Genre preferences

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

So I thought I'd ask what people like and are playing these days....

How would you rank your genre preferences?

1. Fantasy (Medieval like but including most broad variations like Grimdark)
2. Science Fiction (Hard to Space Opera. This probably includes some space fantasy)
3. Western (1840's to 1900 from realistic to spaghetti western)
4. Modern (Pretty much 1930+. Spies, commandos, or investigators)
5. Cross World (GURPS default setting. Essentially you are choosing all settings I'm assuming at this point)
6. Historical (Basically anything not mentioned elsewhere that is set in history.)
7. Supers (Super powered beings, Secret Societies with great powers, Godlike PCs)
8. Horror (This would include Lovecraft, Zombies, some Vampires)
9. Post Apocalyptic (nuclear wear, general breakdown of government, zombie apocalype, pandemic, etc..)
10. Urban Fantasy (magic, supernatural, conspiracy set in 1900s+ to near future)
11. Steam/Dieselpunk (Alternate technological assumptions from the past. e.g. Old Solar System)

SF
Modern
Supers
Urban Fantasy
Steampunk
Crossworld
Fantasy
Post Apocalyptic
Western
Historical
Horror
would be my theoretical preference. In practice I like to run something different than what I ran last and play whatever someone in one of the groups I game with wants to run.

What I have run in more or less reverse order all in Gurps
running a Monster Hunters set in 1980
Space 1889 on Venus
Stargate set in 1930 where they found both parts of the gate system, private operation by Rockefeller
Batman Continues, Bruce Wayne started in 1939 it is now 1980 and he is retired
Space 1889 on Mars with some trips to other parts, finale was the first expedition to the asteroids
Ancient Greece with PCs as demigods
New Magic where magic is just starting to working set 1990s
One where the PCs drove through a dimensional portal to a low tech world with magic
a Cliffhangers game with pulp type mysterymen

[RedMattis]

1: Urban Fantasy

NOT the backstabbing Illuminati kind, or dark-and-broody vampire type. Secret magic or modern magic and such is very interesting though, I think.

2: Cross World

I've never actually played or GM:ed one, but the idea appeals to me

3: Supers

Haven't played in one, but I could see it being a lot of fun.

4: Horror

Preferably not the "You take 14 Sanity Points of Damage. You have developed a phobia of mirrors"-kind, but rather the traditional horror-mobile style: "...why did the elevator suddenly stop? Wait, where are the other guys!?"

5: Fantasy

High fantasy, low fantasy, I enjoy most of them. I do find my self frustrated by D&D when that is used though, mostly because it is so rigid. If I want to, say, tame a bunch of giant spiders the GM would have to be willing to house-rule it, and most wouldn't be.

6: Science Fiction

Not a huge fan of hard sci-fi, at least not playing it. I do enjoy the kind of Sci-Fi that has psionics and dimension-hopping aliens and whatever though. Preferably not that one grimdark setting though.

7: Post Apocalyptic

As long as it isn't a grimdark everything-is-misery. Even if the world is a radioactive wasteland or full of zombies I still want there to be some ups and downs.

8: Modern

I prefer it when there is some magic, super-science, or other extraordinary elements to the setting.

9: Steam/Diselpunk

I don't think I'm into the Victorian culture and aesthetic enough to really appreciate it when that is the focus. Diselpunk sounds a bit like "Weird War 2" which could be fun though.

10: Historical

I'd rather play "modern" if it just mundane historical. Throw in magic and I'm quite open to it though.

11: Western

Not really my thing. I don't find cowbows the least bit cool unfortunately.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by dcarson

What I have run in more or less reverse order all in Gurps

Well, to address it this way, here are my GURPS campaigns:

Human opportunists trying to get rich on Lowellian Mars in the 19th century
Bronze Age adventurers in a setting with multiple humanoid races and animistic magic
Clients of a wealthy English merchant in a world dominated by Ming China
Teenage boys studying magic at a medieval university
Consulting criminals in a modern setting
Citizens of societies in Transhuman Space getting caught up in dealing with cosmic horror threats growing out of human technology
Members of a superteam assigned to keep supers with power matching that of a nation state from getting out of control
A privateer ship sailing the Pearl Bright Ocean in the service of Atlantis
Students of fencing studying the smallsword in early eighteenth century France
A private investigative agency in Montréal in Transhuman Space
Residents of a small town somewhere in America, sometime in the twentieth century discovering that weird stuff is going on
Diplomats and scientists dealing with the arrival of aliens on Earth in the 1930s
Present-day British teenagers straying into the realm of the fair folk
The reconstruction of the United States a decade after the events of Atlas Shrugged brought it down
A merchant ship in the Uplift universe looking for profitable trade and helpful contacts with alien races

That's one alternate history, four fantasy, one horror, two realistic (one historical/swashbuckling and one present day), one postapocalyptic, four science fiction, one supers, and one weird.

[ericthered]

The top genres I run are:

• Science Fiction. I think I've run from fairly hard settings to fairly soft ones
• Psudeo Historical Fantasy (Romans in the banestorm, the court of imperial not-china)
• Infinite Worlds, in its various stripes (which is often a good place to run history with a fantastic twist, or to run a sort of science fiction, but usually not at the same time, and I have two versions of infinity I play with, one for each)
• Urban Fantasy, which is not my favorite, but it requires the least amount of setup and is easiest to get players for.
• Fantasy, usually with a distinctive flavor to the magic system and mixed up with either alternate worlds or a specific historical time period

As for the other genres:

• I don't like playing horror. I've played around with running it a little recently, which is better, but its hard to pull off. I find Horror is mostly useful for generating unique monsters to beat up in other genres.
• I don't think I've ever played a strait modern setting. I usually add in enough magic or tech to call it urban fantasy or science fiction. I don't object to the paradigm, I just always add a little extra.
• Post apocalyptical confuses me a little. A while back I wrote up a campaign plan for running such a game, and it ended up looking like a infinite worlds Sci -Fi Colony game.
• I've played supers and had fun, but I don't like running it... though I'll happily run high point games with lots of powers if the characters less helter-skelter origins stories. Usually Fantasy or Psionic origins
• I've never run a true historical... It'd be hard to find players for, I'd guess. The exception is westerns, but I get very nervous about playing or running westerns, because I grew up a little too close to the subject matter (small cow town in east utah next to a reservation), and I don't want it gotten wrong, but I also don't want to fight to get it right.
• I've never run or played in true steam punk, but I suspect I'd enjoy it. I just mostly reach for historical periods other than 1800's urban cities when modifying them

[Boge]

1. Fantasy - I like the versatility, the weapon and armor variety, the enemies.
2. Western - Ironically this one is much more limited. But I've always been a fan of the old west setting.
3. Apocalypse - I'm a zombie fan, so zombies would be preferred, but any sort of apocalypse setting is fun. It does away with the technology and laws that a modern-day setting would have. I like that. And the horror feeling is always a good change up.
4. A military setting - can be World War 2, modern, whatever, but a realistic miltary setting. I like running missions. They almost become more tactical than role-played, so it can be fun to change it up that way.
5. Supers if done right. I don't like supers fighting supers. If everyone is special, then no one is, right? So what's the point in being super if you're not able to stand out and do super things? So a supers with the players being super, but the situations not is a lot more fun than fighting other supers. I also can't stand the whole, "You win this time, but I'll be back!" thing. That happens all the time in supers vs supers. It's stupid.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Looking at people's picks make me realize I want to play with some of y'all.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I've always wanted to run a steampunk setting but never found the right players and the right time to do so.

I would love to play in a steampunk campaign you ran, particularly if it involved old-school Venus with swamps and classic Mars with canals.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Proteus

I would love to play in a steampunk campaign you ran, particularly if it involved old-school Venus with swamps and classic Mars with canals.

I mean, yeah. You need those things for good steampunk. XD

[Emerikol]

I knew I'd be inspired reading all of your posts. I'm sort of new to GURPS so I'm sticking my big toe in and playing fantasy but definitely using GURPS to make it unique. I don't find the system that hard conceptually. It's just ironing out the details.

After this fantasy campaign though I think I will diverge in some strange direction. It's the strength of GURPS so why not lean into it.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I don't find the system that hard conceptually. It's just ironing out the details.

Agreed: once you've got an idea it's pretty easy to figure out which bits to use. But coming up with an initial concept is never that easy.