PART III: THEMES

#9: GRIEF.

Grief. Player and Non-Player Characters will sometimes end up distressed, disfigured, deranged, or dying. Where you find suffering, you find grief. Logically, in order to drive home a harrowing loss, you as a DM have to have built up an emotional connection beforehand. A gradual tension toward death with a partially-bonded character? That can work. A sudden death with a well-bonded character? That can work too. But you can’t do a sudden death for a partially-bonded character. Players just won’t care. Gritty doesn’t mean constant deaths the audience view as pointless, no, it means tragedy.

But how do you do it? To work tragedy properly into a gritty setting, you need some ingredients. First you need the intimate setup: bonding and camaraderie in tender moments and places. Have players detail backstory connections to NPCs, have their Downtime activities mention specific named individuals and the antics that arise from them. Then you need the deathly delivery: some passion, some intensity, that fatal flaw or reversal of fortune ending in loss. Ideally, this arises naturally from player choices and agency, so it feels meaningful. And if the players didn’t see the death directly, make extra space for players to speculate and to react. Maybe even let them track down the body for a proper burial. Gritty realism indeed.



Finally, you need to drive home the grief with mourning, which gives catharsis. In D&D 5e, the DM can use Short Rests and Long Rests to prompt players’ campfire stories of memories of the wounded or deceased. You can have Downtime with funerals, memorials, even the erecting of a statue. Give the players some framing then let them describe their involvement. And other NPCs should mourn too, let the players sympathize with them. As a matter of fact, keepsake items extend this over time.

Looking back to our settings, gothic stories and ghost stories show a natural fit for grappling with grief, as do tales of the undead, as they all directly relate to death. Dieselpunk has a harder time: Fallout and BioShock often give somewhat heavyhanded exposition, whereas Mad Max does it well by using Max’s visions to accentuate grief. And that works for Grimdark too. As a DM, don’t fear giving a player a vision or a dream to explore grief, it can really deepen things.



D&D 5e Monster Ideas: Banshee, Intellect Devourer, Revenant, Sorrowsworn3.

#10: GLOOM.

Gritty games can get downright grim. They do not shy away from doom and gloom. Scarcity. Precarity. Vulnerability. All of these can build gloom. But you shouldn’t always go beyond the Despair Event Horizon into pure hopelessness the way Cosmic Horror does either. You have to find a balance. Villains track down heroes and harm innocents. Monsters can eat characters. Brutal. But the players’ defeat should never come guaranteed; without struggle, the game becomes pointless. Both nonsensical death and destruction for their own sake, and overabundant resurrection magic, can trivialize the drama a gritty game requires. Your campaign will feel more gritty with a Dark Souls style risky resurrection than with “Rocks fall, everybody dies”, or comic book Lazarus Pits. For this reason, I recommend using Matt Mercer’s Special Resurrection Rule.



Ready to level up your roleplaying? One of the best ways to promote roleplaying with gloom involves trauma, coping mechanisms, and vices. You can use the Afflictions module in the Darker Dungeons guide, but I would also suggest promoting freeform roleplaying around PCs dealing with addiction, escapism, irritability, obsession, pessimism, the kind of things that can build Character Arcs. And remember, gloom means little without a glimmer of hope.

D&D 5e Monster Ideas: Aboleth, Gibbering Mouther, Intellect Devourer, Mind Flayer, Morkoth2, Neogi2, Oblex3, Star Spawn3.

#11: GUTS.

Guts. No, not those guts. Courage! Nerve! A must-have for gritty gaming. You can give out Inspiration to players when their characters struggle with or overcome trauma, when they push headlong into danger, when they rally after a near-defeat. You can give temporary virtue boons by drawing upon the mechanics of spells and abilities like Virtue, Protection From Evil and Good, Bardic Inspiration, Guidance, or Expeditious Retreat. Not only that, but you can use Warhammer’s Fate Points: you can give points to players when they defeat formidable foes and bosses, which they can exchange to survive a final, killing blow from an enemy. Sweet!



D&D 5e Monster Ideas: Balhannoth3, Beholder, Bodak2, Boneclaw3, Lich, Nagpa3, Skull Lord3.

#12: GLORY.

With guts, comes glory. Epic moments, hard-earned victories, and praise. As a DM, you can boost this with descriptions of fanfare and flourishes in dramatic moments of battle, like when players attack with Advantage. And if you want to invite more player participation, you can use the Optional Rule: Players Describe Killing Blows, a favorite at many tables. Not only that, but you can also use the Optional Rule: Critical Hits Use One Maxed and One Rolled Die to prevent those critical whiffs that sometimes happen. Everyone hates those. Also, you can consider adding something like having killing blows from players demoralize enemies through triggering things like Concentration checks to nearby opponents. Finally, you can have NPCs give heroic titles to players after they complete particularly glorious deeds. Just make sure to choose ones appropriate to the setting, not random ones like Cheesebanisher. Besides, I already took that one. Ok, but here’s a generator for some inspiration on titles.

D&D 5e Monster Ideas: Ancient Dragons, Archdevils3, Demon Princes3, Leviathan, Illithilich2, Nightwalker3, Tarrasque.