DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Front of House Play-by-Post Game Studio Genre Surveys Q4 2018 Genre Survey - Vote Now!!

It's nearly October, nearly the final quarter of the year and that means a genre survey.

For newcomers, we hold two of these surveys every year, allowing members to vote for genre of message game they're currently in the mood for.

It's not unusual for the survey to stimulate new message games, sometimes catering to the most popular, sometimes to a niche.

Back in Q2 this year, our votes largely fell amongst hardy perennials, fantasy and sci-fiction, whilst frequent favourites, Post-Apocalypse and Supers barely got a look-in.

Where will our votes land this time? Remember to post and tell us more about your choice, especially if there's a particular game you're burning to play.

You have two votes, so make both your choices before submitting, and be aware I've mixed up the table good and proper this time round.

I voted for my two perennial favorites which are Supers and Urban Fantasy. I don't do much if any D&D type here because I do that in my FtF game and I like to do genres here that I don't do in person. I like Star Trek/Space ones, Post Apocalypse and others but these two are the ones I like best as they are generally stories of self discovery.

Some game systems/types that could use a showing here, Shadowrun, Marvel Universe (Since DC/Smallville always seems to be the one used) and good old fashioned gamma world.

Hey, I've got the Marvel Universe going in BTS, Ken. You should recognize it... just barely. (Of course, ividia and I aren't looking for new people at the moment. I'm still trying to get my brain to work on Nivek's storyline again.)

I still don't understand why you lump Urban Fantasy in with Horror, nemarsde. I like Urban Fantasy. I don't like Horror. (Vampires, werewolves, demons, magic, et alia don't necessarily have to be horrific. I could so turn most of it into a comedy!) So I didn't vote for that.

I could use a good mystery... although I recognize that "mystery" can be slotted into just about any of the other categories. (Heartwood [HWD] is chock full of them. I had been running one on the Eclipse back in the Compuserve days before... well, some of us know what happened there. It was a murder mystery.)

And when I think Space Opera, the first thing I think of is Star Trek. I'm getting my recommended daily allowance of Trek by editing Captain O'Shaughnessy's old adventures. (Although, really... is there such a thing as too much Trek? Not for me! Oh, well, except for the fact that it's kind of interfering with my Superhero and Warrior Priestess by taking over my brain. )

Urban Fantasy and Urban Horror are kind of hard to separate, I find. For example, The Dresden Files often overlaps, as do RPGs like World of Darkness or films like The Twilight Saga. Generally, when an urban fantasy crops up, it's rarely too long before vampires, werewolves, and demons appear, horror tropes mingling with fantasy.

Whether the work is regarded as urban fantasy or urban horror then becomes more about theme, possibly mode of address or as prosaic as explicitness, graphic content, etc.

Unequivocal Horror has its own separate category in the survey.

Yes!

I love surveys!!!

Wish I could have voted for three, 20th C Pulp- but put my votes into Horror and Urban Fantasy/Horror

Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy. Why couldn't I vote for 3

Wouldn't have made any difference since you can only put one vote in any category <sigh>

Ah, but there are three Fantasy categories: Urban, Dark, and Classic!

THere is that ... if all three are equally appealing <g>

That's what I'm saying, but I picked 2 to conform.

So did I <wink>

or why is hard sf and cyberpunk lumped together, since most cyberpunk isn't very hard ...

You haven't played Neil's Cyberpunk!

I tend to throw cyberpunk and hard sci-fi together, because they bleed into each other.

Transhumanism, AI, robotics, VR and the digital realm, and the limitations of natural laws are all essential to cyberpunk even if the Attitude is considered the genre's defining trait.

It's probably possible to have cyberpunk that isn't hard sci-fi, but it would probably be a veneer, like downtown Coruscant in Star Wars.