generic genre?

[Cemendur]

It is all in the genes...  Or in the memes as the case may be.?

I would look at it a little differently.  Rather than "broad" genres, I would refer to works like D&D as being "hybrid" genres. . .

Exactly! A genre is a "family" with traits. Genres do exist. They exist for customers to sort through the type of books they like. They exist for bookdealers to showcase their books in different sections. They exist for publishers to differentiate their lines to appeal to certain customers.

Obviously many books are problematic. Where do you put Frankenstein, 1984, Brave New World, and A Clockword Orange, under sci-fi or horror? No, they are typically in the  literature section. As is Dracula. What differentiates literature from fiction. The critics, the fans, or the bookdealer? Typically it is a combination of bookdealer tastes and appeal to the customer, the space where the customer is most likely to buy it. Multiple copies then go into the other sections.

Just as you do not have all the traits of both your parents and all of your grandparents, and all of your great-grandparents, etc., a particular fantasy RPG world does not have all the characteristics of what constitutes a fantasy, but particular ones that flavor that world. D&D and other so-called "generic fantasies" are odd puzzles. Obviously, D&D is not all of the characteristics of all the relatives of the fantasy family; While I do see Tolkein, Leiber, Howard, and Frank Baum influences, I do not see Dr. Seuss or Hans Christen Anderson influences.

Since each mythology has a completely different canon, there's no way to make a common system for them.

Note: This is not part of the religion debate, but a continuation on the theme of canon.

Not necessarily. Chaos Magicians and many Hermetic Magicians, for example, beleive in the creation of a common sysem for all magic, religion, and mythology. They beleive that different aspects of each hold some truth. Of course, this canon is different than a "Southern Baptist Canon", a "Vooduan Canon", or an "Asatru Canon". However, a canon of "Chaos Magick" or "Hermetic Magick" would allow for all, or at least many, religions to have power. Whereas a canon that adopts these others would not.

In the same way early editions of D&D purported to let you run games that cut across the gamut of swords and sorcery, but realy only supported dungeon bashing.

Exactly. The game rewarded killing of monsters and finding treasure.

[simon_hibbs]

I would look at it a little differently.  Rather than "broad" genres, I would refer to works like D&D as being "hybrid" genres.  

Consider two primary influences on D&D: the genre of swords & sorcery as exemplified by R.E. Howard's Conan stories; and the genre of high fantasy as exemplified by J.R.R. Tolkien.  D&D does not take all of these genres -- it cannot since they are contradictory on many points (like the nature of wizards, for example).  Instead, it takes bits from each of them and puts them together.  The result is a genre quite distinct from either, not a neutral midpoint between the two.

I'd rather simply consider D&D as a multiply derivative wrok. As I said previously, it's not actualy a generic fantasy game. While it draws from Tolkien, vance, Lieber, etc it's very poorly suited to running a game strictly within any of those worlds.

I suppose you could say that it is a unique blend of elements from the works it draws on. This is a problem for any game that attempts to be generic, but takes a pick-n-mix approach to it's sources. To be truly geenric the game designer needs to identify those aspects of the genre that are common across all individual expressions of it, build a game that incorporates those common elements, and then offer customisation options that can extend the core game in various directions.


Simon Hibbs

[Mike Holmes]

I'd agree with Simon. GURPS has only a couple of published fantasy worlds, and no real way to create a world that does magic, for instance, in any way but the one that they suggest. Hero System, by comparison, allows for a very wide customization of how magic and other things work, and by comparison is much, much more generic. In fact, I'd call GURPS modular, and not really all that generic at all.

Mike