We need a poll - What's Your Favorite Game Genre?
Terraformer_Author
Newcomer
Ok kids - I can remember way back in the day - around the early 1980s (before a few of you were born...MAN I'M OLD!) when the ONLY RPG in town that got any press was Dungeons & Dragons. Back in the day - you had different genres of games - but the most popular were the Sword and Sorcery fare. I had the original hard bound TSR D&D Player's Handbook - the one that came out BEFORE the first Dungeon Master's Guide (I was a collector - not a player).
For many a moon - the Dungeons & Dragons "genre" was basically "it" for gamers. I can remember going to the malls as a youngster and seeing entire specialty shops dedicated to books, figurines, play sets, dice, and all kinds of awsomely cool junk that just doesn't exist anymore. The hobby was actually one of the reasons why model railroading began to lose popularity among adolescents - as big wooden bench model train layouts were starting to get replaced by huge table top game layouts featuring detailed models of dungeon interiors, landscapes with forests and castles made of plaster, wood, or plastic, and all kinds of metal, plastic, and ceramic figurines. Hobby shops began selling more model plants, trees, gravel, sand, and sheet plastic to gamers - than to people wanting to build elaborite train layouts. Kids began gravitating away from building model kits to, unless they had something to do with D&D or some other table top game like Battletech or something else.
The specialty shops thrived like crazy all over the place for about six or seven years before bad press for D&D - based upon the actions of a few delusional nutburgers - and the computer and video gaming industry came onto the scene - and basically sent these numerous shops, for the most part, the way of the dinosaurs and land line rotary dial telephones. Bummer!!!
"Table top" RPGs and war games in various forms - from the classical pen and paper fare, to hybrid digital / paper forms, to Live Action (LARP) games, to purely digital expressions - still exist. They have become a very specialized hobby with - unfortunately - somewhat less of an audience than they enjoyed back in the "Golden Era" of table top wargames and RPGs, but they are still around - and still have a pretty good sized audience. Over the years - many new types of these games have shown up in an effort by marketers and game writers to appeal to wider audiences. Some of the games are Historical, some are "Cloak and Dagger" intrigue, some are crime / detective / "whodunnit" type games, some are horror based, some are funny / comedic, and some are more or less - as boring as it may sound - like a tabletop version of "The Sims" (snore zzzzz). It's not just fantasy or sci-fi stuff anymore.
My question is - what's YOUR favorite genre - or more generally - what genres do you like the most?
#1, Fantasy,
#2, Sci Fi,
#3, Horror,
#4, Whodunnit / Mystery,
#5, Historical Wargaming (WW2, U.S. Civil War, Napoleanic, etc..),
#6, Funny / Comedic,
#7, Cloak And Dagger / Spy Adventures,
#8, Super Hero,
#9, Other?
?????
For many a moon - the Dungeons & Dragons "genre" was basically "it" for gamers. I can remember going to the malls as a youngster and seeing entire specialty shops dedicated to books, figurines, play sets, dice, and all kinds of awsomely cool junk that just doesn't exist anymore. The hobby was actually one of the reasons why model railroading began to lose popularity among adolescents - as big wooden bench model train layouts were starting to get replaced by huge table top game layouts featuring detailed models of dungeon interiors, landscapes with forests and castles made of plaster, wood, or plastic, and all kinds of metal, plastic, and ceramic figurines. Hobby shops began selling more model plants, trees, gravel, sand, and sheet plastic to gamers - than to people wanting to build elaborite train layouts. Kids began gravitating away from building model kits to, unless they had something to do with D&D or some other table top game like Battletech or something else.
The specialty shops thrived like crazy all over the place for about six or seven years before bad press for D&D - based upon the actions of a few delusional nutburgers - and the computer and video gaming industry came onto the scene - and basically sent these numerous shops, for the most part, the way of the dinosaurs and land line rotary dial telephones. Bummer!!!
"Table top" RPGs and war games in various forms - from the classical pen and paper fare, to hybrid digital / paper forms, to Live Action (LARP) games, to purely digital expressions - still exist. They have become a very specialized hobby with - unfortunately - somewhat less of an audience than they enjoyed back in the "Golden Era" of table top wargames and RPGs, but they are still around - and still have a pretty good sized audience. Over the years - many new types of these games have shown up in an effort by marketers and game writers to appeal to wider audiences. Some of the games are Historical, some are "Cloak and Dagger" intrigue, some are crime / detective / "whodunnit" type games, some are horror based, some are funny / comedic, and some are more or less - as boring as it may sound - like a tabletop version of "The Sims" (snore zzzzz). It's not just fantasy or sci-fi stuff anymore.
My question is - what's YOUR favorite genre - or more generally - what genres do you like the most?
#1, Fantasy,
#2, Sci Fi,
#3, Horror,
#4, Whodunnit / Mystery,
#5, Historical Wargaming (WW2, U.S. Civil War, Napoleanic, etc..),
#6, Funny / Comedic,
#7, Cloak And Dagger / Spy Adventures,
#8, Super Hero,
#9, Other?
?????
Comments
#2 Sci-Fi
#3 Super hero
Sorry, Terraformer, but that's nothing to those of us old enough to have started with the original *softbound* sets... :-)
Anyway, to answer your poll, the only genre that has stuck over the decades is fantasy. I still have rule sets for other genres, but I think I only keep them for nostalgic reasons!
#2, Sci Fi,
#3, Funny / Comedic,
Fantasy
Superhero
Started with SF thanks to Star Trek, first fantasy book I read was LotR, shortly after which I discovered D&D. Played some Traveller (and mixed rules SF rpg) but D&D dominated. Played some MSH but D&D had it all over supers too. Never tried other RPG genres. For fiction I gravitate much more to SF than fantasy.
SciFi
Horror
SciFi
Fantasy
Historical settings
Horror
I like to read sf, but not play the games.
I grew up heavily influenced by the Hobbit (and later the Lord of the Rings trilogy), AD&D 1st ed., Star Wars, Star Blazers, Robotech, and a LOT of really cool, 80's kitchy fantasy movies.
Does anyone here remember Car Wars (a Steve Jackson game) by any chance? I think that was my first foray into modern or post apoc. games. I still remember those Uncle Al catalogs!
Supers (Icons)
SciFi (Star Trek)
Other: Dark•Matter
Although I started with D&D, my interest in fantasy RPGs waxes and wanes.
Read the Hobbit back in grammer school. used to voluenter at the local sci fi cons as a kid. Got into RPGS as I used to play wargames. Rembers Chainmail and the white box days. (My collection of RPGs & stuff got destroyed a few years back, so that has lead to a major shift in my tastes now.)
Favorite RPGs of all time are:
Top Secret (It and the susequent S.I. campaign were the longest running continues campaign. My S.I. campaign was set in the same setting as my old Top Secret one. Ran for over 10 years on & off. Had 2 diffrent groups of players that would play at time, both were in the same setting so one's groups actions could have an inpact on another.)
Castle Falkenstein
Cyberpunk (Used to combine this with Mekton often.)
Aftermath!
V&V
My interest in fantasy isn't that great as I burnt out on it at an early age.
I don't enjoy much modern sci fi as they get the science wrong too often & the writting isn't as good as older stuff I've read.
Have lots of problems with some other genres too because of my work, and orginization, and groups i've been involved with.
Genre wise I'd have to go with spy & mystery. Those influenced so much of my life, including career choice.
Out of twelve (12) posters so far - RANKING IS:
Fantasy - 10,
Sci Fi - 9,
Horror - 4,
Super Hero - 3,
Cloak & Dagger / Spy adventures - 2,
funny / Comedic - 1,
Historical - 1,
Other - 1.
Whodunnit / Mystery / Crime - 1
Keep posting - I'd maybe like to keep this little survey going until August, and see how it stacks up?
Either way - thus far - looks like Fantasy and Sci Fi are almost neck and neck in the clear lead - with Fantasy ahead by a nose, followed up by Horror, (I really thought more folks would be into the Horror genre), followed on it's heels by Super Heros! Daily pick is "Fantasy" - with "Sci-Fi" paying 2 to 1 as a favorite - "Other", "Historical", "Cloak & Dagger", "Mystery", and "Comedic" trailing behind on the outside of the rail - and paying at 7 to 1 / 10 to 1 on a muddy track. Sorry boys and girls - no Trifecta just yet, Lol.
Started out around 1977-8 with D&D, but transitioned to Rolemaster as soon as I met the Arms Law and then played MERP using more Rolemaster rules quite often.
Sci Fi
Fantasy
@Sven, you are sooo luck to hold on to all that stuff ... you know what they say "Three moves is the same as a fire for losing stuff"
1- Science Fiction
2 - Fantasy
3 - Humor (anyone feeling a little Paranoid?)
1 - Fantasy (AD&D, actually)
2 - Sci-Fi
3 - Espionage/Spy/Cops (my brother runs a fun campaign where we're San Francisco inspectors and he runs it over-the-top like an action TV show)
4 - Superhero
I also like to role-play that I'm an adult in an information/industrial-age society, trying to juggle fun stuff like gaming and mapping while dealing with the infernal necessity to eek out a living with a job and annoying adult responsibilities.
On second thought, I'm not particularly keen on that one. :-P
~Dogtag
Wargames
SF
Strategy
We haven't heard from Terraformer_Author in years. I hope he is okay.
#1 SF / Cyberpunk (Shadowrun, Traveller (well, we've changed it a lot, but basically it is Traveller we play))
#2 Horror (Cthulhu, Vampire - The Masquerade)
#3 Fantasy (Runequest (Elric of Melniborne))
Ok, let's do this. For me:
# 1 Horror (Kult)
# 2... What genre would you say Mage (Ascension) is? Would it be Horror as well? (it's a world of darkness and all that)
.. and now I might have to break the rules and not follow proper numbering. Especially since my #2 might be the same genre as #1.
# 2.bis Fantasy. Even when I convince my players to play horror more often, we need a break and have to play something more optimistic. Plus, it's the genre we play the most.
# 3.a Horror. Again. Because Vampire (Masquerade) can't be left out, but I don't know if it's up there in #1.
# 3.b SF / Cyberpunk (Traveller as of late, but I've enjoyed Shadowrun as well)
Did I cheat too shamelessly with my list? XD
Post apocalyptic, warhammer and Aded
The Great One, Cthulhu, watches and waits for the end of days...
'Nuff said.
1 Fantasy
2 Sci-Fi
3 Super her0
4 Action