I was wondering, when it comes to stories (tropes, types, genres etc.) what kind of stories do RPGs emulate most often? Or what do you think are the most quintessential stories a successful RPG (horror, fantasy, Sci-Fi etc.) should be able to emulate?
01. There is Conan the barbarian power fantasy, big muscular guy beats everyone and and takes their money and girls.
02. Knights of the Roundtable quest in the countryside against evil witches and monsters.
03. Indiana Jones, Nathan Drake, Lara Croft etc. tomb raider/archaeologist gets into trouble.
04. The party of four (cleric, fighter, mage and thief) sit in an inn and a mysterious employer offers them an employment opportunity.
05. Han Solo and Chewbacca are travelling the universe, running away from authorities and stealing from the bad guys. (Basically Robin Hood).
06. The chosen one saves the country/world/universe (Matrix, Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.).
07. Coming of age, young adult fiction (Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games etc.).
08. There is a big war and the PCs are soldiers in it. (Every war movie ever).
09. Cold War spy vs. spy. (I would say James Bond is a mixture of this + Conan + Han Solo)
10. Martial artist "monk" fights against evil men.
11. Clans, houses or families fight for survival (Werewolves vs. vampires, Godfather families, etc.)
12. Western. A band of few fight against a band of many. (7 samurai, war movies/books, western etc.).
13. Horror alà Stephen King (a car becomes hunted, a cemetary becomes hunted etc.)
14. Religious horror (the anti-christ comes, kingdom come is upon us).
15. Battletech, Godzilla, Evangelion etc. giant things fight against each other.
16. Intrigue (Game of Thrones, War of the Roses, Borgias, Family feuds etc.)
17. Ship encounters (Star Trek, Master and Commander, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica etc.) + everything pirate.
18. Portals open to other worlds (Stargate,
19. Mystery and the unknown (X-Files, Fringe, Black Mirror etc.)
20. Angels and demons (Supernatural, Ghostbusters,
21. Cthulhu
22. Philip Marlowe like detective stories (Dresden Files, Constantine etc.)
23. Superheroes (Superman, Batman etc.)
24. Antropomorphic (Mouse Guard, Redguard, Mice and Mytsics etc.)
25. Comdey + Satire (Discworld, Paranoia, etc.)
26. Arabian Nights (Sindbad etc.)
27. Asian/eastern (Legend of the Five Rings, Shogun etc.)
28. Alternate History (Germany won WW2, the Soviets won the Cold War etc.)
29. Fallout + Mad Max type post apocalypse
30. Zombie apocalypse
There is no quintessential story trope a successful RPG must be able to emulate. I wouldn't deign to impose such a restriction as it would unnecessarily restrict the creativity of RPG designers and possibly prevent me from discovering an otherwise awesome game that happened to be geared toward something else.
Not sure about "most often". There are a metric sackload of RPGs out there and I've only played a handful and am passingly familiar with maybe a couple of dozen of them. A lot of RPGs that fail to be successful do so for reasons other than trope coverage--bad rule design, substandard copy, or the usual assortment of near-random effects that can cause an otherwise fine product to fail in the market. Of the games I'm passingly familiar or better with, standard party Sw&So fantasy, monster horror, and comic book superhero-types are the most common.
There is no quintessential story trope a successful RPG must be able to emulate. I wouldn't deign to impose such a restriction as it would unnecessarily restrict the creativity of RPG designers and possibly prevent me from discovering an otherwise awesome game that happened to be geared toward something else.
Not sure about "most often". There are a metric sackload of RPGs out there and I've only played a handful and am passingly familiar with maybe a couple of dozen of them. A lot of RPGs that fail to be successful do so for reasons other than trope coverage--bad rule design, substandard copy, or the usual assortment of near-random effects that can cause an otherwise fine product to fail in the market. Of the games I'm passingly familiar or better with, standard party Sw&So fantasy, monster horror, and comic book superhero-types are the most common.
I seem to have asked it poorly. I try it again.
If you play an RPG, what type of story would you like to be able to play with it?
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Oh, well then. : )
Myself, I don't have much patience for heavy intrigue unless I can be the character that doesn't care about that stuff (bodyguard or something). Pretty much anything goes after that so long as it involves some sort of escapism.
31. There was a full table of people at Norwescon a year or so back playing an RPG simulating high school angst. I guess there are people who find that fun.
That question makes a bit more sense.
I like stories that can move from complicated to simple depending on the current storyline. It's interesting to have a mix of simple villains that are irredeemably evil mixed in with villains that are a bit more realistic so that you don't get bogged down in real world morality problems but aren't just slaughtering evil either.
Some sorts of stories never quite work out, chosen one stories and coming of age stories tend to leave most of the table waiting their turn. Intrigue and detective stories tends to require patience, a good memory and note taking, and most players I've met give up halfway through. Most DM's that I met leave their intrigue stories incomplete, leaving a narrow range of solutions that are hard to find compared to the myriad other options that seem arbitrarily closed. You could make a game where intrigue was really well supported, but I'm not keen on playing super clue. Clans/families tend to leave the DM playing a bunch of characters and leaving the players to watch, it's better read than played in my opinion. And running that sort of thing is very awkward for me personally, I like to hand the game back to the players as much as possible.
Ship to ship combat is always a bit weird. You run into problems where players feel like they can't play their character and have to share playing a boat. It's like playing one head of an ettin, a funny idea but an unreliable experience.
So I'll say stories that simultaneously engage all players. Where the fantasy of the world prompts unusual moral questions or answers. Stories that mix in elements of more taxing adventures to keep the game interesting without slowing it down. And where the fantastic elements are chosen deliberately with an eye for how the world would change with those elements. And where portions of the story that the players can't interact with are streamlined.
A theme (Wikipedia: Theme (arts)) is the underlying concept that unifies the work of art. Theme is not the subject (central figure) nor the plot (driving element). It does not have have to be a moral message, though one of my high school English teachers summarized it as that. And some themes are so standard that they are genres or tropes.
A theme is more a tool for the artist than a message for the audience. It tells the artist what belongs in the story, what is tangential, and what is an off-course distraction from the heart of the story. Viewing a roleplaying game as cooperative storytelling, however, the theme belongs to both the players and the GM.
In the Iron Gods adventure path, James Jacobs deliberately set up several themes for the players and GM to chose from: good versus evil, nature versus technology, the emergence of new gods, the trespass of aliens.
My players were excited by the opportunity to play with high technology, so technology was going to be in their theme. They weren't going to be against technology, despite the Technic League, murderous horders of technology, being a major adversary. Instead, they embraced trope #19, Mystery and the Unknown (X-Files, Fringe, Black Mirror etc.). I would call that trope the Challengers of the Unknown, named after a DC comic that used to feature such stories. Adventurers, scientists, or investigators deliberately explore or research the unknown.
The party was not built on that theme. The party members were a magus archeologist who we dubbed Elric Jones (#03), a tough-and-capable fighter (#01), an auspiciously-born strix skald seeking her destiny (#06), a young dwarven gunslinger gadgeteer (#07), and a bloodrager buccaneer (#17). Meanwhile, the country of Numeria is a post-apocalyptic setting (#29).
Rather, they defined that theme in their game by how they approached the adventure. They were exploring, they were making progress, they were cooperating with locals and improving their lot. Knowledge was always among their goals and they preferred to talk rather than fight. Their philosophical difference with the Technic League was sharing the benefits of technology rather than monopolizing those benefits. When they defeated the Technic League, they took control of the league rather than annihilating it and intended to use its resources to teach. Their actions always followed that explore-and-share principle, giving it the Challengers of the Unknown trope from beginning to end.
Shadowrun is a game with a solid following where generally you do none of the above. Sure you can do some of those, but for the most part you're criminals planning heists or maybe showing off. Maybe #05 or #09 but not in all cases.
I was putting together the genre for my Jade Regent campaign, and I see that several of the final items in the list are written as settings and elements rather than genres. Settings might define where a book is shelved in the bookstore, such as futuristic settings being Science Fiction, but if we used that definition, then all Pathfinder games would be Fantasy. The badly assembled entries are #24 Antropomorphic, #26 Arabian Knights, #27 Asian/Eastern, #29 Alternate History, and #29 Fallout+Mad Max. #17 Ship encounters is also more an element than a type. The stories I read about ships, such as Horatio Hornblower, is about life on the sea rather than the ships themselves.
Here is my attempt to rephrase them.
#17. Life voyaging on sea or space (Star Trek, Master and Commander, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica etc.)
#24. Anthropomorphic representation of human nature (Mouse Guard, Redguard, Watership Down, Maus by Art Spiegelman)
#26. Exotic adventure in fantasy lands (1001 Arabian Nights, Sindbad, Gulliver's Travels, etc.)
#27. Embracing tradition as a way of life (Asian culture such as Samurai tales)
#28. Alternate history skewing the world (Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, Handmaiden's Tale by Margaret Atwood)
#29. Post-apocalyptic survival (Fallout, Mad Max, The Postman by David Brin, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart)
Jade Regent is an escort quest about regaining the throne of Minkai (Golarion's version of Japan) for the lost heir after evildoers murdered all other heirs. That would make it a chosen one story (#06), but the chosen one is just an NPC. The players might chose a theme that puts them on the center. My players made it a story about the friends of the heir, who had their own investment in Minkaian tradition (#27).
Shadowrun is a game with a solid following where generally you do none of the above. Sure you can do some of those, but for the most part you're criminals planning heists or maybe showing off. Maybe #05 or #09 but not in all cases.
That sounds like The Caper. That is close to #05 Robin Hood, but not the same.