TitleI don't think I have seen any setting discussion about how easy it is to reduce a setting to a cliche ridden mess. Which genre or setting or both is easiest to mess up? Pic unrelated I just needed something.
>>96438477Really depends on how you define messing up. Some people like gonzo generic D&D-esque family so it's an end goal, others see being that generic as a failure of world building.A big one I see this with is cyberpunk. Some people just really like the aesthetic of omnipresent neon, murderous mega corps and cool ass cybernetics. However a lot of fans of the genre see that as surface level, and anything that doesn't really hone in on the genre's social commentary to be a failure.
>>96438477all genres are easy to mess up once you get trapped into thinking about what genre your work falls into. the biggest and easiest mistake any designer can make is trying to get their work to fit a prescribed mold.
>>96438477>cliche ridden messCliches are a benefit, not a positive. With RPGs it's important for everyone to understand how the world works, and cliches communicate that very easily. Issues arise when broad genres have many conflicting interpretations and no one bothers to clarify what they're using. A sci-fi game where one guy thinks they're playing Star Wars, another Star Trek, one 40k, and Foundation is going to be a shitshow because they can't talk to one another.
>>96438477Gotta be steampunk. A genre that has never been good and argueably has never even been a genre. With enough time you can salvage nearly any genre, but i dont think steampunk would work for you even ironically
>>96438588I too would nominate the so-called "steampunk" "genre", as evidenced by the absence of genre-defining media. If sword & sorcery has Conan, what does steampunk have? Exactly. Where are all the classics of steampunk? It's a non-genre, the genre that never was, good luck telling a story worth anyone's time when all you had were a collection of pictures.
Horror. Very easy to mess up the atmosphere, and sometimes you don't even have to do anything because the players will do it for you.>>96438588>>96438634Steampunk isn't a genre, it's an aesthetic that occasionally gets slapped on other genres like weird west.
>>96438665You say that but then, is horror a genre? Its more like a tone
>>96438477Anything tied to the real world, duh. Next in line, anything tied to an existing media franchise with established lore, if your audience cares enough.
>>96438477We have a worldbuilding general.
>>96438477Anything Good.Because the better something is the more likely any addition will stick out like a sore thumb. Pad it out by adding more and you've just fallen right back to mediocrity.
>>96438477Anything based on anime or vidya. Getting inspiration from it is alright, but the people announcing they're running a soulslike or a game like Frieren, are usually the people that don't read, don't understand how traditional games work, and most often have only a superficial understanding of their source material. Bonus points if they're running it in 5e or pitch it as a play test for their home brew which they will run for two sessions and then never touch again.
>>96438477>cliché riddled settings are messed upSo it's literally impossible to do a satire well, by this logic.You didn't think through your words very well, did you?
>>96438477Any of them done poorly. None of them done well.Add zombies to Jane Austen. Add carebears and my little pony to 40k. Have the Aliens fight Superman.Your table is a place for you and your friends to build anything you god damn well please, and have fun with it.
>>96438491>gonzo genericsay you're stupid without saying you're stupid
>>96438700horror is a category of genres
>>96440067This. My Little Pony 40k goes hard at a good table but not as hard as My Little Pony battletech
>>96440124Thoughtful addition to the discussion. Go so generic in this case just being a roundabout way of saying kitchen sink. It throws in a bunch of random fantasy concepts in a way that's gonzo, but doing so has become the default so it's now generic. Do you have any other insults you'd like to toss out?
>>96442986>My Little Pony 40k>My Little Pony BattletechImagine the smell
>>96438931My bad. I wasn’t thinking about it when I was curious enough to ask my question.
>>96443089>Do you have any other insults you'd like to toss out?poophead
>>96438477Definitely Steampunk because it gets reduced to an aesthetic and aesthetic only without setting specific cultural baggage that comes with steam technology.Then there's Cyberpunk which for me is in a weird spot because there are dystopian elements in our real world popping up, and Cyberpunk is supposed to showcase nightmarish dystopian elements with a lot of science fiction.So it's problem can be not being dystopian enough.
>>96438491Cyberpunk is mega flanderized indeedBUT it's not helped by the fact that OG cyberpunk authors did want it to be cool too instead of just future mudcore
>>96439692Vidya based games (to be quite honest, haven't played in any but have seen many "Souls" rulesets) have the "storygame" problemMuch like narrative games make you feel like you're an actor playing a part instead of a character just organically existing in a world, things that emulate vidya just try to make you feel like a vidya character
>>96439692I've encountered so many of these before that it is unreal. To the point where I've ditched trying to get games through public Discord servers.But maybe that was my problem in the first place.>>96443177Can't be any worse than MTG players on tournament night.
>>96443177Horse barn mixed with diesel smoke
>>96438477Entirely dependent on what you consider messing up. I'd say Horror is one that's relatively easy to fumble, since not only does the GM need to do a good job, but the players also need to be invested. All it takes is a single player not taking things seriously to deflate all of the tension.
>>96438477romance
