First, the definition of the naughty word.

Genre
A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content.

Mixing Genres
Taking elements characteristic of one genre, and cramming them into another.

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Ok, on to business.

I've been trying to isolate why specifically mixing genres bothers me. Oh sure, I can say "That's lame", but I'm not being very analytical in doing so. I was eating Vietnamese food and talking with the wife (whose idea this was), and I thought I'd share.

It's worth mentioning that it isn't mixing genres that actually bothers me, it's a specific technique of doing so that snaps by disbelief suspenders. I'm going to compare two examples of mixing a gritty space genre with something else: Cowboy Bebop and Firefly.

I adore the show Firefly, but the genre mixing in the show tends to make me roll my eyes. Cowboy Bebop on the other hand, does not seem cause the same reaction.

Cowboy Bebop is a stylization using the common style from another genre. The 70's cop show stylization is applied over the gritty space genre. By stylization I mean representational. This is hard to explain, so I'll use an example.

The single man spacecraft in Cowboy Bebop are analogous to 70's design cars. The Swordfish (Spike's ship) displays characteristics of a corvette, the Hammerhead (Jet's ship) of a big sedan (like a Buick), and the Redtail (Faye's ship) of a curvaceous luxury car. These cars are what you would expect characters of those personality type to be driving in a 70's cop show.

That's what I mean by applying the stylization of one genre to another, like creating an impressionist painting of a modern cityscape.

In contrast, Firefly directly inserts whole clichés from one genre into another, like bandits on horseback in a spaceport.

The direct insertion breaks the Baseline - it's hard to tell where one set of genre assumptions begins and the other ends. It seems to be exactly the same issue one would have with mixed metaphors. A clear mental image is lost in the mix.

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So, how does this apply to RPGs? This relates to suspension of disbelief, so individual thresholds on this are going to vary. However, I think mixing genres to create an RPG setting is most effective using the stylization technique.

Thoughts? Flames?

Genre, when you really come down to it, is basically a series of expectations that you bring to a piece of text. You see something labeled fantasy, and you tend to expect some form of magic in there somewhere. Sci-Fi brings about expectations of futuristic technology; mystery brings about the expectation of a murder and investigation, etc etc.

The additional elements of the genre (IE - in fantasy - I expect orcs and dwarves, I expect Campbell-style Heroic Journey, I expect fairy tale motif, etc) aren't really set up until you start engaging with the text. Not necessarily with the storyline, but also the cover art and advertising around the finished product. Broad genre definitions are largely a matter of convention - so often used that they start to be applied to everything. What they fail to take into account is that most texts will set up their own set of expectations, largely related to the suspension of disbelief, as soon as they start telling their stories.

To use one of your examples - Cowboy Bebop works because it immediately sets up the mixed genre expectations from the very moment you start watching it. The ships are there to remind you of seventies cop shows, the theme song brings to mind the same cop shows, the title design brings to mind elements of noir film as well as the cop genre - the combination of imagery and color does this particularly effectively. It still keeps its foot firmly in the genre of sci-fi, but it not-so-subtly drags in elements of other genres to help set the mood.

Once the show starts it keeps this style consistent - the sci-fi elements are backed by storytelling techniques lifted from other genres - all the voice over elements, the flashbacks, large portions of Spike and Jet's characters, are all part of the noir/cop genre. (I'll set aside the assumption that Cowboy Bebop is a gritty sci-fi setting - I think the stylized noir elements strip it of any real grittiness, but it's a pointless digression at this point).

The point here is that cowboy bebop isn't so much one genre as multiple genre's at once. It re-creates genre expectations from fragmented reference points people bring to it. You may be lured to it because you're a fan of sci-fi, anime, whatever, but you are drawn in or repulsed by the series of expectations you're set-up with in the beginning. Some people hang onto it being sci-fi, some hang onto it as a gangster/gumshoe series, some for the various cyber-elements. It’s nearly impossible to point to any of these and say that it’s the sole genre for the series.

I've not seen Firefly so I can't comment on that specifically, but I tend to compare this idea of mixing genres (which is done with the goal of creating a new genre) with the idea of switching genres - where expectations from one genre is placed within or replaced by something that is set up as another genre.

When genres are crossed, there isn't necessarily any attempt to recreate the expectations - for me, the reference point for this being done badly is Star Trek where the various holo-deck episodes tend to launch you straight into a new set of conventions without warning. It's much harder to change the expectations for one episode than it is to re-create the expectations for an entire series. It's much easier to say "This is what to expect from here on in..." than it is to suggest "Could we just set aside your expectation for this episode..." That being said, there is something to be said for suddenly changing people's expectations rather than easing them into it - people will start to look for new cues in the text a lot faster after their expectations have been shattered than they will pick up on references leading up to a shift. When done effectively, the sudden shock of the genre shift can make for a great story, but this is rarely effective in the reset-button world of the Star Trek universe where little that happens in the genre-switch episode has little effect after its done.

How does this apply to Roleplaying?

Mixing genres, rather than switching genres, would appear to be much easier from a design point of view. Most roleplaying games go through an active process of setting up for the genre of the type of game they’d like to see run in their system, and when you’re aiming for a mixed genre universe then it’s a fairly simple matter to reflect that. Rules, layout and graphic design, flavor text, etc, can all be used to set up player and DM expectations of what could be happening during the course of play. Even systems that don’t attempt to create a genre for themselves come with some kind of baseline assumption – through the simple act of what can and can’t be achieved using the rules set, you get some idea of the kind of actions and stories that can be told with it.

Traditionally, I’d see Genre-switching being much more the domain of individual supplements or adventures than a base design consideration – it’s the sort of thing that tends to stands on its own strengths and weaknesses in terms of determining whether it works. Certainly it’s something that people who run games have tended to do for themselves for years, and there have been add-ons for various games based around this idea.

For me there’s an intriguing idea in using the idea of genre-switch as a base design element though – the idea of lulling the players into one set of expectations that are immediately broken once the game starts. This is could have great impact for certain styles of horror games – starting PC’s thinking they are going into an ordinary world as soldiers, for example, before gradually letting them know that something isn’t quite right. This tends to work slightly better than saying “Right, tonight we’re playing call of cthulhu” where the assumption on the part of the player is that bad things are going to happen to their PC’s.

Genre-switching also works when it’s placed in a kind of “safe” space within the world expectations being set up– the aforementioned Holodeck in Star Trek has become that, as does the revolving genre world of a game like Dreampark where every session starts with working out what the genre mix is. The notion of “It’s not real within the virtual world” tends to ease people through the confronting nature of the sudden genre switch.

The real trick, for me, would be basing an entire game around the premise of genre switching and setting the expectation of genre shifts mid-play as the essential assumption for doing so. Of course, doing this effectively without alienating the people involved in the game brings us back to the idea of mixing genres instead – setting up the assumption that things will change, and your expectation will change without warning. Something like a game set in a malfunctioning holo-deck, for example, or a game based around parodying bad genre-switch conventions (which, when you think about it, are a genre within themselves) where players are able to switch the genres at a whim. There would have to be a point where it could be done effectively, without alienating the people playing or reading the game.

Peter,

Welcome to the Forge!

Insightful, and I think I'm in agreement on genre-mixing and Cowboy Bebop.

As for what I was driving at with Firefly, I'll give a simplistic example. You can apply the conventions of a western to a modern story by giving the roving youth a rusted chopper (motorcycle) instead of a horse. However, sticking him on a crotch rocket and giving him a cowboy hat is a clashing of genre, not a blending. I suppose I should refer to it as genre-inserting instead of mixing.

Genre-switching I think is workable, with a specific kind of game. If the characters switch worlds/times/planes/etc the expectation would be shifting genres, so players wouldn't be jarred by the switch (I could imagine a game where characters jump through TV shows, for example.)

Scattershot (unfinished, found in the inactive forums) was working toward a system for establishing genre conventions (expectations) as part of pre-game. Multiverser I believe has some system of similar purpose.

cruciel wrote: Welcome to the Forge!

As for what I was driving at with Firefly, I'll give a simplistic example. You can apply the conventions of a western to a modern story by giving the roving youth a rusted chopper (motorcycle) instead of a horse. However, sticking him on a crotch rocket and giving him a cowboy hat is a clashing of genre, not a blending. I suppose I should refer to it as genre-inserting instead of mixing.

Ah...

Yes, we do seem to be driving at the same thing. In RPGs the most aggravating examples of the genre-shock are things like having a sunny blue sky one day in a Cyberpunk setting, without it being for any particular reason other than 'a picture' in the GM's head, and everyone isn't standing in the street wondering what's going on. Totally abrasive to one's expectations; mentally rebuilding the Cyberpunk setting with this new expectation is quite confusing because it violates original expectations.

*****

Attempting to justify a genre switch after the fact I think can have the same unsatisfying effect as ending a book with 'And I woke up.' It removes meaning from everything that happened before. The 'unreal' justification I think is best implemented when stated before hand and put into context of the overall conflict (which means if there isn't a context it's unsatisfying). Like diving into the sleeping mind of someone to break them out of a coma. The dream, though switched from the main genre, can still say something about the overall conflict and characters involved.

cruciel wrote: Attempting to justify a genre switch after the fact I think can have the same unsatisfying effect as ending a book with 'And I woke up.' It removes meaning from everything that happened before. The 'unreal' justification I think is best implemented when stated before hand and put into context of the overall conflict (which means if there isn't a context it's unsatisfying).

Like diving into the sleeping mind of someone to break them out of a coma. The dream, though switched from the main genre, can still say something about the overall conflict and characters involved.

Some more, admittedly kinda random, thoughts on genre as it applies to roleplaying

Genre as it applies to roleplaying is a relatively tricky term, largely due to the fact that people tend to port the relatively limited view of genre conventions over from areas like film, literature and comic books rather than looking at the way expectations and conventions are constructed within gaming. On of the things that initially interested me in the essay “GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory” it’s rejection of genre while at the same time outlining a potentially useful method of looking at what is necessary for crafting some idea of what genre could reasonably mean in this kind of context.

Genre in film is not necessarily just a matter of subject and character, but also the techniques used to bring it into fruition - camera angles, editing and other elements are as much a part of genre conventions in film as the subject matter. The way a noir film is shot, paced, acted and lit is certainly different to the way an action film or a romance is done. The same applies in literature, where arguments ranging over how to classify certain fringe genre authors tends to have as much to do with their style and approach as their subject matter - cyberpunk, for example, has as much to do with the pop-cultural soaked descriptions and prose style as it does computers, netscapes and cyberware.

When we start talking about genre as it relates to roleplaying, elements such as system, the way the game is run, the expectations of the players, the central conflict inherent to the game and other similar factors have as much to do with the expectations associated with any individual game as the style and flavor used within a rule book. It’s the balance between these elements, rather than any single one of them, that sets up the genre expectations of a roleplaying game.

To same extent, this means that genre shock in a roleplaying game doesn’t necessarily revolve around an out of place visual or thematic element as it does in a film - it is just as easily caused by the presence of an out of place system element, a sudden shift in the expectations of the players in how they approach conflict (which, I suppose, would be represented by a sudden shift along the GNS access), a sudden change in the way events are being presented to the players, etc etc.

Certainly I’ve experienced a feeling similar to those generated by genre shock or switch in film and television when I’ve switched between games run by two different people, even if they’re both using the same system, as the expectations on the part of the DM regarding how the players interact with the world, the system and each other has been recontextualised without explanation. I’ve experienced a similar lack of satisfaction when a system element doesn’t necessarily reflect the style of the game, the approach of the players, or even just the way the product presents itself in terms of its flavor text.

Essentially, within a roleplaying game, the internal consistency can be thrown out of place for the players, even when the story being formulated seems consistent in and of itself.

Thinking back, I can think of times when I’ve seen this used to advantage to enhance a game or system - at the risk of talking about a more commercialised product on these boards the D20 system game Hi-Jinx does this perfectly - the internal consistency between the character creation system that focuses on creating a rock musician and the game goals which revolve around scooby-doo style investigation work great once it clicks for the players that most of the stats on their sheet have LOTE to do with their goals - just as in the cartoons of this genre (mostly from the 80s, and the only one i really remember being Josie and the Pussycats and Jem) the fact that the characters are musicians is little more than a flimsy excuse to get them from place to place. The retroactive explanation of the genre-shock aided more than it harmed the game.

I think I get what you two are talking about with genre-shock, but I'd argue that such shock can be very effective if used deliberately -- in which case it starts to become very powerful genre-mixing. I suppose this is parallel to the issue of Coherence in GNS, but that's a subject for a different thread. At any rate, genre-mixing requires shock, but must build on it without breaking frame.

Take the example of the dude on the crotch-rocket wearing a cowboy hat. What's shocking about that? Let's suppose, hypothetically, that there is a deliberate transplanting of the cowboy genre into the Rebel Without a Cause teen-angst genre. This transplant takes broad themes and concepts of the Western and considers how they remain meaningful and interesting in another genre. If this is what you're doing, the cowboy hat is not only not shocking, but a good clue to the whole transplant issue.

A really fascinating example of such transplanting working both coherently and incoherently occurs with Dashiell Hammett's novel, Red Harvest. If you haven't read it, you should certainly pick up this odd and brutal early noir novel; it both invents and changes the nascent genre, and Raymond Chandler's books wouldn't be the same without this thing happening. If somebody were ever to film it, which they haven't, you'd never really see the Continental Op (the protagonist) face-on: he has no name, he's just a kind of primal force with a bad attitude and a weirdly skewed sense of honor and morality. Everything is darkly lit, with strange and menacing shadows. Brutal violence stuns us, and increasingly the characters, but the Op seems weirdly aloof, even enjoying himself. It's a harrowing book, by the end of which practically everyone in Personville (called "Poisonville") is dead. And the Op goes home to his boss in the last paragraph, telling a fakey story. Last sentence: "He gave me merry hell."

Okay, so Akira Kurosawa decided to make a movie of this, transposed into the Chambarra [sp?] samurai-flick genre. The film is called "Yojimbo." Every element of the classic samurai violence flick is here, but it's become dark and horrible -- and bizarrely hilarious. We're forced to see everything through the nameless main character's perspective, and his sardonic laughter at everyone else's horror and death makes the whole film brutally funny. Now as a transposition of genre, what Kurosawa has done is to pick up every element of both genres, then make a series of structural shifts to make the noir into the Chambarra. Because the themes haven't changed, however, the film was received as a viciously brilliant attack on the Chambarra genre, which is in some respects what was meant. By using a completely different genre, and fully and coherently transposing all the elements, then, Kurosawa transformed his viewers' expectations without causing genre-shock.

Now Sergio Leone makes "A Fistful of Dollars," a Western that parallels every shot in "Yojimbo," almost down to all the dialogue. If you watch these movies back-to-back, it's incredible: the transposition is so literal you almost can't believe it. So what happens? Again, this transforms the Western overnight. Because every shot is both completely a Western and completely noir+Chambarra, there's no genre-shock and yet the whole film seems impossibly unlike the Western. If you've seen Unforgiven, for example, this could never have happened without "Fistful of Dollars": the cowboy genre just wasn't like this, ever, and the brutality of Hammett's noir entered the Western genre by means of a relatively easy transposition from the Chambarra.

Now some idiot makes "Last Man Standing," a simple remake of "Fistful of Dollars." The thing is, genre expectations have changed; nobody any longer expects the old Horse Opera stuff that preceded "Fistful of Dollars," and the film ends up not doing anything new. It just adds some bad effects and a little extra blood. All that's desired is to "kick it up" without changing anything at all. What happens? Genre shock. This isn't a Western any more, it's nothing at all -- just a pointless violence movie.

What's my point? Well, transposition doesn't have to cause genre-shock, and in fact it can be excitingly powerful when it doesn't. Further, non-transposition doesn't necessarily avoid genre-shock.

The solution, I think, is twofold:

1. Transposition must happen at the thematic level, functioning within the concepts of the final genre base but usually pushing their boundaries. If the old Oater film had the Good Guy always really be Good, the post-"Fistful" Western no longer requires this. He's got to be good in some sense, still, but he doesn't have to wear a white hat as it were. Just so, post-"Yojimbo," the masterless samurai (ronin) doesn't have to be Mr. Honor, so long as what he does isn't grotesquely evil. The ambiguity of the noir detective has entered successfully here, because every other element is continuous with the classic genre expectations.

2. Transposition should not wink at the camera. If "Fistful of Dollars" had included a bunch of color to make Clint Eastwood samurai-like in an overt way, the whole thing would have felt like a very cheap pastiche. Just so, if you constantly "make up for" transposition through "And then I woke up" or whatever, the themes themselves are never challenged and worked through; they exist in a "safe space" where we're "only testing" and not really doing. If the transposition fails, you can post facto retro-engineer to explain away the failure, but dipping one toe in the water at the start is sure to make any genre-mixing turn into genre-shock.

Anyway, enough yammering. But if you want to think hard about genre-shock and genre-mixing, you might try the following little (fun) program of study:

1. Watch some old Roy Rogers flicks, or The Lone Ranger, or whatever other classic Oaters float your boat. You know, good guys with white hats and all that.

2. If you can find them, watch some Chambarra, i.e. masterless samurai flicks from the 40's and 50's. You'll see a lot of parallels to Oaters, which Leone wasn't the first to draw on.

3. Read Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett.

4. Watch "Yojimbo," dir. Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshiro Mifune (there's a lovely cleaned-up Criterion DVD around).

5. Watch "A Fistful of Dollars," dir. Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood.

6. Watch "Unforgiven," dir. Clint Eastwood, starring Clint Eastwood.

7. Don't watch "Last Man Standing." Put it on your list with "Highlander II" as something never, ever to see. :-)

Chris Lehrich

?rich"]I think I get what you two are talking about with genre-shock, but I'd argue that such shock can be very effective if used deliberately -- in which case it starts to become very powerful genre-mixing.

I'm agreeing with you right up until your last sentence, which I suspect may be a function of using two different definitions for genre-shock.

I suppose this is parallel to the issue of Coherence in GNS, but that's a subject for a different thread. At any rate, genre-mixing requires shock, but must build on it without breaking frame.

Take the example of the dude on the crotch-rocket wearing a cowboy hat. What's shocking about that?

Let's suppose, hypothetically, that there is a deliberate transplanting of the cowboy genre into the Rebel Without a Cause teen-angst genre. This transplant takes broad themes and concepts of the Western and considers how they remain meaningful and interesting in another genre. If this is what you're doing, the cowboy hat is not only not shocking, but a good clue to the whole transplant issue.

A really fascinating example of such transplanting working both coherently and incoherently occurs with Dashiell Hammett's novel, Red Harvest. If you haven't read it, you should certainly pick up this odd and brutal early noir novel; it both invents and changes the nascent genre, and Raymond Chandler's books wouldn't be the same without this thing happening.

References to Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, Last Man Standing

What happens? Genre shock. This isn't a Western any more, it's nothing at all -- just a pointless violence movie.

What's my point? Well, transposition doesn't have to cause genre-shock, and in fact it can be excitingly powerful when it doesn't.

1. Transposition must happen at the thematic level, functioning within the concepts of the final genre base but usually pushing their boundaries.

2. Transposition should not wink at the camera. If "Fistful of Dollars" had included a bunch of color to make Clint Eastwood samurai-like in an overt way, the whole thing would have felt like a very cheap pastiche.

Just so, if you constantly "make up for" transposition through "And then I woke up" or whatever, the themes themselves are never challenged and worked through; they exist in a "safe space" where we're "only testing" and not really doing. If the transposition fails, you can post facto retro-engineer to explain away the failure, but dipping one toe in the water at the start is sure to make any genre-mixing turn into genre-shock.

While I think your assessment of what leaves the bad genre-switch/shock unsatisfying is sound, I dissagree with your final statement. I think it is possible to dip your toe in the water at the beginning, hence drawing the line between genre-switch and genre-shock. It simply requires adding in some narrative necessity to the safe storytelling state before heading into it. Again, consider the simpsons halloween epsidoes, which create a safe space in which humerous horror can be told, but do so with the expectation that nothign that happens should be taken as part of the standard continuity in terms of the way genre expectations for the simpsons are developed.

7. Don't watch "Last Man Standing." Put it on your list with "Highlander II" as something never, ever to see. :-)

Ah, I'm glad someone reminded me of this. I was desperately trying to find a bad example of genre-mixing, and I think Highlander II may well be it :)

Edit: I think what I'm driving at here, form my opinion at least, is that although an element genre-shock is a quite natural part of forging a new genre I tend to include it as part of the process of genre-mixing - its impossible to create a new genre without challenging people's old expectations.

Genre-shock, to me, is still something seperate from this - it's the wilful act of putting something in once genre has already been established. In film terms - it's re-writing the genre towards the end of the movie rather than beginning, including new genre elements mid-season of a television show, or simply changing course in the middle of the book.

Readers/viewers, as a rule, tend to be quite resilent to genre-shock if they're given a reason too, but arbitrary genre shock or genre-shock that is weakly supported only serves to alienate them. It comes down to the emotional investment that is given to engaging with the expectations being set up, and being dissapointed when they are broken.

Peter,

arwink wrote: Does this context loose any of its credibility if you dump people in the dream scenario in an attempt to create genre-shock, then let them slowly piece together that they've been somehow drawn into someone's dream (say through the subconscious mental abilities of a comatose telepath in a sci-fi setting) and work out a way to get out? The same idea is being used, but one is giving the players warning that they'll be in a genre-shift situation beforehand while the other is making the realization of what has taken place part of the game.

Chris,

1. Transposition must happen at the thematic level, functioning within the concepts of the final genre base but usually pushing their boundaries. If the old Oater film had the Good Guy always really be Good, the post-"Fistful" Western no longer requires this. He's got to be good in some sense, still, but he doesn't have to wear a white hat as it were. Just so, post-"Yojimbo," the masterless samurai (ronin) doesn't have to be Mr. Honor, so long as what he does isn't grotesquely evil. The ambiguity of the noir detective has entered successfully here, because every other element is continuous with the classic genre expectations.

2. Transposition should not wink at the camera. If "Fistful of Dollars" had included a bunch of color to make Clint Eastwood samurai-like in an overt way, the whole thing would have felt like a very cheap pastiche. Just so, if you constantly "make up for" transposition through "And then I woke up" or whatever, the themes themselves are never challenged and worked through; they exist in a "safe space" where we're "only testing" and not really doing. If the transposition fails, you can post facto retro-engineer to explain away the failure, but dipping one toe in the water at the start is sure to make any genre-mixing turn into genre-shock.

cruciel wrote: Whoa, that so depends.

If you are doing something like in the movie The Sixth Sense, where the truth about what's really going on is revealed through the story, then I wouldn't call it genre-shock. It's nice a coherent genre. Likewise, with something like the movie The Cell, though the setting switches, I wouldn't say the genre does.

Now, if you slowly introduce elements incoherent with the genre, little jolts of genre-shock, then you are using the violation of expectations to manipulate the audience. The genre-shock is the mechanism that enables the audience to solve the mystery - the moments of genre-shock are the clues. Which, I think is certainly a viable approach as well. When all is said and done with this kind of story you'll have justification for the genre-shock that is imbedded in the entire tale. When the audience looks back upon the individual "clues" it'll all seem in-place for their genre expectations that were only really defined once they figured out the puzzle.

arwink wrote: I think I've made my point badly here. The real question at the heart of my question was "If the excuse for changing genre is bad, does it really matter whether it's introduced via genre-switch or genre-shock methods?"

A problem that's compounded by the fact that well-handled genre-shock tends to be edited out towards the end, as we re-write the film to fit into the new genre constructed and the surprise of the genre-shock elements is lost. If the method of setting up a liminal space (where normal genre expectations for the story are suspended) to take place is cliche'd, I'd still argue that the method of placing the characters into that liminal space - whether its genre shock or genre switch - isn't going to matter much. if the narrative logic behind the switch/shock is feasable and acceptable to the audiance, I don't think it matters which way you introduce the new genre elements.

And while i've never seen either of the two films suggested, from what I've heard of The Sixth Sense (and my passing familiarity with Unbreakable), I would suggest that the moments of genre-shock are just that - they're just handled particularly well and are thus allowing you to re-write the film rapidly instead of strugggling to replace the expected conventions.

To a certain extent, I think that genre-shock is much easier to use positively in single, self contained storylines rather than a series of sequential narratives, hence the reason it's relatively easy to come up with filmic examples but not television based ones.

cruciel wrote: Yeah, I'm having troubling thinking of episodic examples too. Movies have a tendency to help you perform the rewrite by showing fill-in scenes at the end of the film. (If you've seen Identity, this is a good example. Though, I'm not certain you could call it genre-shifting either).

Chris,

Your post gave me a serious case of the chuckles, from Sherwood Forest all the way to poor Willie.