Wrong Genre Savvy/Tabletop Games
Examples of Wrong Genre Savvy characters in Tabletop Games include:
- Players in Tabletop Games often fall victim to this if the players and Game Master aren't quite on the same page about what sort of game they're playing.
- A good example is someone trying to play the Ravenloft setting like it's the Forgotten Realms Setting. Hilarity usually ensues. Another example is this story of a long-time Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) player[1] who was invited to a Cyberpunk 2020 game:[2]
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GM: You wake up in your apartment. You hear heavy steps on the stairs. |
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- Also worth noting is the uh oh moment when you design your character under the assumption that the game is going to be a certain genre and then find that you have made a character completely unequipped to get by in the gamemaster's world. This is especially a risk in universal systems such as GURPS, where literally any character conceivable can be made, requiring the GM to be very clear about the ground rules of his/her universe, or else tragic mismatches can ensue.
- For example, statting up a political operative... in a combat heavy scenario. Or statting up a character who does nothing but combat... in a scenario all about political maneuvering. Or either... in a Cosmic Horror Story scenario. Although the combat character can function pretty well if that character is built well and the player knows the system.This often comes about due to the insanity systems of such systems can be resisted by characters who lack the mental prowess to comprehend the horrors they face, making such characters a Fearless Fool. As a result, intellectual investigators tend to go mad while the dumb combat-centric characters survive, arguably undermining the game.
- In Traveller, during the Interstellar Wars the Vilani Imperium had been deliberately clogged with Obstructive Bureaucrats to prevent change even if the change meant technical advance. This is a seemingly stupid idea but It Makes Sense in Context. You see, long ago the Vilani had conquered every single power around and rearranged the universe exactly the way they wanted. With no outside threat the only danger was civil war. If they could make their imperium run on autopilot the danger of that could be minimized. The problem was that this only made sense when there was no outside threat. Unfortunately the Vilani discovered a Barbarian Tribe from a certain Insignificant Little Blue Planet, which had different ideas about such matters...
- In Unknown Armies, some characters (specifically television-obsessed Videomancers) can actually use Wrong Genre Savvy to their own advantage: a Significant formula spell from that school, called 'Laff Riot', literally replaces reality's normal rules with the conventions of a situation comedy ... "reality", here, being defined as the brutal and unforgiving harshness of a self-identified postmodern horror role-playing game of power and consequences wherein foolish characters often have the life expectancy of goldfish. The spell lasts only seconds in a fight or a few minutes outside of combat, but while in effect, all gunshots miss (including critical successes) and no physical damage from any source can exceed 5 points (approximately 1/10th of the average human's hit points). Targets of any attacks are, however, often subject to hilarious and humiliating pratfalls, like the suggested result of winding up hanging by the seat of your pants from a fire escape, flailing helplessly. Wrong Genre Savvy applies again when the spell wears off, of course, and people are once again free to plummet to their death.
- Fair Folk in Exalted derive a lot of their horror from the fact that they're incapable of understanding that reality is more than just a melodrama of roles to be enjoyed and passions to be savored, and that all the human 'actors' in their stories are mortal and sentient.
- Too much Talecrafting in Changeling: The Lost can cause a changeling to fall prey to this and his or her perceptions are warped to perceive everything as part of a fairy tale.
- Hunter: The Vigil doesn't get to make more than one chance at being wrong genre savvy before the vampire the hunters thought was dead in sunlight comes up behind them for the killing blow.