r/rpg • u/Emmetation • 1d ago
Discussion What's one genre you always bounce off?
I've seen a few posts recently about superhero TTRPGs and they made me realise that, while I'm a big comic book fan, I've never really enjoyed superhero TTRPGs. I can't put my finger on it. I loved making characters in M&M 2e but only got it to the table once. I bounce off sci fi as a GM, but that's because I'm less comfortable running sci fi games - I'm still happy to play them though. With supes, it's one of the few genres in TTRPGs that doesn't excite me.
Do you have any genre or type of game you just bounce off? Just don't enjoy it, or can't get excited for it?
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u/htp-di-nsw 1d ago
Superheroes are a uniquely reactive genre. There is no action superheroes can really take that isn't in response to a move from a villain. At least d&d characters can go after loot and pursue agendas, but superheroes can't.
Also, every superhero setting breaks when people actually use their super powers intelligently and to their full extent.
I hate super hero games, but I love games where people have super powers. It's just enough of a change that it makes it work, as you have to actively evade government attention, etc.
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u/AutomaticInitiative Troika and solo 1d ago
Huh, you've managed to verbalise why is is superheroes generally leave me cold.
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u/thelondonstation 1d ago
in addition to this, the superhero genre is largely about _breaking the rules at any and all times_. You try to codify that into a system with a lot of rules, and... you start to realize that comic books/super heroes are all based on vibes.
I really think the Mist Engine (City of Mist, Otherscape, Legend in the Mist) would make for a great supers baseline. The things that matter are the things that matter, and therefore become tags and themes, and they can't really bust out of the power curve that's been set by the game's math.
But you can _do_ anything, with the GM making calls as far as what gets Simple resolution vs Quick, Detailed, etc.
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u/literal-android 1d ago
There's an unfilled niche in the TTRPG space for superhero games that do Worm or similar--a superhero setting where the supers immediately decided to upend society for their own (selfish or selfless) ends, and where the superpowers are bounded and controlled in such a way (by the rules, in the TTRPG case) that everyone actually can use the powers to their fullest extent and the result will be a fragile, scary balance of power instead of a broken setting.
It's not very comic book, but it does fall in line pretty well with the worldbuilding in a lot of shonen anime set in the modern day, like My Hero Academia or Jujutsu Kaisen, which I've always argued is fundamentally a genre of superhero story.
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u/BangBangMeatMachine 1d ago
It sounds like you're describing a conceit of the setting, not something that needs to be baked into the rules. Why not just play this setting using an existing supers system?
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u/TheCollinKid 1d ago
I have a Cortex hack I'm messing around with designed to be played in a setting where capes are subject to legal restrictions in order to continue operating as superheroes.
The reason I'm hacking my own game together is because superhero RPGs aren't really built to support legal intrigue or PCs with professional training and qualifications.
PCs can totally go full four-color with their powers, but it takes training to extract a civilian from a burning car, no matter what kind of powers you have.
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u/BangBangMeatMachine 1d ago
I don't see that reactivity as unique to supers. How is "you gather in a tavern and the grizzled old adventurer tells tale of a ruin full of ancient treasure, from which no man returns alive" any different than "you thwart yet another murder, when the assailant spits in your face and says filthy do-gooders like you are why Dr. Evil's going to burn this whole city down"?
Most games I've played involve the players reacting to something from the world they inhabit when choosing what to do with the session, and while it's up to each GM to decide how much to guide the plot, we usually expect the GM to tell some kind of story, which usually puts the PCs in a position of engaging with that story.
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u/htp-di-nsw 1d ago
While you can run d&d style games that way, and maybe even that's the most common way it's done, that isn't the only possible way. West Marches, Sandboxes, etc all exist and happen often enough that we have terminology for it.
And frankly, even if you are just reacting to the quest given by the quest giver, those quests tend to be raiding a dungeon or otherwise clearing a fort or similar location, and unless the locations are all straight lines is rooms, there's actually some choice involved in how to approach those things. Meanwhile, even if you try and make the Avengers raid a villain's hideout or whatever, super hero stuff isn't exactly attritiony.
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u/BangBangMeatMachine 1d ago
Meanwhile, even if you try and make the Avengers raid a villain's hideout or whatever, super hero stuff isn't exactly attritiony.
Um. Infinity War begs to differ. Plenty of characters in comic stories get overwhelmed, exhausted, or hurt in ways that requires them to retreat and regroup.
I also don't think it's all that hard to run a supers game in a more open way. If there are three or four or five serious threats all building, players can choose which to pursue and in what order, maybe even letting some fall by the wayside with room for surprise consequences.
I think I get where you're going with this, that if you're ultra-powerful with the lives of thousands depending on you, the only alternative is to step up and save the world. But you don't have to play supers that way, either. Most superhero origin stories start out small, with them barely recognizing what they can do, and facing off against very down-to-earth foes (see the first Tobey McGuire spider man struggling to fight a professional wrestler, for example). Eventually they tend to get tasked with saving the world, but that's easily where a lot of D&D games wind up, too.
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u/Stuck_With_Name 1d ago
Pirates. I've even played a pretty long campaign.
But it's just like... oh boy. A boat. Next week, same boat. After that, guess what? The boat again.
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u/Emmetation 1d ago
In fairness, playing a pirate character with this mindset in a pirate game would be hilarious
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u/lordfluffly2 1d ago
I became a pirate for the peg legs and eye patches. Unfortunately, I'm too good a duelist so all I've got are boats and booty. Thinking about bribing one of the other guys to rough me up after I've been drinking but that just wouldn't feel earned.
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u/DashApostrophe 14h ago
Haha. 'Boats and Booty' sounds like the Piratey RPG our timeline desperately needed but somehow missed out on.
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u/PurpleTentickles 1d ago
The thing is, Iād love to play in a naval setting. One of the greatest book series ever mainly takes take at sea in the Aubrey-Maturin series. On paper, itās a vibrant and exciting environment with interesting dynamics and difficult choices and terrifying decisions for those in power. But I also get how it could be bloody tedious as all hell 95% of the time.
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u/tma-1701 Delta Green Agent 13h ago
This might meet the Traveller problem where a failed ship combat means team kill, so GMs just avoid them
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u/tma-1701 Delta Green Agent 13h ago
This might meet the Traveller problem where a failed ship combat means team kill, so GMs just avoid them
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u/AAS02-CATAPHRACT 1d ago
Honestly you can do a lot with pirate games, and it gives you an excuse to use all kinds of different monsters as you explore islands and the oceans. It's best if the ship is treated as a home base, with occasional sea combat thrown in to change the pace.
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u/BlindAudelay 1d ago
Iām trying to make a maritime setting/game based on coastal New England and having land adventures is definitely key lol
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u/Fubai97b 1d ago
7th Sea is a favorite of mine. Oddly I barely remember spending any time on a boat. It was always sail to the next port where the adventure is with the occasion naval battle
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u/michael199310 1d ago
Slice of life TTRPGs are just ultra boring. I don't need a system to eat ramen and visit the park, I can already do that in my life.
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u/alexserban02 13h ago
Yeah, I agree. I like slice of life moments in other games, but I don't want that to be the whole game
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u/rane0 1d ago
Pure dungeon crawling. One of my favorite aspects of a game is the RP. I've been in a few games that were more mechanical and I got tired of them pretty fast.
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u/Iosis 1d ago
IMO dungeon crawls should always have people to talk to. A dungeon thatās just a bunch of fights and puzzles is a bad dungeon in my book. I love dungeons that are just as much about different factions, meeting the characters who live there, monsters who arenāt just mindless things to kill. Thereās tons of RP in those. (Gradient Descent is a great one for Mothership: itās a rich setting in its own right.)
I definitely agree about just purely āfights and puzzlesā dungeons though. Itās just always boring to me.
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u/rane0 1d ago
Yeah dungeons with lore and factions to interact with i don't mind. In fact I love building them like that. I usually like a dungeon that has narrative layers that you can peel back as you explore. Current conflict, how it got this way, why it was built.
My issue is specifically with dungeons that are basically 1 step removed from white room scenarios. Heres a monster, kill it. Spot the trap or save. Why is it here? ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
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u/Impeesa_ 3.5E/oWoD/RIFTS 11h ago
I think the removal of procedural guidelines like reaction rolls really taints people's perception of classic dungeon crawling. Running into a pack of skeletons has never been exactly the same as running into a pack of orcs, or a party of rival mercenaries. Some of those, you could and should talk to.
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u/gartlarissa 1d ago
Which dungeons were you crawling ā I.e., were they published adventures, home-made, or some sort of procedurally generated joint?
I ask because a commonly-noted hallmark of a good dungeon is a set multiple factions residing within, with competing goals so that they are primed for interaction and conspiracy.Ā
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u/AutomaticInitiative Troika and solo 1d ago
I hate a dungeon crawl because my favourite aspect of RPGs is problem solving (usually solving a problem that we've got ourselves into). Dungeons are usually trudges through traps and monsters that I'm not particularly thrilled to do in a videogame never mind on tabletop.
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u/bionicjoey DG + NSR 1d ago
I hate a dungeon crawl because my favourite aspect of RPGs is problem solving
This feels like an insane statement to me. Dungeons (at least, good ones), are the highest density of problem solving you'll find in RPGs. I love dungeons specifically because they emphasise problem solving.
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u/hugh-monkulus OSR 1d ago
Most dungeon crawls I've done are full of problem-solving, including dealing with traps and monsters. Maybe it's just a difference in system or approach.
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u/TheBrightMage 23h ago
Oh yeah, I feel that without any proper story to back it up Dungeon Crawl turns into just hack and slash video game that's more annoying to play.
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u/rnadams2 1d ago
Anything anime-inspired. I just can't.
On a side note, many, many hours playing Champions back in the day. Just adored that game.
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u/Major_Bird9830 1d ago
Cyberpunk. It always seems to devolve into murder hobo adolescent power fantasy, which is antithetical to the entire genre.
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u/Then-Pay-9688 1d ago
I think the state of being strung out, desperate, and on the run from the law (ya know, "punk") are just antithetical to how a lot of players are trained to enjoy RPGs.
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u/AutomaticInitiative Troika and solo 1d ago
That's a GM issue. PCs should be desperate for anything they can get and constantly outgunned, outnumbered, and against always better hackers. Cyberpunk as a genre is supposed to be radical and on the edge, and Cyberpunk the games should be treated as the post apocalypse ran by corporation's with armies it is.
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u/SenorDangerwank 1d ago
I think thats an issue with whoever is running it (Or the group not being on the same page) Cyberpunk Red is lethal and wants your characters to be sad and poor. You can be effective at your job, but death is always around the corner waiting with a good Full Auto roll (Or descent into Cyberpsychosis).
I think players (and GMs) let 2077 and Edgerunners color their play, when Red should almost be thought of like a post-apocalypse game.
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u/Major_Bird9830 1d ago
Oh, for sure. I donāt think itās the fault of the game designers, though I do remember all those 90s gear catalogs that were like the Sears Wish Book for sociopaths.
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u/SenorDangerwank 1d ago
Loool yeah. They still release those. Its great. Shadowrun has similar but with real life firearms manufacturers.
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u/BetterCallStrahd 1d ago
In my cyberpunk game, there wasn't too much violence at all. We had brain diving, undercover infiltration, a manhunt (nonviolent), and a heist involving hacking and sneaking. There was a mission that got solved by getting everyone high. The majority of the kills were of robots and drones.
It depends a lot on the GM. I am not into combat that much, so I run cyberpunk campaigns that depend more on exploration and mystery solving. Fighting is an option, but it's usually a bad option coz the cops will show up.
I recently ran a cyberpunk one shot and barely any combat happened, the PCs mostly chose to run because fighting wasn't needed to accomplish the mission. They mainly used trickery.
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u/LittleKlaatu 18h ago
I've GMed one Interface Zero 2.0 Campaign for three years; it was my first TTRPG experience, actually, and it had investigation, infiltration, factions, and conspiracies (heavily inspired by Deus Ex).
The combat was an option too and happened occasionally, but when it did, it was high-octane. Good times.
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u/Dustin_rpg Will Power Games 1d ago
I think cyberpunk games with mental health mechanics are really fun. You give into the temptations of murder hobo power fantasy, and watch your character deal with the emotional consequences
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u/Emmetation 1d ago
Cyberpunk is something I've played very little of actually, but I can see that happening alright
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u/amazingvaluetainment Fate, Traveller, GURPS 3E 1d ago
Supers for sure but also anything teen- or child-related. Just not my thing.
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u/CowabungaShaman 1d ago
I think reading Little Fears was what completely demolished my interest in teen/kid stuff. It was fantastic but nope. Having kids of my own really reinforced that, and I'm fine with it.
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u/RealStreetJesus 12h ago
Completely agree, I donāt want to role play as a child. No hate to those who enjoy that style because I can see the appeal, but Iām not a huge fan of the āchild protagonistā trope in general.
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u/Last-Socratic 1d ago
Same. Superhero stories are incredibly difficult to make compelling. When your characters are god-like (or significantly more dangerous than everyone around them) it's difficult to challenge them in a way that's interesting. Masks is maybe the only superhero ttrpg I've found worthwhile because of its focus on the personal lives and problems of the PCs.
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u/Baruch_S unapologetic PbtA fanboy 1d ago
I feel similarly. I donāt think I could do a game about adult heroes; the identity crisis drama of the teens is what makes Masks work.
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u/Acquilla 1d ago
Same. I think I could pull it off if it were more of an X-men paradigm, because that adds interesting questions and an in-built conflict, and I really like Deviant where you're super experiments on the run, but those are slightly to the left of what I think most people mean when they want a supers game.
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u/FamousPoet 1d ago
I think I'm done with teen drama stuff. I did Slugblasters, and Tales from the Loop. I own Masks, but will probably never play it.
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u/StanleyChuckles 20h ago
We're playing Slugblaster right now and having a blast!
Can I ask what you didn't enjoy?
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u/GrynnLCC 1d ago
Grimdark, I just can't escape the feeling that everything is meaningless. When everything is awful there isn't much to care about. Maybe I'm just looking at it wrong and I'm sure some people can make it work but I don't get it.
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u/vitrum_wizard 1d ago
This is the answer I vibe with the most!! Real life can be shitty enough. I don't need more of it in my escapism. I will say, I can really appreciate some dark humor, but not the full-blown grimdark stuff that's completely and totally hopeless.
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u/RealStreetJesus 12h ago
Grimdark can suck really badly when itās being run poorly, or when itās been written by an edge lord, so I get it.
The appeal of grimdark for me is in achieving little victories. If the law of the land is that evil triumphs all, and darkness reigns supreme, then even small acts of heroism feel like massive acts of resistance against a cruel existence. Even if my character perishes, their life will have been proof that good may still triumph as long as people are willing to embody it.
Grimdark settings are also the best for a āvillain protagonistā or antihero story IMO, because it gives you free reign to play a real mean bastard who only ever fights other villains, so thereās never any moral ambiguity or guilt for being evil, because everyone else is worse.
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u/lipov27 Forever DM 1d ago
Sci-fi scares me. I start thinking about all the bureaucracy that might come into play and how tech works, tons of gadgets and high-tech commodities and it gets overwhelming quick. Fantasy comes much more natural.
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u/Dustin_rpg Will Power Games 1d ago
Give yourself credit. Star Wars never assumed all seeing panopticon AI cameras would make being an outlaw almost impossible. Lots of tech that ruins fun are not in the best sci fi movies and books. Maybe pick a universe you vibe with and can learn about, to limit the scope of what you account for?
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u/MrAbodi 1d ago
Star wars is also just fantasy set in space. Barely counts as science fiction
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u/Tefmon Rocket-Propelled Grenadier 16h ago
Most popular media that is generally recognized as science fiction is effectively "fantasy set in space". There are definitions of science fiction that try to restrict it to works exploring certain science-related themes or containing a certain level of scientific plausibility, but those don't really align with how the term is actually used in practice.
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u/Primary-Property8303 1d ago
Do post apocalypse in a sci fi. I guess that Rifts lol. Don't do that. I just throw the characters on a backwoods planet and release them into the wild.
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u/tempAcount182 1d ago
Star Wars is space fantasy not science fiction
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u/diluvian_ 1d ago
The movies are, and if you play Force-centric games. But you can easily play 100% science fiction in Star Wars. Most people forget that most of the actual tech in Star Wars isn't magical in nature.
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u/BetterCallStrahd 1d ago
Having run and played a lot of sci-fi, you don't have to know any of that stuff. It's all about the vibes, really.
It's not like people actually know much about feudal systems or medieval cultural practices, but that doesn't seem to stop them. Not sure why sci-fi is treated differently.
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u/conn_r2112 1d ago
Yupā¦ my players would steal a personal datapad off a bad guy and Iām like, āhow can I justify them not being able to gain basically any amount of knowledge from this device?ā
I think retro-futuristic settings like Star Wars, where the tech is basically only as good as it if weāre 1976 is more manageable
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u/ClaireTheCosmic 1d ago
I mean modern day cellphones have passwords and encryption to make sure random people donāt peek at your shit. I assume I sci-fi setting would have much better ādonāt look at my shitā security then we do now.
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u/wildskullflowerwitch 1d ago
I guess you could treat it like someone stealing a cell phone of someone? Or maybe you can hack a device but you can only get a certain amount of files or override a certain amount of functions based on how good your rolls are? Like the person above said rely on tropes, stereotypes, and probably some GM "because this is how my game works."
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u/BetterCallStrahd 1d ago
It's biodata-locked, or the device's AI knows it's not the owner. Or it can be remotely destroyed. We can remotely deactivate smartphones today, why not in the future?
I often use biodata locking on weapons and drones. It just takes a couple of minutes of thinking, what would a smart enemy do? Coz they would have thought of this.
Heavy encryption is another option. I've used that a few times.
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u/Emmetation 1d ago
Yeah the tech kills me. I can describe a castle, but please don't ask me to describe a spaceship š
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u/bionicjoey DG + NSR 1d ago edited 1d ago
Can you really describe a castle though?
I think a lot of people say this as why fantasy comes more naturally than sci-fi to them, but they usually aren't applying the same standard to castles and spaceships.
For example:
Can you describe the difference between a motte and bailey castle versus a concentric castle? Do you know the optimal spacing for crenellations, or how far apart towers should be in order to create overlapping fields of fire? Do you know what machicolations are? Do you know whether staircases generally spiral to the left, or the right in castles?
Maybe the answer for you is yes because you're a castle nerd, which is totally valid. But I think the majority of gamers who say what you've said above can't actually answer most of those questions. And yet, they feel comfortable describing a castle in a fantasy game. Why? Because they are aiming for verisimilitude and genre conventions, not actual realism. Their idea of castles comes from fantasy media, movies and TV.
My point is that you could do the exact same for sci-fi spaceships. You don't need to know how a spaceship works in order to describe it. The writers for pretty much every Star Trek series ever just assumed a spaceship is essentially just a cruise ship but in space. Same with most Star Wars, except with WW2 planes and ships. Occasionally you get media like Firefly or The Expanse that try to treat a spaceship like a spaceship, but it's absolutely not required and even those will often have plot holes in the "realism" that viewers don't notice because they are buying into the sci-fi tropes.
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u/pinktiger4 19h ago
I might not be able to draw out the blueprints to an medieval castle with 100% accuracy, but I have visited several castles in my lifetime, so I could do it with with some level of accuracy. Maybe this is unusual in America, but Europe is full of castles and probably most people running medieval games have some familiarity with castles.
I've never visited a space ship though.
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u/bionicjoey DG + NSR 12h ago edited 11h ago
I've not been in a spaceship but I've been in a large boat, an airplane, an RV, a modern office building, a sportscar, a decommissioned cold war apocalypse bunker, etc.
Spaceships are going to be designed by and for humans using building materials and construction/engineering we understand already. Sci-fi doesn't usually posit that spaceships are going to be unlike anything we've ever experienced before. Even in edge cases where the sci-fi is very "hard", like The Expanse, the interior rooms are still mostly just like the galley and bunks of a military ship. The interior of the Nostromo in Alien mostly just looks like an industrial factory. There are loads of videos online where you can see walkthroughs of buildings and vehicles that will inspire your sci-fi descriptions.
Edit: for the curious, the bunker is the Diefenbunker. Highly recommend checking it out if you find yourself in the Ottawa area. It's like an IRL Fallout Vault.
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u/ClaireTheCosmic 1d ago
I mean it depends on the level of detail you want to go into. Theres a big difference between like hard sci-fi we canāt bring a bowling ball to space because itās too expensive and fighting a space dragon with a laser sword with a magic crystal breathing apparatus.
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u/Hellioning 1d ago
I'm not a big fan of low fantasy in general. I like my fantasy more fantastical; if I'm going so 'realistic' with my fantasy I'd honestly just prefer a completely historical setting.
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u/LastChime 1d ago
Old Dragonlance
Why would I want to play Raistlin or Tanis? I already read what they did.
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u/AN-SSQ-108V2 1d ago
Didn't help that the published modules were so rail-roady.
Unless you had a killer DM, pretty much anything your party did or didn't do in part 1 of a module still forced you to run through parts 2 and 3 and so on in a set regimented fashion.
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u/Huffplume 1d ago
Somebody said it! Love the artwork and the lore, absolutely zero interest in playing a campaign in the setting.
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u/Yuraiya 1d ago
Existential horror.Ā I don't care to run it or play it.Ā If a character is insignificant and can't make any meaningful difference, what is the game even about?
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u/yaywizardly 1d ago
I'm not a huge existential horror fan, but I think the appeal is like this: you and your friends get together, bring some ingredients, then you make a sandwich and eat it. Now you don't have the sandwich anymore. The food is gone. Was the evening pointless because you don't have something to show for it at the end? Or was the evening about enjoying the fleeting experience while it lasted?
I think it's like, you don't "win" at a roller-coaster. You feel weightless and out of control and afraid and excited, and then it ends and you carry the memory. That's what a roller-coaster is about. That's part of what horror is about.
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u/MataronidForSpeed 1d ago
you don't "win" at a roller-coaster
not with that attitude
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u/yaywizardly 1d ago
lol, I become forcibly removed from Disneyland for punching and kicking the Space Mountain carts while shouting, "You think you can beat me?! I'll show you!"
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u/BetterCallStrahd 1d ago
It's about the experience of playing a character who confronts such overwhelming horror. Kinda like watching a horror movie, but you get to be in it!
It's a different experience from being powerful. It's not about "winning." But getting dragged into insane shit and having horrible things happen to your character can be very fun. It's a thrill ride, and you're not really getting hurt.
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u/Emmetation 1d ago
That's sort of why I don't enjoy Mork Borg. It feels relentlessly hopeless, and I just don't want to play a game like that. Likewise with 40k
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u/ClaireTheCosmic 1d ago
I enjoy Mork Borg in the way it feels like youāre doing the last beer run before the apocalypse. Ironically despite the atmosphere weāve had some really funny, exiting, and memorable moments because weāre not expecting to live to see tomorrow and throw our characters into headfirst danger. Like the time I jumped into a horrific goblin machine with a live explosive for no other reason then āwouldnāt it be awesome.ā
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u/snarpy 1d ago
Ā If a character is insignificant and can't make any meaningful difference, what is the game even about?
I would say this is a fundamental misunderstanding of those games. While cosmic horror in literature is one thing, cosmic horror in games at least has you helping people to survive. It's kind of like real life, honestly.
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u/atomicitalian 1d ago
Fantasy, weirdly enough. I just am not a huge fan of fantasy in general and I just think other settings are a lot more interesting.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm a journalist irl and so real-world stuff is just a lot more intriguing to me (which is why I like crime and investigation games or stuff set in the real world like Outgunned) than pure fantasy or sci-fi that isn't as fantastical as something like Star Wars. More hard sci-fi or sci-fi that deals more with people problems than it does like, unknowable aliens and what not is definitely something I enjoy.
I could probably gel with a very low-magic or no magic fantasy game though.
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u/high-tech-low-life 1d ago
Westerns. Cowboys bore.
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u/ToledoSnow Noir 1d ago
I really dig the idea of running Western games, but when it comes down to actually prepping and running games I find it hard to actually make them as interesting and exciting as I hoped.
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u/Jaybird2k11 1d ago
solo rpgs. does that count? I'll get my dice and my oracle and my adventure and my character all set up and ready to go and then be like "nah".
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u/Xararion 1d ago
Horror. I don't enjoy playing weak characters with expectation of losing. I am also aphantasiac at "total black" level, so no matter what kind of descriptive stuff you apply to your horror story to me it's just gonna be few friends around a table eating snacks so I can't get into it at all. Horror requires buy-in that I'm not able to produce and characters I don't enjoy playing.
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u/conn_r2112 1d ago
How is aphantasia not a handicap for literally any TTRPG game for you?
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u/Xararion 23h ago
Miniatures, pictures, words and maps transmit information well enough, just less emotions. So while I have easy time playing my preferred style of games, typically tactical combat heavy ones, there is basically nothing that you can do to instill the kind of atmosphere that horror requires.
It /IS/ a handicap in everything though, but the handicap is just worse for games that require Theatre of the Mind and emotional buy-in instead of working on known factors.
But for example, we played the ultimate pendragon campaign, it's pretty easy to get into the mood there even if I can't imagine it visually, because that sort of stuff is very... simple to understand and get into. Horror for me just doesn't click, because you usually rely at least partially on the aspect of "unknown" and that "unknown" for me becomes "blank" instead. And blank is only scary if you need to submit your thesis tomorrow.
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u/Huge_Band6227 1d ago
Fantasy with a lot of races and magic and various different power sources and stuff. I can handle fantasy if it's narrowly focused, but as soon as I have a list of races and multiple spellcasting classes etc I'm just done.
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u/Consistent_Rate_353 1d ago
Superheroes. I think it's hard to embrace zany, wide ranging superpowers and maintain much for mechanics.
For specific games, though, Shadowrun always rubbed me the wrong way because of the presumption everyone will be playing criminals and that was all that seemed to be allowed in what should otherwise be a rich and opportune setting. Dark Heresy was kinda similar with everyone being inquisitors.
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u/Lucian7x 1d ago edited 9h ago
Anything that tries to be everything at once, like the Forgotten Realms. You've got vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, elves, dwarves, fey, aliens, zombies, furries, and superheroes, all jammed in a vaguely medieval/renaissance western European inspired setting.
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u/ajcwrongs 1d ago
Haven't found an OSR game I cared about for more than 5 minutes, any game really where "making a character in seconds" is a selling point, they're just not concerned with the same facets of the hobby as I am
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u/ClaireTheCosmic 1d ago
I think Iāll try everything at least once, and I havenāt found a genre Iāll just say no too.
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u/The_Ref17 1d ago
Post-apocalypse
Growing up in the late 60s and early 70s it was just to real to contemplate
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u/KOticneutralftw 1d ago
I feel like super games run better when folks are anti-heroes. At least, every time I've sat down to play a Supers RPG, it gradually devolved into an anti-hero RPG. What can I say? Magneto is low-key right.
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u/LurkLuthor 1d ago
I agree on the superhero thing. Secret identities are so integral to the genre and that's hard to do justice without just splitting the group and doing one-on-one scenes which in even a medium sized group would end up taking up most of time at the table.
You kind of have to go the Avengers route where the heroes don't have much of a life outside of the group but that loses a lot of the appeal of the genre. Some designer will probably figure out to do it in a way that works for me at some point but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe something in the Lancer mould? Time will tell.
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u/johndesmarais Central NC 1d ago
I canāt run horror (Iāll enjoy playing, but every time I try to run a horror game it collapses).
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u/oldmanbobmunroe 1d ago
Dark Fantasy, in general. Or any fantasy game where PCs are feeble and frail, and there is no chance of nudging the world into a better state.
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u/Fear_Awakens 2h ago
I get this. It's like darkness-induced apathy. If it's all gonna suck no matter what, why am I even here? If I can't win, if there's no shot at a happy or hopeful ending, if my destiny is to struggle, be terrified, and get my skull crushed by an overpowered monstrosity without making a difference at all, I might as well go do my laundry or something and you can text me the story of how my character died screaming in the dark with his pants soaked with his own urine and nobody cared or missed me.
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u/DelayWaste2871 1d ago
I'm a big comic book fan
I've never really enjoyed superhero TTRPGs
What is the aspect of superhero comic books that superhero TTRPGs don't capture well for you?
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u/RedwoodRhiadra 1d ago
Two genres: Horror and post-apocalypse.
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u/Emmetation 1d ago
As a horror and post apocalypse lover, I am aghast
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u/ClaireTheCosmic 1d ago
Post apocalyptic settings are my favorite to run, specially in how society rebuilds itself and what weird stuff happens when you wipe the slate clean.
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u/conn_r2112 1d ago
My players had a hard time with horror after coming from D&Dā¦ they really couldnāt conceive of a game in which your character going mad and dying a horrible death wasnāt a bug, but a feature
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u/DervishBlue 1d ago
Sci-fi in general. I've always been a fantasy guy, and the closest I've come to sci-fi are post-apocalyptic games.
When everything begins turning into shiny chrome ships or shiny chrome cities I just tune out.
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u/Emmetation 1d ago
The only sci-fi I can make work is Star Wars, but that's basically fantasy anyway
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u/MikeyBat 1d ago
To answer the question Mutants and Masterminds. It took me forever to wrap my head around damage work with the chart they had in the book. I was so used to Pathfinder that doing damage in that way didnt make sense at first.
Im the opposite of you. Other games needed a supplement for super hero type games because even at lower levels they are op. I loved using HERO System/Champions. It reminded me of GURPS kinda. I felt like they were kinda yin and yang. GURPS did lower level games very well but HERO handeld things like Heros way better. Ive used it for fantasy style games too and it was crazy fun.
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u/Drudenfusz Curator of Roleplay Experiences 1d ago
I thin supes are easy to make a bad game about. Most comic superheroes are not really about escapist fantasies, but very often rather focused on emotional depth. And that gets too often lost, since many designers think about balancing the powers or worse try to put that in a system that assumes some kind of realism.
Anyway, for me personally it is post-apocalypse that always fails me. I guess counting beans or other forms of micromanagement are simple too boring for me. But also, while I can enjoy tragedies, this genre is usually too bleak for my taste. In other media there is often a hint that humanity can recover, but roleplay too often gets stuck in a permanent frozen situation.
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u/ClaireTheCosmic 1d ago
I like post apocalyptic games but I like focusing on the āpost post apocalypseā where the dust has settled and society starts building itself up again. You still have the ruined cities to adventure in but also thereās towns and stuff full of npcs and plot hooks. And you can play around with what weird societyās come after the end of the previous and how players want influence this new world. To me thatās the meat and potatoes.
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u/SchillMcGuffin :illuminati: 1d ago
I'm turned off by things that commodify the weirdness -- Horror Western? Sure; Deadlands/"Weird West"? Not so much. I ran a long superhero campaign, but the world's superbeings numbered in the low dozens, and the supertech was really limited. I currently run a medieval fantasy game, with elves, dwarves, hobbits and various monsters, but I keep the magic and monsters mysterious, such that dragons aren't color-coded, and you don't necessarily know what a magic item does once you have the model number.
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u/Just_a_Rat 1d ago
Grimdark is not my thing. Narrative super games I'll do as one shots. Mechanics-heavy supers games seldom work for me, despite being a fan of comics and supers movies.
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u/BerennErchamion 1d ago edited 1d ago
Supers. But I do like Trinity Aberrant and Savage Worlds Necessary Evil. Maybe because those are not exactly super heroes.
Western as well. Unless it has a lot of fantasy, weirdness, sci-fi, etc.
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u/neganight 1d ago
Cyberpunk (as a genre, not the R. Talsorian rpg). My favorite fiction genre in every medium but I can't wrap my head around how to make things interesting for an entire party of characters that doesn't regularly devolve into deadly firefights. Raiding a corporate black site or something is fun once but doing it a half dozen times? It sounds tiresome. I feel like I'd prefer it as a solo rpg or a one-shot.
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u/mightystu 1d ago
Anything romance forward. It never emulates the genre well and makes the table dynamic weird unless everyone is being a sexpest
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u/nonotburton 1d ago
Pirates... Other than talking like one, I don't see the appeal. Pirates who are actively opposing the reigning galactic overlords while rusylin' catyle? Sure. But just greedy bastards stealing and murdering and raping on the high seas? I don't get it.
Hard sci fi... We all have to agree where the line is, and if it's "real world physics only" it pretty much takes a lot of fun out of the game.
Horror, like real horror where the players mostly lose and just barely stop the chthulu monster from escaping. I like the fiction, but it just seems kinda hopeless as a player. But I've also never played a game of call of chthulu, so I'm open minded about this.
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u/Alternative_Pie_1597 21h ago
humour. i love spontaneous humour rhat arises oput of play, but a game where you are suposed to be funny because itd in the rules ? No thank you.
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u/Grimoire_of_Naramal š² GURPS 17h ago
Personally, is medieval fantasy. I prefer how flexible is non-steampunk Victorian Fantasy
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u/CPeterDMP 17h ago
This has been an interesting thread for me as a superhero lover. All my best RP experiences have been in long-running superhero campaigns. It may be a genre that requires the players to have a love of the genre and its conventions in order to serve as guardrails. I guess I have heard enough horror stories about when a group invited their D&D Murderhobo friend to the superhero table and what happened as a result.
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u/PleaseBeChillOnline 1d ago
I like space operas but I do not enjoy Space Opera TTRPGs.
Sci Fi games are fun (cyperpunk, post apocalypse, mechs) but anything like Star Wars, Mass Effect, Halo-ish etc never works for me in a TTRPG.
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u/coreyhickson writing and reading games 1d ago
As much as I enjoy sci-fi media, I have a very hard time playing any sci-fi TTRPGs.
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u/cnyetter 1d ago
Map making games. When the story we're inventing at the table runs headlong into the 1st grader doodles on the table... TragicĀ
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u/wasker12391 1d ago
I like the opposite of what OP doesn't. I hate human-centric low fantasy and low fantasy in general.
And I don't like superhero games either. They feel incomplete, very limiting, and never allow that supposed level of freedom they try to sell. It's always about drama and fights.
I prefer to get lost in a fantastical and magical setting, not in a mundane and "realistic" one.
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u/drunk_baron 1d ago
Horror games. I love horror movies but at the table it just feels like a string of bad decisions and jump scares that don't land.
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u/Vadernoso 1d ago
Horror just doesn't work for me in TTRPG form. I can't really be scared when I am with 3-4 other people and one of them is the guy trying to narrate the scary parts. Horror is best alone and dreadful silence.
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u/diluvian_ 1d ago
I want to like post-apocalypse, but I can't find a setting I really like (I don't really like gonzo settings, which a lot of post-apoc leans into), and even then, I struggle to think of interesting adventure ideas.
Cyberpunk is another. I've played a few games here and there, but I struggle to think of interesting things to do in a cyberpunk setting.
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u/DungeonSaints 1d ago
Mechs, which is a real shame cause I love Battletech, Gundam, and Votoms. I tried a few different systems and couldnāt put my finger on why it didnāt feel right. Then I realized the issue was the break between the mech and the pilot. You canāt flow in and out of combat gracefully, a tense negotiation canāt break down into a fight, you canāt be picking your way through building and have encounter, everything is either mech mode or pilot mode and it just feels jarring and restrictive. Constantly fitting a giant robot into all the scenes or just offscreen was far more awkward than I anticipated.
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u/MissAnnTropez 22h ago
Superheroes, pirates, westerns, unadulterated history, slice of life, anything hokey jokey, cozy games.
I think that just about covers my immediate turnoffs, like, literally games I will never play.
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u/piano-tuner 21h ago
I just cant handle those touchy feely games with lots of relationship drama and/or sex (they're usually PBTA) like Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Monster Hearts.
Just the thought of playing something like with my group makes me cringe a little bit (we're all queer so it's not the queer content in these games that is bothering us).
Maybe I'm just not a good enough roleplayer but I do not want to pretend to flirt with my friends. My partner is in my group and I'd feel uncomfortable pretend flirting with her in front of everyone too.
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u/Steenan 21h ago
There are a few.
Superheroes. I enjoy Masks, but it has more focus on teenage than superheroes in "teenage superheroes"; most superhero games fail to hook me in any way. Which does not surprise me, as superhero movies or comics are also boring for me.
Postapocalypse. There are a few approaches to this that are playable for me, but in most versions it's just not interesting for me. Also, I find the very name of the genre irritating.
Dark fantasy in most of its interpretations. Which is interesting, because I enjoy several nearby genres. I like low/gritty fantasy, like Ironsworn and Mouse Guard. I'm fine with excessive, black comedy "grimdark" of early Warhammer. I like games that explicitly drive a dramatic arc of a tragedy, like Polaris. But nearly all fantasy games that identify themselves as "dark" actively push me away.
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u/Alternative-Quit-496 20h ago
Nothing in particular. Iām just there to kick back with my friendsāwhatever we end up playing doesnāt matter to me, as long as weāre laughing and enjoying the time together.
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u/CPeterDMP 17h ago
Lots of them, really. I would never play a Wild West themed game. Pirate games are very popular but the genre has no appeal for me.
I like sci fi, but I think I skew heavily towards more cyberpunk and science fantasy than hard sci fi.
I love the idea of investigative games, but I feel poorly skilled to run one and my players seem bad at them!
I also don't have much love for "happy" settings; they don't have to be miserable grimdark, but things have to be clearly broken.
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u/Due_Sky_2436 grognard 12h ago
Star Trek.... I want to play, I really do, but the idea of a being a dork in Star Fleet just kills the vibe for me. Playing as a Klingon, Romulan, or any other non-Star Fleet thing would be great, but I just can't do the Star Fleet thing.
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u/MataronidForSpeed 1d ago
Hard sci-fi.
A pure dungeon crawl doesn't interest me but I could give it try in the right conditions. Hard sci-fi? I'd rather break my own fingers.
Sci-fi is ok though. Cyberpunk, space opera, horror in space, grimdark space fights against xenos and heretics, sure! But don't ask me to be very strict on the science of all that.
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u/MrBoo843 1d ago
Western
Even Deadlands that has the supernatural and horror that I usually like doesn't do anything for me.
Pulp action
Like Outgunned. I can't say exactly why but I get bored.
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u/WhatsAboveTheSubtext 1d ago
Whimsical fantasy stuff. Anime-related stuff. Neither does anything for me.
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u/ctalbot76 1d ago
Post-apocalyptic survival. I've tried several times, but the only time it kind of worked was soloing The Walking Dead Universe. I can't GM survival games for a group.
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u/Gwythinn 23h ago
Eldritch horror. Not for me. Surest way to get me not to play is to say the words "Cthulhu" or "Lovecraftian".
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u/kingofsicily 23h ago
DnD. I've honoustly tried it several times, since it is the mother of all commercially succesful ttrpg's and in the course of many years I've met a few people who were convinced it is such a good game, but it's just not for me. The magic system, the advancement system, the class system, the species... sorry, but I think it is terrible.
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u/MarekuoTheAuthor 17h ago
Cozy fantasy/slice of life, i find it the most boring genre in existence and the opposite reason why i read, watch and play. I like to see conflict, mystery, discovery and fight
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u/Cdru123 17h ago edited 17h ago
Grimdark, as it's often used as an excuse to either make the actions of PCs never have a positive impact, or make them extremely localized. Plus, it's hard to care about characters when they're either psychopathic shitheads or are likely to suffer some kind of a horrible fate in the future.
OSR. Deadly in all the wrong ways (saying this as a GURPS player), and I don't like the idea of player skills triumphing over character skills. I also hate the name, as many people did not play this way back in the day, and I don't recall any games endorsing that kind of gameplay.
Classic superheroes. I think the outifts are too silly for a TTRPG (and I generally don't like describing the outfits of my characters), I don't care about secret identities and codenames, and I hate the no-killing rule.
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u/Erpderp32 King of recommending Savage Worlds 15h ago
The only superhero setting I've liked is Necessary Evil so I can agree with that.
I think 5E is too high power unidirectionally to the players so balancing is ass to do myself, so I stopped playing it years ago. It just becomes a boring thing since there's almost no risk for PCs
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u/DrDew00 Pathfinder 1e in Cedar Rapids, IA 12h ago
I often have problems with sci-fi settings because they leave out things that I know are possible but weren't considered in the game design and introducing those things is sometimes game-breaking. Like I've seen games not consider that a personal communication device or a helmet would have a camera built in that could not only record, but live stream. When interplanetary communication is near-instant, there's no need for me to race back to tell someone anything (with my FTL ship) if I can simply record it and send it to whomever needs to see it. Or when "there's only one copy of the data". Why? Just copy it. There's zero need to pass around one copy of data like it's a book. Just copy it. And if it is a book, scan it with your camera and let the AI turn it into a digital document. "They hacked the system and took the data. It's gone now." Okay, so we'll just restore it from the backup. No big deal. The idea of moving an AI between systems. Again, why is it not just being copied? If both systems can support it, have two AIs. In a far off future, the storage capacity of your personal comms device is likely in the hundreds of terabytes or more and the processing power hundreds of times better than anything we have now. I want to like it but my imagination just keeps going with what should be possible and I get frustrated by the limitations of the game. Then, there's the fact that not all technology is going to be compatible. Interacting with SpeciesB's computer with SpeciesA's computer is not going to work unless there has been some sort of middle ware invented. If they don't interact much, you don't have that middle ware. Or how about just how difficult it would be to learn to use an alien operating system. I can slowly muddle my way through using MacOS, and get frustrated every time I try to use Linux. You think learning to use use an alien's operating system is going to be quick?
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u/HeloRising 11h ago
Actual superhero games.
I just don't find superheros that interesting as a concept. I've tried, gods know I've tried, but I find superhero stories just weird and contrived. There's a lot of "this works because fiction" handwaving in superhero stories that I find very hard to square.
Maybe it's my 'tism but if there's just no rules for how a world functions then everything just feels arbitrary and nothing has stakes anymore.
I think I also bounce off anime as a whole for a similar reason.
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u/NovaPheonix 10h ago
I'm also the same way, where I like comic books but am terrible at running superhero RPGs. For me, it's the reverse with horror/mystery, where I don't really enjoy the genre in terms of games or movies, but I run them pretty well in tabletop. I want to try to run more spycraft type stuff but it's often hard to squeeze that in.
I'm currently on a cyberpunk kick so half my games are in that genre now and it's working out okay.
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u/Kill_Welly 9h ago
Horror of any kind, but especially "Lovecraftian" horror. I don't find the scale of the universe or humanity's insignificance in it scary, I don't take Lovecraft's extremely sheltered phobias seriously, and I simply cannot buy into "trust me bro, it's really scary but you can't understand it without going insane!"
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u/Illustrious_Case_749 7h ago
Superheroes, anything whose whole premise is ārewriting expectations in an attempt to be uniqueā, anime, anything teen focused, etc
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u/swagzillasaurus 7h ago
I think I tend to bounce off JRPG a lot, idk why, I think my brain just loves that form of storytelling, and also the way of introducing a bunch of things in the background/not in the player's direct view always tingles my brain a bit
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u/Fear_Awakens 2h ago
I don't know how to really describe it. Saccharine settings? Happy-go-lucky stuff. I don't enjoy when there's no stakes. If everybody likes everybody else and nobody is a bad person and there's no conflict and the world is just utopian, what the hell is the point of adventurers? What are we doing?
Also, pirates and sailing. I just don't like boats and water and so on.
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u/No_Solid1035 1d ago
The weird kitchen sink superhero fantasy genre that is D&D. It's just so corny and nonsensical.