A new year and a renewed commitment to making sure I talk about wargame design on this blog! Sometimes, it can get lost in the painting, the game reports, the reviews, and all the RPG stuff I have been drawn to lately. Hopefully, I can get wargame design on the blog at least once a month or every other month. I have to admit that sometimes I am unsure what folks still want to see in this space. I have covered so many of the basic topics from the 4Ms, to Chrome, to the process, and some pretty esoteric areas of wargame design. Therefore, if there is something you want me to talk about drop me a comment! It helps get my brain moving.
Genre? Is That Even a Word?
Let's start by setting some ground rules. There is nothing new under the sun. Innovation is Overrated. Most games we go and see some bright spark is putting a label on it and creating some definitions around what it means. Sometimes these labels become buzz words in and of themselves. We have all heard them:
- Grimdark
- Steampunk
- Cozy
- Eurotrash
- Noblebright
- Spy-fi
- High Fantasy
- Kitchen Table
- Hard Sci-Fi
However, a Genre is essential a category or class of games that all share certain distinct features that align them with games of a similar category. These features maybe based on mechanics about how the game plays. It might be based on aesthetics such as how the game looks. It could also be featured around the narrative built into the game such as the setting or story beats.
The key thing for you to know as a designer is that when your game gets one of these nice Genre labels, that means players start to have a certain expectation about what that means about the game. They start to expect it to meet certain conventions and norms.
These Genre terms are not unique to Wargaming. In fact, many of these terms come from media like books, TV, and movies before they get applied to a wargaming setting. That means they come with even more cultural baggage if it is a cross-media genre.
The Mecha Genre
In wargaming, a common Genre was created by the game Battletech. I am sure we are all familiar with it. Giant robots that are piloted by humans that have big guns and big armor. They stride across the battlefield and lay waste to lesser foes. Only other big, giant, stompy robots can oppose them.
This genre is not unique to wargaming. It also exists within a larger media world. Super Robots and and other big, stompy robots are a staple of Japanese (and other) media. Think about Transformers, Robotech, Voltron, Gundam, and countless other examples of the big, stompy robot genre. They are rather ubiquitous in popular culture and along with that notoriety, the average person has certain assumption about what it means to be part of the Mecha genre.
Battletech was "first to market" in the wargaming space and hence has set many of the conventions people associate with big, stompy robot games. They have come to expect the following:
- Resource management such as Heat or Energy
- The ability to take a lot of damage in attritional combat and limb loss
- Walking and jumping, but mostly terrestrial combat
- The Big, Stompy Robots are kings of the battlefield
- Pilot skills are important to combat results
Now, since Battletech has come out the number of games related to Mecha have expanded. There are a number of big, stompy robot games on the market. You will also find that many of them still harken back to those same key points in their designs and features. People who buy Big, Stompy Robot games expect them.
Why The Genre Matter
Now that you understand how the idea of Genre works, it is obvious that those Genre labels create certain expectations. As a designer these expectations can be your friend or your foe. However, as the designer it is important that you have an understanding of the Genre rules and conventions.
The great thing about Genres is that they help you establish the guidelines and design goals for your game. You know what players are expecting, and you know that you will want to deliver those basic assumptions about the genre. So, if you are designing a Mecha game you want some resource management, attritional combat elements, land combat, with pilot skill built into the mechanics. Therefore, your design goals can quickly and easily hit the key Genre requirements early.
The downside about Genre is that they also establish certain expectations from the player, and if you did not hit them; the players may reject your game without giving it much time, space, or effort. When the expectations of the Genre are not met, it may lead to dissatisfaction with the whole product. Player expectation is a powerful motivator. These expectations can serve to "hem in" your design space.
Therefore, once you have a Concept for a game, it is a good idea to go do your homework. You will want to know what Genre it fits into. From there, you will want to understand the core expectations of players and see if you have a different or skewed Point-of-View (POV) on the topic. Unless you bring a new POV, mechanical beat, narrative beats, or even a visual Hook you will want to ask yourself what new thing are you bringing to the design space. No one needs another Warhammer (Insert any other popular Genre game here).
Deconstructing the Genre
You have done your homework and seen how everyone else has done it. You have an understanding of what the Customers expect from the Genre. You know the key points of what makes the Genre the Genre. Now you know the rules and tropes of the Genre. Now, you have what you need to break the rules! You can not break the rules unless you know what you are breaking!
No one needs another Battletech, it exists and can be played now. Steve Jobs famously said, "If I built what customers wanted, they would just have gotten another CD player. Instead, I built what they did not know they needed! I built the I-pod" .... or something like that. You do not need to try to build a better Battletech, heck even the makers of Battletech have struggled doing that. Instead, you have to build something that the players may not even know they needed!
However, doing this is a delicate balance. People want innovation, but can only handle it in small doses. They want the familiar. In the I-pods case it was still a portable music player that used head phones, essentially a CD Player without having to change CDs. It still met their needs of playing music portably and personally, but better because you had access to more music!
You need to do the same thing with your Genre. You need to deliver the familiar, but more. The easiest way to do this is with a strong Hook . A great way to develop a strong Hook is to take the "rules" of the Genre and decide to subvert or break one of them. Still deliver on the core Genre premises and tropes, but completely subvert one.
If we continue the Battletech example, I looked at the Mecha Game Genre and thought, "What if we set it in space?" Now, there is plenty of source material from other media in the Genre that places mecha combat in space. Battletech just isn't one of them, and most of the Genre doesn't either. One of the tropes of the Mecha Game is that it is on land. Immediately, you have given yourself a differentiator from all the other games in the Genre, you have subverted the Genre without destroying the underlying aspects of the Genre. Hostile Space was born.
Another example is Castles in the Sky. Most Aeronef games were basically WWII naval, but supposedly flying. They used 2D battlefield mechanics for ease of play. I simply asked, "What if we added flying mechanics common to other aircraft games and made it 3D?" Boom, I subverted the genre just enough to make something different.
Conclusion
Genre is an amazing thing for a wargame. It is important for designers to know and understand the genre they are trying to achieve and build for. This involves doing the homework on what the "rules" of the genre are to start with. Once you know that, you will know what rules you can break. It is important to break enough to create something new, but if you break too many; customers will reject it as "not part of the genre". You have to keep your design space narrow enough to meet the needs of the Genre but break the right rule to make it something new and worth buying. Therefore, knowing and understanding Genre is a blessing and a curse.
Until next time!
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