Lord Shag

Well chris i think that is an excellent summary of of the issues so far. Its unfortunate we lost soltakss at some point in the process he kinda lost interest on p3 of the thread. So for his benefit I'll just state that if your going to develop a product don't worry about the genre thats a consumer perspective. Write it and let the publisher work out what it is. The other thing that some people seem a little miffed about is that the debate veered into literary aspects which is probably my fault. That aside, and this point is for people writing RPG materials, those story elements that I talked of earlier are not only relevant to just fiction writing but RPG writing as well. The integration of them will of course vary; plot of course relates to the scenarios you create, characterization to any number of aspects and scope of the setting will depend largely on your imagination and interests. Just let the elements direct where it goes. Now i've got a star wars supplement to finish.

thanks for the clarification newt' I was trying to follow what you were saying.

Guys, guys, guys. Some of you can't let go of the genre gig. You see it bites deep into people. Once that conception exists some just can't let go and now we are talking about sub-genres??? So I take it we have hard sci-fi which is in turn split into the following: Semi-Erect, Fully Erect and John C. Holmes Erect. How is this creating any better an understanding? Ask yourself this once you have placed a text or RPG into its neat little pigeon hole marked "hard sci-fi" or just sci-fi. Other than giving you some general idea as to the content, how has the very act of doing this improved your understanding of the text or made you a better writer? I won't argue the point since its a reflective exercise. Now dragonnewt your statement is a bit puzzling. I',m not sure what your saying here but you seem to be saying that because writers don't specifically write for a particular genre this creates new genres?And i take it you think this proliferation is bad because the genres don't have clear boundaries lines anymore?

BTW, horror isn't merely about characterization, but about mood. I really want to reply to this one but i'm too tired...........

Ok now this is a follow-up to some other responses that have been made here by other people. 1. Despite all the forgoing, I think the distinctions are useful to gamers in that they tell us what to expect. Yeah but gaming, ain’t literature. That’s another debate, which we can do next week. 2. Thalaba's graph, above, illustrates the differences perfectly. Genre labels aren't perfect ... but gamers (and others) can get annoyed when they buy "science fiction" that's simply fantasy with "quantum" pasted on. See 1. 3. If there are no genre conventions, then how do we know when a story about murder is a 'mystery', a 'horror', or just a story that has a murder in it? Marketing, marketing & marketing 4. Horror' is considered a genre by the marketplace, as is 'mystery' - neither of which is defined by setting. What makes 'horror' and 'mystery' what they are? I suggested the word 'mood' as an important aspect, but if that's not the right word, what is it? See above 5. The problem is the meaning of the term "romance" like many other terms has changed over the years. Originally it referred to a type of fiction about heroic characters in fantastic adventures. The fact that this has happened is further evidence that this thing called genre is ephemeral, superficial; and shallow. You guys keep on mentioning that genres shift and change and they are unfixed and that analysts can’t agree on them. There is good reason for this; they have little rigorous basis.

I think it was a "genre debate", because the people involved in it attempted to categorize science fiction into distinct genres No thats not my recollection of it. It was observed that science fiction was splitting down certain ideological lines. They were not sitting around trying to invent new labels.

Well Simon this response is kind of in regards to some of the questions you had and some things you were confused about. Ok here goes. Generally in terms of literary analysis we are concerned with the main story elements. These are theme, plot, characterization and setting. The last three are essential and the first is the province of more highbrow writers though a good theme can unify the other three elements nicely in any story. Mood is not essential and nor is tone. Both however are important skills for a writer to acquire since mood is one the main ways in which you convey emotion. Tone is a nebulous concept subject to much tedious debate, which we need not pursue here. You indicated some confusion with the term mood and mentioned it in relation to setting. Can you write a story without mood? Yes you can but you can't write one without one of the essential story elements. Setting is a holistic concept and when you talk about the mood of the setting you are not really talking about the mood that a writer understands it to be. When someone says to me what type of mood does the story have I am thinking of the emotional elements crafted into the individual scenes which has nothing to do with setting or plot for that matter. You also mentioned that “If horror is about characterization and romance is about plot and fantasy is about setting, then what is a novel that has all three?” That question is kinda answered by the above. Now it is true that all stories combine the elements together but what connects some stories together is their emphasis on one of the elements. Story elements don’t produce genres, fanboys and publishers do. What allows people to conceive that these genres exist is that some stories have a resemblance through the same use of story element.

Well rust you sort of concede that at the very most only a minority of academia are interested in the genre issue and I'm afraid your example to support that of the Heinlein debate is quite flawed, since it had nothing do with genre but was part of a broader debate about theme and ideology. The only relevance to genre this debate has is that you used the term "science fiction" as a organizing concept. Now the academics who in engaged in that debate did a similar thing but simply citing genre or using it as a organizing concept in the context of a much wider discussion about ideology does not imply that they suddenly had an arousal of interest in genre discussions or endorsed it as a subject of suitable analysis.

Sorry rust i didn't get back to your post. 1. The academic discussion is lively, but has only minimal impact on the book market, the few exceptions being academics who are also respected critics. Academics don’t care about the book market. 2. The "serious analysts" have failed to agree on any comprehensive system of literature categories / genres, mainly because the authors do not follow any easily recognized and described pattern. Yes thats exactly what I've been saying. Serious analysts are not interested in classifying or categorization Lit. Fans are though. Serious analysts may be interested in why people perceive a genre to be a genre but would probably chuckle in condescension at the fans insistence that this is this and so on. 3. Quite the contrary, many authors intentionally try to write something fresh and original that does not fit into any established category, forcing the "serious analysts" to return to the drawing board and attempt to come up with a new system of genres. They don’t care about the categories.

Ok been away from the computer at work sorry for the delay in replying. This an enjoyable debate. Ok simon you first. 1. I'm sure genres are imagined by the consumer. Yes. All that you say is very true which I have no problem with. And to go back to the original question in the thread heading we have them for this reason. This is in fact their whole reason for existence. Genres are usually the by-product of commerce, which in it self is no problem at all, writers and publishers need to make a dollar so go for it. 2. Are all these supposed genres just catch-phrases thrown out willy nilly by marketing people? Yeah pretty much. If you go back to Nick’s original post in this thread his opinion is spot-on about nomenclature creating unique value. Some authors may try to differentiate what they write as a genre for reasons other than cash though. 3. How do 'serious analysts' categorize things, and if their way is better why hasn't the market caught on? Well the answer to this is that serious analysts don’t get caught up with categorization that much. Why? Because it’s a pretty shallow way to analyze lit. Consumers and fanboys get caught up with it. They do this for a variety of reasons and in extreme examples (like star wars v Star trek) it can be a form of self-identity or brand fetish. Look, I love the free market and all its tools for coaxing cash out its target market but its tools are not necessarily what I would use to understand texts better. The argument that I have promoted here is probably not going down well with some because the idea that you can divide Lit into these neat little categories is very strongly a part of most reader’s conception of how we should understand literature. 4. If there are no genre conventions… Well the conventions you perceive Simon are the ones the marketing machine want you to perceive. Most serious writers would be insulted by the notion of a set of conventions imposed upon their work. If the issue of conventions arise its usually because an editor or publisher is getting pissed because the text is going to be difficult to market and will appeal to the “conventions” in an attempt to persuade an author to modify the text. I’ll give you an example of the closest thing to a genre convention. If you write to Mills & Boone they will send their “formula” for budding authors, which guide what you can and cannot do. Now these guidelines are things like, if you’re going to write sweet romance than no penetrative sex scenes or the protagonist sticking their tongue down the heroine’s throat. Now you can of course do that if you are writing in the raunchy romance stuff they publish. But as you can see it’s just publishers using a marketing standard to better target their product. 5. If horror is about characterization and romance is about plot and fantasy is about setting, then what is a novel that has all three? This is a bit of bigger discussion which I will launch upon a little later as other people are entering the discussion with the same issue.

"Some genres seem to be defined by setting". Yes thats correct and both sci-fi and fantasy are united by the same thing. But only if you accept that they (genres) exist from a literary point of view and are not some imagined category in the mind of the consumer "Other genres conventions are defined by mood: Horror, Gritty, Heroic." Theres probably no such thing as a genre convention. Maybe from a fanboy or marketing point of view but most serious analysts would scoff at such a vague thing as a tool of literary analysis. Mood? Its not a story element. As an aspect of crafting scenes sure it has a role but if your trying to use it for something more your probably overstating its significance. Really, shouldn't a genre consist of both a setting and a mood? All stories have settings but not all (so called genres) emphasize setting to the same degree. Mood has no part in any analysis of genre. All writers have to generate mood in whatever genre they write so your kinda stating the obvious. As a definitive aspect of a genre no serious analysis I've read would make the suggestion that mood defines any genre. Mood is an important part of writing but so are windscreen wipers for driving a car. We wouldn't say however that windscreen wipers define the car or driving.

Getting back to your original question, Rust the problem with these genres is that outside of marketing and fanboys, they breakdown very easily under sustained analysis. As a mode of categorization they certainly can highlight choices for the consumer which is something Thallaba found of use but when you start to distill the differences they appear increasingly shallow and superficial. For example i mentioned earlier that what differentiates sci-fi from other genres is in the setting which is incidentally what it also shares with the fantasy genre. Its this similarity of story element (the so-called defining aspect of the genre) that is the reason for its proximity to fantasy in the first place. When the writer starts to develop a setting his main choices are time, place and nature. Those choices are the same for the so-called "rock hard" sci-fi author to the softest, most limp space fantasy writer. The difference is in the nature of the settings they describe. A much more useful way to categorize literature is to do so by the story elements. For example romance is mainly about plot, horror (or at least classic horror is) characterization and of course setting for fantasy and sci-fi. So to finally get to the answer there is a good argument that both fantasy and sci-fi are in fact the same thing albeit for minor adjustments to setting.

Thats interesting Rust. Never had much of an insight into German Lit though I have read a bit of Hermann Hesse.

Heyyyy dragon. good question. My pompous ass Lit teacher would reply with someone like, "Ohhh its just a matter of emphasis Mr Appel, consider some examples...." Actually I think that can understate things a little. Really what is the sci-fi writer doing? Essentially using setting (or more correctly a setting element - technology) to shape the story. Some sci-fi writers don't even do that. The setting element (technology) often sits there passively whilst the plot intertwines itself into that fabric. Take Dick, (the writer, not an angry man-tool) he was quite good at setting up the conflict with the technology (Minority Report) it didn't just sit there as a backdrop.

Trying to remember which movie i last heard this line from the title of this blog post), i think it was a comedy. Well its been a busy weekend! Some good news and bad. Firstly lets have the bad. I have stated that I wanted to get this puppy out sometime this week. I'm going to have to push this back to probably sometime in April. The reasons for this are (this is the good news) is the extra play testing i did on the weekend went so well that the quality of the input from those sessions is worth taking the time to reproduce in the rules. Most of the issues arising were quite simple ones like unclear expression of rule concepts and so on. I know that some will gnash their teeth over this delay but i can assure everyone its worth waiting to incorporate the changes. My goal is to put out a good quality product thats going to be a gift to the BRP community and i personally want that gift to be used and enjoyed and not marred by gibberish prose. I did have other reasons for delaying which include a teenage daughter with a dislocated knee and both a full-time Bachelor of Laws degree and job bearing down on myself. So for those fans (like threedeesix) my apologies. If you like deesix, i can chuck you a consolation chapter from the first version - just PM me.

Thanks rust, my memory of 3rd year Lit is not that bad after all. Thats actually not a bad write up for wiki. Most serious academics tend to see genres for what they are; the tools of media critics, publishers and other marketeers. Don't get too carried away with the differences.

this has become an amazing thread! I wonder how all our american comrades will interpret my name. when i was about to post to this thread the other night it was quite small. And really the comment i was going to make the other night still stands though there are some interesting threads here that could be pursued further. The other night i was going to say that I think Nick's observation is the most useful here regarding nomenclature. I'd like to add to that, in that when groups try and build a unique sense of value their motives are often diverse ranging from the aesthetic to the purely ideological. However, at times they can be patently absurd. Tracing the differentiation between hard sci-fi and science fantasy is i think is one of these cases where its actually hard to put a finger on. But as someone pointed out earlier all fiction is speculative so many of these so called genres or sub-genres are a little puerile. Really when we talk of hard sci-fi and space fantasy we are only really dealing with a question of emphasis not with any essential difference in essence. The origins of term (hard sci-fi) i think came from an earlier literary critic whose name i have forgotten but the magazine he wrote for was I think as a matter of editorial policy (or in Nick's sense, "attempt to build unique value") trying to position it itself as being different to more fantastic types of sci-fi. Now this was nothing less than pure old fashioned marketing. Thats fine but it also should remind us that often genres exist to control and influence audience. The debate over whether your fiction is "hard" or "soft" is mirroring this control. Just look at the flame wars between trekkies and star wars fans. What is going on? Two sides fighting over the content of two frikkin corporations.

PROGRESS REPORT The proof copy of BRP Star Wars had 14 chapters. Two minor ones have been deleted and consolidated into the surviving 12 or shifted to the BRP Star Wars GM Guide (more on this later). So the chapters so far are these: 1. CREATING A STAR WARS PC 2. SKILLS 3. THE FORCE 4. SPACE TRAVEL 5. STARSHIP COMBAT RULES 6. STARSHIP DESIGN 7.VEHICLE RULES 8. DROIDS 9. TABLE OF FORCE POWERS 10. WEAPON NOTES 11. DESTINY POINTS AND FORCE POINTS 12. EQUIPMENT I. Weapons Annexure II. Sheets Ch1-2 needed heavy edits and 1 has passed the final edit. 2 is almost complete. Ch3 looks good and I'm going to leave as is, though I fret about the lack of play test of the elements in that chapter. Ch4 also looks good with some minor edits to be done. 5 is being modified as we speak and considering how this is the most difficult of the chapters to put together its resilience during play test is a miracle. Starship Design is fine and any changes in the future will come from the large number of conversions from d6 and d20 that I will eventually do. Vehicles rules are a big question mark. This was a difficult chapter to put together and unlike the starship combat rules the one I was least happy with so this could hold things up. Ch8 is kinda OK. Every time I venture into it though I keep on encountering annoying albeit minor issues. Force powers considering its size only has some minor textual edits to be done. Play experience in the future may alter this a lot. 10-12 are all good and need virtually no changes.

Well as promised a review of how things go. Firstly the play test of the starship combat rules is continuing. No further problems are being encountered. Now progress overall. Instead of posting this here I will place it in the forum.

Just a quick update. Ran a limited play test on the starship combat rules and immediately ran into some minor problems with the sensor rules. Some issues also arose with the concurrent use of the Piloting skill and starship weapons skill. This will require a little more work to fix than the sensor problem, however it won't affect the overall combat modelling. Generally things are proceeding well. Will give a more comprehensive review tomorrow on the editing of version 1.00 BRP Star Wars.

When I first got my hands on the new BRP rule set a number of vistas opened up that could finally be explored. The first was that my kids now had the capacity to play RPG's that didn't have mind numbing complexity (d20 anyone?) and secondly it was possible to develop a number of games that I had enjoyed over the years into BRP rules. Fantasy was my first port of call and anyone whose had contact with me last year may have been aware that I was working on some fantasy resources which I wanted to upload but never got round to. When I turned my attention to sci-fi last year it was to traveler that I wanted to do a BRP conversion for. I actually got a good way into the process but unfortunately my kids were not that interested. However they were interested in star wars which was OK since i wanted to eventually do a conversion for it as well. In the end a lot of the traveler stuff (starship combat rules) ended in star wars so a kind of cross fertilization occurred which when I finish the star wars book may end up working in the reverse when I go back to doing traveler.

At the moment I've been contemplating the exclusion of the Education characteristic from my "developing" book on BRP Star Wars RPG. At the time I didn't really think about it much and its exclusion was due to oversight and nothing more but I'm beginning to think it was an error. At the time I was also thinking about including a new Willpower characteristic which I ended up dismissing and substituting it for another mechanism which i later discarded. Even though Power in the generic rules reflects the willpower aspect of a character, (which in my version becomes "Force") I was not entirely happy with how this plays out in the context of star wars. Take Han Solo for example. Low force ability but plenty of Willpower. Anakin Skywalker is of course the reverse. This what interested me in a Willpower characteristic as it became a useful way to model a characters temptation to do use the dark side.

Oh, BTW how do the sheets look?

Still looking about a week. No sample label on the finished goods unless i chuck out an excerpt which i might do if i push the deadline back.

Ok guys just uploaded a sample of the starship control sheet. This one will print to a better resolution then the character sheet which i haven't got round to fixing. Just a note that also applies to the character sheet as well, when you seem to design this stuff in MS word after you do the PDF conversion and view the conversion on the computer, it can look a little crap. I dont why maybe its one of the drawbacks of word, however it looks a lot of better when printed. cheers.