Genre Knobs

[Jeffrey Miller]

I'm sure y'all will find a link here at The Forge to point me at... ;) ...but has anyone worked with the concept of "genre knobs" in their games?  That is, a mechanic, rule, or sub-system that allows for minor changes to effect the tone/genre/style of the game?

[Jared A. Sorensen]

The Code (by me) and Donjon (by Clinton R. Nixon) both have "dials" -- they do more or less what you're describing.

[Jeffrey Miller]

The Code (by me) and Donjon (by Clinton R. Nixon) both have "dials" -- they do more or less what you're describing.

*laugh*  funny, I just purchased Donjon last night and was skimming the intro when I hit the bit about dials, and thought, "Hey, I should kick up discussion about genre knobs.."

[Mike Holmes]

I think that this is very much what Fang is going for with Scattershot's Genre Expectations.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I think that Champions Millenium (a hybrid of the Hero System and Fuzion) explicitly went for this goal in terms of violence, lethality, plausibility, and other ways to "tune" a comics RPG. They used the term "switch" for rules that either did or did not get applied, and the term "dial" for rules which could be adjusted in terms of severity.

People aren't very careful with this terminology, I've noticed; for instance, I think Donjon uses "dials" when it means switches.

The Champions Millenium example is firmly Simulationist-System, but the same idea can be applied to any RPG design, I'd think. You'd be dialing and switching different things than the "plausibility meter," though.

Best,
Ron

[Jeffrey Miller]

Hi there,



The Champions Millenium example is firmly Simulationist-System, but the same idea can be applied to any RPG design, I'd think. You'd be dialing and switching different things than the "plausibility meter," though.

*nod*  When I talk to people about the importance of system to the game that ends up being played, I often point to the difference in how damage is handled between D&D and CoC.  Both are fully functional systems, but each portrays a different reality.  Even an N game is going to be influenced by system, in how it dictats and resolves conflicts.

[Le Joueur]

I think that this is very much what Fang is going for with Scattershot's Genre Expectations.

Kinda/sorta.  What I am trying to do is simplify the genre a game is set in and give it more a presence 'at the table' during play.  That's not exactly 'knobs' per se, more like 'targets.'  I explain the idea in the original Genre Expectations article, so that might help direct your thinking.  Lately, I honed the idea a little, to give it more 'teeth' in Combined Techniques: Genre Expectations and Experience Dice; now you have to pay attention to the expectations if you want those precious Experience Dice.  But that is almost nothing like 'knobs' at all.

Scattershot does have a 'knob.'  It has to do with the Critical Threshold Mechanix in Scattershot's system.  If you don't want to read 'da rules,' there's mention of how it works in Ron's discussion of the "Hard Limit" in Scattershot.

I'm somewhat intrigued by the idea of 'Genre Knobs' for a role-playing game, especially ones that can be 'pulled or twisted' during play.  That sounds like it might be hand in hand with Ron's discussion of Transitional Games, based on a concept I coined the name for.

Can you explain what effect 'Genre Knobs' would have on or during play?  I think your ideas may have definite value to my work and I'm interested in your perspective.

Fang Langford

[wyrdlyng]

DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes has this as well. You adjust things like metapoint costs, lethality and augmentation limits by choosing the "genre" of the game. Though their use of the word "genre" is closer to style of the comic than true genre the system works well so that a JLA type game has a very different feel from something like X-Men or Sin City.