How to GRIMDARK a D&D (or D&D like) game

Although I’ve given a lot of thought and put a lot of effort into my DIY house rule document; so much so that it became easier to make it a full blown self-contained ruleset rather than merely a house rule document, I do also think that for some players, that may be more intimidating or off-putting than simply having a set of house rules. Some people really like to feel like they’re playing an official game with rules that are readily available. I actually can add a pretty simply house rule template that would go on top of almost all other rule sets. The only thing that would still vary is my custom races, but that’s a little harder to make common in spite of system.

Grozavest, spooky grimdark vampire capital

If not using my regular rules document (recently slightly updated!) then I think you could do well enough with any of the following systems, which I know well enough to confidently say that they’d work: Sword & Wizardry (any version), Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, Old School Essentials, or any of the original D&D rule sets that those are attempting to emulate (OD&D, B/X) although I actually think that the emulations or retro-clones are better games at this point. Presumably, they’d work just as well with something like Dark Dungeons X, which emulates the BEMCI/RC just as well, or any other retro-clone that’s not based on any AD&D version. It’d also work pretty well with Microlite Purest Essence or Microlite74 or any of the other “retro” Microlites. I’m not a fan of the reduction in Microlite of the six abilities to three (or four for some versions) and no longer see the point in it, but if you change that, then you’re pretty close to my rules again since that’s basically the route that I took to get there, layering on gradually over time things like Heroism points, advantage/disadvantage, tearing down the classes into an a la carte build your own class menu. But none of those really impact the tone too much, they are more about just having mechanics that I like for regular gameplay. I’d be happy enough ignoring most of those and playing with something like ShadowDark or Knave 2e or Five Torches Deep, or any of the games mentioned previously—although I’d no doubt add a few other things and I’d have to think long and hard about what to do with the cleric; an archetype that I dislike tremendously. What I want to talk about instead is actually how to implement some rules like a template on top of any of these rulesets (or even 5e or Pathfinder or Tales of the Valiant, etc.) to “grimdark” them up. If you do this, the other rules changes are more about personal preference; these suggestions below are about genre, tone and mood.

1) Stats. Depending on which system you’re modifying, you’ll notice some differences in terms of what stat generation method you’re presented with and what the bonuses are. In older games, the stat bonuses were more modest and only applied at the highest ability scores. IN 3e and above, they started applying much more smoothly across the range of ability scores, and the top was much higher. That said, the math of ability scores and modifiers vs targets like armor class, etc, remains more or less the same; as Professor Dungeon Master pointed out in a video a while ago, it’s basically 8+ (unmodified) on your die roll; all of the changes to modifiers, bonuses, and target numbers don’t change this. The bigger numbers are, however, psychologically designed to make you feel more powerful, even if mathematically you actually aren’t. For a more grimdark game, go back to old school bonuses; the addition of a couple of points of bonus won’t make enough of a difference to make the game unplayable, but it will change the psychology of the players, as they recognize that their players don’t have the inflated bonuses that they’re used to, and they’ll feel the difference. A few near misses that would have hit with an extra +1 or +2, and they’ll really feel it. But it shouldn’t actually change their overall ability to succeed.

2) Hit Points. If this applies psychologically to stats, it applies even more to hit points. It’s actually gotten quite difficult to kill PCs sometimes, once they get past a certain level. However, in my opinion, the very low hit points of older games at low level is too low to actually facilitate grimdark. Sure, sure… there were some famous meat-grinder games back in the day, but that doesn’t actually encourage a darker tone; rather it becomes a game of either frustration or dark comedy as you flame out with your fighter Conan, followed by Fronan and Bonan and Nonan and Konan, etc. I think modern D&D did a good job in giving lower level PCs more hit points; enough to take at least a hit or two in all but the most unlucky of cases. However, it quickly goes out of control as you add levels. I don’t add hit dice anymore in my game… I add 2 hit points when you level up. That’s it. Characters need to be vulnerable, and the genre changes considerably as you level up in the game to one of overt superheroes who don’t seriously fear almost any combat. Players routinely and blithely jump into combat shouting huzzah and expect to win D&D, because their characters have been designed by the game designers to win D&D. That’s probably the single most important thing to do to change the game to a more grimdark tone and feel.

3) Levels. Speaking of those levels, even without runaway hit points, there’s little reason to play the game at very high levels. Even in standard D&D with standard tone and feel, an extremely small percentage of players actually get up above about 7th level or so. I recommend greatly slowing leveling down. If characters are leveling up every other session or so, and in my experience that’s not unheard of at all, I strongly suggest cutting that down to only 20-25% or so that speed. I wouldn’t even mind 10%, but maybe that’s too slow for a lot of players.

4) Death and Dying. In older games, PCs were dead when they hit (or fell below) 0 hit points. In 3e and above (at least) there was a “dying” status where you were out of the fight and dying, but not dead per se; unless you either hit -10 hit points, or failed three death saves (with an easy DC), etc. Again, I actually don’t have a problem with the concept of giving the PCs a chance to not die. Too much or too easy death starts to turn the game into Paranoia rather than grimdark. It veers into comedy or absurdity at least rather than a darker mood or tone. But it’s also true that most “modern” games have been too generous in terms of allowing get out of death free cards. I now allow one death save, DC 15. If you fail it, you die instantly. If you pass it, you still die in two rounds unless you are stabilized. If you still have a Heroism point handy, my equivalent in some ways to the old Action Point concept, you can convert death into a near death experience by burning one at this point. You’ll instantly go to 0 hps, still be unconscious but stable, and will take a permanent scar, i.e., a loss of an stat bonus. This has psychologically the right approach for me; it feels like death, but the near miss mechanic means death isn’t quite as permanent as it can be. But… well, see below. 

5) Sanity. This is a mechanic made famous by the venerable Call of Cthulhu role playing game written by Sandy Peterson. It was added in its BRP incarnation without any conversion to make it native to d20 when it was stuck in the d20 Call of Cthulhu game. A few years later, it was ported to Unearthed Arcana, made open content, and officially an option for D&D 3.5 (as it was at the time.) Many fantasy games flirting with horror themes and tone have attempted to either use a variation of this sanity system, or create one of their own. I find that the Call of Cthulhu sanity system is pretty fiddly and too complicated; I feel like the author to created it couldn’t resist showing off the research he did in actual mental disorders, when in reality a much more simple and easier to apply at the table system would have served better. (This is especially true given that Call of Cthulhu is based on the BRP system, which is relatively pretty rules light anyway.) The concept of sanity is maybe questionable, but it’s a genre convention, and while probably not at all realistic, neither are a lot of other things that routinely happen in the hobby to characters. I do have a sanity mechanic, but it mostly only comes into play when attempting to cast spells. The whole “fail a sanity check” when you see some tentacles or whatever is borderline silly, but the idea that trying to use magic strains or even breaks your brain works very well for me. My sanity mechanics are incredibly simple. You make what is essentially a charisma saving throw; CHA + level and if you fail, you consult a little d6 table and apply the temporary effect. If you critically fail it (natural one) you pick up a permanent penalty (cumulative, if you end up having more than one critical failure in your career) to your sanity checks in the future.

6) Casting Spells. I greatly prefer roll to cast over spell slots and spells per day. DC is 10 + (2 x spell level.) In other words, a second level spell would be DC 14, a fourth level spell would be 18, etc. You can cast them as often as you want. If you fail, you make a sanity check; the DC is the same as the spellcheck level, and the spell fails to do anything. If you critically fail your spellcraft roll, your spell backfires and targets you. If that doesn’t actually make sense for the given spell, then instead an otherworldly entity is ripped from the outer darkness from whence magic comes and attacks you obsessively until either you or it is killed. Area effect spells can be really nasty, because they might well end up targeting your entire group. In addition, you make your sanity check with disadvantage. Critical failure, which because it happens on a natural one will happen on average once every twenty times you attempt to cast, is a little bit like Russian roulette. Sure, you can cast with impunity as long as your roll to cast is successful. Even a failed roll has a relatively minor penalty; a chance at a failed Sanity check and a failed spell. But a critical failure… ouch. This makes magic much less routine and mechanistic, as it tends to be for D&D and other similar games, and more mysterious and edgy, and potentially kind of frightening.

7) Magic Items. This one is pretty simple. Magic items are much more rare than is normal in any edition, even the old ones. In addition, if you have a magic item, it’s probably a mixed blessing. Maybe it does what you need it to do, i.e., it works against ghosts or daemons or whatever while a normal item would not, but it also has a cost associated with it. I once created a magical super-sized sword that was too big for the characters to really use effectively. In addition, it had a mouth on the hilt that actually bit the hand of the user and drained his life slowly; but it was the only way to defeat a particularly nasty undead creature of some kind. Like spells, all magic is a two-edged sword; as dangerous to the user as to the target.

8) Monsters. The final step to grimdark your game is how you use monsters. This isn’t any kind of mechanical thing to do, though, just a style question. Monsters should never be routine. Fighting monsters shouldn’t ever be easy or boring or whatever. Monsters deserve, even low level monsters like goblins or kobolds, to be frightening and to use tactics or strategies that make them dangerous. They should be foreshadowed, and they should be played up to be scary and disconcerting if not outright creepy. There should always be a question as to whether or not the PCs are even capable of defeating the monsters in a straight up fight, and PCs should avoid as much as possible getting sucked into that situation. They need to research, plan and strategize how to minimize the monsters’ advantages and work a little harder. The idea that you just shout huzzah, roll initiative, and charge into combat with the expectation that you’re prepared to win at D&D is the antithesis of the grimdark tone and should always be avoided. What do you do for combats then? Bad guys! Criminals, thugs, cultists, bandits, etc. Wild animals is another good alternative. Now granted, I’m not at all saying that you shouldn’t have the PCs fight monsters. In every episode of the X-files, there was some kind of investigation and confrontation with a monster, alien, or other creepy F/X type something or other. You need to do the same. But they should never be routine, and if you keep the game action packed with more mundane threats while building up tension and foreshadowing for your monsters at all times, that’s the grimdark mood and tone.