This post is by Beau and John W. Sheldon. Check out John’s work here and find him on Twitter. Support Beau through Patreon.com/thoughty! Individual donations at PayPal.me/Thoughty or ko-fi.com/thoughty.
John
Genres always have soft edges, and any given work may fit into multiple genres (e.g., NYPD Blue is a drama, a police procedural, and arguably a modern noir, but it is not a crime thriller in the way that fellow police procedural Law & Order: Criminal Intent is). Games aren’t well defined by the genres we use for fixed fiction (because games are not fixed in that way, and are not experienced the way we experience books or movies).
Games need separate genres for their rules as written, for their fictional content, and for the experiences that arise from the confluence of those things with player action.
Rules genres: GURPS and Cortex share a rules genre with the D20 SRD, in that they offer a toolkit approach to providing game rules for “almost anything”. On a different axis of rules genre, GURPS and D20 share a genre because of their simulationist approach to resolving conflicts in a granular way, where Cortex is excluded from that genre.
Content Genres: the fictional and tonal content of a game deserves genre categorization. This includes whether a game is expected to be an action game, a dramatic game, or a comedy, but also the setting and time period, the level of technology, and other trappings of more traditional genres. Games can share content genres without sharing rules genres (e.g., Hackmaster and Dungeon World share several aspects of content genres without sharing much in rules genres).
Experiential Genre: a category defined by how players experience the interplay between the rules, the content, and their own contributions, the more tightly this genre is defined the less universal and helpful a descriptor it will be (since a separate game table with different people may implement rules differently, focus on different content, and make unique contributions, and thusly have a different Experience of a game with the same rules and content).
One table’s experience of Shadowrun as a cyberPUNK game focused on sticking it to the man and helping disadvantaged communities draws from the same fiction and rules as another table’s experience of Shadowrun as a neon future heist simulator.
Notes on broad category: Doing games vs Being games (those that care about what you do vs those that care about what you are). Most tabletop RPG games are Doing games – the rules respond to actions, and they lead to more actions and changes in action. Many indie LARPs are Being games – the rules instruct the players on how to be and what to consider, and players respond naturally to their new way of being – but the rules are less concerned with Doing. The Climb or Still Life are Being larps, while a V:tM larp or a boffer larp are Doing larps. Turn is a Being game, while every other group tabletop RPG I can think of is a Doing game.
Beau
When I worked on Turn, I was often asked about its genre. I found this difficult and categorized it as I could but realized over time that games have different ways of being in genres than other media, and realized I needed to address this before we talk more about Wolfenstein: The New Order which defies its own genre conventions…sort of.
I talked to John about this and it prompted his summary, and my summary was as following with a more detailed breakdown of examples of games. It’s mostly something to think about, not argue about, so I felt okay writing it down. Even John and I feel differently about some things, so remember, all is a little subjective.
Ways of Playing
Doing – about taking action, what you do. Most games!
Being – about responding to action, who you are (& how you feel). Turn, many larps, many lonely games.
Genre Categories
- Experiential genre – how the game is experienced, narrative driven, character driven, etc.
- Game/mechanics genre – the mechanical design and intent, generic, specific, fps, action, etc.
- Content genre – type of content, presentation of content, supernatural, noir
- Tonal genre – how the game feels, intense, slice of life, dramatic, cozy, etc.
We used these to break down the following genre tags for a few different games. The initial bullet points are our brainstormed ideas of what suits a game, but are not all-inclusive, and the breakdowns follow. Each one of these categories has the potential to break down even further, especially content and mechanics, which could break down into in-game tone and meta tone or various mechanical systems for live action, video, or tabletop games.
Examples
- GURPS – doing, generic, tabletop rpg
- Mechanical: tabletop RPG
- Content: generic
- The Climb – being, scenario driven dramatic realistic live action rpg
- Experiential: scenario driven
- Mechanical: live action RPG
- Content: dramatic
- Tonal: realistic
- Still Life – being, character driven slice of life live action rpg
- Experiential: character driven
- Mechanical: live action RPG
- Tonal: slice of life
- Vampire Larp – doing, fantasy, urban supernatural dramatic character driven, player driven live action rpg
- Experiential: character driven, player driven
- Mechanical: live action RPG
- Content: fantasy, urban supernatural
- Boffer Larp – doing, scenario driven, dungeon fantasy live action rpg
- Experiential: scenario driven
- Mechanical: live action RPG
- Content: dungeon fantasy
- The Story of My Face – being, horror adventure and scenario driven, player driven lonely live action rpg, selfie game
- Experiential: scenario driven, player driven
- Mechanical: lonely game, selfie game, live action RPG
- Content: Horror, adventure
- Tonal: lonely game
- Dungeons & Dragons – doing, dungeon fantasy, adventure narrative driven character driven tabletop rpg
- Experiential: narrative driven, character driven
- Mechanical: tabletop RPG
- Content: dungeon fantasy, adventure
- Shadowrun 5e – doing, cyberpunk alternative futuristic narrative driven scenario driven tabletop rpg
- Experiential: narrative driven, scenario driven
- Mechanical: tabletop RPG
- Content: CYBERpunk, alternative futuristic
- Shadowrun: Anarchy – doing, cyberpunk alternative futuristic character driven scenario driven tabletop rpg
- Experiential: character driven, scenario driven
- Mechanical: tabletop RPG
- Content: cyberPUNK, alternative futuristic
- Turn – being, slice of life character driven supernatural rural shapeshifters tabletop rpg
- Experiential: character driven
- Mechanical: roleplaying game
- Content: supernatural, rural, shapeshifters
- Tonal: slice of life
- Wolfenstein The New Order – doing, fps drama/dramatic historical/period alternate universe punk, character driven video game
- Experiential: character driven
- Mechanical: first person shooter (FPS), video game
- Content: drama, historical/period, alternate universe, punk
- Tonal: dramatic
Genre Principles
These breakdowns might take a little while to fully make sense of, but here are the core principles.
- Games have different genres than other media.
- The experience of games influences the genre of a game.
- Sometimes genre tags fit in multiple categories.
- Different people will assign different meanings to different genre tags and categories.
- Doing and being can be isolated or they can be combined, a number of games have a little bit of both, and their dominant way of playing can change how they are experienced, influencing genre.
- Genre is a tool, but is not necessarily something everyone must use or understand. It is something, however, people can bend or break, adhere to or queer, without using or understanding it actively.
This is just the start of a longer conversation about how we use genre to apply a moral value to various games, or to belittle the quality without questioning of games. Wolfenstein is simply an FPS, but is one of the deepest games I’ve ever played. The only difference between Shadowrun 5e and Shadowrun Anarchy is the experience and where the emphasis is on cyberpunk but it makes two very different games. Turn is a combination of genre tags that don’t really have a place when they’re all combined, but it results in a unique play experience as a being game.
What is your game’s genre breakdown using this metric? Does it play like you’re doing or being? How do you feel about ignoring genre or exploring it more deeply? Respectfully discuss in the comments and elsewhere. I look forward to hearing your discussions!
