Lighter and Softer: Difference between revisions

** ''Geist'' also tends to be Lighter And Softer compared to the ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' in general. It's not exactly a bag of kittens, but it's generally optimistic—the Bound got a second chance at life, and intend to use it to the fullest, whether that means saving people, helping innocent ghosts, destroying malevolent ghosts, killing villainous people, or just making their lives comfortable. After previous games have been the likes of ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'', ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'', or even ''[[Hunter: The Vigil]]'', it's a bit of a shock to see a game that falls closer to ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]].

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. During 3e , there were chaos cultists on Terra, the Imperium was losing worlds by the hundreds and High Lords did not care, in fact most of them had been driven insane by imperfect deageing treatments. This was before the Horus Heresy, before the Imperium's methods were justified by dozens of books. There was no [[Ciaphas Cain]], no likable or sane character to be found. The Sisters of Battle fielded suicide bomber cadres, the Space Marines were a shadow of their power in later editions, and more insane: imperfections in their half forgotten surgical techniques rendered 9 out of 10 recruits dead and the survivors deranged. The [[Religious Horror]] was at its peak, the artwork like of things that can barely be called human hugging and kissing undetonated artillery shells, begging the gods of war for salvation has never been reprinted, the forces of Chaos, later [[Ultimate Evil]], were simply presented as an alternate form of insanity to that of the Imperium's. By 5e, ''Warhammer'' shows an Age of War where humanity's survival hangs in the balance. 3e showed an Age of Insanity where the spirit of man was long dead. The reason for this is because Games Workshop realized that almost everyone saw the storyline as a huge joke because it was too [[Grimdark]].

* ''[[Little Fears]] Nightmare Edition'' as compared to the original. The constant pall of child abuse is gone, and it's actually fairly well-suited to running a relatively light-hearted Kids Vs. Monsters adventure in the vein of ''[[The Monster Squad]].'' It has suggested rules modifications for taking it even ''further'' in the Lighter and Softer direction with the Dark Fairy Tales playmode (think ''[[Coraline (novel)|Coraline]]''—or your choice of children's fairy stories with a dark cast to them, if that one scared you too much)... or, alternately, darkening it to the point that it's more in line with the original game.

* ''[[Mutant Chronicles]]'' can be considered a lighter and softer take on ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. There are a lot of similar elements and the feel is much the same, but in ''Mutant Chronicles'', human life is considered precious and humanity still has a fighting chance.