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Bad Endings

In my view, it entirely depends on the story. I love a good bittersweet ending more than I'd love an outright bad ending, there's something positive there in those endings but...at what cost? I've also done a lot of very dark themed tabletops in my off time. such as world of darkness, cyberpunk, the witcher, and so forth so I do like a gritty and mature game world overall beyond that and not everything is sunshine and rainbows. (Not that I mind those either sometimes, heh)
 
I separate a dark storyline from a bad ending. As stated before, I like the drama of conflict, broken hearts, betrayal, misunderstandings, bad arguments, sacrifices, emotional abuse, etc. All things to give characters turmoil and suffering through a story. My thing is, as an rp is coming to an end, no matter how far we've descended down into the dark and toxic depths, I desire to see it move upwards as we get closer and closer to the end. I like redemption, I like defeating bad guys, I like justice, and I like growth in my characters. The whole thing can be a tragedy but my sense of fulfillment comes from characters who have survived, overcome the odds, learned from their mistakes, and are at peace in whatever version of happily ever after I can give them.
 
A good arc of redemption, turning from bad to good and the like is certainly a fun story. Like having a long term of captivity and finally breaking out to take down the captor. The story can be quite dark in various points, but when you get those moments it does feel good for sure. Like, for instance, in Vampire the Masquerade you're a monster for sure but you're also very much a human in a weird way with a monster inside you. You're trying to do good things when you can but you often find yourself taking up about five to ten notches from what you originally wanted to, because it's a personal horror and in the end, you're a monster struggling with the fact you are one. On the positive side you still have all those nice connections with new found friends, maybe even lovers and making the best of it. It's never simply black, you get those moments of being the good guy, you're just in a constant struggle to maintain that side, the humanity.

I really like that kind of story, it feels real, gritty, there's a sense of struggle and coming to terms with yourself and room for a lot of growth in just how you handle this new existence.
 
The Goodman said:
I separate a dark storyline from a bad ending. As stated before, I like the drama of conflict, broken hearts, betrayal, misunderstandings, bad arguments, sacrifices, emotional abuse, etc. All things to give characters turmoil and suffering through a story. My thing is, as an rp is coming to an end, no matter how far we've descended down into the dark and toxic depths, I desire to see it move upwards as we get closer and closer to the end. I like redemption, I like defeating bad guys, I like justice, and I like growth in my characters. The whole thing can be a tragedy but my sense of fulfillment comes from characters who have survived, overcome the odds, learned from their mistakes, and are at peace in whatever version of happily ever after I can give them.
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Exactly - All of this. Best way to describe it.
 
I think a "bad ending" has to work harder to be earned. It has to have more effort behind it to mean something.
A happy ending can more frequently get away with people cheap, just because a happy ending is a positive thing to see. It's the sort of thing you might consider technically bad writing but still enjoy because it makes you feel good.

If something is just completely dark and terrible, it'll leave the audience thinking, "What was the point of all that?"

Obviously bad endings aren't all, well, bad. One of the fundamental genres of human storytelling is tragedy, after all. Romeo and Juliet has a bad ending. But there is also a point to it.

As far as that applies to roleplay, it might be more complicated. I dunno if it would be for me. If someone and I were, like, collaborating on a written story, sure, but improvised back and forth roleplaying, nah. I don't think I could ever write a bad end. If one was coming, I'd be more likely to sputter out and stop (which is how my roleplays tend to end ANYWAY, even when they're good, so... just seems like how it would go).
 
I'm ok with it but I think there needs to be come prior understanding that characters could die or experience some kind of bad ending. I have played a couple of RP's where my partner has decided to rape my character. That was entirely out of the blue and not discussed at all neither was the RP in anyway at all rape or non con related.

I have a number of dark themed plots.
 
I'm very much into dark themes, and I love bad ends - but I agree that things such as rape and murder need to be discussed beforehand. I've long been into superheroine peril where the villain finally has his way with the heroine. But if the whole point is a power reversal then it seems kind of redundant to turn the tables back at the end and set everything back the way it was. Bad ends can be cathartic, but that terrible fate must be explicit from the get-go (as the saying goes, start with your ending and write backwards.) It can't run contrary to the story you've been building the whole time - every plot development must serve to deliberately bring us to that ending.
 
Like many of the topics here, it's all about the wording and the meaning of the word.

What exactly is meant by a 'bad ending'? Is it the main characters to be killed? Or is a 'bad ending' that one of the two writers suddenly changes the whole premise?

I'm very much in what is called 'dark themes' (yeah, I know, another point of discussion, what exactly is dark). But I don't see the point in killing main characters, because it automatically ends a play. If I kill the character of the person I write with, what's left to write. Then again, I don't write characters which are already dead. I don't do fantasy such as vampires, zombies, monsters, etcetera. To me there's no fun in those.
I can create my own monsters, men a girl definitely doesn't want to meet. But in all those, they don't want to kill the girls they're after or with. Why oh why, when playing with them is possible for ever?
 
Tanakalian said:
Like many of the topics here, it's all about the wording and the meaning of the word.

What exactly is meant by a 'bad ending'? Is it the main characters to be killed? Or is a 'bad ending' that one of the two writers suddenly changes the whole premise?

I'm very much in what is called 'dark themes' (yeah, I know, another point of discussion, what exactly is dark). But I don't see the point in killing main characters, because it automatically ends a play. If I kill the character of the person I write with, what's left to write. Then again, I don't write characters which are already dead. I don't do fantasy such as vampires, zombies, monsters, etcetera. To me there's no fun in those.
I can create my own monsters, men a girl definitely doesn't want to meet. But in all those, they don't want to kill the girls they're after or with. Why oh why, when playing with them is possible for ever?
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No, a bad ending is not a roleplay that ends up going sour. It's a joint, decided, grim ending to the character's plight. At least to me, there are many levels to how a bad ending can go. While it isn't specific to death, it can still be quite dark in theme.

For exmaple: A teacher is trying to help a student who is clearly on the wrong path. Romance develops. She begins to find value in herself only to see him speaking to another student and her jealousy leads her astray. Despite his best efforts, she continues with the wrong crowd. Drugging up, drinking, and eventually she just disappears. That's a pretty crappy example but it's just anything that could go wrong in an otherwise strong story of redemption or healing.

A superheroine defeated by a villain of course. She doesn't have to die, but perhaps he puts her through hell or damages her to the point where she cannot be a superheroine anymore. Despite hoping for her allies to save her, they have no idea where she is, and as often as he wants, this villain has his way with her.

Heroes facing off against the demon king. They've gotten so strong and so united, some fell in love with each other and have dreams. But the harsh reality is that the demon king has gotten stronger too. Their mage is crushed by demonic magic, and the heroes' hearts start to sink. One by one they start to lose ground, the men being killed, the women being captured. They were supposed to stop this evil. But at the end, they just couldn't. Now the country is a beacon for demon kind. Our heroines need to understand the situation they are in, and forget about loyalties. Do what you must to earn your next meal as the world is shrouded in darkness.

I don't always want it or need it. But if done correctly it can be quite compelling and interesting. The rich, evil and powerful often win.
 
Really. it just needs to be organic. I don't like contriving a particular end explicitly for the sake of wallowing in goodness or badness. Like all other plot beats, it should flow naturally from the one that preceded it.

No deus ex machina, and no... whatever the opposite would be (diablo ex machina?)
 
Seranda said:
For exmaple: A teacher is trying to help a student who is clearly on the wrong path. Romance develops. She begins to find value in herself only to see him speaking to another student and her jealousy leads her astray. Despite his best efforts, she continues with the wrong crowd. Drugging up, drinking, and eventually she just disappears. That's a pretty crappy example but it's just anything that could go wrong in an otherwise strong story of redemption or healing.
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I think it's worth contrasting this with your OP:

He attacks their allies, characters we have built for over a year, and simply starts to decimate them. One of our characters chose to run away. He'd survive somehow, as one of his best friends was torn apart. The hero tries to land another blow but now the demon has become more powerful, blasting him and half of his body being crushed upon a hard stone wall. His vision starts to fade. The love of his life still fighting the demon until he overpowers her and pins her down to rape her. She cries and screams, now noticing he had been slammed against the wall and was fading away. The demon's minions swarm to the hero and he hears his love screaming in pain as the demon laughs.

All you hear is munching and crunching, the hero was being eaten as his woman was being raped and forced to watch her love be devoured, all hope lost.
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Both are "bad endings." The former is--at least in that brief sketch--IMO a good one. You can see how it's a story of a character unable to rise above their flaws. That ending expresses something. It has something to say. If you read that as a conclusion to a book you'd be satisfied, even if you were sad.

The latter doesn't have that quality. It's gratuitous. If the TV series you watched ended that way, you'd probably be mad. It's not even dark so much as--to borrow a phrase from an old friend--inky black. It doesn't say anything interesting about the characters or their struggle, other than to sort of spit on them maliciously. It's almost pornographic,
 
Yeah, bad endings have an umbrella of their own.

That's a good example from a sad feel to like you mentioned gratuitous.
 
Seranda said:
A superheroine defeated by a villain of course. She doesn't have to die, but perhaps he puts her through hell or damages her to the point where she cannot be a superheroine anymore. Despite hoping for her allies to save her, they have no idea where she is, and as often as he wants, this villain has his way with her.
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Oh yeah, that's my jam right there :sneaky:
 
Admittedly I have done some RPs were we did a non canon bad end spin off to see how we'd develop our characters down that route. In the vein of "What if Leia was stuck as Jabba the Hutt's slave?" types of situation. Just so we could experiment and explore other areas of our characters before returning to the main story.
 
The villain has his way with her, and she ends up loving it/convincing herself she'll manipulate him/stockholm

;)
 
I like some corruption. Of course the villain has to be a human, non cliché one. But yeah it's a bad ending or the fact that it isn't one for her makes it bad.
 
Bad endings have their place for sure, I understand why a lot of people don't like them, but there's definitely an itch to be scratched by them
 
To be honest, I only like bad endings for bad characters. (I realize what I've said is FULL to the brim with subjectivity, but here we are.) I really cannot stand (except in Lovecraftian fiction, and that is the exception to the rule), good people doing all they can and still failing. I don't believe in hopelessness, and I won't write it.

But to each their own and I'm not denying that bad endings - as Astrid above me said - have their place. It's just not with me.
 
It really comes down embracing the possibilities of the story. Sometimes as I'm writing the story I don't want to know exactly how it's going to end. It's more fun-and, honestly, more hot-if I'm not sure what will happen when reaching the end of a story. Letting things flow organically with your partner and then having it end happily or on a dour note raises the tension. I find that tension and stakes actually make the whole experience more fun.

I am going to have to take the time to learn an actual system sometime, just for that reason.
 
I did a series of bad ending one shots once, and it got to the point where it was emotionally draining and I think that is something you have to watch out with for this.
 
As I'm sure others have noted already (I skimmed the thread apart from a few posts) bad ends can be quite subjective on what the meaning of bad is, so it's not all doom and gloom from every perspective. Stockholm type endings are a good example, at first the victim is kidnapped, raped, broken...but eventually comes to develop something very similar to love for their aggressor. It's dependence, usually, or a coping mechanism to rationalize some good feelings into their situation, but them living happily ever after, the captor becoming more open with what they let their prisoner do and the prisoner becoming...well, no longer a prisoner but a willing, even happy participant can be seen as a bad ending and by a lot of metrics, it should, but it can also be a happy ending. I like those.

Love the dark stuff too, but some form of acceptance is often more palatable for those that love their characters and creations.
 
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