Lets look at the word:

Supernatural

Super Natural

To me it implies taking something from nature (i.e. Humans and wolves) and making them, in some way, 'super' (i.e. humans that turn into wolves).

Simplistic maybe, but that's how I view it. An augmentation on nature... not really 'magical' in any sense (though if they included magic they'd be free to use the fantasy tag).

Personally, though, unless we roll Vampire and Werewolf into it I *really* don't think it's worth adding. Too much redundancy. What if my game is primarily about vampires and werewolves in the 12th century? Then I have to pick and choose between Vampire, Werewolf, Supernatural, Historical to find the right player base (and I can assure you; some people would *only* look in 'their' category for a game so it's a big decision). If I have any other elements to the game (say, it's horror or comedic) that makes it even harder to tag.

So supernatural is not a subgenre of fantasy but a synonym?  Fantasy running the gamut from classic myth to sword and sorcery, to urban fantasy to science fantasy (Star Wars) - I cannot conceive of a supernatural story that would not be classified (in the broad sense of including the fantastic, including supernatural horror.  Ghosts and vampires are creatures of fantasy), or a fantasy story that didn't involve the supernatural in some way.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:35, Sat 19 Sept 2009.

I think you're over-analysing it.  Supernatural is just a convenient label that some people have suggested to consolidate Vampire and Werewolf games under a single heading.

That is a very good point about how the genre labels are used on the site compared to strict definition of genre.

I would have just called vampire/werewolf games Whitewolfy.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:43, Sat 19 Sept 2009.

A lot has to do with assumptions people make when they see a label.


Fantasy, people think Wizards and elves and fire balls, and unicorns, etc.

Supernatural, People think werewolves, ghosts, vampires.  All the things you get urban legends about.

Urban Fantasy, people think things like Dresden or Shadowrun. :)  Everything that you think of in Fantasy, but set in a more familiar setting.

Supernatural pretty much makes me think about the TV show these days.

In reply to kurlumbenus (msg #266):
In reply to kurlumbenus (msg #264):


:P There is a lot more supernatural than just White Wolf...  And a lot of Supernatural labeled games probably will have television influence. :)

Supernatural as "darker, gritter magic" = Horror.
Supernatural as "lighter, fantastical, lighter" = Fantasy.

I don't see where the gap in coverage is.


There are more vampire/werewolf games then JUST white wolf. For example, you might run an all lycanthrope or undead D&D game. Add in horror if you want it to be dark and scary, leave it off if you're running more of a "superheroes that run on blood batteries" kind of game.

Remember, these tags exist to help you figure out what to avoid so much as they help you find what you like.

In reply to praguepride (msg #268):

That is not where the gap is.  The gap is in other assumptions.

There has been a lot of argument as to whether or not a modern set game could be labeled fantasy.   :P

Along with what you stated though, quite often Horror and Fantasy based games have a lot in common, and the main difference is the mood. :P

But horror would cover more than the darker side of supernature. Think about slasher movies - definately horrific, but there is no sense of the otherworldly about them.


I don't know how this could be sorted out but I think we need some kind of distinction between vamp were games and other forms of supernatural horror. I say this after having serached for horror games and having to wade through hundreds of anitaverse or WOD games just to find the odd Call of Cthulhu or Supernatural ghost hunt type game.

The suggestion was to have a supernatural category mostly for that, Starchaser, in addition to keeping everything except werewolf/vampire; that way, if you're looking for a horror + supernatural game (for something like CoC), you can search for both of those tags, while if you wanted just something that had vampires, werewolves, or ran a specific system (i.e. WoD) you can search just the supernatural tag and add "WoD" to the text box.

To a honest I stopped following this thread when Jase made it clear that he wasn't content to just change the genre system radically and let users post themselves out, but I noticed there had been a little more activity of late and came back.
My original intention of the supernatural tag was to replace the vampire and werewolf tags, but if we're not prepared to pare down the tags or edit the meaning of those already present, the only option for change left is to add new ones. There probably is space for a supernatural tag, as much as there is for a sword and sorcery tag or a steam punk tag; but if you just add new tags you pretty quickly get a glut of tags, and far from improving the system, you've just made it worse. Rather than having 1 huge category that's a pain to search through (sorry fantasy) you have a fractured mess of tiny categories similar to the extant pokemon tag. That would be a massive mistake using the tag search system we have now, since you can only search three tags concurrently, and if you have say 30 or more tags - some of which overlap, and may not even be used consistently - implementing them in a search will be even more time consuming.

I'd like to see a Sports genre added as there are a few games out there but it's sometimes hard to find them. It's a nice general tag that isn't actually covered from what I can see.

I know that most people group Sports based games under contemporary, but what if I want to do a futuristic sport game, or something in a historical setting - the contemporary genre just doesn't fit any more.

So anyone with me on this?

:P That is one of the few suggestions I have seen that I cannot think of at least three arguments for.  ^^;

What about the option to add in a custom tag as one of your three?  Impose a character limit (say, 25 or 30, to keep them short), and that way people who are looking for something specific can search for "Sports" or "S&S" or whatever else that they know is out there, but are having trouble finding buried under everything else.

Or, an option for GMs to implement keywords in the game description, like web pages do for search engines, and include an extra search box in the thread search form so that players can search via those keywords?

This may be overlapping with current features; I browse new games more than I search, so I'm not familiar with all the features.

Just a thought.

The problem with custom tags is that you can't guarantee that everybody spells the same word the same way, or even uses the same word to mean the same thing.

As for key words in the game description, that wouldn't work with the way the site is organised.  Anything inside a game is just that - inside the game - and can not be accessed from outside (this is why the system doesn't know which groups you have access to, and returns a false message warning if a post is made in a group that you can't see).

Doing a search for a keyword in the description would require the system to open every single game on the site to check for that keyword.

Keyword searches are simple string matching queries... I don't see how the system architecture can stop a query engine from looking at every game description and returning those games with the string "sports" somewhere in the field.  Is the database structure that denormalized?

As stated above, nothing inside a game can be checked by the system without first opening the game (at least until jase gets round to completely overhauling the system).
This message was last edited by a moderator at 18:56, Wed 24 Feb 2010.

Are you talking system as in the GUI and aggregation layers, or the data layer?

No, you are talking about them.  :)  I'm talking system, as in "RPoL as a whole".

I'm just repeating what jase has said many times.  Game content (such as Group memberships and the game intro) is currently only stored inside the game.  In order to access them, the game has to be opened.

How about a tag for god games, and one for politics?

Ive searched for God Games and based on that query I think there aren't enough of them to warrant their own tag. Also those games tend to fill up fairly quickly. Politics though might be useful.

Yea there are not a lot of the God games, However I did find more god games then Politics ones. But when I looked for both types when I first joined it was a pain to find, unless of course god or politics was in the title.

You already effectively have the option to add "custom tags" at the moment because the game name is completely freeform.  That is my main opposition to anything resembling a "custom tag."  I don't think it is a bad idea, but I don't see it as overly useful either. ^^;