Gritty Fantasy
Gritty fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy with a darker tone, more grounded, realistic themes, morally ambiguous characters, and detailed worldbuilding with a focus on its society's flaws. When magic is present, it is often limited or costly, or perhaps the purview of the wealthy nobility. Gritty fantasy fiction might highlight the more unglamorous aspects of war, heroism, violence, and a fantastical society. Characters might struggle with poverty, injury, disease, and social issues in a way less gritty fantasy might gloss over, and questions of right and wrong are typically more complex than simple good versus evil. Gritty fantasy appeals to tabletop roleplaying game players who like a measure of realism in their fantasy, and enjoy thinking about what the reality of fantastical concepts might mean for a real functioning society. Questions of how a civilization would deal with magic, monsters, and gods present interesting challenges for worldbuilders and adventurers. Gritty fantasy games might also bring elements of survival to the forefront: treating wounds, maintaining food and water supplies, and staying alive in harsh wilderness. A gritty fantasy RPG campaign might be a war drama following a mercenary company, an grimy, dungeon delving adventure of money-grubbing treasure hunters, or a band of bounty hunters collecting on dangerous monsters and mages.
Popular Gritty Fantasy RPGs
Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
Vampire: The Masquerade presents a more dramatic, contemplative world than most tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). While the average TTRPG experience is a Dungeons & Dragons inspired one (fighting monsters and getting treasure), Vampire is about simply surviving and keeping a piece of yourself intact. Players in Vampire become the titular mythological figure in a version of our modern world. And while near-immortality and superpowers seems cool, they come at the cost of existing in a secret society where hunters and other clans are out to get you. And there’s also the whole hungering for blood thing. In a typical Vampire game, holding onto humanity is just as tough as fending off foes.
DIE: The Roleplaying Game
DIE RPG is a roleplaying game based on the comic of the same name by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans – and it too has been made by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans! In DIE, you play a group of authentically flawed and desperate real-world people (Personas) who are sucked into a cursed roleplaying game and take on the form of heroes, villains and power players (Paragons). Some of you might want to get back to the real world for whatever’s waiting for you there. Some of you might want to stay in a reality where you can finally get what you want out of life. You all have to agree whether you stay or go, and dead people can’t vote. It can get pretty bloody.
Blades In The Dark
A crew of scoundrels gathers round a stolen blueprint as they plan their big score. Their target has them outnumbered and outgunned; they’re just a no-name street gang up against the rich and powerful. But they have something their mark never expects: the stone cold audacity. The guts to risk everything. And a desperate hunger to get rich or die trying. Blades in the Dark is a tabletop roleplaying game, or TTRPG, about building a criminal empire in the industrial fantasy city of Duskwall. Inspired by video games like Thief, Dishonored, and Bloodborne, as well as crime drama films and television like Heat and Peaky Blinders, players create scrappy scoundrels who commit crimes in a haunted city. They might play a smooth-talking Slide, a bloody Cutter, an ingenious Leech, or a weird Whisper (among others) to lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top. They’ll also create a Crew, the gang they operate, and which, through a series of criminal jobs, will attempt to conquer the city’s underworld. One player, the Game Master (GM), takes on the role of the world those players inhabit; they’ll play as the rival gangs, wealthy nobles, and corrupt Bluecoats that pressure the player characters from all sides; the haunted, sunless, industrial city of Duskwall; and the ghosts, demons, and occult forces that lurk behind it all.
Candela Obscura
Candela Obscura is a tabletop roleplaying game, or TTRPG, about a circle of paranormal investigators who analyze occult phenomena in the turn-of-the-nineteenth century industrial fantasy city of Newfaire. In this game of monstrous gaslamp horror, players create intrepid characters who solve mysteries and defeat monsters with their various skills and specialties. They might play a smooth-talking Face with a knack for mesmerism, a soldiering Muscle bearing scars from the Great War, an ingenious Scholar of magick from the university, the sly Slink of a private detective or a Weird spirit medium. This crew, called the Circle, will take on jobs to set right the problems caused by supernatural phenomena. One player, the Lightkeeper or Game Master (GM), takes on the role of the world those players inhabit. They’ll play as the eponymous Lightkeeper, a character who dispenses assignments and information from the occult organization Candela Obscura. They’ll also play the environment, the city, and of course, the mysterious and even malevolent forces the Circle is called to confront.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay takes you back to the Old World. Get the gang together, create your (anti)heroes, and set off to face vile corruption, scheming plotters, and terrifying creatures intent on destruction. The Old World is a grim and perilous place. Its vast mountain ranges are teeming with warlike Orcs and Goblins. The deep forests are the home of marauding Beastmen. The corrupting force of Chaos leeches into the world, the result of a tragic accident when the world was young. The insidious taint of Chaos leaves folk hideously altered, and liable to seek solace in the worship of Daemons and the Ruinous Powers of the Chaos gods. The followers of Chaos gather in the north, armies of reavers and monsters that threaten to overwhelm the world. But they also reside in secret in the towns and cities of the Old World: an enemy within plotting to overthrow civilization and establish their own regime in its place. Nations such as the Empire stand defiant against the darkness. Its people come from all walks of life, from landed aristocracy to the urban poor. Most are heedless of the true dangers that beset their world; they imagine themselves safe within city walls and merely try to make a good living for themselves. But there are those adventurous folk who, driven through desperation or ambition, seek to confront dangers and win renown.
City of Mist
Here's the lowdown: City of Mist is set in a modern city where legends are real people. Heroes, tricksters, and monsters are reborn inside ordinary people, regular Joes and Janes, who gain supernatural powers connected to their legendary alter-egos. Someone is running the show in this City, and it's up to you to find out who. Hit the streets. Collect the clues. Face small-time villains and demi-gods in epic showdowns. Solve not just the case, but also your own personal mystery and the secrets at the core of this very City. This is your City: gritty, corrupt, and rife with magic and mystery.
The One Ring 2e
Twenty-four years ago, an alliance of Elves, Men, and Dwarves defeated a horde of Orcs and Wild Wolves, under a sky darkened by Giant Bats, inaugurating a new era of prosperity for the Free Peoples. But twenty years is a long time for peace to last, and in many dark corners of the earth a shadow is lengthening once again. Enter the world of Middle-earth with The One Ring™, the official tabletop roleplaying game based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Designed specifically to evoke the atmosphere of The Hobbit™ and The Lord of the Rings™, the game contains rules for creating heroes and sending them off on adventures in a land threatened by the growing Shadow.
Dungeon Crawl Classics
You’re no hero. You’re an adventurer: a reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them. Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition
Gaia is dying. The ices melt, while the seas swell. The heat rises, while the forests wither. Extinction threatens millions, in favor of the few. The Garou — warlike shapeshifters torn between Rage and spirit, between Wolf and Man, and champions of the earth-mother — have failed. The Apocalypse is here. Yet, a new generation of Garou now call upon their Rage to confront the forces of destruction, avarice, and greed ravaging the earth-mother. With tooth and claw the Garou will wrest her from the brink of death — or follow her enemies to the grave. Will you answer their howl? What legends will the Garou sing of you? When will you Rage? In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, you play as the Garou, a creature of flesh and spirit, blessed and cursed with primal rage. Born to fight and die in a desperate war to protect Gaia — the very living earth — you engage in an unequal battle against the greed and power-hunger of human civilization that has trapped the world in a choking web of technology and corruption.
Mörk Borg
MÖRK BORG is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world. Who are you? The tomb-robber with silver glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the world’s heart away from it’s inevitable end? Confront power-draining necromancers, skulking skeletal warriors and backstabbing wickheads. Wander the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, the catacombs beneath the Bergen Chrypt or the bedevilled Sarkash forest. But leave hope behind – the world’s cruel fate is sealed, and all your vain heroic efforts are destined to end in death and dismay. Or are they?
Vaesen
In dark forests, beyond the mountains, by black lakes in hidden groves. At your doorstep. In the shadows, something stirs. Strange beings. Twisted creatures, lurking at the edge of vision. Watching. Waiting. Unseen by most, but not by you. You see them for what they really are. Vaesen. Welcome to the Mythic North – northern Europe of the nineteenth century, but not as we know it today. A land where the myths are real. A cold reach covered by vast forests, its few cities lonely beacons of industry and enlightenment – a new civilization dawning. But in the countryside, the old ways still hold sway. There, people know what lurks in the dark. They know to fear it.
Forbidden Lands
Forbidden Lands is a new take on classic fantasy roleplaying. In this sandbox survival roleplaying game, you’re not heroes sent on missions dictated by others – instead, you are raiders and rogues bent on making your own mark on a cursed world. You will discover lost tombs, fight terrible monsters, wander the wild lands, and if you live long enough, build your own stronghold to defend.
Mutant: Year Zero
Mutant: Year Zero takes you to the world after the great Apocalypse. Humanity’s proud civilization has fallen. The cities are dead wastelands, winds sweeping along empty streets turned into graveyards. But life remains. Among the ruins, the People live. You are the heirs of humanity – but not quite human anymore. Your bodies and minds are capable of superhuman feats. You are mutants.
Frequently asked questions about Gritty Fantasy
Blog links about Gritty Fantasy
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Gritty Fantasy Reviews and Actual Plays
Haunted City | Blades in the Dark
The Glass Cannon Network travels to the dark world of Duskwall, where criminal scoundrels pull daring heists in a world without a sun.
Shadowdark Live Play
The designer of dark fantasy RPG Shadowdark leads her players through a fast-paced adventure in this example of play.
High Rollers Presents: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
The High Rollers explore the Age of Sigmar in the Warhammer universe's fantasy roleplaying game.