Need Help with Genre examples

[Ayyavazi]

Hello all,

You may remember my discussions earlier about the system I was designing with some heavy Dogs influence and morality attributes. That system is still under construction, but it gave birth to a new system that I have developed that takes strong influence from Capes, Spirit of the Century (ultimately, Fudge), and 3:16.

I suppose that all doesn't really matter, and I'll admit it is my attempt to dredge up some help from the interested folks. Plus, the new system is ready for play-testing, so I need to dredge up some interest there.

What I need from you for now, is some very basic help in recognizing different genres of play, and some popular movie or novel examples, the kinds of things people can say, "I want to play x genre, lets watch y movie and see how it works!"

Here's what I have so far:

Horror (Saw, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Ring)
Medieval Fantasy (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Eragon)
Modern Fantasy (Harry Potter, The Golden Compass)
Suspense (Silence of the Lambs,
The Undead (Night of the Living Dead, The Vampire Lestat, 30 Days of Night)
Comedy (Army of Darkness,
Superheroes (Spider Man, Superman, The Dark Knight)
Action (The Bourne trilogy,
Sci-Fi (Star Wars, Star Trek,
Action/Adventure (Indiana Jones, National Treasure)
Drama (
Family Values (Up, Wall-E)

I think having some discussion about the genres and what movies are reccommended to be added/removed and why would help me to flesh out this portion of the game. The reason this is important is because the system supports any genre (at least I like to think it does) of play, and I need to be able to give some ideas to new groups that don't know where to start when trying to play.

Thanks for any help you can offer,

--Norm

[Brimshack]

I'm not real certain how the genres will be defined for you or how you want to handle the boundaries between them, but just to pop out some extra ideas...

Horror: Devil's Backbone, The Shining,
Medieval Fantasy: Grendel, Excalibur.
Modern Fantasy: Pan's Labrynth.
Suspense: Capote, The War Zone.
The Undead: Interview with the Vampire.
Comedy: Holy Grail.
Superheroes: ...
Action: Jackie Chan movies, Big Trouble in Little China.
Sci-Fi: Firefly and Serenity, Soilent Green (...is people!!!), Blade Runner.
Action/Adventure: Romancing the Stone.
Drama: Once Were Warriors, Broken English, Hail Mary, Pulp Fiction, .
Family Values: Smoke Signals.

Do you have room for martial arts as a separate category? What about Samurai movies?

[Vulpinoid]

Here's my picks...

[Actually, this is an edit that I've made before I made my post.]

Picking genres for great films is really tricky, because like good literature, good movies can cross many genres and often transcend genre entirely.

I could easily argue with the earlier posts that "Big Trouble in Little China" and"Army of Darkness" are actually undead movies.

"The Dark Knight" may have become the quintessential superhero movie in many people's eyes, but it makes a great drama and certainly has plenty of action.

As for other movies, there's some greatly subjective ideas...but for my 2 cents...

Alien...the original is a blend of "suspense", "horror" and "sci-fi", I've seen critiques and essays detailing it from each perspective.

I am Legend...arguably the best version of this "sci-fi", "undead", "drama" novel (even though it doesn't raise the deeper question posed by the original story).

Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai...an "action", "drama", where the "family" values are mafia oriented...

...

...and where does one place Santa Sangrea...an underrated masterpiece containing elements of "horror", "drama", "suspense", possibly "modern fantasy", and from a twisted perspective "family values".


Of course if you want some more movies that really epitomise a single genre in my mind...

Ladyhawke...Medieval Fantasy.
Fight Club...Suspense.
Hellboy...Modern Fantasy.

V

[Ayyavazi]

Thanks for the replies folks,

I think making martial arts its own genre would work just fine. I also need to add a Western genre and perhaps include some explanatory text in my game about stories and movies that cross genres, something I am aware of. I am looking for movies that both epitomize a given genre and/or movies that are generally accepted as good that can fit into one or more genres.

The key here is in choosing movies the average person (read: not average guy or average girl) has actually seen. Also, by average person, I mean average person, not average gamer. The game I am designing is meant to appeal to both crowds (gamer and non-gamer) and so obscure movie references (no matter how good the movie actually was) will do me almost no good. I know classifying people as gamer or non-gamer is an oversimplification. I know it deals with stereotypes. I am hoping we can all accept the fact that generally, gamers (from my experience) think differently about movies than non-gamers.  Example: I know plenty of gamers that have seen Sukiyaki Western Django and think it is a great movie. I know zero non-gamers who have. Sure, they exist. But I don't know any, so either they are rare, or my social group is exceptionally small (and I like to think it isn't).

Anyhow, popular movies are the orderof the day here, though an occasional obscure movie is ok, since some genres are only loved by the people that watch them.

Cheers,
--Norm

[M. Burrell]

Sorry if you've called this thread to a close, Ayyavazi, but reading through has put a few things in my mind.

Firstly, it strikes me that you need to re-think your Genre-list. Isn't 'Undead' but a sub-category of 'Horror' and 'Superhero' the same of 'Action'? I know it's quite subjective, but you need to make yourself as clear as possible. As Vulpinoid says, there's transcendent films and such, but it's easier to see this when you have more solid definitions.

Action
Thriller (suspense)
Horror
Comedy
Sci-fi
Fantasy
Drama
Family & Children's

That's the 'purest' list of genres I can suggest. Just be careful to break things down equally (you couldn't do 'Western' as a genre without 'War' and 'Noir').

As a second and slightly shorter point, it's a vast leap in logic to suggest that a 'gamer' knows more about cinema than I 'non-gamer'. Think about it. Your best bet is to make a list of ten films for each encompassing both the mainstream and more specialist interests.

Cheers,
Mike.

[Ayyavazi]

Thanks for the input Mike,

I agree that including example films from general and specialist is a great idea. I will probably do that from here on out. As for having few broad genres rather than many specific genres, I will probably stick with many specific genres. Thanks for your genre suggestions!

here is the list as it stands, and I still need suggestions. I haven't added in this thread's worth of suggestions yet.

Horror (Saw, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Ring)
Medieval Fantasy (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Eragon)
Modern Fantasy (Harry Potter, The Golden Compass)
Suspense (Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense,
The Undead (Night of the Living Dead, Interview with the Vampire, 30 Days of Night)
Comedy (
Superheroes (Spider Man, Superman, The Dark Knight)
Action (The Bourne trilogy, The Matrix,
Sci-Fi (Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Stargate, Babylon 5, The Fifth Element)
Action/Adventure (Indiana Jones, National Treasure, Pirates of the Carribean)
Drama (
Romance(
Family Values (Up, Wall-E)
Martial Arts (Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies)
Western (True Grit, Wyatt Earp,
Anime (The Eight Devils of Kimone, Cowboy Bebop, Tri-Gun, Gundam)
Spoof (Blazing Saddles, Scary Movie, Spaceballs)
Fables (Robin Hood, King Arthur, Tall Tales)
War (
Noir (

thanks again,
--Norm