Biggest/Smallest Genre of RPGs

[Lead Luteist]

Anyone know what the biggest/smallest Genre of RPGs is?

I read in review of Blood & Guts that there are few real-military RPGs.

 

[kenobi65]

Probably depends on how broadly or narrowly you divide / define the genres.

Fantasy / swords and sorcery is almost undoubtedly the biggest genre, if for no other reason than D&D is the 500 lb. gorilla of the industry.

Wouldn't surprise me if "real-military" is a small genre...it strikes me that most gamers who would be interested in the genre would be more likely to be playing wargames.

 

[AIM-54]

Probably depends on how broadly or narrowly you divide / define the genres.

Fantasy / swords and sorcery is almost undoubtedly the biggest genre, if for no other reason than D&D is the 500 lb. gorilla of the industry.

Wouldn't surprise me if "real-military" is a small genre...it strikes me that most gamers who would be interested in the genre would be more likely to be playing wargames.

Are there any "real-military" RPGs? I mean even MechWarrior, based off the Battle Tech wargame, seems designed more for Shadowrun type action then a military style campaign.

 

[dougmander]

Are there any "real-military" RPGs? I mean even MechWarrior, based off the Battle Tech wargame, seems designed more for Shadowrun type action then a military style campaign.

Sure. There's Afghanistan d20 and Somalia d20. How's that for real?

When I was a mere stripling of a grognard (is that even possible?), a man by the name of Peter Rice published a game called Follow Me!. It was half way between an RPG and a tabletop minis game. Each player controlled no more than a fire team of WWII soldiers. The rules were highly detailed regarding range, accuracy, and hit location. If you had a chance to play in one of Peter's convention games, you were a lucky, lucky gamer. He would set up a huge table with 15mm terrain. Movement was hidden, done on a separate map kept by each side. You didn't see the enemy's minis unless your guys could see them too. It was a nerve-wracking, intense experience. My favorite was getting to play a unit of fallschirmjæger parachuting into Crete to fight the Brits there. Just linking up with the rest of your unit was harrowing -- wandering around the hills on your own, expecting to be ambushed by Royal Army or partisan troops at every turn. Great stuff.

Problem is, to do a strictly historical military game, you have to know history well enough to make it come alive in detail, and you have to be such a skilled storyteller that you don't need to fall back on magic or monsters to create tension. That's a rare bird, so I can't imagine it ever being a really popular RPG genre.

 

[WayneLigon]

I'd say the anthopomorphic furry genre would be smaller than real-world military.

You've got a lot of GURPS WWII stuff from Steve Jackson Games, plus their books on Cops, Special Forces and who knows what else. Plus in the past you've had Twilight 2000 and others.

The only games I know for furries would be Ironclaw/Jadeclaw, and Furry Pirates.

Another small genre: musketeers. Lace and Steel is about the only system for that I can think of that specifically addresses that.

The 'Hard SF' genre is another one I think is very small. T20 and maybe the Babylon 5 system would be the only ones I can think of on that front.

 

[kenobi65]

The 'Hard SF' genre is another one I think is very small. T20 and maybe the Babylon 5 system would be the only ones I can think of on that front.

Traveller as a whole, in its numerous incarnations, would all qualify as Hard SF.

GURPS Space might, as well.

 

[Ace]

I'd say the anthopomorphic furry genre would be smaller than real-world military.

You've got a lot of GURPS WWII stuff from Steve Jackson Games, plus their books on Cops, Special Forces and who knows what else. Plus in the past you've had Twilight 2000 and others.

The only games I know for furries would be Ironclaw/Jadeclaw, and Furry Pirates.

Another small genre: musketeers. Lace and Steel is about the only system for that I can think of that specifically addresses that.

The 'Hard SF' genre is another one I think is very small. T20 and maybe the Babylon 5 system would be the only ones I can think of on that front.

Furries also get World Tree

Musketters has En Guarde (which is kinda sorta an RPG and may be out of print) and Flashing Blades which is in PDF now

Hard SF gets Transhuman Space, Cenaturi Knights (BESM And D20) and Blue Planet GURPS And house system) -- T20 and B5 are Space Opera with vector spacecraft movement systems

 

[AIM-54]

Sure. There's Afghanistan d20 and Somalia d20. How's that for real?

When I was a mere stripling of a grognard (is that even possible?), a man by the name of Peter Rice published a game called Follow Me!. It was half way between an RPG and a tabletop minis game. Each player controlled no more than a fire team of WWII soldiers. The rules were highly detailed regarding range, accuracy, and hit location. If you had a chance to play in one of Peter's convention games, you were a lucky, lucky gamer. He would set up a huge table with 15mm terrain. Movement was hidden, done on a separate map kept by each side. You didn't see the enemy's minis unless your guys could see them too. It was a nerve-wracking, intense experience. My favorite was getting to play a unit of fallschirmjæger parachuting into Crete to fight the Brits there. Just linking up with the rest of your unit was harrowing -- wandering around the hills on your own, expecting to be ambushed by Royal Army or partisan troops at every turn. Great stuff.

Problem is, to do a strictly historical military game, you have to know history well enough to make it come alive in detail, and you have to be such a skilled storyteller that you don't need to fall back on magic or monsters to create tension. That's a rare bird, so I can't imagine it ever being a really popular RPG genre.

Wow, I had no idea there were such things, though I suppose I'm not totally surprised. I admit to being leery of how well d20 works for portraying modern combat.

What you describe there sounds awesome. I think I'd prefer to see more of that type stuff in my games, but as you say, it has hefty entrance requirements to be successful. Military history being my first love, I hesitate to say I'd be good at it, but it's precisely the idea that first got me into RPGs in the first place.

 

[Tonguez]

Soap Opera RPGS seem to be very much fringe amongst the RPG community

there has been no D20 attempt and only two that I know of (SOAP and ToonSoap) as ToonSoap of course is very much spoof of Soap Opera and most RPG Soap games are (but then its really difficult to do serious melodramitc soap opera and keep a straight face)

 

[Gundark]

As much as I hate Palladium they had Recon which took place in Vietnam. The rules where totally different than the rest of Palladium. combat was pretty realistic in the sense that if you took a bullet you were pretty much &*@#$.