D&D is its own Genre of Fantasy?

[buzz]

Styles of play seem to be at the heart of the issue for some, since a genre is made up of a number of similar styles. The fundamental play experience is due to both the rules and the players and morphs, sometimes, as play progresses and it does not indicate a specific genre.

I guess when I think "genre," I'm thinking about the color. Are we using swords or laser guns? Are we fighting orcs or mutants? Is my PC a bold knight, or a shifty cyber-cop?

Play-style to me is whether you like to just kill things and take their stuff, or you like to immerse yourself in a game world, or if you like wrestling with hard moral choices. It's basically the way you want to play in your chosen genre. I don't really see how a play-style can be a genre; power-gaming, e.g., isn't a genre, it's an approach.

Ergo, I can easily see D&D as a genre, because D&D has identifiable tropes and color elements. People seem to focus on any of the various play-styles above while using it, however. Thus, I see the two as distinct.

Not while staying on topic.

Well, true.

EDIT:

Look at the various player types outlined in Robin Laws' section of DMG2: tactician, storyteller, character actor, etc. These are all basically play styles, and they all apparently can be done while playing D&D. I would assume then, that they do not solely define D&D, as the things we would commonly identify as genre tropes are outside their scope. I.e., all of these player types are playing within D&D's basic setting assumptions and mechanics.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I guess I was absent that day while getting my B.A. in English.

I guess you were. I also have an English degree. Do we need to compare GPAs to continue the discussion? Or shall we just whip em out?

As far as appeals to authority go, I'm sticking with Aristotle.

We don't know what the rules of good story are. If we did, every Hollywood movie would be brilliant.

To Wulf's credit, we do. At least, there a lot of basics to good writing, and enough investigation has been done that we can say we have some rules.

Hey! You made it to class that day, I guess.

I'm not seeing much relevance to continued argument about Classical Narrative structure. My only point is that, while much game fiction (D&D and other) is not work I'd consider good, I don't think that it's a foregone conclusion that it must suck.

It's not a forgone conclusion that stories with multiple protagonists and shifting POV will suck, either. It's just very difficult to do well, while at the same time appealing to a smaller audience. This is what distinguishes masters of the craft from... well, from folks who write typical gaming fiction.

 

[Mark CMG]

I guess when I think "genre," I'm thinking about the color.

These are all basically play styles, and they all apparently can be done while playing D&D.

One problem with your assertions is that the word "style" is pulling double duty in this thread to account in some of your portion of the discussion for the mechanical approaches to the games and in some other portions of the discussion (some of your's and some of other's) to describe the flavor and tone (the latter being more in line with, say, a handful of writer's styles falling under a genre of fiction, e.g. Poe, Christie, Doyle as styles of the genre of Detective Stories). But, again, until compete it defies classification (not possible to be a "genre" by definition) and once complete is no longer a game, but rather a story about a game. I'm going to have to stick with a game being able to emulate a style or number of styles under one or more genres but not able to be one, in and of itself. Have at it.

 

[Hussar]

In short, the plot and structure can be shaped by the needs of the novel, not of the game. In this way, authors have a freedom that DMs do not. As such, a lot of the pitfalls of converting campaigns to novels can be dodged altogether.

I would take this a step further actually. The plot and structure are always shaped by the needs of the novel. This is the most telling difference between D&D as a genre and novel genre. In D&D, plot and structure are not necessarily shaped by any needs. Sometimes, there is little or no plot or structure beyond random encounters. Any structure that does occur only appears after the fact.

Magic, for me, is the biggest sticking point, not characterization. Magic in novels serves the plot. When you read about someone picking up magic item A, you know that he or she will use it at some point in the future. And, it will be the perfect fit to solve problem X. Sam will use the glowing potion to foil Shelob, the hero will have those flying boots and an invisiblity helm at just the right time, etc.

In RPG's this is almost never true. Magic items and spells are tools for the players, not for the plot. The player chooses to use or not use a given magic item and its efficacy is dictated by the situation, again, not by the plot. Look at any character sheet over about 6th level. I will almost guarantee that there is a potion on there that the character has had for the last four levels and likely will for the next ten.

This is a trope that you never see in novels. The idea that The Hero picks up a Magic Arrow and then never uses it until he dies horribly under the claws of Random Monster Z, is not the stuff of good fiction.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Superhero team comics and soap opera. The latter is the most popular narrative form in the world today.

Please do not tell me that you think soap opera doesn't suck.

 

[Storm Raven]

I assume we can agree that LotR and General Hospital are not the same genre.

Well, they are both fantasies.

On a more apropos note, some soap operas, like Passions, although awful, do have significant fantasy-genre elements.

 

[buzz]

One problem with your assertions is that the word "style" is pulling double duty in this thread to account in some of your portion of the discussion for the mechanical approaches to the games and in some other portions of the discussion (some of your's and some of other's) to describe the flavor and tone (the latter being more in line with, say, a handful of writer's styles falling under a genre of fiction, e.g. Poe, Christie, Doyle as styles of the genre of Detective Stories).

Keep in mind, I wasn't the one who brought up style (iirc), and my intent in using the word in this thread's context is, as I stated above, solely to describe the way in which the players are playing the game. In Forge-y terms, I'm talking agendas. In Laws' terms, I'm talking player types. I am not trying to use "style" in a literary sense (as it tends to be synonymous with "genre," and will just confuse things). As you rightly point out, we're not talking about literature.

I'm going to have to stick with a game being able to emulate a style or number of styles under one or more genres but not able to be one, in and of itself. Have at it.

I think this is kind of dodging the question by applying a very narrow definition of "genre." The word can apply to all kinds of art in all kinds of media, inclusive of various performed arts (e.g., jazz) that are improvisational.

I also don't think I'm alone in having seen "genre" commonly used w/r/t RPGs to describe the various trappings and tropes that the game tries to emulate/evoke. That's how we're able to say an RPG is "fantasy" or "SF" or "pulp." Even if you want to limit discussion to the resulting play, i.e., the "end product," you can still identify the genre experience that emerged in play. E.g., your PCs were running around in plate mail and swinging magic swords, or else power armor and vibro blades.

I find this whole discussion kind of strange, as I don't really see the original question as up for debate. "D&D style fantasy" is a phrase I've heard used for a very long time now (since the '90s, at least), and I think you can see a definite pre-/post-D&D demarcation in popular fantasy literature, even outside of fiction produced by game companies. D&D is a unique mélange of fantasy tropes that we've seen imitated in both other RPGs and fiction in various media.

 

[buzz]

I guess you were. I also have an English degree. Do we need to compare GPAs to continue the discussion? Or shall we just whip em out?

We might want to ask Eric' grandma to leave the room first...

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .)

You are stretching the meaning of the word "genre" in multiple directions and I do not believe it serves the purpose well. Games are not artistic works, the output (what happens at the table) of D&D games is not clearly pre-defined, and D&D might have been first in modern RPGs but it isn't the automatic stylistic progenitor of all that follows in the field. I had a longer response but do not want to keep debating the misuse of a word.

 

[Desdichado]

Apparently what I consider "D&D fantasy" is different from what others view it as. What I had in mind was rather the telling of stories that may or may not have to do with adventurers, only based in a setting with dragons, elves and wizards. I see no reason why classical stories and legends, when they are adapted for the modern 21st century or the far future, could not also function as well in a swords and sorcery setting.

Then apparently, you're either not familiar with at least half of the spells in the D&D books, or you haven't thought through the implication of them existing in a world. If you mean something so vague and general, then yeah--there's a fair amount of "D&D fantasy" out there, some of it pretty good and successful, that doesn't bear the brand name. Ray Feist's Midkemia books, for instance, are pretty darn D&D like in some extremly basic setting assumptions (although the "magic system" of Midkemia seems very unlike D&D.)

Although I'm all for calling out D&D as a pretty unique animal that doesn't bear a very strong relationship to most fantasy fiction that I've enjoyed over the years, I think it's really going way too far to say that it's a genre unto itself. But honestly, that may just be semantic quibbling about what is or isn't a separate genre and obscures the point; I agree that D&D doesn't resemble much (if anything) of what I read.