I am about to run my first PbP game, and upon reading the FAQ I learned the protocol for doing this. My game would fit into this genre, but that is not primary reason for this post. I was also disappointed when I first arrived that this was not a searchable genre, and after a bit of creative hunting, I have found enough games that would fit best within it that I don't believe this to be a frivolous suggestion.

After a little reflection, I see a few ways some of my first thoughts on titles for this genre could be misleading; 'Pirate' or 'Privateer' may denote a moral/social code or lack thereof that the game isn't necessarily going for, 'Swashbuckler' or some variant conjugation may call to mind settings like The Three Musketeers that would fit better elsewhere, 'High Seas' or 'Seafaring' could be misconstrued to include any navally based game, and 'Spanish Main' precludes a fictional setting.

Therefore, I'd like to officially suggest the addition of the 'Buccaneer' genre.
This message was last edited by the user at 03:13, Sun 11 Jan 2015.

"Buccaneers" were pirates who launched attacks from islands against passing vessels, seems like a pretty narrow label.  If "Pirate" has that connotation, I fail to see how "Buccaneer" wouldn't.

If any such thing were added I'd say the more generic "Pirate" and be done with it, because the "Pirates" we typically play are fantastic over realistic, and that's not even mentioning the idea of "space pirates".  At least with "Pirate" you could also click a secondary genre like "Fantasy" or "Historical" (or both for a 7th Seas kind of vibe) to give some idea what you were going to do with said Pirates.

There's never going to be a specific enough genre for a lot of games.  I'm amazed Frontier/Western is a genre, given how international RPOL is.

Yeah, or for that matter, I think Science Fiction and Future are options as well.

Relocated thread to RPoL Development.  :>

You might want to have a look at this thread, Holobunny - there was an extensive and animated discussion into reworking the genres - link to a message in this forum

I think you'll find that Pirates/Buccaneers is too narrow a category - we aimed to set up genres with a wider brush - have them general rather than too specific.

In reply to drewalt (msg # 2):

I stand corrected. That word had never attained that connotation to my mind, but it seems I had missed a shade of its meaning. Thanks for setting me straight.

In reply to Skald (msg # 4):

Thanks for the quick response. Certainly that is your guys's call and I can see your point.

However, in the interest of playing devil's advocate, there is at least a small but not insubstantial group of us who are actively seeking a high seas pirate type game. Not all of the ones available, now or in the future, have a buzzword like the ones in the original post in the title. Any other relevant genre selections like Fantasy, Historical, or possibly Intrigue are so full of games not of the that type that finding a game of the nature being sought is an exercise in near futility. And that is my likely moot argument. :)

On a different note, in order to avoid this situation and makework for you guys in the future, you may find it worthwhile to edit the FAQs so as not to direct people to place future genre suggestions in the General RPoL forum.

Genre suggestions are still great to make, even if they're shot down.  =)  The discussion previously that resulted in changes to the genres came out of previous suggestions.  (Alas, poor Pokemon/Digimon - just one of the casualties of the genre realignment. (= )

The general consensus is that if a particular genre can be described by current genre categories, a new category isn't going to be created.  One of the most commonly suggested categories was cyberpunk, a whole genre for games like Shadowrun.  In the end, I believe the category Punk was added for games like Cyberpunk and Steampunk.  Too, think about the ever-popular dungeon fantasy genre, represented by games like D&D, Hackmaster, and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.  A separate category called Dungeon Fantasy could be created, but Fantasy + Medieval (+Action/Adventure) fits the bill well enough.

I'd think a pirate game would fall squarely in Historical + Action/Adventure along with games like a Three Musketeers game.  Even Pirate is pretty specific, and a subset of that genre, Buccaneer, is even more specific.

An example of a genre that might be added is something like Animal, if everyone shifted to playing a lot of Mouseguard, Bunnies and Burrows, Ducktales, and Pogo games.  (I have Scrooge McDuck all statted up GURPS, ready to go.)