Every now and then I see a message forum post or blog about a specific genre and how such and such game does a poor job or a good job recreating it.
I always have a somewhat mixed reaction. On one hand, in concept I love the idea of rules matching the genre. That is after all a target any game design should aim for. But the other hand almost always come into play- and that is I tend to object to what exactly people think is part of the Genre.
To use one example I've seen a number of times online, the claim is made about the Comic Book genre that a Superhero system should allow just about anyone to beat anyone. After all, Wolverine beat Lobo now didn't he? Thus Powers and abilities should be extremely flexible in effectiveness in order to reflect the source materials...
Really?
I mean do people really consider one of the attractions of the comic book genre to be ever changing abilities (and personalities) of the characters driven by who's writing that month to be a good feature of the medium worthy of simulation in a rpg? Or do they just consider it bad writing and retcons?
I'm firmly on the side of this being of bad writing myself.
By no means does this mean that unlikely things don't happen or that underdogs can't win. Most genres and rpgs allow this. It’s just that the underdog had to be smart and/or lucky.
Now I'm sure that there are others that disagree and think that comic authors should have Super X the Mighty rend steel with his bare hands one issue and be restrained by common rope the next. And that a superhero rpg should follow suit. After all, these would be the people who post such rpg advice in the first place.
But personally I think they are carrying genre emulation too far, and aren't thinking as they do so. There is no requirement to emulate the bad elements of a genre. Be it repetitive plots, highly unrealistic events in an otherwise realistic setting, changing characters, racism, or even intended subtext of the original.
People often play and design genre games to do them right, without the limits and failures of the original. And they should, it will be a better game as a result. No matter what someone else claims is a 'required' element of the genre.
This in the end explains something about the rpg hobby. Why do we have so many games on the same subjects? It’s because everyone has a different view of what any specific genre is and is not. Be happy about this, it’s what gets us the wide ranging choice of games we have today.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Who's Genre?
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3 comments:
I remember someone hypothesizing that the WH40K rules were so poorly balanced because it was a British game and they weren't cut-throat enough to play-test them the way Americans did, exploiting all the ridiculous and poorly thought out rules.
I don't really believe that was true. But it was somewhat funny. A lot of people of a gamer mindset who read comics do, in fact, quantify things: I loved the Marvel Universe and DC Who's Who books because I hoped they would give me actual quantifiable data about the characters so I could better understand them and have a mental model.
At the root of it there was kinda-sorta supposed to be an objective rating for them: it just got thrown out the window when the needs of the narrative overwhelmed the writer.
So, yeah: I don't buy Wolverine beating Lobo or what-have you (Spiderman vs. the Silver Surfer, IIRC did go to great lenghts to say the SS was beat the hell up before the fight. YMMV as to whether this is enough to justify it anyway).
The kind of thinking an RPG-player does is usually antitheical to the anything goes single-author nature of a lot of comics.
-Marco
The kind of thinking an RPG-player does is usually antitheical to the anything goes single-author nature of a lot of comics.
Yeah, the moment the first stat block was created, the RPG hobby has been shaped by hobbyists with the urge to determine what values matter for their game and then to quantify those values.
I don't know if I'd want that in any fiction I read, so it's nice that they usually don't. It may mean that the rules and the setting for a licensed game may not line up right, but they're different and should be treated differently.
I agree with you both that there's always going to be a disconnect between an rpg and the source material for the simple reason that rpgs are active and the source material is passive.
The rules thus have to be different, and if they aren't- you're going to end up with a lesser game as a result.
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