Wikipedia lumps them together, and that's confusing as much as misleading, as I'll discuss below
You can go to the Wiki List I'm working from:
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Paranoia, Political, Romance, and Thriller are all Genres, in the more truer definition. They have a distinct set of feelings, we could even cross reference feelings to come up with these.. Excitement, Discovery (location), Laughter, Discovery(events of dubious nature), Extrinsic Emotion, Disgust , Discovery (events), Helplessness, Machinations? Love, Fear.
This suggests that while there are definitive lines in the sand, Thriller, Horror and Paranoia all stem from Fear of the Unknown, Violence and Control. And Crime, Mystery and Adventure are all subsets of Discovery.
Sagas seem to be a sub genre that, due to the title, historical nature of the story, are just included in genres, that said, Its possibly both a genre and a setting, as to qualify, it needs to be OP stories of Vikings doing heroic deeds. Personally that's just stylistic representation of Historical Adventure.
So, our Settings are, Fantasy, Historical, Western, Urban/Modern, Science Fiction, Science Fantasy. Even said, Western is technically just Historical,, else should we break out Classical, Medieval?
So, Non realistic and Realistic events before now, now, and in the future? The problem with this, is the purpose of the setting is to evoke an understanding of the culture, timeline, technology and way of thinking of a given people. Fantasy is commonly Tolkienised, with Elves, Fairies, Dwarves and Orcs. While Magical effects added to Medieval History would be Merlin and King Arthur. Which is why Historical Fiction exists as a Genre, too many styles of Fantasy, means the Setting needs to be split to understand which Audience you're trying to connect to.
Magical Realism, refers to magic existing, yet not changing the very underlying world. Harry Potter may have influenced this break away. The Muggle world is our world, and we are unaware of the magic going on. This can also include the Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Modern Witches, maybe even Cthulhu style games (though, typically Cthulhu is more Late Victorian era)
Its Curious, that while Historical fiction, Magical Realism and Sagas are separated out, Punk, Space Opera, Science fantasy and Apocalyptic settings all come under the "science fiction" Setting, Yet, when you say Science fiction, several people will not think any of those genres, instead jumping to Star Wars Styled settings as the 'default.
So, for the purposes of this post, Our Real settings are , Classic, Medieval, High Fantasy, Pirates, Western, Modern, Post Modern, and Science Fiction.
Settings are different, its a set of background rules, an understanding of what kind of people will be in the world, how they act and react, and most importantly, No Cross Over. You cannot have High Fantasy and Western, You can add off world races to western for spice, or you can add gunslingers to Merlin's Castle, but the underlying core is defined, When you say western to 50 people, you'll get several identical key points. Sure Science Fantasy and Science Fiction are well defined, Star wars vs Star Trek, explainable science vs hand-waved science. Yet at the end of the day, spaceships, laser guns, alien races, in space, all say science fiction.
I have heard the argument, but wait, Sailing ships, Blunderbusses, Island Races on the High Sea, all match the underlying theme, which is why Treasure Island so easily ported over to Treasure Planet. Yet state those 4 elements to 50 people, and I doubt anyone will say Post Modern, or Classic.
The Same 'could' be said of Philosophical? Are we exploring possible Utopian or Distopian societies to understand ourselves better?
Satire exists as a form which is referenced by real life events, or in some cases, recognized events from an existing story, bent in a way to be different. Yet it cannot exist as a genre unto itself, So its more a modifier of an existing genre. Also In roleplay, since we use memes, references to existing works, understandings of the world through other mediums, such as movies, books, then all roleplay is a form of Satire.
I can speculate, that playing a Surreal Setting, might be fun for a session, a dream sequence, it'll be hard to pull off, explaining to players that they swim through colours, and experience smells as experience points, yet the underlying problem is that a setting evokes an understanding of the world, to make decisions, but a surreal world would be so without proper understanding, it would destroy the fabric of what makes the roleplay game work, and be fun.
And Social is just the Indian term for Modern.
What Genres x Settings Exist in Roleplay, and whats missing?
There are 24 genres listed in Wikipedia, Some we can discount instantly, for roleplay, and some, well, they're not genres, they're settings, I don't know why they're lumped together and I don't remember why I seem to have a very strong memory learning them as very separate structures. Maybe my High School teacher had strong, logical reasons and I agreed with him/her on the subject:You can go to the Wiki List I'm working from:
Genres:
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Paranoia, Political, Romance, and Thriller are all Genres, in the more truer definition. They have a distinct set of feelings, we could even cross reference feelings to come up with these.. Excitement, Discovery (location), Laughter, Discovery(events of dubious nature), Extrinsic Emotion, Disgust , Discovery (events), Helplessness, Machinations? Love, Fear.
This suggests that while there are definitive lines in the sand, Thriller, Horror and Paranoia all stem from Fear of the Unknown, Violence and Control. And Crime, Mystery and Adventure are all subsets of Discovery.
Sagas seem to be a sub genre that, due to the title, historical nature of the story, are just included in genres, that said, Its possibly both a genre and a setting, as to qualify, it needs to be OP stories of Vikings doing heroic deeds. Personally that's just stylistic representation of Historical Adventure.
BUT, you can mix these.
Yes, Its very easy to mix many of these, because they are emotional, Start with some discovery, that leads to fear, causes problems with sickness and is conquered with laughter. But your audience will come out at the end, unable to pinpoint why it was good, IF it was good, Which is why movies stick to one or two of them, and books two or three.
Also, some of them destroy each other if not done right. Comedy done as laughter will bring down the Horror, Paranoia, Thriller and even Mystery. Yet releasing tension with the right dark humour can control the audience.
Also, some of them destroy each other if not done right. Comedy done as laughter will bring down the Horror, Paranoia, Thriller and even Mystery. Yet releasing tension with the right dark humour can control the audience.
Settings
So, our Settings are, Fantasy, Historical, Western, Urban/Modern, Science Fiction, Science Fantasy. Even said, Western is technically just Historical,, else should we break out Classical, Medieval?
So, Non realistic and Realistic events before now, now, and in the future? The problem with this, is the purpose of the setting is to evoke an understanding of the culture, timeline, technology and way of thinking of a given people. Fantasy is commonly Tolkienised, with Elves, Fairies, Dwarves and Orcs. While Magical effects added to Medieval History would be Merlin and King Arthur. Which is why Historical Fiction exists as a Genre, too many styles of Fantasy, means the Setting needs to be split to understand which Audience you're trying to connect to.
Magical Realism, refers to magic existing, yet not changing the very underlying world. Harry Potter may have influenced this break away. The Muggle world is our world, and we are unaware of the magic going on. This can also include the Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Modern Witches, maybe even Cthulhu style games (though, typically Cthulhu is more Late Victorian era)
Its Curious, that while Historical fiction, Magical Realism and Sagas are separated out, Punk, Space Opera, Science fantasy and Apocalyptic settings all come under the "science fiction" Setting, Yet, when you say Science fiction, several people will not think any of those genres, instead jumping to Star Wars Styled settings as the 'default.
So, for the purposes of this post, Our Real settings are , Classic, Medieval, High Fantasy, Pirates, Western, Modern, Post Modern, and Science Fiction.
How are these not Genres?
First, we defined that Genres are constructs of Feelings you get from watching a movie, You can have multiple feelings, but to get a real sense of a specific feeling you don't invoke more than a few.Settings are different, its a set of background rules, an understanding of what kind of people will be in the world, how they act and react, and most importantly, No Cross Over. You cannot have High Fantasy and Western, You can add off world races to western for spice, or you can add gunslingers to Merlin's Castle, but the underlying core is defined, When you say western to 50 people, you'll get several identical key points. Sure Science Fantasy and Science Fiction are well defined, Star wars vs Star Trek, explainable science vs hand-waved science. Yet at the end of the day, spaceships, laser guns, alien races, in space, all say science fiction.
I have heard the argument, but wait, Sailing ships, Blunderbusses, Island Races on the High Sea, all match the underlying theme, which is why Treasure Island so easily ported over to Treasure Planet. Yet state those 4 elements to 50 people, and I doubt anyone will say Post Modern, or Classic.
What of Philosophical? and Absurdist/Surreal/Whimsical, Satire, Social or Speculative?
Speculative, IS roleplay, we are speculating, if a person existed, in a defined world, what would happen if they chose to make a given action, such as explore a dungeon, with a sword. Not to say, that the game can't involve speculation within itself, like a meta inception. See more on this below.The Same 'could' be said of Philosophical? Are we exploring possible Utopian or Distopian societies to understand ourselves better?
Satire exists as a form which is referenced by real life events, or in some cases, recognized events from an existing story, bent in a way to be different. Yet it cannot exist as a genre unto itself, So its more a modifier of an existing genre. Also In roleplay, since we use memes, references to existing works, understandings of the world through other mediums, such as movies, books, then all roleplay is a form of Satire.
I can speculate, that playing a Surreal Setting, might be fun for a session, a dream sequence, it'll be hard to pull off, explaining to players that they swim through colours, and experience smells as experience points, yet the underlying problem is that a setting evokes an understanding of the world, to make decisions, but a surreal world would be so without proper understanding, it would destroy the fabric of what makes the roleplay game work, and be fun.
And Social is just the Indian term for Modern.
So the verdict?
Two Genres and One Setting. This would be the most likely definition for a roleplay system. Not to say elements of others are absent, just that to be easily identified to an Audience.
This gives us Seven genres, (Action, Comedy, Discovery, Drama, Political, Romance, and Thriller) with 8 Settings, (Classic, Medieval, High Fantasy, Pirates, Western, Modern, Post Modern, and Science Fiction.) giving us a final 64 possible "categories" defined. With the Two Genre Possible structure, and given that not all Genres can go together, it looks like we can have around 500 odd Slightly broader categories.
Some of them, we know exist, Action Adventure High Fantasy = D&D. (Paranoia based) Thriller 1950s Modern = Cthulhu, Action Comedy Science-Fiction = Alpha XXX Blue.
If we went through all 500 Categories, would we find an obvious choice for all? or would it be hard? Would we start reaching empty gaps? and would those gaps be interesting to make a campaign for?
As a random example (as I roll d8s), Discovery Romance Western, gives me Indiana Jones,
So I chucked up a spreadsheet, I got these:
So, it does indeed seem like there are holes, and the question is.. Is it interesting to explore the gaps
From that quick little attempt, Its obvious to me that Action + adventure, and Action + Discovery is going to have a roleplay game out there for each possible genre, and likely each sub-genre.
Thriller is also a genre that will likely have a decent amount of games, even if they are all Cthulhu rip-offs.
Comedy, while it happens in roleplay often, because strange things happen, and there are gonzo styled games that try to evoke comedic moments, I think its harder to 'make' a comedic roleplay game.
What might be the genres we find gaps are going to be Drama, Romance and Political, and maybe that's because they don't lend themselves to roleplay as much as we like, or they're tacked on...poorly, by the rule-set being used.
When two combatants go against each other, several factors, such as weapon, skill, armour, and timing come into a turn by turn structure of combat. The outcome are wounds, dismemberment or death, so its vital to understand this and make it as fair as possible.
Yet many RPG system treat the nuances of politics, diplomacy, romance, persuasion, charm, conflict, lies, deception and perception as a single die roll. An entire campaign, hinged on the single arbitrary roll.
This is one of the reasons, I decided that all aspects of roleplay should, if players want it, have a play by play rules for each of the common aspects of roleplay.
I've blogged a little about this, but I think its time to take it further..
If we went through all 500 Categories, would we find an obvious choice for all? or would it be hard? Would we start reaching empty gaps? and would those gaps be interesting to make a campaign for?
As a random example (as I roll d8s), Discovery Romance Western, gives me Indiana Jones,
So I chucked up a spreadsheet, I got these:
- As discussed, Comedy Thriller is going to be hard to do as a roleplay.. Movies, such as, Evil Dead 2 is a tad more comedic, as is Shaun of the Dead, so its plausible some good players and GMs could pull this off. The Comedy aspect, suggests a light system.
- Discovery Action, Post modern, might be game plots based on National Treasure, Maybe FATE or Gumshoe could work as a system for this.
- Drama Romance Sci Fi makes me think of Battlestar Gallactica.
- Unsure what Romance Comedy Pirates would be as a game, like roleplaying in Pirates of Penzance. Could be fun for a session, but not long term.
- Action Discovery Western, a very likely scenario. I've run one of these with my system, yet I know there are western style RPGs that do this already.
- Thriller Action High Fantasy, well, I'm running one of them right now.. so that's obvious.
- and lastly, Political Romance High Fantasy. I get the impression that Lamentations of the Flame Princess is like this. but I'm probably very wrong. This does like it would be difficult to find such a game focussed on it.
So, it does indeed seem like there are holes, and the question is.. Is it interesting to explore the gaps
-----==========-----
Final Notes
From that quick little attempt, Its obvious to me that Action + adventure, and Action + Discovery is going to have a roleplay game out there for each possible genre, and likely each sub-genre.
Thriller is also a genre that will likely have a decent amount of games, even if they are all Cthulhu rip-offs.
Comedy, while it happens in roleplay often, because strange things happen, and there are gonzo styled games that try to evoke comedic moments, I think its harder to 'make' a comedic roleplay game.
What might be the genres we find gaps are going to be Drama, Romance and Political, and maybe that's because they don't lend themselves to roleplay as much as we like, or they're tacked on...poorly, by the rule-set being used.
When two combatants go against each other, several factors, such as weapon, skill, armour, and timing come into a turn by turn structure of combat. The outcome are wounds, dismemberment or death, so its vital to understand this and make it as fair as possible.
Yet many RPG system treat the nuances of politics, diplomacy, romance, persuasion, charm, conflict, lies, deception and perception as a single die roll. An entire campaign, hinged on the single arbitrary roll.
This is one of the reasons, I decided that all aspects of roleplay should, if players want it, have a play by play rules for each of the common aspects of roleplay.
I've blogged a little about this, but I think its time to take it further..
No comments:
Post a Comment