I noticed a similar thing in the furry community. all the art is super cutesy and bubbly, all their characters are smiling and extremely happy, and any worlds that they come up with are very colorful. if you ever meet one in real life, they're usually extremely depressed.
I have to wonder if there is something to that, psychologically speaking. Because I have the opposite, where I am generally into very gritty art like Dieselpunk and Grimdark (40K, etc), but IRL I am generally extremely optimistic and happy.
It could be a grass is greener effect. when the whole "difficulty in games" argument was being tossed around with dark souls and the like, I wondered why oh why would anyone want to play an easy game? why play a game if it's not challenging?
I am blessed with a good life thankfully. My life is not without challenges, but comparing myself to other people I've met, I've definitely had easy. The individuals I've met who don't like difficult games, or get very stressed playing difficult games, often have difficult lives. They probably wonder why oh why would anyone want another stressful thing added to their lives?
Applying this to settings in fiction, It makes sense that people living a good and easy life are drawn to grim dark settings, probably because their lives are comparatively devoid of excitement. Whereas people who are living tough lives would be drawn to peaceful settings, as an escape from their day to day.
It makes sense that people living a good and easy life are drawn to grim dark settings, probably because their lives are comparatively devoid of excitement.
But even that has its limits. For instance, just to keep with Warhammer as the example of grim dark, Its not like I am playing it to be the bad guy. Well, "bad guy" relative to the real world (since the Imperium isnt exactly good), but I dislike Chaos because even as much as I like the lore I hate what they do. And the factions I play as tend to lean toward being more protective and guarding of their soldiers (like Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and Tau) because I dont like just throwing away my troops on meaningless fights.
So I suppose on that front, it could be a "I want to be a hero fighting the evil", which could still fit.
I love how much they force it, yet the rope wins very often.
I noticed a similar thing in the furry community. all the art is super cutesy and bubbly, all their characters are smiling and extremely happy, and any worlds that they come up with are very colorful. if you ever meet one in real life, they're usually extremely depressed.
I have to wonder if there is something to that, psychologically speaking. Because I have the opposite, where I am generally into very gritty art like Dieselpunk and Grimdark (40K, etc), but IRL I am generally extremely optimistic and happy.
It could be a grass is greener effect. when the whole "difficulty in games" argument was being tossed around with dark souls and the like, I wondered why oh why would anyone want to play an easy game? why play a game if it's not challenging?
I am blessed with a good life thankfully. My life is not without challenges, but comparing myself to other people I've met, I've definitely had easy. The individuals I've met who don't like difficult games, or get very stressed playing difficult games, often have difficult lives. They probably wonder why oh why would anyone want another stressful thing added to their lives?
Applying this to settings in fiction, It makes sense that people living a good and easy life are drawn to grim dark settings, probably because their lives are comparatively devoid of excitement. Whereas people who are living tough lives would be drawn to peaceful settings, as an escape from their day to day.
But even that has its limits. For instance, just to keep with Warhammer as the example of grim dark, Its not like I am playing it to be the bad guy. Well, "bad guy" relative to the real world (since the Imperium isnt exactly good), but I dislike Chaos because even as much as I like the lore I hate what they do. And the factions I play as tend to lean toward being more protective and guarding of their soldiers (like Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and Tau) because I dont like just throwing away my troops on meaningless fights.
So I suppose on that front, it could be a "I want to be a hero fighting the evil", which could still fit.