In my previous life as a scholar, one of my obsessions was the idea of genre (specifically in early modern drama, which I studied). In the midst of a fantastic blog post about OSR as movement and maybe as something else, Snow says this:
“What if TTRPGs have their own genres? Or, what if they’ve created genres. Like, I’d argue that dungeon-crawling as a concept and medium is a big TTRPG thing, but what if the OSR is a genre? And, like, Powered by the Apocalypse and, I don’t know, probably D20 stuff too? […] Like, what else is a genre besides a group of people doing the same kind of thing, or at least starting from the same jumping off point? […]I don’t think enough people give TTRPGs the credit they deserve. And saying, ‘hey, there are genres distinct to and created by TTRPGs,’ feels like a good place to start. It’s like that fuckin’, uh, magician meme. ‘We demand to be taken seriously.’ Or whatever.”
I talk a lot, at least to my friends, about TTRPGs as genre emulation. I love Powered by the Apocalypse games because so many of them are such refined and narrow (in a good way) attempts to capture the feeling of a specific other type of media. Apparently (according to the post above, and the links in its works cited) this is a somewhat controversial view. But I think you can’t deny that there are, at least, some games whose aim is to replicate the narrative experience of something else.
You probably also can’t really deny that many games rely on reference to other forms of media for marketing purposes.
One of the posts that Snow links makes the classic comparison between Dungeons and Dragons and The Lord of the Rings. Obviously those books are an influence, in the way they’re an influence on basically all English-language fantasy. But especially in 5e, a D&D campaign feels absolutely nothing like The Lord of the Rings. Aesthetically, thematically, morally—basically any way you slice it, they are completely distinct, and I think a fan of Tolkien who came to D&D looking for the feel of those books or even films would come away very disappointed (and they should play Legend in the Mist instead).
In fact, as an SFF writer, I think I have some evidence for the validity of part of Snow’s point. LitRPG is obviously a form of its own, where novels draw upon the aesthetics of gameplay very explicitly. But in pitching and sharing more standard fantasy novels, I’ve found that the referents for genre emulation sometimes go in the opposite direction: what we might call ‘D&D-esque’ is its own feel and style of fantasy fiction.
The features of this style, loosely speaking, are a high fantasy setting (with or without fantastical races; mine doesn’t have any but has still drawn the comparison), an ensemble cast, and a travel-based story with a specific ‘quest’ or objective. So far, so Lord of the Rings. This also at least partly describes two books I’ve read recently, Martha Wells’ Witch King and Godkiller by Hannah Kaner, neither of which I would readily describe as D&D-esque. Witch King, despite having an ensemble cast, has a single POV character. Both novels also have a determinedly dark tone, whereas I think D&D-esque demands some degree of at least initial lightheartedness.
The true ensemble cast is the most telling element, and the one I suspect most makes readers think of D&D rather than any other form. I have a lot of thoughts about this that I can get into another time, but I think one of the reasons people struggle so much with so-called ‘main character syndrome’ at the table is because there really are few good media referents for a true ensemble cast. Even heist and crime movies, which immediately came to mind as tending to showcase the skills of a large group, generally have a focal character and leader. Sitcoms come closer, and some children’s and teen television.
In other words, I’d begin to define the genre of TTRPGs as one that tells the story of a group, not an individual, which differentiates it hugely from essentially any genre it’s trying to emulate.
To avoid digging to deep into the rabbit hole of trying to define D&D-esque as a genre… I was immediately grabbed by this question for another reason. I’m one of those annoying people who is constantly trying to get my friends to try games besides D&D, because I think they will have more fun with other games. These are people who ignore the mechanics, complain about the rules, and will go whole sessions doing nothing but roleplay.
And yet, as I’ve searched for games to try and tempt them, I’m continually coming up short, and I think the question of genre is why. It’s like telling someone who really loves Alien that they should try watching Star Trek. Sure, they might also like it, but the idea that those two things will fill the same place in their mind just because they’re both set in space and are nominally both sci-fi is absurd. I can try to persuade my friends to play Venture or Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Mythic Bastionland, but they aren’t going to feel like or give the experience of D&D, because they are a different genre.
What is the nature of that experience? Is it truly essentially rooted to those mechanics that everyone is ignoring, or is there something else?
What are other game-first genres? I’d actually been thinking about this without realising I was thinking about it in terms of GMless games, and the specific feel that the ‘No Dice No Masters’ model lends to storytelling.
Given my focus on group storytelling here, where does solo gaming fit?
In case you can’t tell, I love this idea and I love this question. I’m going to return to some of my scholarly texts about genre to see if they can provide any useful frameworks for continuing to discuss this, and I will keep sharing my thoughts on this more generally, too. I’d love to hear yours.