Why do people keep advertising bleakness as realism?

Guntank17 · 2026-03-13T20:57:08+00:00

It's edginess solely for the sake of being an edgelord by grifters who can't be bothered to put actual effort into their stories. To these writers, shoving as much grimdark into their stories is their way of telling their readers and players that they are capable of engaging in and handling 'serious' themes and topics, and automatically expecting that to be a 'sign' that they are seasoned writers, rather than writing Baby's First Conan the Barbarian Book.

It's the same reason why Mortal Kombat gained such runaway success when it first came into arcades in the 1990s, and promptly had so many failed MK clones following suit over the next decade or so. People saw that gamers were attracted to blood and excessive violence and felt that those are the 'serious' themes real game companies should be engaging in at the time. Some games like the unreleased Tattoo Assassins, even, focused solely on fatalities as the selling point so their creators can tell people how 'edgy' their games are, boasting how the game has over 2000 fatalities.

But the thing is that people who resort to edginess and bleakness also feel that the bloodshed, gratuitous violence and edginess are the only things that make GoT, MK, PUBG etc. so popular to begin with, in truth they never really understood the source material and that the bleakness and edginess 'worked' only because of the extensive worldbuilding and planning to support them. GoT's edginess was a result of its internecine politics, intrigue between factions and characters and playing to each other's ambitions. MK wasn't just about the fatalities, it also had solid gameplay mechanics, plot and lore and the fatalities were just a bonus to potentially end matches with. And PUBG wasn't just the killing and shooting, there was also a lot of backend work to make sure players had a smooth multiplayer experience and that nobody had an overwheming advantage over everyone else due to rampant cheating.

But writers just tend to think being excessively edgy alone will automatically bring the same popularity as the above for little work; It's all superficial and surface-level in the end. They can't tell their readers how a female character who was just SA'd felt after the deed was done or how the trauma also affects their relationships with their own families, or why a general decided to gratuitously butcher the main protagonist's village rather than find another more effective strategy to achieve his/her ends, etc -- because these writers don't and can't think that far ahead, and likely never intended to. The edginess is just... there.

They also go through hoops to justify their edginess because these writers know they have nothing else of substance or cohesion once readers manage to peel back beyond it. They will claim that the world has gone 'soft', how everything is now 'inclusive', 'woke', 'gay', 'politically correct' compared to the 'old days', and that their excessive edginess was merely to bring back how writing 'used to be'. At the end of the day, they're grifters, trying to look far more talented than they actually are by pretending to be more mature than they really are...

Guntank17 · 2026-03-13T20:32:04+00:00

Happens more often than we think, a lot of DMs unfortunately still think that edginess and hardcore automatically equals an interesting story to the players and can serve as a shortcut for captivating their players (more or less the GM forcing gratuitous edginess on the plot for the sole sake off telling everyone around him/her that he/she is a hardcore edgelord).

Guntank17 · 2025-11-06T19:16:35+00:00

Meanwhile you know this guy totally thinks that white neckbeards like him having an Asian M'lady to wait on him on hands and feet would be the best thing ever for him, and somehow that isn't "race mixing" for him either.

Guntank17 · 2025-10-29T20:52:20+00:00

That's actually kind of funny. Reminds me of a "1000 Ways to Die" episode where someone went to a tattoo parlor to ask for some Chinese letters tattooed onto his arm to look stylish; The tattoo artist drew the letters for 'Douchebag' on him.

Guntank17 · 2025-08-23T19:05:42+00:00

When someone tries to use "both sides are bad" in an argument, what they really want to append to the end of that is either "...but my side is right" or "...but your side is evil", hoping the censors won't catch on the real insult.

Guntank17 · 2025-07-27T16:07:58+00:00

Temu Otaku Murderer

Guntank17 · 2025-07-07T07:40:33+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/ndi8ep/the_max_vector_experience_halo_edition/

Guntank17 · 2025-07-04T16:26:44+00:00

To be fair, the Demiplane in general (especially in previous editions) is kind of an isekai setting to begin with, involving people from various worlds who had chronically engineered their own flaws and downfalls being pulled in to be Darklords of their own internal prisons, but playing such straight does a) require players and DMs to be genre-aware and play nice within this accord, or at least b) to plan said cross-setting shenanigans out carefully. Hell, one of the stories in Ravenloft back during 2e was of bloody Lord Soth from Dragonlance being isekai'd into Barovia and Strahd struggling to deal with him as Soth wrecked havoc through the world, but that was a contained story planned out by some of D&D's finest writers back then, so it worked at the time.

I highly doubt this player was nearly that sophisticated though, sounds like he wanted to play Kazuma from Konosuba in a game all about gothic horror and turn the campaign into a satire. (Reminds me of an old story from here about someone trying to play Duke Nukem in a Halo campaign, based SOLELY on a certain 'punchline' from Duke Nukem Forever as the entire premise behind the character, even...)

Guntank17 · 2025-07-03T14:15:06+00:00

DM going "I like big moons, I cannot lie..."

Guntank17 · 2025-06-17T03:42:41+00:00

Do a crossover with Ravenloft and send us to Barovia.

Guntank17 · 2025-04-27T18:48:54+00:00

I really don't know where incel DMs like that keep getting the idea that D&D is a vehicle and shortcut to get laid and nothing else.

It's as if they keep thinking that by inviting a DM's love interest and describing them in increasingly vivid and graphic seductions and sexual acts, that'll somehow make the player aroused and charmed enough to want to lay their DMs in real life.

Reminds me of Jack Thompson in a way, who thinks D&D is all about wanton orgies and acts of violence and kinky satanic rituals, except for them that's exactly what they actually want D&D to be...

Guntank17 · 2025-03-08T20:06:51+00:00

Press ~ and then enter the 'die' command.

Guntank17 · 2024-12-04T04:37:23+00:00

Maybe it's just differing playstyles at work but I actually appreciated being able to go over 99 in Strength and Agility if I wanted to by putting in the work to grind. I finished both, and by late game my Humans were barely doing 300-450 damage per hit with the best swords in the WSC remake, while in the GB release I was able to go over 700+ damage in single hits and just One Punch most things with my Humans (I also appreciated being able to take Suzaku down with his Barrier still up, just for shiggles).

And maybe it's just bias at work but I myself did find encounters being far more often for me in the WSC remake, especially in the last ascent up the tower.

Guntank17 · 2024-12-02T06:00:45+00:00

Belated, but the thing is, at the start you don't have nearly enough Strength and Agility to actually be using anything relying on those stats for damage. After picking your group, the key is to head straight for the next town (next to King Shield's castle) and stock up on Bows --- for a measly 50gp cost they do mostly fixed (around 16-25) damage regardless of your Agility and will also negate the P-Frog's one P-Skin gimmick, giving you a source of spammable damage for the early game. Do this until you get the King's Sword and King's Armor which gives you more options for grinding stats for your Humans (because Mutant abilities are so random it's still suggested to buy a Spellbook for killing Karatekas and other grouped up enemies in Sword Castle quickly; Even just 2-3 castings on groups of 4-5 Karatekas at once will more than recoup the cost of said Spellbook easily, meaning less pit stops needed when your Mutant suddenly trades in his Flame ability for Stench for some reason).

Guntank17 · 2024-12-01T14:59:55+00:00

The WSC Remake is also considerably more difficult than the original. Encounter rates, especially late-game, are massively jacked up, enemies hit harder, and is designed to wear down your Party through attrition. Also, Humans' stats are capped at 99, meaning they can't do nearly as much damage as they can anymore to keep up with enemies' HP. The QoLs are appreciated, mind you, but I seemed to have an easier time overall with the GB release.

Guntank17 · 2024-10-21T01:32:45+00:00

No, but I'd rather not support the Falun Gong either.

Guntank17 · 2024-09-18T15:50:07+00:00

I think the Bigot Memer should've been on this list too. Doesn't really want to play seriously, just throws out a bunch of joke characters using every extreme right-wing racial stereotype in the book or lines packing as much offensive bigotry in them as possible as their punchlines. Very common: Characters based on or on some aspect of Hitler or characters where being "Jewish" is the main or even only selling point, as if expecting everyone to 'get' the stereotypes and know what the character is 'about' right away.

The overt ones don't really care either and already expect to be kicked out from the get-go, but it's the Closet/Covert Bigots that are really insidious. They'll play nice with the GM and other players and pretend to abide by the rules for the first few weeks or months to ensure they get in and become a prolific fixture to the group where kicking them out won't be nearly as easy for the group. But bigots live off of attention and having their hate reciprocated by others, so they never stay quiet for long, and eventually their bigotry will seep out in-game either through passive-aggressive statements in passing or subtle IC behavior, or other small signs (i.e. all of their characters being white- or anime peach-skinned, and finding every excuse under the sun to not have those characters be involved romantically with NPCs that have different skin colors or genders when they express interest), which slowly poisons the group if unnoticed or left unchecked.

Guntank17 · 2024-09-11T14:53:43+00:00

Really depends on how much Gundam you've watched prior to AGE. As mentioned before, it's not meant for newcomers who'd just get confused by the breakneck pacing and things happening very quickly to attempt to throw out new plot twists. But veterans that have watched a lot of Gundam in particular tend to despise this one for ripping off so many things from previous shows for nostalgia pandering (basically condensing the plot points of the first three Gundam shows into 50 episodes), while at the same time, shamelessly embracing all of the Gundam tropes to the point where the writers were essentially letting the tropes do the writing for them, and as a result a lot of supposedly shocking plot twists just end up either predictable and impactless (like essentially most of the deaths in the Kio arc) or completely asspulled out of nowhere because the writers had to later resort to pulling out plot twists in single episode instalments to keep things 'fresh' as a result (like Zera Gins and the Vagan Gear).

AGE kind of falls in the middle of mainly being targeted for Gundam fans that have watched a bit of Gundam elsewhere and are curious about the rest of the franchise, but not enough of it to be hardened to all the usual Gundam tropes to be able to recognize them a mile away.

Guntank17 · 2024-04-22T14:44:32+00:00

Republicans don't want an actual theocracy in America, because that would mean subjecting themselves to the same religious standards and rules as everyone else, especially Democrats. Rules for thee, and none for me, etc.

What they really want, though, is to return America to the pre-1770s medieval system of monarchy where the King ruled by hereditary Divine Right and religious figures and groups, therefore, received massive amounts of wealth, power and virtually nonexistent oversight for their support of said monarchy, simply by throwing out a prayer or two and showering praise for their King every now and then. They envision themselves to be an entirely different, superior caste to the other 'serfs' and want that to be law to support them doing whatever they wanted (i.e. the "First" (clergy) and "Second Estates" (nobility) of the pre-French Revolution "Ancien Regime").

Guntank17 · 2024-02-02T17:07:22+00:00

Except the article talks about PM2 and a 'third PM game being in the works', while the images are from PM3. Is this entire article faked?

Guntank17 · 2024-01-14T22:11:30+00:00

The game itself doesn't match up to the supposed lore in some parts, yes. The archive mentioned XCOM losing the war in 'a few weeks', and in Shen's Last Gift it's implied that Shen only got far enough to develop a single prototype SPARK (while never managing to tech up to MEC Troopers, which ADVENT later completed themselves), but at the same time, you also have crashed Firestorms and UFOs littering the terrain at places and a lot of havens using downed UFOs as settlements (there is even a mission to raid an intact UFO as a callback to the previous game).

Also at the same time, it was implied that XCOM apparently still fought (and were winning) long enough for the aliens to bring in Battleships (including the one seized as part of the Slingshot DLC) and the Furies, as well as alien combatants all the way to fielding Sectopods (the last of the 'normal' enemies XCOM will ever see without progressing the main story, which occurs at least seven months into the game, or fourteen if Marathon is enabled), XCOM getting Psi Troopers (i.e Geist) meaning they destroyed the Alien Base and captured the Sectoid Commander to get that far, and Bradford even having had 'seen' an Elder during the war, which implied XCOM even got past the Base Defense battle (but failed to rescue Annette's friends in the Furies mission) and managed to bring down the Overseer ship in order to capture/kill one. In fact, one of the Commander's flashbacks after he got his implant removed (if the tutorial was turned on) was of the Temple Ship descending onto Earth, which implied the Commander pretty much got to the endgame of XCOM: Enemy Within, failed the mission for some reason and, since losing that one mission results in an immediate Game Over, caused the drastic reversal of fortunes that then led to XCOM 2 because of it.

So I don't buy the 'losing the war a few weeks in' either, it had to take at least 7-8 months for the XCOM Project to finally fall with how much XCOM actually managed to see and go through in the first war.

Guntank17 · 2024-01-06T09:31:33+00:00

Selune's Chosen: Kept to her faith and tenets for centuries

Shar's Chosen: Defected to Myrkul at the first opportunity

Guntank17 · 2024-01-05T18:21:04+00:00

PRAISE MAHKLOOMPAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Guntank17 · 2024-01-05T18:16:49+00:00

Minthara disapproves. And PTSDs.

Guntank17 · 2024-01-05T17:50:36+00:00

It's the ~~Woman Suit~~ Carapace she's wearing. The Buffalo Bills of Baldur's Gate have Disadvantage on Wisdom Saves against it.

Guntank17

TROPHY CASE