Genre Emulation, what's that?

This month, Ryan and I take over the mics to talk about genre emulation. This is a pretty open-ended subject, so you really don't need to listen to the podcast to participate in the discussion (though we think you will find it informative and interesting). I'll put a rough outline of the episode below.

Our question for the Haven today is what games do genre emulation well for you? What are some of the specific techniques that they use? Is genre emulation even important for you? If not, why?

Finally, does a game's attempt to recreate the elements of a given genre on the tabletop start to go too far for you? If so, where does this happen?

Any other thoughts, questions on this issue are welcome here as well.

As there are a lot of D&D players here, I also mention that Ryan makes the point that D&D is its own genre. What do you all think of that notion?





[Podcast Summary:
We first discuss briefly what genre emulation is. The bulk of the discussion is a a breakdown of the various techniques used to emulate genres in RPGs, starting with inspirational and aesthetic techqniques that don't actually directly impact game play but do stimulate the imagination and set the tone. These are things like the art and layout of the book and the way the character sheet is designed. We move from this to trappings, such as the words used for various traits, which can be adjusted for a specific genre. Then we begin to look at actual mechanical techniques that some games use to capture certain genres, such as character generation (from classes to the complete integration of SotC), special powers (such as feats and edges) that are tweaked for certain genres. Finally, we conclude with games whose entire ruleset is constructed around a genre, including even the narrative arc the game takes. We leave the listeners with the question of where genre emulation works for you and where does it go too far and start to impinge upon your freedom as a player or a GM?

You can find all the excitement here:

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Well without the star power of last episode, looks like it's going to take a bit more effort to get this thread started!

So MountZionRyan, I'm calling you out on one thing I disagree with you on. Re-listening to the podcast, you said "Star Wars is basically a genre". I just don't see that. Space opera is the genre and it is a really well known example of that. But a genre itself, no. For it to be a genre, you would have to be able to strip out all the iconic, named elements and it would still be recognizable as Star Wars and that's just not the case. No death star, no Darth Vader, no Tatooine and it's just not Star Wars anymore.

Well, don't feel too bad walker...ask my group...I'm busy as mofo right now...

I actually want to partake, I've just got a lot on my plate.

Two words: Old Republic.
No Death Star, no Darth Vader, no Tatooine. Plenty of compelling heroes, dastardly villains, monsters, chases, and one-liners. Hell, Zayne Carrick, hero of Knights of the Old Republic, even has a Episode 4 Luke vibe to him.

I submit that part the failure of the prequel series was their failure to cleave to the Star Wars genre.

Now, perhaps I am mistaken because Space Opera is a term with a diaphanous definition. If we use a broad definition of "Adventure stories in Space," then Star Wars is part of Space Opera, but it is also a distinct sub-genre within Space Opera.

I see both of those as being sub-settings, part of a greater setting which is Star Wars. But Star Wars is a setting that is based on the space opera and to some degree pulp genres.

I guess a question I would put forth is can you have a different setting in the Star Wars world that wouldn't then be still part of the Star Wars setting? It seems to me that if you strip away all the factual elements and stick with the themes, you no longer have Star Wars, but space opera.

Ditto - I'm actually quite interested in the subject, (hell, I more or less suggested it) but suffering a severe shortage of hours in my day lately. I've had to sideline two important projects already, in fact. I haven't had time to listen to the podcast yet.

As a data point, this episode wasn't my cup of tea. I dig the show, prefer the interviews with indie designers and discussion of what games you guys are playing.

To be honest, I didn't make it through the entire episode, turned it off when I was listening to the 15 minute or so discussion of what genre emulation was and then saw there was 30 minutes left in the show. I think I could have put up with twenty minutes of this subject, but 45 minutes was just too much. Maybe some good stuff came up later, I didn't have the engagement to stick it out.

Genre emulation as a concept is so ingrained in my head that I find an introductory discussion of it to be a bit problematic. I play RPGs specifically *to* emulate genres most of the time. So a big intro on it wasn't valuable to me.

Also, and this is a habit of numerous podcasts, when discussing games, I like it when actual play is used for discussing points rather than a made-up example. If you haven't experienced it at the table, then I am less interested in discussion on the subject.

Sorry for the negative feedback, guys. I dig the show overall. I look forward to the next episode!

Thanks for the feedback Orklord. I wouldn't call the episode an introduction to genre emulation as as much a survey of it. We do get deeper later in the episode, but that being said, I don't think you would find it much more interesting than the first part, given your pretty advanced thought on the subject already. We really do have some rich conversations when we stray off-topic in our other recordings, but I think when we tried to do it in a more structured way, we may have ended up sucking some of the life out of it. I'm not sure. We will be continuing with our interviews (so many awesome people out there to talk to!), but we'd like to do some more discussion episodes as well. Your feedback is helpful. How would this subject have been framed to be more engaging for you?

One objection, I'll make of your critique is that I'm not sure what the made-up example is you are referring to. We didn't launch the subject specifically from play, but pretty much everything we discuss is based on games we've actually played. (as an aside, and I don't know if this is where you are coming from, but I take issue with the existing post-Forge dogma that now all game discussion must be about actual play; I see it as an overreaction to the excessive theory talk that got clamped down over there and that weird tradition still continues today in some circles).

It's all cool Orklord.

As a Puncturer of Canons, I suspect you've considered all this before.

I'll second WalkerPs comment about how we have these fun, dynamic conversations after/before recording and we tried to capture some of the magic.

I think part of the "sucking the life" out of the conversation was trying to appeal to too wide an audience. In this case, starting with some basics on what we considered Genre Emulation and working up from there.

And I am curious, Orklord, (and this is what I wanted this discussion to be about), what is your take on genre emulation? What games do it best for you and what parts of those games make the genre emulation happen?

It sounds like genre emulation is a primary goal for your gaming. Are there games where genre emulation is not a goal that could still be fun for you?