Crapsack world settings.

My favorite genres are post-apocalyptic and dystopian. I like dark and miserable settings.


But I think I enjoy them more if they actually seem worldly and realistic, rather than bizarre. At least, that's how I've been feeling lately.


To me, a realistic-seeming, unstable country torn apart by war and sectarian violence is more interesting than some generic future where an Illuminati-type organization screws around with teenagers for no good reason, or something along those lines.


I also dislike having one group (that's involved in the conflict) be the symbol of good. Children of Men did a good job of avoiding it- although the government was oppressive, the rebels were also extreme, using terrorism and executions to further their goals. Doesn't that just make everything suck so much more?


Really, a scenario involving widespread conflict and destruction, to me, is more eerie if it lacks any truly good or evil side at all.


Simplified- Uh, just compare and contrast these videos.

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I appreciate crapsack worlds, because I like Grey-And-Gray morality, and I find they offer nice opportunities for players to be genuinely heroic as well as impressively petty.

A good example of a crapsack world is Watchmen.

Like all settings, Crapsack worlds can be a good place to play if enough detail goes into the setting. As Grey mentions, its all about the characters and what they do in that world.


I personally enjoy Crapsack worlds if there are morally complicated reasons for their establishment (not just that peeps were bad, etc.)


However if Crap Sack worlds aren't always your thing, have you considered a Crapsaccharine World? All the fun of the Crap Sack world but with a pinch of sugar to just have you fooled it might be better. They are interesting from the perspective that it isn't all Dystopia. Like Brave New World, some people are genuinely happy with this crap sack world. Don't rain on their parade.

Most straight-out dystopian settings don't interest me at all. An acquaintance of mine from many years ago wrote a story in such a place. We edited and commented on each other's work, so I pressed myself into reading it all. There were many times when I questioned why I was reading it when by around chapter 5 of 12 I could already see the ending and how it played out, but I pressed onward. My prediction was true: nothing changed in the end. Literally nothing. The protagonists died and got nothing done because "there isn't always a happy ending, and it's never that easy to change anything".


After I read it all, I said to him, "I honestly feel like I read this story for no reason, because from beginning to end, it didn't tell me anything new."


Huh... in retrospect, I really should've explained myself more clearly, because that sounds really mean without more context. I guess what I really meant was— by "anything new", I should have told him that the plot felt worthless. It didn't go anywhere, it didn't do anything that it didn't already do in the first half of the story. Yes, he introduces new plot elements, but they didn't change the outcome of anything in the latter half of the story.


A story needs to get something meaningful done by the time it's over. The thematic elements should be consistent throughout, but I feel a story that doesn't change anything by the time that last page is flipped is a waste of a reader's time. I don't see a point in having someone read hundreds of pages and thousands of paragraphs of a story, only to have the story amount to nothing. I don't deny that some people like those types of stories— it's the reason why they're written. There's an audience for it. I'm just not one of those people who likes that kind of storytelling.


Hmm... in the end, it looks like it wasn't really a criticism of the dystopian setting at all. I was complaining about how he handled his plot. So what does that leave us? Well... so long as the plot gets somewhere, I'm pretty okay with these types of settings.


I don't want nor need to be spoon fed that it's hard to change things when the world is bleak, I KNOW that already. You tell me that when people say it's a dystopian setting. I don't expect an ending where everything is fixed, that's unrealistic and immersion-breaking. What I do expect is a plot leading to an ending that leaves me something other than telling me to explore a whole new world, doing so, and then leave me right where I began.

"I use TVTropes and am therefore far more informed on this than you, my opinions are right."


That's how most of this reads honestly. Grey and gray morality (ugh I hate this shit) never works because usually it equates more to "black and black" morality, which is to say, "EVERYONE IS EVIL BUT ONE GROUP IS JUST SLIGHTLY LESS EVIL", like in WH40K or, as already mentioned, Watchmen. Honestly I prefer it when Post-Apocalyptic shit is less about the morality of everything and more about either A) trying to put together a new world in the ruins or B) simply showing how devastated everything is, how greatly it's changed. Fallout One does a good job of this, and Fallout Two does as well, (Three and New Vegas sort of do, but they start to fall into that BATTLE OF GOOD VERSUS EVIL stuff). It's fine to have people doing questionable things to survive, but a choice being "Well both factions eat babies, but which faction eats LESS babies?" is dumb as all get out.

Xenonia said:

"I use TVTropes and am therefore far more informed on this than you, my opinions are right."
That's how most of this reads honestly. Grey and gray morality (ugh I hate this shit) never works because usually it equates more to "black and black" morality, which is to say, "EVERYONE IS EVIL BUT ONE GROUP IS JUST SLIGHTLY LESS EVIL", like in WH40K or, as already mentioned, Watchmen. Honestly I prefer it when Post-Apocalyptic shit is less about the morality of everything and more about either A) trying to put together a new world in the ruins or B) simply showing how devastated everything is, how greatly it's changed. Fallout One does a good job of this, and Fallout Two does as well, (Three and New Vegas sort of do, but they start to fall into that BATTLE OF GOOD VERSUS EVIL stuff). It's fine to have people doing questionable things to survive, but a choice being "Well both factions eat babies, but which faction eats LESS babies?" is dumb as all get out.

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I'm actually talking about good and evil being absent, not about about evil being universal. Sure, evil things might be done all the time, but the world is supposed to be a crapsack due to the gloomy situation and hateful atmosphere, not because any group participating in the conflict is inherently evil themselves.


Otherwise normal people can do atrocious things because they think they are doing what is right, or because they act on emotion, etc.


You might have two opposing factions which both have reasonable arguments for their cause, and aren't comprised of inherently bad people. However, they constantly fight each other, each genuinely thinking it is doing the right thing, and their members might have enough irrational hatred instilled in them that they would do vicious things they normally wouldn't.

I mean I get what you're saying, but evil and good literally cannot be absent. It just doesn't work that way. And like I said, it almost always tends towards "evil" because for some reason the second bombs drop or a plague hits, everyone turns to selfish cannibals who'd kill their whole family for a can of beans.


And that's bullshit.

Xenonia said:

...Grey and gray morality (ugh I hate this shit) never works because usually it equates more to "black and black" morality, which is to say, "EVERYONE IS EVIL BUT ONE GROUP IS JUST SLIGHTLY LESS EVIL"...

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Outside of "never works" I largely agree with you. I don't press the issue too often because I fall into the same/repetitive conversation that I've had since I was a teenager. When I was a teen folks told me that lawful good was boring. Now I'm often told that good factions in fiction are boring in general. I still disagree with both positions.


Typically a word switch comes in during the conversation: they substitute perfect for good and then start to argue against perfect factions or characters. The two aren't the same, and I'm stunned how often I have to explain that.


I get the feeling some folks think having good in a setting reduces it to being juvenile or one deminsional, and so they're appalled at the thought of having a "simple" faction or character in their fiction. I don't see the connection. Good can be mature, nuanced, original, and inspiring — I won't shy away from it. Same for evil.

I know what you mean, but it's good to at least make the moral situation seem vague.


It might depend on what happens in the universe. If it is excessively shitty, then everyone will probably be more evil.


But I've been thinking of a setting that isn't totally dog-eat-dog, yet is still horrible. It's more similar to a dreary third-world country. Though, it kind-of becomes less interesting at that point, sadly.

So... Why can't good and evil be absent? I'm going to conspicuously avoid calling this claim stupid and worthless in an explicit attempt to point out that you're the first one to claim that people who disagree with you are somehow inferior to you, thereby to cast aspersions on your opening complaint, but it's hard to hold back. I think that assigning moral salience to amoral behavior is one of the most counterproductive things people do, when frequency is factored in. So why do you feel it's impossible to have quality fiction where there is no clear moral guidance?

I was just expressing a preference rather than attempting to cite TVTropes as the source of my absolute authority - but if you want to call me out for stating my opinion as fact, I'm sure there's a few dozen places across the site where I've done that.


Anyway, I don't necessarily equate crapsack and post-apoc, because I fukken love me some World of Darkness. What I like about chaotic, morally dubious situations is that the amoral, immoral, or unethical thing is easier or faster or something, and in that context the correct actions of the players shine all the more brightly - this world is corroded and dirty and they didn't allow themselves to fall down with it.


Post-apoc I, like TV Head, prefer for the reconstruction of the world vibe - it's just that I like to put players in positions of power which necessitate moral judgement because I want them to explore their characters' reaction and decisions, and also have some nice sources of tension with NPCs.


F'r example - do you execute the traitor, or exile him, or detain him?