The Black Company by Glen Cook introduces us to a world where right and wrong, good and evil get all mixed up and it's hard to tell who the "bad guys" are and whether anyone really deserves the title "hero" (the being on the cover is called Soulcatcher, one of the Ten Who Were Taken). Grimdark is a sub-genre of fantastic fiction which has been described as amoral, violent and realistic. For me it is a tone or feeling, an atmosphere, a style of fictional setting that sets my teeth on edge and evokes many emotions. I am frequently guilty of trying to evoke a similar feel and reaction in my game setting.
Glen Cook has written several novels centered on the history of his fictional "Black Company" of mercenaries. In doing so he admittedly draws upon his own experiences of war during service in Vietnam. Mr. Cook virtually invented "grimdark" with The Black Company and it has become a popular style seen in popular fiction by Joe Abercrombe (The Blade Itself), Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns), George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones), and games including Warhammer 40,000, Diablo, Shadow of the Demon Lord and Symbaroum.
In addition to its own form of entertainment, fantastic fiction can be leveraged as inspiration for fantastic role-playing. That's arguably how the hobby began as Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson sought to create a game that allowed them to incorporate ideas they first encountered reading fantastic stories and viewing fantastic films. Today we might add video games, themselves an outgrowth of tabletop role-playing, the video game industry has produced several settings rich in style and atmosphere such as Skyrim and Dragon Age. Coming around full circle Dragon Age and the setting of Thedas is inspiration for a fine table-top RPG (also titled Dragon Age) by Chris Pramas and Green Ronin.
If playing the good guy again just isn't appealing. If the world as you see it isn't defined by strict good races and bad races. If it seems unreasonable that a dark lord can be defeated so everyone lives happily ever after, if things are often a matter of which side of the conflict you are on, grimdark may be what you are looking for. If raw realism is what passes for your version of truth and the effects of violent solutions don't bother you, perhaps you are already living the grimdark? There is a side of me that feeds on this fictional approach...it's why my own gameworld is called Dreadmoor and it's why I enjoy books like The Black Company.
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