Is there any genre or theme that the TTRPG medium does not work for?

Do you personally believe there are any genres or themes that the tabletop RPG medium will not work for?
No.

An RPG is essentially a cooperative storytelling method where each 'player' makes decisions for one character, and a 'referee' runs the rest of the world, with usually a bit of randomness beyond anyone's control to create uncertainty. Any genre or theme, if you can tell a story then you can do so through an RPG.

Only if you start fixating on a ruleset, or even just a mandatory degree of rules depth, then you can fail to tell the story properly. The RPG concept doesn't force any degree of rules, there are also dice-less RPGs for example, and they're still an RPG.
 

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musicals. how the hell do you improv a musical?
A mechanic where if a player sings in character they get a bonus? I will quibble that "musical" isn't a genre on par with the ones mentioned here, because you could always associate the theme of a given musical with another genre. Little Shop of Horrors is science fiction, for instance. The Blues Brothers is a musical and would make a great game - you're fighting Nazis! People I respect have (partially jokingly) argued that Lord of the Rings is a musical. It has more songs than Star Wars.
 
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What you say here re: distinct was arguably true like, 30 years ago, maybe even 20, but at this point True Crime has absolutely become a genre unto itself, with its own rules, tropes, and so on rather than really being about real crimes.

I will step back from this then, as I'm obviously working with outdated information.
 


An RPG is essentially a cooperative storytelling method

I highly disagree with this statement. An RPG must, by its very nature, have at least some elements of a game. I don't want to get into a detailed argument about exactly what defines a game and where that overlaps with story, but I will posit that there is absolutely a line that separates storytelling methods (cooperative or otherwise) from an RPG.

To that end, I believe that there are some genres that have no, or extremely few, gamist elements; they are spectator experiences. The most blatant example of this is the Passion Play.

Along those same lines would be genres like "Learning About/Finding Value in Disabilities" stories, such as Radio or I Am Sam. Or the "Dealing with Grief" genre like The Story Store, Flight 116 Is Down, or Philadelphia. While these narratives may have some basic elements of protagonist/antagonist and overcoming struggles, these are not conflicts that can/should be handled with gamist methods. Realistic coming-of-age stories might also fall into this category. And with genres involving overcoming racial, sexual, or other inclusivity issues, theres definitely a question of even if you can play it like a game, I'm not sure if you should.
 

That is a great example. Thanks.

One that I have struggled with is the legal drama procedural. So much of that genre is talking and infodumping and nonsense that I don't know how you would make an enjoyable game out of it. Even moreso because there might be 6 major characters but only 2 of them are ever on-screen at a given time.
Appearently Storybrewers are planning on doing such a game.
Link: Legal Minds
 


I think you and some others are effectively confusing LARPing and TT RPGs. This thread is about TT RPGs.

I wasn't thinking in terms of larping, more in terms of speaking in character. It is true though you wouldn't need to sing in an RPG, you could just do something else. But I feel like music is so essential to musicals, it would probably be better to go the actual singing direction.
In TT RPGs you don't generally break into actual song when your Bard or whoever sings a song. Most groups don't RP literally every single sentence of every discussion or negotiation - indeed, my experience is that the majority of stuff you could potentially RP out isn't.

I think it is true most groups don't break into actual song for bards. I have seen a person do this in one session, and I have certainly seen people nod to it briefly but most of the time my experience has been a person says something like "I sing a song about X". On the speaking every sentence of a negotiation. Maybe not every single sentence, but in most groups I have been in, it has been the norm (not saying it is an across the board thing but speaking largely in character is pretty common on many groups)

Why would it be different with musicals? Musicals are still a genre, and that genre has its own rules and tropes and so on, even if you have to be pretty into musicals to realize that.

It wouldn't. You are right it can be done another way. Personally I think I find the idea of people trying to sing it a little more fascinating but I am not sure how well it would play out in practice

So the real question is, would a "musical" genre TT RPG be about making a musical, and the tropes around that, or would it be about being a world governed by the rules of a musical? I think the latter seems more like as a TT RPG concept, and we've seen it done on TV before - in that case, it's very much about following the structure and concepts of a musical, and looking at what conflicts would be and how they'd be resolved and so on.

It would take someone extremely familiar with a wide variety of musicals to design such an RPG, and I wouldn't be the person to do it, but I'm pretty confident it could be done, and you could mimic the genre and the vibe pretty well. The singing? Not so much but that's like saying you can't do an action movie well because you can't see the action - I think people would be able to imagine it.

So you wouldn't need musical talent, and the players wouldn't necessarily need "exposure to musicals" any more than D&D players need "exposure to generic high fantasy", if they could parse the rules, setting, etc. - which is to say it's beneficial, but not vital. Nobody would need to make up entire songs at the table, you'd just want to be able to make up what your character was singing about and so on.

I think if you designed the structure right, it could be a lot of fun.

Sure if you are going more the mechanical route, I think this is fair. But I think most people heard musical and tended to imagine people singing at the table. I get it can be done different, and the action movie comparison is a good one. But the difference there is you really can't punch your friends at the table or drive a car over a cliff at the table; you could sing if you chose to though. Still I think either approach would be viable as an RPG

I could see what you are talking about working. If musical numbers had some kind of impact on where things go in the game (i.e. persuading people to do something), you might almost be able group them into types based on effect
 

And with genres involving overcoming racial, sexual, or other inclusivity issues, theres definitely a question of even if you can play it like a game, I'm not sure if you should.
Wow, I feel like you've really never looked into what a lot of like real indie RPGs produced by younger and more diverse people today look like. The stuff that's mostly on itch.io, not on Drivethrurpg (though some is on both). I have a huge amount of it thanks to some bundles, and a lot of it is fascinating (if in some cases I think underdeveloped).

There are absolutely RPGs which are about that kind of thing, and why on earth shouldn't there be?

Similarly grief and other issues are absolutely things that there are TT RPGs that engage with - Alice is Missing, for example.

Personally I feel like you're speaking from ignorance here and that you're being quite narrow-minded, without any apparent rationale, as to what RPG "should be allowed to be" about. Ironically the stuff you're saying RPGs "maybe shouldn't" be about is stuff that's much more likely to come female, non-white, or LGBTQ+ authors. I know that's absolutely not the reason why you're saying that, but it feels like maybe that's worth considering?

I feel (and I may well be wrong to think this, feel free to correct me) maybe you're thinking about like, something potentially gross like a dungeon-crawl through someone's head to "cure" their grief, but I dunno, I think even that could be done right - I've seen videogames which had some interesting ideas that way, and probably could be rendered as TT RPGs.
 

Personally I feel like you're speaking from ignorance here and that you're being quite narrow-minded

I'm sorry if I offended anyone. But I have to admit that the speed that this discussion went from "Maybe the story of Sam Dawson being awarded parental rights or Andrew Becket dying of AIDS aren't well suited to gamist aspects" jumped to me being ignorant and narrow minded much faster than I could have imagined.

I'll admit my examples pull heavily from marginalized groups, but that's because I'm referencing genres of popular fiction, and that's what gets published. I can't think of a lot of movies or books about middle class white guys dealing with those sorts of issues (that don't also feature war, sports, or any other blatant game ideas). Then Again Maybe I Won't is the only one I can come up with off the top of my head, and I don't know how I'd make an RPG out of that, either
 

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