Sharks With Lasers On Their Heads!!

[pete_darby]

I think this is going to turn out one of those "impossible till someone does it" propositions... I didn't think I could run with a healer /medic based campaign till I saw that RPGnet thread.

I'm talking myself into writing Lawyer Quest, aren't I? Or writing Dogme 2003: the rpg...

Bugger

[pete_darby]

Bah. I blame Shakespeare. If he hadn't Laser Sharked MacBeth by putting them witches in... and as for that Homer with his "lets give Achilles invulnerability!" What a munchkin...

The thing about Homer and Shakespeare was that they weren't messing about: it was entertain or starve.  They didn't have the luxury of artistic purity.

The public wants laser sharks, the public gets laser sharks.

And Shakespeare gets to be the greatest playwright who ever lived.  And I don't believe there's any coincidence.

Yes, but... Plenty of modern popular entertainment does fine without laser sharks. Cop shows, medic shows, lawyer shows... while vampire cops, space-medics and magical lawyers (and please don't let Angel get cursed by this becasue of a plot twist) get cancelled.

Not all people want laser sharks, but laser sharks is pretty much all we're getting in RPG's.

Pretty soon I'm going to have to differentiate between artistic and commercial success, then I'll disappear up my own aesthetics.

[Bruce Baugh]

I think this is going to turn out one of those "impossible till someone does it" propositions...

Lots of things are. I'd be totally unsurprised if this is one of them.

[Mike Holmes]

Part of the problem with making a non-patronizing definition of Laser Sharking is that it's a term derived from a parody of the phenomenon that it describes. I mean if you want a politically correct term it ought to be something like "spicing up", or somesuch.

But as Bruce points out, this is a phenomenon that exists in all sorts of media, and we all know that what we're talking about is the "cheaper" attempts to spice things up by simply throwing in novel elements. I'm personally fine with this, but understand that for others it's occasionally problematic. Hence I'm fine with the term Lasersharking because it's accurate and hilarous. That all said, I'm sure that it will fall into some use as a derogative at some point, but I'm OK with that, too. As long as we retain Mike Meyers self-efacing attitude, we'll be OK.

Bruce also makes some good points about how one man's Lasersharking is another man's Faulkner. What does that imply? That we make the "mundane" games (also a derogatory term, see), as people see them, and see what happens.

Interesingly, there was a big old thread on the subject of why the classic TV standards (Cops, Lawyers, Hospitals), have not been made into RPGs:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=932
Many of the problems are technical rather than problems with demand. But, holy cats, if someone can make a playable Law & Order RPG, they're going to be rich.

Mike

[John Kim]

Laser Shark(n.): an additional element in a game setting that takes the game setting beyond it's parent genre. Usually a fantastic element in an otherwise recognisable historical or contemporary genre. Examples include the undead and magic in Dealands: Weird West, Magic and Graeco-fantastic creatures in  Lace and Steel, and cyberpunk technology in Midway City. Most laser sharks can be removed from the game system to provide a playable mundane / historical game.  

I don't think this accurately captures the essence.  By this definition, say, games like Teenagers from Outer Space and Exalted are not laser-sharky, while Fvlminata is.  

This is exactly the opposite of what I would say, and I am one of those who says that I would like more non-laser-sharky games.  In my mind Fvlminata is actually much closer to what I want than Exalted.  To me, laser sharks refers to over-the-top fantasy, science fiction, and other superhuman elements.  From this view, say, Exalted, Feng Shui, and TFOS are all highly laser-sharky.  Games which come closer are those where the fantasy/sci-fi elements are less over-the-top and intrusive, like Fvlminata.  

Just for the record, I don't care about genre purity per se.  Good authors will bend, break, or even re-define genres.  While genre mixing just for the heck of it is bad, genre mixing can certainly be done to good effect.  In general, variety is good.  That's actually the whole point.  There's nothing wrong with monsters, spells, superheroes, or even sharks with lasers -- and people have pointed out many good uses -- but for variety it is nice to have more non-laser-sharky choices as well.

[Marco]

I think this is going to turn out one of those "impossible till someone does it" propositions... I didn't think I could run with a healer /medic based campaign till I saw that RPGnet thread.

I'm talking myself into writing Lawyer Quest, aren't I? Or writing Dogme 2003: the rpg...

Bugger

Maybe I'm missing something: aren't Soap and Nicotine Girls two non-sharky games? What about Alma-mater?

-Marco

[John Kim]

Maybe I'm missing something: aren't Soap and Nicotine Girls two non-sharky games? What about Alma-mater?  

Sure.  The point is that these are under-represented, in my opinion.  To compare, suppose there was only one 24-page superhero RPG and one free RPG that covered fantasy.  Would I then be able to point to these and thus still any complaints about lack of coverage?  

There are actually plenty more examples.  From what I understand, GURPS WWII is straight historical, as is Swashbuckler from Jolly Roger Games.  I would tend to say that James Bond and Spycraft are over-the-top and marginally sci-fi (after all, the laser-shark phrase did come from a James Bond parody).  But Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes is pretty straight mystery/action.  However, the list still seems pretty thin.

[Mike Holmes]

However, the list still seems pretty thin.

It's funny, but I think the list keeps growing, actually. We keep coming up with more and more examples as we go. I think that they're there in some quantity, actually, but not well supported. Probably because of lack of popularity.

Take Boot Hill for example. Very straightforard, and not any more over-the-top than most Westerns. Certainly not genre mixed in any case. Is that Lasersharked at all? I'd say not. But it died a greusom death due to unpopularity. Mostly bad design, I'd agree. But if we look at the lengthening list of mundane games that have turned out to be less than successful for the most part, I think we see that the "traditional gamer" market seems to be full of lasershark loving escapists.

So I think we're merely seeing a reaction to the gamer market in terms of what's available. That said, there's a considerable number of "mundane" games available. I'm personally looking foreward to Jake Norwood's "La Famiglia" as an example of another in the pipeline.

Mike

[Ian Charvill]

Yes, but... Plenty of modern popular entertainment does fine without laser sharks. Cop shows, medic shows, lawyer shows... while vampire cops, space-medics and magical lawyers (and please don't let Angel get cursed by this becasue of a plot twist) get cancelled.

Not all people want laser sharks, but laser sharks is pretty much all we're getting in RPG's.

I'm not sure if that's true, certainly the big US shows that do well over here in the UK (all I have to judge American TV by) have elements of lasersharkyness.

ER: Not just doctors but doctors with drug habits/brain turmors/parkinsons
Ally McBeal: Not just lawyers but lawyers with functional schizophrenia
West Wing: not just US presidential politics but a president with MS

(I'm ignoring the complete lasersharkiness of, frex, 24)

The shows that I can think that are fairly pure - say Homicide, Life on the Street  - have an insanely good quality of writing and acting.  You're just not going to get that quality around a gaming table.

Here's a challenge (and I'm gonna allow entries from any US show in the last twenty years):

Name a single successful (meaning popular not critically acclaimed) lasershark-free TV program that didn't have insanely good writing and acting, far beyond what an average gaming group could achieve.

At its best, gaming offers cheap poetry - and the magnets for cheap poetry are the magnets for cheap poetry, lasersharks and all.

[Lxndr]

Hmm.  Would you consider Sliders a "laser-sharked" show?  It had a relatively normal crew of misfits, who just happened to bounce around from alternate universe to alternate universe.

Sure, the concept itself is a bit odd, but not over the top.  The show eventually JUMPED the shark, but I'm not sure it ever laser-sharked anything.

In general, I agree with you - laser-sharking is, generally, what the public wants. Or at least likes in comparison to good writing, or when good writing can't be found.  Look at the popularity of many summer blockbuster movies.  Was Pirates of the Carribean, which I saw last night, a good movie with exciting characterization?  No.  Was it a good movie with action and SFX?  Yes.

Look at SOAP operas, which earlier was said aren't laser-sharked.  Under Ian's commentary, they all, pretty much, are.  It's "not just normal people, but normal people with levels of intrigue and deception simply unavailable to the average watcher."

[Marco]

Well, there's GURPS and Hero. No Land-Sharkyness there. Yeah, I guess that *wasn't* what you were looking for either, huh?

-Marco

[Bruce Baugh]

GURPS and Hero? The preeminent supers game and the "everything in a basket" game? (Not in that order.) GURPS will do "mundane" stuff, though not to my taste very well; Hero doesn't.

And I don't mean to get a snark going when I point out that games that sell a few dozen copies a year are not really a completely valid rebuttal to the idea that these normals-level genres are left untapped. At least not the way I'm thinking of it, in terms of what people can go into a game store and expect to find or buy. It's true that some of this stuff will turn up if you go browsing the web for it, but most of it isn't easy to find without direct referrals, and something that moves maybe 50 or 100 copies a year is totally lost in the noise. It may work great for the people who play it, and that's certainly a kind of success. It's just not something that has effect at all on the market. If we're talking about what gamers at large play, we're looking at the games that move thousands rather than dozens of copies.

[Mike Holmes]

I think that's a good point. Generic systems work just fine for most "mundane" games. That is, they won't do anything special for you in terms of exploring anything in particular, but they'll be there as a backdrop for play.

And there's always Freeform. Personally it seems to me that the My Dinner With Andre RPG would have the following rules: Two player game. Both go to a restaurant, and sit at a table. They assume personas and simply have a conversation as though they are the persona in question. This continues unbroken until you leave the building.

Similar to the game Elevator, really. Very simple. That's not to say that you couldn't or shouldn't have really complicated published rules for something like this (La Famiglia ought to be a good example). But there does exist a means to accomplish these sorts of play that's well known.

If you have no superpowers to explore, you need no rules for them.

Mike

[SFEley]

And there's always Freeform. Personally it seems to me that the My Dinner With Andre RPG would have the following rules: Two player game. Both go to a restaurant, and sit at a table. They assume personas and simply have a conversation as though they are the persona in question. This continues unbroken until you leave the building.

Ah, nostalgia...  Used to do this in high school.  My girlfriend and I would go to a restaurant and pretend we were entirely different people, meeting for the first time.  Flirtation would begin anew (or it wouldn't if the people didn't like each other).  Lots of fun, though a little nerve-wracking too.  I wonder why I haven't done that with anyone else since?

(Not counting the gaming group time that we all went to dinner as our Shadowrun characters...)


Have Fun,
- Steve Eley

[Marco]

GURPS and Hero? The preeminent supers game and the "everything in a basket" game? (Not in that order.) GURPS will do "mundane" stuff, though not to my taste very well; Hero doesn't.

And I don't mean to get a snark going when I point out that games that sell a few dozen copies a year are not really a completely valid rebuttal to the idea that these normals-level genres are left untapped. At least not the way I'm thinking of it, in terms of what people can go into a game store and expect to find or buy. It's true that some of this stuff will turn up if you go browsing the web for it, but most of it isn't easy to find without direct referrals, and something that moves maybe 50 or 100 copies a year is totally lost in the noise. It may work great for the people who play it, and that's certainly a kind of success. It's just not something that has effect at all on the market. If we're talking about what gamers at large play, we're looking at the games that move thousands rather than dozens of copies.

Bruce,
I hears ya bro--but consider this:

1. The average gamer can walk into a store and pick up GURPS. Although not to everyone's taste, you concede that it does do mundane stuff. And if it's everything in a bucket, well, so be it. Mundane is in the bucket too.

2. What HERO does or doesn't do is pretty foggy. I mean, what you said is why we switched to GURPS from Hero but still ... pretty foggy. I mean, it's a matter of taste to a large degree. I could run ER in Hero, I think.

Now, I'm not, y'know, just arguing with you. I know that's not what John K. was lookin' for--I said so. BUT: One reason why I'm skeptical of tightly bound system-setting mixes is *because* the settings I want to play don't exist commercially. And if they did, it might ruin the surprise factor. Or they wouldn't be done the way I'd do them. Or any number of make-it-great-for-you, ruin-it-for-me type scenarios.

I'm not claming the games I play don't laser-shark, they do (I guess, or they're in genre for some weird genres ...) but they MUST do the mundane stuff ... and huge amounts of it ... and well ... and then I want it to turn around and go all laser-sharky on me. But that's just me.

The fact is, for my tastes, the generic real-world emulation systems *do* provide me what I'm lookin' for on that count. In a way that nothing else presently does. And they do it well. We've played games where everyone's a band memeber for a rock band--did it in Hero. And it was plenty mundane (we sucked) for as long as the mundane part lasted (quite a while). I think that's saying *something.*

-Marco