Genre-Essential Elements

[Natai]

What elements (in terms of setting, technology, events, characters, organizations, themes, etc.) would you consider essential to each of the following genres? What elements might you consider common or likely, but not essential? I'm particularly interested in terms of these genres in roleplaying games, though movies, television, books, etc. are just as relevant (if you think there will even be a difference).
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Cyberpunk
Post-Apocalyptic
Horror

[WittyDroog]

Science fiction, even the most "hard", needs technobabble

[SheikhJahbooty]

I think what he means is more along the lines of:

Does sci-fi need FTL? For some people, I'm sure it does. Sci-fi without FTL might seem like cyberpunk to them.

I'll try Fantasy

Personally, I want to see magic (can be psychic powers masquerading as magic, or some substance that has unusual properties but I expect to see wizards or witches or divine blessing or something. It can be dangerous or rare.), fantastic creatures (an absolute must), comedy or deadly peril or both.

Oh and because it came up recently

Cyberpunk - cybernetics, very computer centric, dystopian (even if only slightly), mysteries, those at the top of society often feel they are unaccountable to those at the bottom, but it's the job of the heroes to prove them wrong.

This differs from Post-Apocalyptic in that the post apocalyptic genre should contain a strong theme of isolation. The rest of the world might even be going on about it's business (28 Days Later), but you can't get to them, or even talk to them. The idea that it is difficult to talk to those far away, and almost impossible to reach them, makes something post apocalyptic.

[Rob Lang]

Good question, Natai!

Fantasy
The standard races: Dwarves, Elves, etc
Magic
A focus on pre-gunpowder weapons

Science Fiction
FTL travel
strange worlds
laser guns
alien races (although not all, Icar doesn't have any)

Cyberpunk
Bionics
The Net
Dystopia
Corporations
Corruption

Post-Apocalyptic
Struggle of some kind
Broken elements of our own culture
Guns

Horror
Evil - an unseen horror that is never shown
Tension
The Occult in some form
Perhaps a mirror onto the darkest parts of humanity's psyche?

[SheikhJahbooty]

Oooo. Rob's right about the focus on pre-gunpowder weapons.

But the "fantasy races" I will disagree with, because I played a fair amount of Jorune, and a bit of Talislanta as a kid, and I consider them both Fantasy. Oh, Empire of the Petal Throne, too. I never played it, but I knew it existed.

For Horror... I don't really consider that a RPG genre. I know there are a lot of horror RPGs, but to tell the honest to God truth, the most horrible, bone chilling RPG sessions I've ever had were in fantasy or superheroes games.

Ars Magica, played one of the wizards' guards, was eaten by a kelpie, fought tooth and nail, and when he finally went down in a froth of bloody water, we screamed and cheered.

Champions game in which the villains were breeding superheroes, room full of pregnant women on hospital beds, all unconscious so they could be used to make super powered babies.

I think horror has to attack some sense of player identity. What do the players think of themselves or of human beings. Challenge that and horror ensues. Do the players think that people are free? Then captivity or slavery is horror. Do the players think that humans are at the top of the food chain? Then being eaten is horror. Do the players think people have free will, and can make their own decisions? Then affecting their mind with cybertech, or magic or psychic powers is horror. (Really, once I got the chance to play Traveller with Zhodani. I pushed the horror so much you'd think the PCs were facing mind flayers.)

And one thing I would like to add to Space Opera (sci-fi). It doesn't work very well with a lot of cyberpunk technology. If you add too much transformative technology. For example, cyborgs aren't cool bodyguards in Space Opera, they're cybermen, horrible villains. Robots are often villains or plucky sidekicks. AI plays little or no role in space opera. Nanotech makes space opera very weird, or very silly.

[Natai]

I do believe we've been botted!
For some reason the bot's name, with a slight spelling change, made me think cyberpunk.
Pre-meat - the lowest of the low; cybernetic or wholly artificial characters who consider unaugmented people lowly "meatbags", while a "pre-meat" is even more pathetic, unable to even defend himself; could also be a play off of "primate"

Anyway, I would probably consider "fantasy races" to be common and likely in a fantasy setting, but not essential. You could have different races, or even stick to humans, and still have a fantasy setting if many of the other elements are in place. Magic in some form definitely seems to be a common theme, along with a low technology level.

Rob's cyberpunk list pretty well hits all the major elements I was thinking of.

I agree that horror can be present in just about any genre, but I'm not sure frightening situations or questioning character identity alone make it horror. Actually calling some of these basic elements of character to me is just a sign of a good plot or story, doesn't have to involve a specific genrea. As for horror as a genre (Call of Cthulhu springs to mind), I was thinking two main elements would be:
Fear of the unknown or unexplicable
Some form of "psychological damage" representing the effects of fear or the risk of going "insane"
The occult would also be a common element as well

[SheikhJahbooty]

Maybe he's a bot that hopes to one day become meat.

You know, get a cloned body, map your AI onto the organic brain.

"One day, I'm going to be a real boy."

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

[BubbaBrown]

One of the major themes in the Post-Apocalyptic genre is: The Blank Slate. It is almost the opposite to CyberPunk. Instead of over-reaching, overlording governments and corporations... there's nothing. There's no big brother anymore. There's no corporate backers. Anything more complicated that a local government is extremely rare. After the apocalypse, you are truly left to your own devices. Everyone and everything has a chance to do what they want without some overlording presence to stop them.

Now that isn't to say, that something of the past hasn't survived. This brings me to the next theme of the genre: The Great Equalizer. The typical apocalypse should level the playing field by force. Survivors are survivors. Doesn't matter if it is a bunch of lucky people or an organization that planned for this to happen, they don't have that much more of an advantage compared to the other. In Cyberpunk, the game of life is biased in favor of the governments and corporations. After the Apocalypse, the game of life is biased heavily AGAINST ALL players.

Also, a good theme in Post-Apoc is "That Strange Deja vu". Pop, pulp, and historic culture needs to find it's way in. History likes to repeat itself and some things are just plain universal. To quote Ron Pearlman: "War. War never changes."

[Evil_Lawyer]

However are there Genre's that aren't mentioned here? I've always wanted to write a whole new out there Genre....a game which can't easily be pigeonholed

like Nobilis, Delieria, Spirit of the Century/Adventure,

Comedy/Urban Fantasy,