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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8362649" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>Not a genre.</p><p></p><p>Not a genre.</p><p></p><p>Fantasy is a high-level genre. Fantasy games are not a genre. Fantasy games are games that are leveraging the fantasy genre, they do not create a genre themselves. More on this in a minute, because I'm assuming you're saying "but what are you saying about D&D then?!"</p><p></p><p>No. Zero to hero is a trope, and one of the tropes that defines the D&D genre.</p><p></p><p>No. Power-fantasy and fast power curves are tropes that define the D&D genre.</p><p></p><p>No, Group-first play is a trope that defines the D&D genre.</p><p></p><p>I think you're misunderstanding what genre and trope mean. You're using genre as a catchall term for category, but it's not that, it's a more specific term that categorized things based on shared groups of tropes. Not all tropes are genre-defining, and not all genre tropes need to be present to be in genre. Take fantasy as a genre, for instance. This is defined by broad recurring themes in the stories, usually presence of magic, monsters, and heroes. However, you don't need all of these things for fantasy to take place because it's a very broad genre than encompasses quite a lot of things. It has tons of sub-genres. Like Urban Fantasy, which has a tighter set of defining tropes. Dresden books are Urban Fantasy because they mix the general fantasy tropes with some specific requirements, namely set in near-modern times, set in a real city, and deals with some of the normal issues of life while balancing hiding the fantasy from the normal. These are more specific tropes that apply to Urban Fantasy and define that sub-genre under Fantasy (because you still have magic and monsters), and you cannot have Urban Fantasy without these.</p><p></p><p>Now, to D&D as a genre. The game itself isn't a genre, because games don't really fit that classification. Instead it's the fiction, the story, that this game creates that's definable. Clearly it's a fantasy game, and belongs in the fantasy genre. However, D&D has created some very specific to D&D tropes that are nearly impossible to escape -- namely the one's I've listed repeatedly. These tropes are part of a D&D game, even if you try to move the game into playing in some other genre category, like Gothic Horror (Ravenloft) or Steampunk (Eberron). You can do this, and take some of those tropes and add them to the game, but you can't really remove the D&D tropes, so you're still stuck with playing Gothic Horror D&D or Steampunk D&D. This is why I say D&D has a specific genre that you add flavors to, and that you don't actually move genres when using D&D.</p><p></p><p>I very much beg to differ. I was in the D&D bubble for, well, about 2 decades. This isn't a slam or a dig or a thing that is a failing. It's rather natural, really. D&D is THE GAME. It's huge in the RPG market. You can play it pretty much anywhere you can find an RPG game at all. It dwarves the competition in market share. There's a number of people that refer to all RPGs as D&D, much like some areas of the US refer to all soda as Coke. </p><p></p><p>It's hard to see out of this when you haven't done much else. And you've said that you only play D&D and are uninterested in other games or even other ways to approach D&D because it's working for you. That's great! But it also is a strong indication that you are in the D&D bubble. Again, I was there for ages. I really wanted to play Burning Wheel when it came out because I heard great things about it, and I completely bounced off of it, hard. Couldn't grasp it a bit. Now, though, that I've send that D&D filter, it makes total sense. I just had to stop thinking of it as a flavor of the RPG I knew. It's a different dish altogether.</p><p></p><p>That reads to me like the zero-to-hero is definitely in place (3 years probably passed mostly as elided downtime). Play seems to be very party focused, with personal activities both party-friendly and relegated to downtime (ie, the bits of play where things are largely elided). You do seem to have more connection to the world, but I'm betting you have some houserules for doing this, because D&D has nothing for building strongholds and only some DTAs for running a business.</p><p></p><p>As for the pillars, that wasn't the statement. The statement was that combat is the primary problem resolution method, and that most other obstacles are on the way to combat. It's possible you have very little combat, but I certainly wouldn't guess that when you said you play D&D, and I would anticipate you have a very unusual game if you insisted. I'd be curious how you award XP in that game, as D&D assumes most XP comes from defeating monsters (in fact, the advice for non-combat XP awards is decidedly on the frugal side). I'd still bet that the big problems in the game are things to be smashed in the face.</p><p></p><p>Thom covered this well.</p><p></p><p>I do not think you're an idiot. You're not saying anything I wasn't saying about 7 years ago. I think you're a bit mixed up on genres and tropes, but that doesn't get close to thinking you're an idiot. You seem a pretty decent guy.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8362649, member: 16814"] Not a genre. Not a genre. Fantasy is a high-level genre. Fantasy games are not a genre. Fantasy games are games that are leveraging the fantasy genre, they do not create a genre themselves. More on this in a minute, because I'm assuming you're saying "but what are you saying about D&D then?!" No. Zero to hero is a trope, and one of the tropes that defines the D&D genre. No. Power-fantasy and fast power curves are tropes that define the D&D genre. No, Group-first play is a trope that defines the D&D genre. I think you're misunderstanding what genre and trope mean. You're using genre as a catchall term for category, but it's not that, it's a more specific term that categorized things based on shared groups of tropes. Not all tropes are genre-defining, and not all genre tropes need to be present to be in genre. Take fantasy as a genre, for instance. This is defined by broad recurring themes in the stories, usually presence of magic, monsters, and heroes. However, you don't need all of these things for fantasy to take place because it's a very broad genre than encompasses quite a lot of things. It has tons of sub-genres. Like Urban Fantasy, which has a tighter set of defining tropes. Dresden books are Urban Fantasy because they mix the general fantasy tropes with some specific requirements, namely set in near-modern times, set in a real city, and deals with some of the normal issues of life while balancing hiding the fantasy from the normal. These are more specific tropes that apply to Urban Fantasy and define that sub-genre under Fantasy (because you still have magic and monsters), and you cannot have Urban Fantasy without these. Now, to D&D as a genre. The game itself isn't a genre, because games don't really fit that classification. Instead it's the fiction, the story, that this game creates that's definable. Clearly it's a fantasy game, and belongs in the fantasy genre. However, D&D has created some very specific to D&D tropes that are nearly impossible to escape -- namely the one's I've listed repeatedly. These tropes are part of a D&D game, even if you try to move the game into playing in some other genre category, like Gothic Horror (Ravenloft) or Steampunk (Eberron). You can do this, and take some of those tropes and add them to the game, but you can't really remove the D&D tropes, so you're still stuck with playing Gothic Horror D&D or Steampunk D&D. This is why I say D&D has a specific genre that you add flavors to, and that you don't actually move genres when using D&D. I very much beg to differ. I was in the D&D bubble for, well, about 2 decades. This isn't a slam or a dig or a thing that is a failing. It's rather natural, really. D&D is THE GAME. It's huge in the RPG market. You can play it pretty much anywhere you can find an RPG game at all. It dwarves the competition in market share. There's a number of people that refer to all RPGs as D&D, much like some areas of the US refer to all soda as Coke. It's hard to see out of this when you haven't done much else. And you've said that you only play D&D and are uninterested in other games or even other ways to approach D&D because it's working for you. That's great! But it also is a strong indication that you are in the D&D bubble. Again, I was there for ages. I really wanted to play Burning Wheel when it came out because I heard great things about it, and I completely bounced off of it, hard. Couldn't grasp it a bit. Now, though, that I've send that D&D filter, it makes total sense. I just had to stop thinking of it as a flavor of the RPG I knew. It's a different dish altogether. That reads to me like the zero-to-hero is definitely in place (3 years probably passed mostly as elided downtime). Play seems to be very party focused, with personal activities both party-friendly and relegated to downtime (ie, the bits of play where things are largely elided). You do seem to have more connection to the world, but I'm betting you have some houserules for doing this, because D&D has nothing for building strongholds and only some DTAs for running a business. As for the pillars, that wasn't the statement. The statement was that combat is the primary problem resolution method, and that most other obstacles are on the way to combat. It's possible you have very little combat, but I certainly wouldn't guess that when you said you play D&D, and I would anticipate you have a very unusual game if you insisted. I'd be curious how you award XP in that game, as D&D assumes most XP comes from defeating monsters (in fact, the advice for non-combat XP awards is decidedly on the frugal side). I'd still bet that the big problems in the game are things to be smashed in the face. Thom covered this well. I do not think you're an idiot. You're not saying anything I wasn't saying about 7 years ago. I think you're a bit mixed up on genres and tropes, but that doesn't get close to thinking you're an idiot. You seem a pretty decent guy. [/QUOTE]
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