, to save the day and make the world a better place?

I don't want to believe this, I had many great years of gaming, but with my experiences of the past few years, I'm seriously thinking of abandoning the hobby.  The real world is hard enough, I don't need gaming to be a major downer.

What do you think?

I can only speak for myself, but I think you forget the point of role playing. To play a role that is unlike yourself.

So that being said, while I enjoy my light hearted supers games, sometimes I want to explore teh darker side of human nature, as it's not something I do in my real life. It's a role I can step into, and then back out of.

In fact, I not only think it is ok, but I also think it's a healthy way to act out in a safe enviroment.

Well, I can't speak for others but the campaigns I've run tend to portary the PC's as being on the "good" side. Of course they have their moments, like when slitting a throat seems like a good idea at the moment (usually in retaliation/revenge) but for the most part I try to orient them towards "doing the right thing".

"My hypothesis is that the world has gotten darker, people don't have much hope in the current economic situation, people are angry, dark games seem more realistic, and violent and evil characters are a way to strike out, get out some of that rage against reality."

Also, I fear you are right here Jon. All pop culture reflects the times that you live in. I have had this same basic discussion with old school music lovers. I ran retail record stores from age 18-27 and you would have to be unconcious not to notice the turn of  darker tones in popular music. Like you stated so well above, the frustration of this meaner, darker world reflects in our pop culture and entertainment. It was frustrating, but it made sense.

That all being said, I am mainly playing devil advocate, as I am essentually usually of the same mind set. I love the golden age heroes and teh campiness of teh black and white world. So, what you should do if you mainly want to play that type of game, is find one where it is explicit that that is the tone of the game. 

I do plan on eventually doing an "Invaders" style game, and you would be more than welcome to join and play.

Can't get much more black and white than good guys vs nazis.

I'm not necessarily looking for black and white, though that can be fun too.  I'm more looking for a world of all colors, but slanted towards the brighter ones rather than the duller, dimmer ones.  Remember the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, where all the colors were brighter, somehow more colorful than real life?  Something like an anti-World of Darkness - instead of darker, brighter than the real world.

I despise the darker direction many games have taken over the course of the hobby. While I understand the stand some make about role playing being a medium to express things unlike yourself, I make the same point that by doing the great things, the good things, playing awesome characters who do the right thing all the time we ARE playing unlike ourselves. I certainly don't go storming the White House when I think the President is corrupt, so I know that playing the character who does go take the King on is playing unlike myself. 

Personally I think that if we're going to put some of the blame on the times then I think we should fight even harder to live above and beyond that in our fantasy so that we can let that counter the influences we're facing. Heroism's synonyms are Gallantry, Bravery, and Valor. These are ideals of Good not of dark and gritty. While I think they can exist in a dark setting certainly and will never argue they can't, I do think they are skewed by a darker setting. If we put them into something better than what we're seeing around us then we can dwell or meditate on those better things and they can help us combat some of the more depressing moments in real life. 

But all of this is just my stand on it. /

The tone of a game can be implied by the system, setting, or premise, but I find that the real deciding factor is the group. They determine what if any consequences there are for good or bad deeds, how funny/wrong/acceptable certain behavior is in general, and how much of an understanding there is or needs to be to achieve a certain tone. One group's superhero game might be slightly lighter than a Clive Barker story while another's will feel like pure saccharine - even with the same system or premise. 

I try to be fairly upfront and direct as a GM about what I'm cool or uncool with, but as a player I'm much more lax. I think all groups would benefit from some pre-game discussion among all parties so you gauge what is wanted/expected on all sides. It doesn't need to be as formal or rigid as a questionnaire, but being able to put some things out there can help eventual discussions about the moral clairity and "rightness" of actions and consequences in game. A BIG key is knowing not to confuse In Character behavior with Out of Character problems. 

Great points Mike, and good advice on the pre-game discussions.

I've got two players who throw a fit during any pregame discussion if I do not allow them to play whatever they want to play because anything else is stifiling their roleplaying (what garbage) 

But otherwise good points both, and yeah I generally agree that pre game talk is a good way to motivate the direction of the game.

Here's my two cents:

i) It is now a full decade since the 3rd edition of D&D came out with its subsequent explosion of new young players coming into the hobby, so try picturing a generous number of 25+ year olds who have had a full decade to cut their teeth in the hobby, raised on precepts of Slay the monster/Get the treasure/Get a better weapon/Repeat. Factor in that most sources of fantasy inspiration of the 21st century feature gratuitous amounts of blood, sex, more blood, epic slow motion and cool soundtrack by "The Whatevers" and you have a few generations of players indocrinated in a very different sort of "fantasy adventure" than previous generations were. Most players alive don't know names like DiTerlizzi or Brom (who were responsible for Ad&d 2nd edition's Planescape and Dark Sun art). This is no way a diss on said players, it's just fact.

ii) Darkly-themed games have been coming out for decades, from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and TSR's (ok,not so dark) Gamma World to White-Wolf's menagerie of "monster-of-the-week-as-a-PC" games and many other (mostly indie) games like Kult or Unknown Armies. There are just too many games that feature this "dark seductive quality" or whatever you want to call it. And the fact is, once you start going darker, it's not easy to "go lighter" because it just seems childish sometimes, especially if you can't find a solid, mature way to justify doing so. Respectively, I myself have found very few games that accomodate a lighter, brighter, even fairy tale-like atmosphere in a convincing and compelling game. In fact, the only examples that come to mind are Green Ronin's Blue Rose (which I think was the flagship for their True20 line), Nobilis (diceless indie game where you play as agents of the gods) and ironically enough, White Wolf's Changeling: the Dreaming (whose next incarnation was a return to darker places, of course).

Naturally, all previous arguments presented are solid, but hey, I just had to rant. :p

Well, when it comes to such things, there is truely no right and wrong, it is akin to the arguments of politics and religion, it is belief, perspective, a desire to see and do what you feel will be most suited to your current needs for entertainment.

That aside, I've had similiar issues as of late as the starter to this thread. My friends and I began development on a LARP game. We've opened this development process to the public, and many of our friends have come to get involved. One group of people had a strong desire to allow a full array of undead to be PCable, while another did not desire to see any PCs begin game as undead.  This included, mummy, lich, ghost, vampire, etc etc. Those who opposed felt this would make the setting too dark over all, the other felt that if PCs could not do as they liked, than their RP was stiffled and any argument to the contrary was false. I personally offered the compramise of perhaps designing, or choosing one or two classical undead to create into something PC worthy. Little seemed to be hardly enough.

This problem is a little different, we don't want to pigon hold everyone into playing good alignment characters within the game world, but we still want to preserve some sense of boundries.

I think darker games are not a problem, but playing non-heroic characters is. I have had a few gaming sessions where the mayority of people wanted absolutly no paladins. That game almost exploded in my face and i was forced to choose sides so to speak.

I think that if you put things in perspective and start about what is evil and what is good there is a lot of differentiation possible. As i run a game i like to create story turning dilemma's in such a way that good people need to do bad things or vice versa or if i can manage i love to mess things up: let a good guy do the right thing and free the evil warlord to save a few people. If he does willingly he will feel sorry for his actions when he finds out that the warlord kills a city just because he can.

I'm still having trouble with people who want to play an evil character. I rather have an evil race character who wants to hurt its own people so bad he turns to good just to... well it worked. (had one Male Drow Noble Rogue in one of my good guys)

I still think its a game about heroes in a world that probably is getting evil if they don't fix it. I never liked the opposite style to play. I still have problems with what evil should be. Like: i'm evil and i like to kill... yet... i need my evil friends to overome the enemy. but i would be more evil itf i kill my nearest friends... if i look at it that way i can easily get lost. Why would an evil henchman want to "please" his master? it sounds to me that he isn't really evil. he does as told. damn.. now i'm lost again ;)

Does it matter? Can't you just let the players play what they want to play?

Alex, when it comes right down to it, everyone can play whatever they want. I don't think that is the current discussion. It's more about the fact that veteran RPGers seem to see a sea change in the way games and players have taken a darker turn. While they may see it as a negative, it doesn't mean it is. This is mainly a discussion on opinions, and therefor can be taken with a grain of salt.

Tolly - while of course all discussions are opinions, I opened this topic to discuss how negative games have been becoming, darker, with more evil behavior from PC's in all settings.

Different people game for different reasons.  While you said, "I can only speak for myself, but I think you forget the point of role playing. To play a role that is unlike yourself.", that isn't the point of roleplaying for everyone.  For me, the main point of roleplaying is escaping into a better, more fantastic world than reality, playing a hero that changes the world for the better with a band of heroic fellow heroes (with out-of-character fun socializing, drinking Dew and eating pizza being a close second! :) Many of the characters I play actually have similar personalities to mine (as opposed to a role unlike myself), though with far greater power and ability to improve their world.

Paul - I love playing redeemed villains, especially 'monster races'.  Cool abilities, and shows that even one raised by evil can make the right choices to become good.  I also like moral dilemmas - one of my favorite D&D 2nd Edition sessions was one where brainwashed children were ambushing the party with heavy crossbows - my paladin and a fighter had words when the fighter reflexively killed the first kid in self-defense.  In another session, a cleric stated that with a gnome librarian we'd been told had turned bad, "I subdue him with my maul."  More major paladin issues.  But more and more lately, PC's seem to be choosing the evil path when a dilemma comes up rather than the more difficult good path, or not even seeing a dilemma and immediately doing the evil, selfish thing.

Neville - Players are seeing PC's doing good things as being "childish"?  And darker games, selfish and evil behavior by PC's, etc. are seen as less childish?  I'm not trying to be a smartass here - is that really the way things are often viewed by gamers now?

Mike - yeah, I'm actually all for doing group character creation, so the PC's all make sense with each other, have reasons to stay together and help each other other than a glowing 'PC' symbol above their heads, and don't have to do the usual meet in a tavern.  Less shocks later too, if one of the PC's is an uncontrolled psychotic pyromaniac.

Ajay - I agree.

I understand that different people want to roleplay different things for different reasons, I'm just really disturbed by how often lately I'm seeing PC's doing evil things, and how rarely they make tough decisions to do good things.  It seems like a general trend away from playing admirable heroes and towards playing antisocial villains.  Years ago, we gamers had to deal with the public thinking that D&D encouraged things like demon worship - now we have player characters that wouldn't hesitate to do so for the right incentives.

In a LARP, the dynamic is a bit more complicated, sadly. Not sure if you have any experience with larger LARP games, or LARP at all. You can't really get all the PCs, to have that sort of organized mentality of creating characters together, new ones show up all the time, there is usually around 25-30 PCs at the events I play, and usually they are all in groups of 5, or fewer. Those individual groups usually get together and develope their concepts, or, meet in the tavern, both ways of it go down.  But still from a plot perspective.. you want to have some degree of boundries on what the PCs represent, and you still approve character backstories and everything. You just have to make sure those characters fit the world dynamic, and the dynamic of what PCs can be. Generally alignment is mroe subjective in fantasy LARPs then in most fantasy settings, because people are RPing in 'first person' as opposed to 3rd. Most people can't RP straight evil in first person, and more so, you see the most commona rray of characters more as, selfish treasure hunters, competing with the other adventurers to get the loot, THEN kill the bad guy haha.

But when it comes to undead, the majority of the player base did seem to feel, that these should be creatures of the most typical strict kind of evil. Which makes it very difficult to let them be PC 'races'

I agree that in the average party there are sometimes people that seem to search to offend, be evil or try to play in character (as they say) and try to mess up things.  I have been in several (mostly PbP)games with those problems. If players start to do stupid things like sleeping on a grave and use the gravestone as pillow i'm loosing interest quickly mostly resulting in me dropping out.

perhaps this about my experiences with players and pre-game discussions is a little elaborate (hehe)
As DM i have had the luck to play with experienced (much more experience then i have) players who (honored me with) playing my games.

Kingmaker
I had the pleasure of a party of real life players at the table that where very well prepared and did things i never thought of. Preparing for a game with them was a day work and i loved it. Although they had played for several years they surely didn't go down the evil path. Although the northern warrior certainly stayed in character and tortured the character to get his info. The discussion about his reasoning and morality was actually fun and took place outside the game itself. (except for me asking if his character would like to do so)

Carrion Crown
In another game i had the battle when the group created the characters. The theme of the game is placed in a land with vampires and such. So my players wanted to play the Damphir. I only allowed the most experienced player to play this race. But a new player added later to the group wanted suddenly to play a paladin. This created a discussion that i only could end by dissalowing the paladin. Following that the new player left. (the damphir player is someone i have played for two years with and the new player started to flame about how long he was DM'ing and such, not knowing that the Damphir player is a publisher and writer for games with a long time experience.) Now experience is fine, but not important to play in my games. Shouting how much experience you have and flame is. After the withdrawing action of the new player (sadly, he could easily create another character that would fit more to the already existing group and show his maturity, yet he did not)

Amore Regge Sensa Legge
This was a game completely created by myself and it starts off with character building as you like it. The story/plot is unknown. A concept that puzzled even the long time damphir player. :-))
The players created characters to their own heart not knowing what the party would be like. I allowed almost everything. I think it is (or was) the most balanced party i have had. This was also the game that i had a request to play a noble drow. His player was unknown to me so i took some risk, but he was very serious with his character. He played it like a pro. Dark and gloomy. Real fun. One femal player added the morale to the group, asking a sort-of-lone-ranger why he was smoking tobacco. It smelled bad she said ;) perhaps she could find an alternative.

I had to drop all those games... including the ones i was playing in. Sadly, due to personal reasons. Every day playing in the PbP to write compelling replies and such took too me much time. I needed to repack myself to get a focus on finding a job instead of many hours of writing.

Now i'm looking to use a VTT to play on a regular base to get back into the game and learn to use the VTT, hoping to run a game of my own making in the future. Hopefully with fun players ofcourse :)))

" While you said, "I can only speak for myself, but I think you forget the point of role playing. To play a role that is unlike yourself.", that isn't the point of roleplaying for everyone. For me, the main point of roleplaying is escaping into a better, more fantastic world than reality, playing a hero that changes the world for the better with a band of heroic fellow heroes"

Well in your own words, "I'm not trying to be a smartass here, but" unless you know something I don't about how to get superpowers, I doubt you have a real portal to a better more fantastic world where you are a hero changing the world for the better.

I've actually been defending your right of expression, even though I feel you are a bit slanted on the subject in your own way.

In truth, I have seen what you deem as an "evil PC" in games I have been in, that you quit.

 While I respected your decision to leave(who wants a player to stay in a game they don't like? Not me.), I do not agree that the PC's behavior was even remotely "evil".

The real bottom line is that this is everyone's hobby, and we do it to enjoy ourselves. It's our own responsibility to find what is fun for us. In RPGs, since it is a medium where every participant affects the way the story and gameplay goes, it is alkways a good idea to discuss characters and motivations before gametime. Beyond that, no player should be telling another player what to do, say, or how to enjoy themselves.

If there is a problem between players, all involved should be mature enough to communicate between parties and come to an understanding before emotions get overblown. Let the GM facilitate this, as they are there to both guide the story, and to moderate between parties.