Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Genre

[Warp9]

The first time I came upon the concept of "prescriptive" genre was several years ago. A friend told me that Shadowrun was a bad game because it broke the rules of genre (elves shouldn't have machine guns). I was assuming that he thought it was a bad game because he didn't like the system, and it a surprise to hear about the genre issue.

Up until that time I assumed that genre was more of a descriptive concept than a prescriptive concept. I thought genre was an easy way to classify something for descriptive purposes rather than a directive telling us how something ought to behave. Over the years, I've noticed a number of examples of prescriptive genre--often relating to super-hero games.

I don't really get "prescriptive genre" and would like to hear from those of you who understand the concept better than I.

[Mutant for Hire]

Genre can be used descriptively and prescriptively. The problem your friend had was that they were treating Shadowrun as a strictly fantasy game. If you treat it as stricty fantasy, it breaks the rules of genre.

It's really a matter of genre conventions. Within a specific type of genre, there are various rules. Superhero comic books have heroes and villains with funky costumes and death traps and strange powers and all of that stuff. Prescriptive genre is a matter of following genre conventions.

Shadowrun was an experiment in the deliberate breaking of genre conventions. That any fantasy world would have at best a medival state of technology. But you should point out to your friend that there is a whole class of fantasy called modern fantasy which fills up space on the bookstores which does in fact have elves with machine guns and all of that. Shadowrun fits nicely into the spectrum of this new genre.

[allen]

Originally posted by Warp9
Over the years, I've noticed a number of examples of prescriptive genre--often relating to super-hero games.

That's interesting... one of the often-cited hallmarks of superhero comics is its total (gleeful?) disregard of genre conventions/boundaries... Some examples off the top of my head:

Conan the Barbarian and Spider-Man teaming up against Kualan Ganth (sp?)

The Executioner (from Thor) holding off the hordes of Hel with two M-16s. (In fact the whole Walt Simonson run of Thor from the eighties is a good example.)

The X-men fighting Dracula.

Adam Strange teaming up with the JLA.

Numerous team line-ups... The Avengers? At times, it has a Norse God, an Olympian God, a super-soldier created via better-living and science, a guy in powered armor, an android, and numerous other members borrowed from/inspired by the fantasy, sci-fi, pulp genres... not to mention the villains: Loki, Kang the Conquerer, Baron Zemo, the Supreme Intelligence, etc.

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Mutant for Hire
Genre can be used descriptively and prescriptively. The problem your friend had was that they were treating Shadowrun as a strictly fantasy game. If you treat it as stricty fantasy, it breaks the rules of genre.

It's really a matter of genre conventions. Within a specific type of genre, there are various rules. Superhero comic books have heroes and villains with funky costumes and death traps and strange powers and all of that stuff. Prescriptive genre is a matter of following genre conventions.

Shadowrun was an experiment in the deliberate breaking of genre conventions. That any fantasy world would have at best a medival state of technology. But you should point out to your friend that there is a whole class of fantasy called modern fantasy which fills up space on the bookstores which does in fact have elves with machine guns and all of that. Shadowrun fits nicely into the spectrum of this new genre.

Thank you for the help on the Shadowrun thing. . . .

On the matter of "genre conventions," why would it be important to follow them? (I'm not talking to anybody specific here, I'm just asking a question)

I'm not Stan Lee or Tolkien, why should I want to be bound by conventions that they (and others like them) created? Now I'm not saying that I don't want to make use of some of their ideas--they have made many great contributions. But IMO there is a difference between using some of what they did in my own creative work, and getting bound/limited by what others have already done.

I understand making use of the ideas of others, Newton himself said that he only got as far as he did because he was "able to stand on the shoulders of giants." But I do not understand why anyone would feel the need to be bound/limited by genre conventions--this issue is what I'm looking to have explained to me.

[Warp9]

Originally posted by allen
That's interesting... one of the often-cited hallmarks of superhero comics is its total (gleeful?) disregard of genre conventions/boundaries...

You may be right about the genre thing not relating to super-hero stuff--if I really understood genre I wouldn't have to ask these questions about it.
However, it was my (perhaps inaccurate) understanding that comic-books do involve some sort of genre.

[Mutant for Hire]

Originally posted by allen
That's interesting... one of the often-cited hallmarks of superhero comics is its total (gleeful?) disregard of genre conventions/boundaries... Some examples off the top of my head:

*range of characters found in superhero comics deleted*

Having mythological, technological and magical characters, along with people from martial arts genres. No, the convetions of the superhero genre are numerous. The codenames. The costumes. Supertechnology that gets invented and for the most part forgotten about. For the most part, the behavior of these types tend to fall heavily within convention in Marvel/DC at the very least.

[Lord Mhoram]

Originally posted by Warp9

I'm not Stan Lee or Tolkien, why should I want to be bound by conventions that they (and others like them) created?

But I do not understand why anyone would feel the need to be bound/limited by genre conventions--this issue is what I'm looking to have explained to me.

[I have a tendancy to have an "from on high" tone to what I write- the following is all IMO]

I think it comes down to what the person in question is hoping to get out of the game. I love martial arts movies, I take RL martial arts, I love to play martial artists. If someone said they were going to run a Ninja Hero game I come to play with certain expectations. I expect to be able to beat up hordes of nonimportant npcs. I expect a _lot_ of combat. I expect to hear goofy (or even non goofy) philosphising in character. That is implied in the unspoken contract to run a "Ninja Hero" game.

If someone were to run a swashbuckling game, but penalized eveyone when they did something grandstanding or extreme (like swinging on chandeliers) with the comment "that sort of stuff leaves you open and you could get killed" what is the point of swashbuckling.

Genre conventions are there as a shorthand for laying out the rules of the world. If you say "Four color supers" you expect few shades of gray, colorful costumes, few deaths. You don't have to explain it. If you say classic gaming fantasy, the players know what to expect.

Some who is being "bound" by genre conventions may just be responding to the "break" in the world from thier point of view. If the GM said classsic high fantasy, and when play started the elves were are evil and ugly and swordsmen beat wizards all the time, the player might go "Huh?" because it was not what was expected, or to his point of view, what was promised. In that respect, genre conventions could be house rules of the collecive unconcious, that everyone knows.

I always find it useful to discuss tone and syle with the players before hand so those kind of things don't come up.

Shadowrun was not classic fantasy, and someone who expected to be was missing the point. Genrebreaking can be fun, but it should be on purpose or for a reason. I remember reading about an oneshot western game where they ended up fighting a vampire. The players (and thus the characters) had no clue, and missed things that would have been obvious to a vampire hunter game. All in fun, and works great in short runs or oneshots. It can be troublesome in an ongoing campaign, because the players may not know where they stand.

Starting a game with the disclaimer that genre conventions out to be ignored should help in those situations where you are running an original game, and don't want that getting in the way, and it also informs the players not to make decisions based on the unwritten rules of those conventions.

Anyway that is my thoughts on the matter. Hope I helped shine light rather than muddy the water. :-)

[Keneton]

You are not bound by your skeleton, you are supported by it. Surely writers of Greek Tragedy were not bound by its elements, they used it to create a story.

Take or leave wht you like. A great example of this is Astro City. The story is the city bound by comcbook convention. I like the stuff and intend to use it without feeling trapped. In fact it is liberating to have a set of unspoken rules that make stories like this fun.

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Lord Mhoram
[I have a tendancy to have an "from on high" tone to what I write- the following is all IMO]

I think it comes down to what the person in question is hoping to get out of the game. I love martial arts movies, I take RL martial arts, I love to play martial artists. If someone said they were going to run a Ninja Hero game I come to play with certain expectations. I expect to be able to beat up hordes of nonimportant npcs. I expect a _lot_ of combat. I expect to hear goofy (or even non goofy) philosphising in character. That is implied in the unspoken contract to run a "Ninja Hero" game.

If someone were to run a swashbuckling game, but penalized eveyone when they did something grandstanding or extreme (like swinging on chandeliers) with the comment "that sort of stuff leaves you open and you could get killed" what is the point of swashbuckling.

Genre conventions are there as a shorthand for laying out the rules of the world. If you say "Four color supers" you expect few shades of gray, colorful costumes, few deaths. You don't have to explain it. If you say classic gaming fantasy, the players know what to expect.

Some interesting and valid points.

If I use genre in a descriptive sense, then in order to be consistent with my description, I should set up my world accordingly. Descriptive genre thus leads to some prescription.

The concept of the swashbuckling game is also interesting because it emphasizes the fact that genre relates not only to the world at large, but to the way that characters interact with that world.

Definitely things to think about. . . .

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Keneton
You are not bound by your skeleton, you are supported by it. Surely writers of Greek Tragedy were not bound by its elements, they used it to create a story.

Take or leave wht you like. A great example of this is Astro City. The story is the city bound by comcbook convention. I like the stuff and intend to use it without feeling trapped. In fact it is liberating to have a set of unspoken rules that make stories like this fun.

I would be hard pressed to disagree with the merits of having a skeleton (although I sometimes think that life as a jelly-fish might be fun).

I agree completely that a story needs some sort of inner-structure (a skeleton), however, I feel that an author can create a skeleton the same way he creates a story. It would be expected that the artist would draw from elements of past experience in both cases, but at the same time, both cases could involve some original insight in the on the part of the author.

As long as genre works as a tool and doesn't make anybody feel "trapped," I see no problem with it.

[Pol Rua]

By Allston's definitions, I am a Genre Fiend.
In fact, I am king-boss Genre Fiend.

If I'm playing Fantasy, I wanna play some Fantasy.
If I'm playing Cyberpunk, I wanna play some Cyberpunk.
And if I play Shadowrun, I want Fantasy Genre Elements in a Cyberpunk Setting.

I have run Superhero Games many times for people who don't dig the genre. And I can tell you that despite the fact that superheroes can cross genres, when you're running a Champions game featuring....

A nonpowered gun nut with a million high tech guns.
A murderous wolf-man hybird with supersenses and big claws.
A Cyborg Robot thingy with inbuilt rocketlaunchers.
A Supernatural Ninja guy whose only loyalty is to himself.
A mysterious homeless guy whose superpower is a kind of situational invisibility (Kinda like Plain Jane).

You realise that yup, these folks don't want to play superheroes.

When you start fielding responses like:
I don't want to wear a stupid costume.
I don't want to have a stupid codename.
I don't want to have any stupid superpowers.
Do I have to be a good guy?
Can I kill people?

You realise that these guys are not interested in the genre. Basically, it's like art. Sure, you wanna push yourself to create something new and unique and beautiful, but you have to have a knowledge of your craft to build upon.


__________________________________________________
Pol.

[Superskrull]

Originally posted by Pol Rua
A nonpowered gun nut with a million high tech guns.
A murderous wolf-man hybird with supersenses and big claws.
A Cyborg Robot thingy with inbuilt rocketlaunchers.
A Supernatural Ninja guy whose only loyalty is to himself.
A mysterious homeless guy whose superpower is a kind of situational invisibility (Kinda like Plain Jane).

You realise that yup, these folks don't want to play superheroes.

When you start fielding responses like:
I don't want to wear a stupid costume.
I don't want to have a stupid codename.
I don't want to have any stupid superpowers.
Do I have to be a good guy?
Can I kill people?

Man, that's familiar. Until I fell in with my current group, I had to field whackos like the guy who wanted a total cybernetic conversion Predator or the werewolf biker my best friend wanted to play. My friend was a pretty good guy but he despised most superheroes except the Tick. Well, and he actually thought Mr Terrific was a pretty neat concept when he heard about him. Anyway, I had to give up my hopes of 4-color fun and wound up running a bizarre cross-genre game where the players trusted no one but themselves. I dipped into my personal reservoir of evil impulses to scare the hell out of them when they ran into the "villains" of the piece. It was fun to watch them hunt down bad guys out of injured pride or sense of personal vengeance. Got a lot of nasty stuff out of my system too. Keeps me from shading too dark in my current games.

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Pol Rua


I have run Superhero Games many times for people who don't dig the genre. And I can tell you that despite the fact that superheroes can cross genres, when you're running a Champions game featuring....

A nonpowered gun nut with a million high tech guns.
A murderous wolf-man hybird with supersenses and big claws.
A Cyborg Robot thingy with inbuilt rocketlaunchers.
A Supernatural Ninja guy whose only loyalty is to himself.
A mysterious homeless guy whose superpower is a kind of situational invisibility (Kinda like Plain Jane).

You realise that yup, these folks don't want to play superheroes.

When you start fielding responses like:
I don't want to wear a stupid costume.
I don't want to have a stupid codename.
I don't want to have any stupid superpowers.
Do I have to be a good guy?
Can I kill people?

You realise that these guys are not interested in the genre. Basically, it's like art. Sure, you wanna push yourself to create something new and unique and beautiful, but you have to have a knowledge of your craft to build upon.

__________________________________________________
Pol.

I have a question about your analogy to art. You state that: "you have to have a knowledge of your craft to build upon."

I just don't fully understand its relation to your earlier statements. Above in your example, you conclude "that these guys are not interested in the genre," but isn't that different from saying that they don't have a knowledge of the genre?

If they do in fact have a knowledge of the genre, but simply choose to go in a different direction, isn't that a valid decision?

[Pol Rua]

I have a question about your analogy to art. You state that: "you have to have a knowledge of your craft to build upon." I just don't fully understand its relation to your earlier statements. Above in your example, you conclude "that these guys are not interested in the genre," but isn't that different from saying that they don't have a knowledge of the genre? If they do in fact have a knowledge of the genre, but simply choose to go in a different direction, isn't that a valid decision?

I plead typing faster than I think.
Yes, it is valid to say that 'I hate superheroes. They suck' and play Cyberpunk or Feng Shui or Twilight 2000 or hell, Bunnies and Burrows.
Because it's a game, and the goal is to have fun.
If you can't have fun in tights and a cape, p'raps 4-colour superheroics isn't your cup of tea. fair enough.
I think, if you're going to play a game which HAS a genre, it's important to get at least the basics of your genre. However, like art, there is a difference between consciously choosing to break the rules of your craft a la Picasso, and using hacklines and groundmist to cover up your lack of craft a la Liefeld.
If you just wanna kill stuff, and you can enjoy that, that's cool. As I said, have fun.

But I yam Genre Fiend. And I need a snack with Genre.
Most of the anecdotal stuff was just me griping.


Pol.

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Pol Rua
I plead typing faster than I think.
Yes, it is valid to say that 'I hate superheroes. They suck' and play Cyberpunk or Feng Shui or Twilight 2000 or hell, Bunnies and Burrows.
Because it's a game, and the goal is to have fun.
If you can't have fun in tights and a cape, p'raps 4-colour superheroics isn't your cup of tea. fair enough.
I think, if you're going to play a game which HAS a genre, it's important to get at least the basics of your genre. However, like art, there is a difference between consciously choosing to break the rules of your craft a la Picasso, and using hacklines and groundmist to cover up your lack of craft a la Liefeld.
If you just wanna kill stuff, and you can enjoy that, that's cool. As I said, have fun.

But I yam Genre Fiend. And I need a snack with Genre.
Most of the anecdotal stuff was just me griping.


Pol.

Thank you for your input, I was/am looking for the insights of a "Genre Fiend."

I agree with most (or all) of what you said. But I am still thinking that there is a difference between using your past experiences to your advantage, and being limited by them.

I've never had a great deal of respect for "tradition" for tradition's sake, or doing things the "conventional way" purely out of respect for the conventional. And I feel that is what following genre conventions amounts to. But I may be wrong.