Punk works because plot device, that's why, and sci-fi tries at the explanations.

Put another way, Punk is about an attitude, a certain outlook: 'Punk' stories are classically distopian, "everybody knows that the war is over, everybody knows that the good guys lost." and if the heroes win in the end there is generally a sense that it was either a Pyrrhic victory or that the win is temporary.

In Sci-Fi by contrast the good guys USUALLY win, and often it is a lasting 'happily ever after' victory, or at least until the next episode.

The other distinction is that Sci-Fi typically happens in some nebulous future period where things have improved thanks to technology, where as Punk can happen in any era and/or an alternate timeline, or even ones where the world runs on magic instead of tech.

Sometimes the two genre's do blend, but it is often easy to see the 'Punk' aspect if you know what you are looking for.

Punk is anti-system.  Urban hard core.  Rebellion and mohawks.

I dont see 'Magipunk' as a real genre, but Steampunk is real -- but its sorta low-tech or alterni-tech cyberpunk.

you just haven't seen the right games. I'm running a modern day game where all the technology is driven by mana, and Tesla played a huge role in any technological divergeance. My 'Magipunk' is basically alterni-tech cyber punk using Mana.

In reply to REkz (msg # 12):

Tell that to the people whe read/write it and play games using it.  Eberron, for example, could be considered a magipunk or arcanepunk world.  At the same time prepare to defend cyberpunk from the people who tell you that it isn't a real genre, and "it's all just sci-fi".

We've seen all of these arguments before.  People wanted to know why cyberpunk was considered real enough to have its own classification, but steampunk and dieselpunk weren't, so we trimmed the name down a little, and by using combinations of categories, you can cover steampunk, cyberpunk, dieselpunk, magipunk, runepunk.  Even splatterpunk as well, if you want.

Thank you SO VERY MUCH BBR for reminding me that 'Splatterpunk' exists: Honestly I was not planing on sleeping tonight anyway! :Rolleyes:

Yeah, BBR is nice like that^*.

I consider Nightlife to be Splatterpunk, and Nightlife was awesome.

...I will admit that it's the only instance of anything I consider Splatterpunk that I also consider awesome, but, well... you know.  It was an excuse to mention Nightlife.  Which was awesome.  And needs an occasional mention.


^{*- Exactly like that.}

You mean Drama, right:D? No, it's not only Punk.

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Admittedly, as a beginner, I was pretty confused why Futuristic and Sci-fi are different genres, but Fantasy seems to encompass Low Fantasy, Swords and Sorcery, Dark Fantasy and High Fantasy, and probably Urban Fantasy as well. (In practice, I was even more confused where to put my Swords and Planet game, although at the end I decided to just mix and match).
But I'm still not sure why Mystery should contain both whodunits and Cloak and Dagger stories, which are often about as different as it gets:).
And I'm still not sure where to put a Pulp game, not to mention Spear and Sandals or Swashbuckling. Maybe under Anime, because larger-than-life heroes aren't necessarily a feature of Ancient, Hstorical or Contemporary games, but are pretty par for the course in Anime;)?

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This message was last edited by the user at 10:53, Sat 17 May 2014.

Yep, the whole idea is that you can mix and match to get something closer to what you have in mind for your game.  Used to be that you could only choose one category to describe your game, which was a bit limiting, and didn't allow for those Cyberpunk-Pokemon-Western games out there.

Sci-Fi and Future are not necessarily the same thing - War of the Worlds is Sci-Fi, but not set in the Future, or more modern examples might be the various entries in the Stargate franchise and movies like Independence Day.  Stories involving time travel might be classified as Sci-Fi and Ancient (or Historical)

Plus Future fits into the sequence: Ancient -> Hisorical -> Contemporary -> Future.

In reply to AsenRG (msg # 17):

Might I suggest "Action/Adventure"?

You still can't get this mix, BTW. You'd need to put Sci-fi, Punk, Action-advenuture, Historical, Survival, Anime to get this mix.
Good point on sci-fi, though, haven't considered War of the Words. Although I'd argue that this is Apocalyptic-Contemporary. The Martians aren't a force of technology, they're a force of destruction.
I get the sequence, but it could as well be Ancient-Historical-Contemporary-Sci-fi (as this is the accepted label for the genre). So yeah, Future seems not really useful if we only have a single kind of Fantasy (before mixing and matching).



Because Sword and Planet with more Eastern elemetns than usual is totally like "Die Hard"?
In other words, I don't find it a good fit, no.

Action/Adventure doesn't just refer to "Die Hard" and the like.  It says in the description about characters using their physical and mental abilities to overcome challenges.

So, unless you expect the characters to sit about doing nothing, Action/Adventure could fit.

Agreed, bbr.

Action/Adventure can include everything from Die Hard and Terminator to Star Wars to Raiders of the Lost Ark to The Three Musketeers to Dillinger.

In reply to Gaffer (msg # 22):




And may I also remind everyone: though I understand the movie was an abomination to the fans of the series; that 'John Carter of Mars' was distinctly closer to 'Die Hard' than even some of the other movies on Gaffer's list which ALSO are action/adventure. So honestly I think that label fit's fairly well.

Yeah, I know the descriptions. I've obviously read all of them, that's how I knew Drama also has none;).
That doesn't change the fact that when you say "action/adventure", people seldom think of John Carter. Like it or not, people tend to associate that with a modern setting.
And the purpose of the tags is to be informative to other users, isn't it? I know what happens in my game, and what doesn't.
Anyway, I didn't want to make this discussion about my game. That was just an example, and I kinda got carried away writing... my bad.
The real point of my reply was "no, it's also Drama that doesn't get any love". So, can't we get some definitions for Punk and for Drama, which could be included?
Granted, both words mean different things even to some fans of the genres, so maybe they're left the way they are intentionally.


Abomination is the right word for more than one reason. So, why do you judge a whole genre by an example the fans would consider an abomination? That's like judging RPGs by FATAL or RaHoWa, isn't it?

Sure.  Feel free to write one. and we'll consider adding it (the vast majority of the others were written/hashed out by users).

That sounds amazing -- if anyone knows of a game like that, please rMail me immediately.

This is one of the greatest things about RPoL: the inclusion of the users when it comes to the improvement of the site.

Well, some of us were already improving the site just by being here.

blinkblink

(Modesty is actually one of my many strong suits. Why do you ask?)


I don't think so.  Action/Adventure doesn't speak to setting to me at all; that would be about style.

OK, how about, "Oh, no!! This genre is lacking a description!!  What can we do?  What can we do???"

Utsukushi, the only thing I can answer is that we seem to have a different perception of the action genre.

"Drama relies on the development of realistic characters, although they might be unusual ones. The focus is on their emotional development and relationships. The dramatic themes like love, family, society and authority, often revealed through an intense internal or external struggle, also play an important role in the plot. Tragedy is a sub-genre of drama, in which a character's fall is due to his or her mistakes or flaw of character."
Admittedly it could probably be better. Feel free to improve it, of course!
This message was last edited by the user at 23:52, Tue 20 May 2014.

How can we improve on `dramathic'?  I need to use that.  Does two + two still equal four?  Will seven eat nine?  What will negative one's parents do about its deepening friendship with its imaginary square root?  Find out next week, in.. Dramathic Themes!

Somebody with a far better grasp of theoretical math than I have needs to turn this into an instructional video blog.

...Um, seriously, though, that's a pretty good description; I would offer two important improvements (dramathic to dramatic and mistskes to mistakes), and the minor note that with our categorical mix-and-match system, I think that Drama, too, speaks more to style than setting -- "realistic characters" sounds to me like it's intended for real-world kinds of settings, and you can certainly have a Drama-oriented game with wholly unrealistic characters.

I think when you say it you more mean the focus on... psychological depth, I guess?  Characters that aren't cardboard cut-out personalities?  It just didn't quite read that way to me.  I'm not sure how to phrase it better, though.

What about changing that sentence to "Drama relies on the development of fully realized and internally consistent, if sometimes highly stylized and exaggerated, characters."?

Heh, with me posting from a smartphone, you're lucky there weren't much more mistakes:D!


"Realistic character" is the accepted way of saying "with character motivations and reactions that make sense, given the context" among the drama majors I know. The context part fully covers having archmagicians that can become liches, if they've gone out of their minds. Which is what I assume you mean.


The "highly stylized and exaggerated" part seems prone to misunderstandings to me, as it can be seen to suggest what Utsukushi means with "cardboard cut-out personalities", which are best avoided in drama.

Wouldn't it be easier to just make that "characters that are internally realistic, no matter how unrealistic the setting might be"?

In reply to AsenRG (msg # 32):

Yes, that covers it better. (And the part I was referencing with that line was soap opera, which is the only kind of 'Drama' I am familiar with outside Shakespeare.)

"Drama relies on the development of characters that are internally realistic, no matter how unrealistic the setting might be. The focus is on their emotional development and relationships. The dramatic themes like love, family, society and authority, often revealed through an intense internal or external struggle, also play an important role in the plot. Tragedy is a sub-genre of drama, in which a character's fall is due to his or her mistakes or flaw of character."

I think that covers it, then, unless there are forthcoming objections. Now the staff can decide whether to add it or not.
I admit I'm not up to the task for creating a definition of punk, though, so I'd rather suggest edits when someone else writes one!