under used Genre

[kumakami]

so we all know that sword and magic fantasy dominates the RPG world but what do you thing is the least loved Genre of games? My short list;

*Pre dark ages (bronze for instance)

*NON Victorian Archaic world view Sci Fi; rocket age, Renasonse weirdness, ETC....

*film (0r game) Noir


what about you?

[Rob Lang]

Great topic, Kuma!

I'd like to see more genres punk'd up. I think the rennaisance (such as in Florence, Italy) would be great: powerful families, powerful church, artistic minds, big budget church, philosophers and so on. It would be punk'd by disregarding a lot of the rules and conventions that we believe about the time and concentrate on the intrigue.

I'd also like to see more Zombie RPGs. I still think there should be a Left 4 Dead RPG made.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I'd rather like to see more science fiction games grounded in the "Hard SF" branch of the genre. At the opposite end of the spectrum, lets see some more or new Giant Robot games - its been years since they announced a new version of Mekton, and it still hasn't surfaced.

This might be a bit of a tangent, but I'm interested in some new dates for the same genres. There are a lot of interesting years that don't seem to have much representation. For example, the 1890s and the closing of the globe is rife with some interesting elements - exploring the last few places, the death of the wild west, slide towards the first world war...

Another interesting time period would be the 50s, or a world set after a World War III set in that time period. (Fewer nukes available, and while the tech level is lower, more of it would be salvageable.)

What the world needs at the moment is a 1990s RPG. Cell phones and the internet have taken out a lot of the isolation behind good horror - so we need a time before those were overly available or reliable. At the same time, the 90s is still pretty similar to now so its easy to get into character and have an idea of what the world is like.

[kumakami]

rob: I really feel your right, but I think "punk'd" needs to be defined better. I would love some more zombie games....even combining your thought with CA's and Get a HARD SF Zombie game, one that doesn't gloss over WHY zombie exist and HOW the can function.

CA: ALL I can say is.... AMEN BROTHER!!!!!

[Zzarchov]

I think the reason you don't get a hard SF zombie game is because zombies in anyway that is scary or remotely apocalyptic are impossible.

1.) The human body is still a machine even if its dead. Its still a very frail machine that requires things like air and blood and energy.

2.) Even if its more like "The Rage Virus" there is still the issue with water and food. If you are mindless, most urbanites will die very quickly (3 days) without water.

3.) Especially if its the rage virus, Zombies will not work togethor. They will be self destructive and turn on each other as much as a normal person. So if you have 5 million screaming rage virus zombies, 30 seconds later you have 2.5 million, 30 seconds later 1.25...then by the end of the fifth minute its under 5 thousand.

So the average band of survivors just have to stay behind a locked apartment door and be able to stay alive by and large a week. And while they must be careful even later, 4 even remotely armed individuals versus 1 screaming lunatic is not making zombies a critical threat.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Hard SF is a relative thing, and much of it is based in how much explanation and science is invoked. Behavior altering pathogens do exist - such as toxicplasmosis - so something akin to rage is far harder than say voodoo magic, radiation, or the unspecified means from Romero's "Dead series".

The other half of hardness in SF is whether the story bends to the science, or the science to the story. Main character's in Resident Evil never seem to succumb to the T-virus, despite constant contact with carriers and the fact that the rest of the city apparently transformed in a few days. Its because they're the protagonists. Similarly, there is always a reason for the Star Trek transporter to fail, so the crew is stuck dealing with the situation, and never mind that just parking the Deathstar nearby should play havoc with the planet's tides - its cool and menacing, so its moon sized.

Conversely, 2001 accepts a long trip out to Jupiter, Rendezvous with Rama sends the team with the most delta-V to the visitor rather than the most competent, and Red Mars deals with the measures needed to protect astronauts from radiation several times.

So while perhaps not the most stringently accurate setting, a hard zombie apocalypse is possible.

[Kinslayer]

For a timeframe, the end of the Nineteenth Century is dominated by cowboys and English. Strangely, there doesn't seem to be much of a genre overlap between Victoriana and the Wild West. It's kind of sad that the best example of 19C gaming that isn't one of these two is a Ravenloft accessory. The rest of the world is practically untouched in gaming between 1840 to WWI. You'd think at least one designer would try to combine the two and show the rest of the world at the same time. Imagine a steampunk/western/horror/Victorian/gothic/Lovecraftian game set in 19th Century Australia. Call it Australis Incognita.

For locations, Africa draws the short stick. With so much space, history, wild animals, and uniqueness, it is prime source material for game design. Not only are there hundreds of thousands of years of history to pull from, but Africa is about the only place where you could combine different eras by shoving them together. That is, you could have blackpowder-armed pirates versus internet pirates, stone-age warriors versus knights, Muslim missionaries versus ancient shamanism, and silly talking animals versus ninjas. What's that you say? There aren't any ninjas in Africa? That's just what the ninjas want you to think. Of course you won't see them--they're ninjas.

[Starglim]

In Living Death (the Masque of the Red Death living campaign) I played through quite a few scenarios set in Africa, Australia, with British characters in the Old West and so on. For all I know those might be available on the web somewhere.

I haven't seen much in the technothriller line for a while, though it seemed bigger before WotC decided to go the Joss-Whedon-with-the numbers-filed-off route for d20 Modern.

[Kinslayer]

The irony that d20 Modern seemed to have put 'modern' gaming in a coma is not lost on me, either.

[kumakami]

wierdly I kind of liked mod d20......but I would have been happier with Alternity 2.0

Thinking of addapting the dice machanics for a game I want to write after F.O.G. is done