Genres of Role Playing Games: Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror

Genres of Role Playing Games: Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror
Hi my name is Barry Osser from North Coast Role Playing in Eureka, California and I’m here today to talk to you about role playing genres. The first and most famous is what D&D started, Dungeons and Dragons, and that’s what really started our industry, our role playing industry. And that’s the fantasy sword and sorcery, call it what you like. It’s Conan meets Lord of the Rings meets Alaric, whatever you want to use in that fashion, this is the before today kind of time, this is the swords and the axes and you’ve got magic and those kinds of things. The fantasy genre is probably still to date, the most popular genre and the largest genre, the widest genre the people cover. There are a lot of other genres that are available, you’ve got science fiction and science fiction kind of runs two ways, there’s licensed product which means that you’re following someone else’s science fiction world, that would be Star Trek, Star Wars or you’ve got unlicensed and unlicensed would be games like my favorite, Traveler, but there’s a number of others. Science fiction also breaks down into two components, at least when I talk to people, one of the components is post holocaust and the other is a space odyssey or space opera, I know people hate that name. Your next genre that most people would be looking at is going to be the super hero genre, one of the most famous games out of that genre is champions and this is where you’re bringing to life super heroes comic book characters into a world where you’re playing them. So instead of just reading the comics, now you get to be whoever it be, some insert trademark name here character that runs out of the big building and goes and beats up the bad guy. Smaller genres, but genres that have done well, especially in the what I like to call the 3rd age of gaming, you have a real big push and you have for about 10 years on this kind of oriental theme. You have another genre that’s picked up of late which is the cowboys and Indians or the boot hill era. This is anything from the hay days for the California gold rush, civil war, and those kinds of things. You also have as another genre that has been big, that has slowed a bit lately, but has still been big over time which is the horror genre. Now the horror genre has a ton of different games within it. Call of Cthulhu, which is probably the most famous is set in the H.P. Lovecraft world and really it’s a game where your entire objective is to stay sane while under these horrific and vial creatures come at you. That covers most of the genres for the role playing world. Thanks.