Since it has been, and is being, discussed in General RPoL, but apparently should be here, I'll take a shot at a suggestion.

Well, to start with, I'm going to post the current list here for reference.

Contemporary        Anime              Arena             Comedy
Historical          Cyberpunk          Discussion        Fantasy
Post Holocaust      Horror             Medieval          Pokemon/Digimon
Super Hero          RPoL Forums        Sci-Fi            Strategy
                    Vampire            Werewolf          Western

When considering changes, I think there are a few of things to address. The organization of the list (which I think could definitely be updated, but I like organization, might not be important to others), the relevance of the items on the list, and avoiding too much redundancy while maintaining effectiveness.

For organization, I would propose separating the list into three separate 'categories.' Genre, Era, and Theme. Might be the wrong word choices, but here is an example of this separation, using the existing genres. Some aren't in the best place, but this is kind of quick and dirty.

Era:              Genre:          Theme:
Historical        Comedy          Anime
Medieval          Discussion      Arena
Contemporary      Fantasy         Cyberpunk
                  Horror          Pokemon/Digimon
                  RPoL Forums     Post Holocaust
                  Sci-Fi          Super Hero
                  Strategy        Vampire
                                  Western
                                  Werewolf
Relevance, I'll leave to someone else to address. I haven't taken a great deal of time to see what is used how often, and what is used most often with each other, and other such considerations. The same with redundancy/effectiveness.

I will throw in some minor suggestions.

Pokemon/Digimon, Vampire, Werewolf: Might combine these into a general 'Monster' category.

Post Holocaust: A renaming might be considered, I saw a suggestion for 'Post Cataclysm.' It might also be a good idea to have a 'Cataclysm' and 'Post Cataclysm' separation, to show games leading up to the end of the world, and others taking place after the end of the world as we know it.

Super Hero: Might consider a change in name, perhaps 'Comic Book' or 'Superhuman,' to avoid 'Hero' connotations if people want villainous games.

Genres: Perhaps a 'Drama' category could be added. Not sure about others.

Eras: While I've separated out these three, I do think we could make use of a definite 'Future' category, as well as a 'Pre-Historic' category. Might want a couple more, maybe separating things like, say, 'Pre-Historic,' 'Ancient,' 'Medieval,' 'Industrial Age,' 'Contemporary,' 'Near Future,' and 'Distant Future.'

So, just a basic starting point for suggestions.

I don't believe the current system needs that much of a major overhaul.  Bear in mind that it was only changed relatively recently, and as a result of some fairly major public discussion.

But pokemon/digimon has nothing really to do with the other two.  The tropes/conventions of the genres are entirely different.

Regarding a "Drama" category - most games include an element of drama.  Describing a game as "drama" is, to a large extent, the equivalent of describing it as "game".  Or are you referring to something specific?

---

For my own suggestion, and this is one that's come up before, I'd just rename "Cyberpunk" to "Punk".  Got a cyberpunk game?  Tag it Scifi/Punk.  Steampunk game?  Tag it Historical/Scifi/Punk.  Magipunk game?  That's Fantasy/Punk.  Diesel punk?  Contemporary (or Historical, depending on your definition)/Punk.

This handles the "You have Cyberpunk, so you have to add Steampunk!" type arguments, and deals with future variations on the "-punk" theme.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:39, Wed 29 May 2013.

Like bbr said, I would avoid shoving Pokemon in with 'Monster', though as I believe it has seen a drop in popularity, it could be merged with Anime.

The 'Monster' category sounds like a good idea, since I see dozens of games with both the Vampire and Werewolf tags, and rarely a game with only one, though perhaps it could use a better name?

I +1 the Punk category.  It makes good sense, even if you look at it and say 'wait, is punk a category?'

I also +1 the Future tag.

I would recommend the Post Holocaust be renamed to Apocalyptic, as this implies association with some kind of apocalypse, either during or after.  You can debate the points that it obviously wasn't the end of the world if you're still around, and the fact that that's not even what apocalypse means, but I still suggest it anyway.

I +1 the renaming of Super Hero to Superhuman.  Comic Book gives a different feel, and might be considered separately, but I'm a fan of not adding five dozen categories.

On the same note, I'd avoid all the various 'era' categories.  Future, Contemporary, Historical, Medieval, and perhaps Prehistorical should be enough.

As a final thought, I have seen multiple games, though I could not tell you how many, with a 'Pulp Fiction' theme.  I do not know enough to see if this could be expressed with other categories, or if it is even popular enough to warrant attention, but it's a thought.
This message was last edited by the user at 07:01, Wed 29 May 2013.

Bigbadron one of the issues not addressed is that newcomers or new searchers don't necessarily "get it" when it comes to an established genre like Steampunk.

Overall the suggestion sounds good with the caveat of adding to "Theme" listing Steampunk.

As has been reiterated Steampunk is an established genre in the world, dictionary definition, hundres of Steampunk books, social groups dedicated to Steampunk, works by many different authors with different variants all under the Steampunk genre umbrella.

---

Other themes might be:

Survival
Solo
This message was last edited by the user at 07:29, Wed 29 May 2013.

I disagree that the issue has not been addressed.  I addressed it in my post.

I would point out, also, that there will always be a hot new genre that people are searching for that is not specifically addressed in the list.  Should we, then, add a new FotM genre every month?

I folded Pokemon/Digimon in the 'Monster' theme in part because the 'mon' is short for monster, and so that other categories could be used to more specifically narrow down the game, and the Game Info and/or threads could be used for the last bit of specificity.
In this case, I was thinking more in line with movie and book drama genres. Basically, the game would be dealing specifically with the dramas of character interaction (whether that be between players, GMs and players, NPCs, some combination, whatever) more than combat and the like. So, it could be used for Sims-esque games, I suppose. A part of me also folds 'romance' into a drama category.
It makes sense to me. Though I'm not entirely sure what 'punk' really means, to be honest, in this context.
I'm not sure what a better name would be. A broad 'Monster' category could apply to anything from Zombie Apocalypse games, to standard Vamp/Were games, to games with monstrous characters, or some other such thing.
That makes sense to me. I'd also want to go for a change away from 'Post Holocaust' because that specific naming gives potential confusion with 'Post WWII,' at least to my mind.
I just threw in 'comic book' as a suggestion because, to me, 'super hero' brings to mind comic books, and associated material, more than anything else. And with an 'Anime' category already, it seemed like a viable candidate.
Probably right. I threw in extras, in part, because my inclination to make things even and organized was trying to even out the length of the timescale series as compared to the others.
Or, perhaps, as bbr suggested, a general 'Punk' genre that can be expanded upon with other selections, and with game names, systems, and such that give an idea of the specific nature of the game.
I could definitely see a 'Solo' category, with the wide variety of requests for games and existing games featuring one-on-one gameplay. I'm not sure about survival, personally, though. Might just be a personal preference, but survival seems too broad, to me. After all, anything with even a bit of combat in it could be considered a game of survival.

---

Another thing that came to mind, what about a, for lack of a better description coming to mind, 'mood' selection? Things like 'Light-Hearted,' 'Gritty,' 'Cynical,' 'Dystopian,' or what-have-you. Not making specific suggestions at this point, just feeling out how popular it might be.

It seems logical to me that if a newcomer uses the site's search functions to look for a genre, they're going to notice that there isn't a "Steampunk" category, but they would notice that there are other categories that might be worth checking for steampunk games.

To say that they wouldn't is like saying that "Star Trek" fans aren't going to think of checking "Scifi" for their games, or "sword and sorcery" fans aren't going to check "Fantasy".

Edit: It's also worth noting that while some people are saying, "We need specific genres." (eg: Steampunk) others are suggesting the removal of genres, or their combination into more general groupings (eg: Pokemon/Werewolf/Vampire into Monster).

So while there are calls for a change, there is little concensus on what thet change should be.  This has tended to be the case in all of these discussions.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:33, Wed 29 May 2013.

I would suggest combining Werewolf and Vampire under a category of Supernatural or Paranormal. That category could include ghosts, witches, fairies, and so on. Right now, if you want to run a game with multiple paranormal types, your best option is horror. However, not all games with paranormal elements are horror. You could have a comedy about witches or ghosts.

And I think that nicely illustrates bigbadron's point - I've never played a Vampire or Werewolf game and don't know (and don't want to know thank you) why they're not under Horror.  I don't see much distinction between Horror and Supernatural, while Fantasy can and does also include "ghosts, witches, fairies and so on".

"comedy about witches or ghosts" is Horror + Comedy, surely ?  Who ya gonna call ? ;>

I'm definitely +1 on the "-Punk" suggestion as this gives much more flexibility ... I might not know much (arguably anything) about Steampunk, but I'd certainly search Historical + Punk for such games and SciFi + Punk screams Cyberpunk to me, while SciFi + Fantasy + Punk = Shadowrun type games.

IMNSHO, genres should be broad strokes, like a colour palette where you can define Green as Blue + Yellow.

could we just not stop all of these discussions that occur once every 2/3 months by having the genre list be a type box with sugestions like the sysytem list that way people can write in whatever they want for genre, and there are standerd ones that most people will pick that will autofill the entry?

I disagree. I would not expect to find Ghostbusters in the horror section of my video rental store. As for Horror and Supernatural being synonymous, I believe you can have horror stories that do not have supernatural elements, such as serial killer stories.



Which is why I suggest the broader supernatural/paranormal genre instead of the specific werewolf and vampire categories we have now.

Don't even call it genre, just keep it simple, call it keywords.  Have it be a comma seperated list.  In the php side jase could check if the game has the listed keywords.  However, I'm pretty sure this has been suggested before and there was a concern about the additional processing required over the current boolean checks.  I'm not sure what the RPoL server load looks like, so I can't speak to that.  I know its needs are high enough that the portraits are offloaded to two volunteer servers.

I suspect the main concern would be the usefulness of a genre based search where everybody is free to name the genre of their game whatever they like (complete with mispellings and obscure terms).

What use is it to search for "Steampunk", when half the games that could fall into that category are labelled "Steam-punk", "steam punk", "steampumk", "Steam age scifi", "steamworks", "clockpunk", "Victorian speculative fiction", or "Bob's cool games"?

As an aside, I will note that my browser's spell-checker (FF 21) flags steampunk as not being a real word, though it happily accepts cyberpunk as one.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:13, Wed 29 May 2013.

I will +1 this.  However, my primary reason for wanting to keep the system as it is, is that I know that every game on this site is on one of those lists, and if I feel like browsing through games, I just run down one list after another.  Change the system to a keyword system, and some games become quite practically unfindable.

BBR

Putting "Steampunk" in the game name is in part been there to make up for the missing genre entry.

Having the genre with its option will avoid the problems you mention of spelling or interpretation issues such as Steampunk vs Steam Punk.

Brygun

Sorry, I haven't said anything about putting "steampunk" in the game name.  My comment on the spelling (msg #13) applies equally to all genres, and was directed at ninthbit, who suggested basically allowing GMs to name their game's genre pretty much whatever they wanted.

If you prefer I can change the example.  What if half the games in the "Fantasy" genre had "Fatnasy", "Swords and sorcery", "Arthurian legend", or "Bobs cool game" listed as their genre?  It would reduce the usefulness of a search for Fantasy games.

AH, misread. My apologies.

Freely typed genres don't seem like a good idea. We have freely typed game names. The genre list is a fixed list useful for searchers like Joe-Newbie. Having both a fixed and free-type searchables looks good. Don't need 2 of the same. 2 different ones covers a wider range of peope and situations.

Whereas Rotten Tomatoes classifies Ghostbusters as "Action & Adventure, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Comedy", any/all of which you could make an argument for, but don't do it for me. :>

Serial killers ... yes, world of difference between Freddy and Dexter (though the current episodes being shown on TV here - series 6 ? - references religious/supernatural.

Don't know that video shop is a good example, though - they're kinda limited to one genre, unless they want to put copies in different places on the shelves.

My take on genres is that they only need to cope with the bulk of classifications - I'd rather cast a wider net and take in too many than a narrow one and get too few.
This message was lightly edited by admin, as it was in need of a minor tweak, at 01:51, Thu 30 May 2013.

Way back in... hmm, around 2008/9, I put a tiered tagging system in on the beta site.  Pretty much nobody liked it.  While having era, genre, theme (etc) seems like a good idea (I like it), it was never popular with the test group.  So I unfortunately think we need to focus on a flat tagging system (i.e. what we currently have).



You've reiterated as much, yes.  (c;  I recognise it has a cult following (a lot of it in fashion/gadgets), but my own research has not revealed it as its own genre, but as a sub-genre of science/speculative/fantastical fiction.  As mentioned in the general forum; Wikipedia, Urbandictionary and Steakpunk.com all list it as a sub-genre of fiction.  They were the only three sites that had definitions on the first page of my search, and they all agreed.  I didn't cherry pick the results, I merely did a search and read what came up (actually, I then searched the page for "genre" and noticed "sub" or "sub-" before each one).

Again, this is fixating on steampunk.  The discussion about revising the genres seems incidental.


FYI previously requested genres include:

Steampunk, (Post) Apocalyptic, Drama, Spy, Greek/Roman, Pulp, Mystery, Speculative, Survivor, Weird, Romance, Management, Movie, Oriental, Supernatural, Urban Fantasy, God, Politics, Anthropomorphic, Ancient, Dark/Noir, Early Modern, High Fantasy, Sci-Fi/Future, Wuxia, Card Games, Plot, English, Foreign Languange, Sports, Magipunk.

Make of that what you will!


Keep in mind that while we could go nuts on genres, if we add many more we'll have to change the layout from the tick boxes to three drop-down lists.  I think the checkboxes are a boon as you can easily see all the genres listed out at once, and choose the 1-3 that you want.  Also, as several have mentioned/expressed a preference for, genres should be faily general, not specific.

Forgive me for quoting you so much, jase, I didn't want to get lost.

I think its a fantastic idea. I don't know what methods were used to acquire the sample that got into the beta or how many were able to respond on use of it, but from these forum comments a lot of people seem to like that idea. Have you considered trying/testing it once more? It's been several years since then.


Cyberpunk is also listed as a sub-genre of scifi while Vampire and Werewolf are listed as sub-genres of Gothic/Horror. So there's no more justification to have those sub-genres than to have Steampunk. That's the "problem" most people seem to be complaining about. There is a lack of consistency/fairness with which sub-genre gets included and which sub-genre is excluded. People want consistency, though they appear to disagree over whether we should acquire it by MORE variety or LESS. I like the genre list, it's great, but it does seem a bit unbalanced and I can understand why this issue is irking so many RPOLers.

---

POSSIBLE PROPOSAL(feel free to brainstorm or offer suggestions for improvement)
If we absolutely HAVE to keep the check boxes, then I don't think we should give up on your tagging idea so easily. If check boxes are a necessity, then any changes made should minimize the number of genres and eras listed while still allowing enough of them for possible combinations to describe all the most popular sub-genres.

While I'm sure those more familiarized with these genres will agree that it's easier to just search "steampunk" and "cyberpunk", a more "fair" application may just be to have them both listed as scifi with different eras attached. Eliminating cyberpunk, pokemon/digimon, vampire and werewolf would add space for a Monster genre while still allowing the possible combinations for their descriptions (in fact, it would add more):

Remove (6): Cyberpunk, Arena, Pokemon/Digimon, Super Hero, Vampire, Werewolf
Add (8): Action/Adventure, Ancient, Competitive, Drama/Romance, Future, Intrigue/Mystery, Monster, Superhuman, Victorian/Renaissance (possibly merge Strategy/Competitive)

Steampunk = Scifi + Victorian/Renaissance
Cyberpunk = Scifi + Contemporary
Pokemon/digimon = Anime + Monster
Vampire = Horror + Monster (or just Horror)
Werewolf = Horror + Monster (or just Horror)
Godzilla-type monster game = Monster + Contemporary
Drama = Drama/Romance
Spy = Action/Adventure + Intrigue/Mystery
Greek/Roman = Ancient
Pulp = Action/Adventure + Contemporary
Mystery = Intrigue/Mystery
Speculative = (this is too vague)
Survivor = Action/Adventure + Horror (or Action/Adventure + Drama/Romance)
Management = (this is not a gaming genre)
Movie = (just list the name of the movie in the game title)
Supernatural = Fantasy + (whatever else fits)
Urban Fantasy = Fantasy + Contemporary
God = Superhuman + Fantasy
Ghost stories = Horror + Fantasy (or Horror + any era)
Politics = Intrigue/Mystery + (whatever else fits)
Anthropomorphic = Monster + Anime (or whatever else fits)
Ancient = Ancient
Dark/Noir = Intrigue/Mystery
Early Modern = Historical + Contemporary
High Fantasy = Fantasy + Medieval
Scifi Future = Scifi + Future
Wuxia = Superhuman + Fantasy (or Superhuman + Historical)
Card Games = Strategy
Sports = Competitive
Magipunk = Fantasy + Contemporary (or Fantasy + Victorian/Renaissance)

This would keep the list about the same size but increase the possible combinations of sub-genres that can be listed sensibly (and without showing favoritism to certain sub-genres). This assumes we are insistent upon keeping the check boxes at about the same number they are now (just 2 or 3 more) and it is just ONE possible idea that can be easily edited and improved upon.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:46, Thu 30 May 2013.

In reply to arkrim (msg # 20):

As a note, you forgot to include 'Monster' in your list of additions (which would bring the total up to 9), but did include it in your list of possible combinations. It seems like a good list, for the most part, though.

---

On another note, since it has been years, apparently, since it was addressed on the beta site, perhaps it could be tried again. Or just a poll on the possible popularity or something.

I'd have been in favor of it, but I've never really made use of the beta site.

The same method as is always used for acquiring a sample group - everybody on RPoL can get access to the Beta Site, if they want it, and can post in the forums over there.

In reply to FallingMorning (msg # 21):
Oh you're right! Fixed it. Thanks. Hmm, that's a good point. I'm the same. I'm greatly in favor of it but I never used the beta. I was never even aware of the beta until recently.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 22):
CAN get and HAVE gotten are two different things, unfortunately. I've heard of the beta site, but I've never tested it for myself. Maybe I just missed the memo. I don't know. But if it's still available, I'll go check it out. Where would we be able to give our responses to it? Are you guys taking polls or something? Oh, that's probably off topic. If anyone knows the answer please Rmail it to me. I don't want to derail the topic. Thanks.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:57, Thu 30 May 2013.

I'll post my vote, then.

Rename: Post-Holocaust > Apocalyptic; Super Hero > Superhuman; Cyberpunk > Punk
Remove: Pokemon/Digimon, Vampire, Werewolf
Add: Future, Supernatural, Victorian/Renaissance, Mystery, Action/Adventure, Romance

In total, this would increase the list by 3.

I propose Supernatural as an alternative to Monster, as it seems to more accurately convey what it would be used for, and fit the taggings to be found elsewhere.  Vampires, werewolves, ghosts...  all referred to as 'supernatural' when occurring in a fairly contemporary setting.

I also propose that it may look better picking one name for those with a slash.  I dropped Drama from Drama/Romance, as most games I have seen have drama and thus it is unnecessary, and I dropped Intrigue as it seemed mostly redundant.  I could not decide which would be more appropriate for the other two, but I welcome discussion.

In reply to arkrim (msg # 23):

Obviously we can't actually force people to sign up for the Beta site, but every RPoL user has the opportunity to do so.  If they choose not to, then that's their decision.

Whenever a new build is being tested, jase posts in the General RPoL forum here, asking people to head over to the Beta site to test things.

Not polls usually.  The overall setup of the Beta site is identical to this one - there are public forums where changes that have been made are discussed and assessed.  Tweaks and adjustments are implemented as a result of those discussions.

Action/Adventure is a pretty common term, so could probably be kept as-is. Renaissance might be the better one to use for Victorian/Renaissance, at least in my opinion.

On another note, 'Western,' any better way to do that? Maybe something like 'Frontier,' or such, which could have broader use than 'Western.' At least as an idea to throw out there.

If there were an increase, we'd probably want to try to hit 4. To keep things even, with the 4 columns.

From an organizational perspective, even if 'tiers' aren't chosen, would alphebitizing be too out of the question as an alternate?

They are alphabetized.  Just across, instead of down.

In reply to jmkool (msg # 24):
I like the adjustments suggested save for the replacement of Monster with Supernatural. Supernatural seems redundant with Fantasy and Scifi since both ideas incorporate the idea whereas "Monster" is so much more useful for filling in genre spaces that would otherwise be unable to be listed (see my examples that use monster).

In reply to jmkool (msg # 27):

Huh...didn't notice that. When there are separated columns like that, I tend to read 'down' before 'right.' Oops.

---

Anyway, at this point, the lot would look something like:

Genre:        Action/Adventure   Anime          Arena
Apocalyptic   Comedy             Contemporary   Discussion
Fantasy       Future             Historical     Horror
Medieval      Monster            Mystery        Punk
Renaissance   Romance            RPoL Forums    Sci-Fi
Strategy      Superhuman         Supernatural   Western

I think there was also a mention of 'Solo.'

Arkrim's list, on the other hand, while it might be modified somewhat, certainly addresses a number of the potential subgenres.

On an aside, if a broad set of genres is used, perhaps a similar list of 'sub-genre builds' could be posted somewhere easily accessible, such as in the FAQs or a closed thread in General RPoL or such, to provide an easy reference for commonly used Genre sets for specific purposes.

In reply to FallingMorning (msg # 29):

The problem with a list of commonly used genre sets is that it could easily be seen as RPoL telling a GM how he should be classifying his game.

Selection of genre is entirely up to the GM - we do not tell him that he has to classify his game of space exploration as Scifi, if he wants to classify it as Horror and Pokemon.

Likewise, if a GM is running a steampunk game and wants to classify it as Contemporary Horror Western rather than Historical Scifi, then we are not going to tell him that he can't.  After all, the GM knows better than us the direction he sees his campaign going in.

Those who agree with the previous test/poll/whatever would want the observations to stay forever, those who don't want them disregarded as soon as possible.  (c;

In this instance I don't think anything of significance has changed since a tiered system was last tried to make me believe the results would be different.  User base hasn't drastically changed, the site (and web in general) has evolved but similarly, nothing has dramatically changed.  I think it would be dozens of hours of work for me for nought.



If we're going to use the "but you let Timmy do it" argument then I have to add every sub-genre people can dream up.  Thousands I'd imagine.

You're (probably) correct as to them being sub-genres, but isn't that why the current suggestions get rid of them?

I'll leave it to you all to figure out what should be there, I only play in 1 fantasy game, so I'm set.

I've been around long enough to see this topic come and go a couple of times already, so I'm sure jase and co. have seen it happen a dozen times or more.  Categorization is something that will never please even half of the users.

I completely applaud jase's approach of trying something and paying attention to what the users actually used.  This is why RPoL is so well designed, I think.

That said, here's another idea to try, if you're so inclined.  (Personally, I think your current system, while it fails to cater to MY particular desires, works quite well.  So I'm not pushing for this, just suggesting it.)

When GM's are assigning categories, give them the checkbox list of the current fixed categories, and give them one additional text input where they can provide a write-in category.  Make it clear that the purpose of this box is not that it will be used for searching, it will only be used for considering new categories to be added to the list.

Periodically (once every six months or so is plenty), have a volunteer (I'll volunteer) look at a histogram of the categorizations, including the write-in field.  If any categorization has dropped below a particular threshold, it loses its position.  If any choice among the write-ins (once they are normalized to correct for typos and misspellings) has exceeded the threshold, it gets promoted to the list.

When people complain that, "Of course Deep-noir, Hello-Kitty, Wushu Fantasy should be its own category" we can just point them to the histogram."

How about a hybrid of the current system with free form keyword search?  The generic catagories could still be selectable, allowing general focusing of the search.  The free form keywords field would allow for sub-genre keywords to be listed.

Keywords wouldn't be a description; it's just a list of words to search against. It would be on the GM to list the different variations/spelling of the key words.  This would allow a GM to customize and include the relevant search terms needed to find their game.  It is also able to support the popularity of different genres over time.  Websites already use this function in their headers to assist search engines in indexing their sites.

For example, RPoL is using the following:
<meta name="keywords" content="roleplay, roleplaying, message board, online, messageboard, community, play by post, pbp, role play, rpol, role playing game, online game, RPG, rpg, online, role, play, post, adventure, roleplaying, online roleplaying, online rpg, free online rpg" />

A Steampunk game (since that’s what started all of this) could use something like:
"steampunk, steam-punk, punk, steam punk, steam, clockwork, victorian, wells, verne"

For the checkboxes, I would recommend the following changes:
REMOVE
Anime (this is an animation style, not a genre of storytelling)
Arena (keyword, this is just a type of Strategy)
Cyberpunk (keyword/sub-genre)
Pokemon/Digimon (keyword/sub-genre)
Super Hero (keyword/sub-genre)
Vampire  (keyword/sub-genre)
Werewolf (keyword/sub-genre)
Western (keyword/sub-genre)

CHANGE
Post Holocaust => Post Cataclysmic (more general)

KEEP
Comedy
Contemporary
Discussion
Fantasy
Historical
Horror
RPoL Forums
Strategy
Medieval
Sci-Fi  (this implies future to most people)

ADD
Urban (Most dystopian games tend to be urban)
Interstellar (or simply Space)
Speculative (implies an alternate history or a "what if" senerio)

---

Implementation wise, I would imagine an additional SQL table would need to be added.  The table could list game IDs with an entry for each keyword split from the comma separated list.  Some kind of union/join could query the table to pull the relevant game listings.  I'm sure this is common with photo databases, so finding example code shouldn't be too hard and make it a bit easy to setup.

Again, sorry for quoting you so much, jase.

Let's remove the Fantasy genre and add Modern Cyberpunk and Space Cyberpunk. We don't care about THOSE players, only THESE ones. *obvious sarcasm* :P


Actually, the rest of my post argued in the reverse of that logic. Rather than suggest we add everyone's sub-genre to the list, I recommended that we remove all the sub-genre slots to make room for only more generic genre slots that can be mixed and matched to create one's own sub-genre.

In your analogy, genre slots are reserved for "Timmy's stuff" while lots of other "kids' stuff" is left in the cold. But there's no reason to keep "Timmy's stuff" when it's just taking up space that could be better used to include MORE genres (especially those that are far more popular, commonplace and currently being requested by RPOLers). Reserving 6 slots for "Timmy's stuff" when those same 6 slots could easily be used to include nearly 60 "other kids' stuff" AND "Timmy's stuff" combined, seems like intentional exclusivity and favoritism. There's simply no point in it...unless exclusiveness and favoritism is the goal? But what does RPOL accomplish by doing that?

In reply to ninthbit (msg # 33):
An interesting idea but I have one beef: Sci-Fi and Future are NOT the same thing and this is NOT implied by most Sci-Fi terms. That would only be an implication for someone with very little Sci-Fi experience who has only been exposed to space operas and not Sci-Fi across other eras. However, if you add Interstellar/Space as a genre then adding the two together allows people to create space operas nicely. So I still like the idea (just not that implication comment).

I do have a question, though. How much work would this be to add an entirely new search box for keywords? I know we're all throwing our 2 cents at the moderators but we can only expect them to go so far before the workload may be too overwhelming or demanding. Even then, they technically don't have to listen to us at all. They're just being good sports about it.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:36, Thu 30 May 2013.

The implementation of a keywords box doesn't seem that hard from the quick Google searches I did.

Basic logic would work like this.

DONE ONCE:
-New table is added to DB, something like "game_keywords".  It has a field for GameID and a field for Keyword.  Each game would have a series of rows.  One for each keyword.

WITH EACH NEW GAME:
-New game GM submits list "word1, word2, word3, etc"
-PHP splits this into an array (very easy)
-Build an INSERT SQL statement by iterating the array.  $strQuery = "INSERT INTO game_keywords (GameID, Keyword) VALUES ($gameid, keyword[0]), ($gameid, keyword[1]), ($gameid, keyword[2]),... ($gameid, keyword[size-1]);";
-Submit the query

WITH EACH SEARCH
-Player submits list of keyword
-PHP splits the list
-Build a SQL statement that will select all the GameIDs that match the keywords and other search terms.  (a combination of joins and unions)
-Return list to player


The reason I like this idea the best is because it's completely neutral and low maintenance once setup.  Anything specific to a new genre can be listed in the keywords.  If I wanted to start a new game using the "BareBones Fantasy" system that was based on a campaign of evil smurfs set on a futuristic magi-tech space craft, I could list the appropriate terms.  Someone searching for smurfs would be able to find the game.  I wouldn't need to bastardize the game name or system fields to make the odd subject searchable.  (BTW, Papa Surf would wear a deep crimson and have a goatee)

---

EDIT:  Actually, it looks even easier.  MySQL support a "MATCH (col) AGAINST (expr [search_modifier])" syntax.  It would only need to be a keywords field added to the existing table of games.
Full-Text Search: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refma...fulltext-search.html
Boolean operators: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refma...ulltext-boolean.html
This message was last edited by the user at 18:28, Thu 30 May 2013.

In reply to ninthbit (msg # 33):

I'll object to several of these.  The point is not 'oh hey, that's not a genre, ditch it!'  The point is rather to include what gets used, and what lets people find what they're looking for.

Firstly, Anime.  If you've ever wandered around the site, you would notice how many games are in the Anime genre.  When I look for an Anime game, I know exactly what kind of game I'm going to get, and it is distinctly different from anything else on the site.  Simultaneously, this is often used to indicate something set in a particular anime, which is pretty popular.

Arena is definitely one to keep.  It is a distinct type of game, with a distinct style of play, and a lot of people want to be able to quickly find Arena games.  This definitely deserves to stay.

Super Hero is likewise something that should stay (though perhaps renamed!).  Again, it denotes a specific style of game, and the themes and setting elements to be found in it.  Again, that's the whole point of these tags.

Western is a little trickier, but I still think it belongs, as it describes a certain feel that a game would have.  I would not be terribly upset if it were ditched, however.

Sci-Fi is NOT the same as future, as arkrim pointed out.  Sci-fi refers to level of technology, not time frame, and it is entirely possible to have Historical Sci-fi, or Fantasy Sci-fi.

I would not be inclined to include Urban, as it seems to have too much overlap with Contemporary to me, and other than that, doesn't seem (by your own standards) to be a genre, not even something that would tell people what to expect from the game.

Space I wouldn't complain about having, but I don't think we need it.  It overlaps enough with Sci-fi that I feel it unnecessary.

Speculative...  well, isn't EVERY piece of fiction ever 'speculative'?  That's the whole thing that makes fiction fiction, as opposed to historical fact: the What If..? factor.  If you like to keep it for the alternate history, many contemporary games do that anyway, and almost all sci-fi contemporary of fantasy contemporary do.

On another note, I don't see much point in adding a Solo tag.  If a game is a Solo game, it is generally already full upon creation, and there is no point in having other people find it.  This is not always the case, but it seems to me the general idea.

Finally, as to the whole keyword thing, let me simply say this: I am not inclined to vote up anything that provides more work for players and GMs without an obvious benefit (to the people having to do the work).  Make it optional, and it simply becomes pointless.  Make it mandatory, and it's slightly less pointless, but aggravates everybody.  Why create more work for the users of rpol, when there's already a system in place to do what we're trying to do?

As jmkool points out, we are not trying to decide how valid these genres are in the field of literature, cinema or TV.  That is, quite frankly, largely irrelevant.

What is relevant is whether the average RPoL user cam select a set of tags (let's call them "tags", then we don't have to worry about whether it's really a genre or merely a sub-genre pretender) and use them to find a game on RPoL that he wants to play.

In order to maximise the likelihood of that, we use checkboxes and don't allow free text entry, because it makes it certain that the game creator and the person searching for a game are on the same page with regards to how a particular tag is spelt, and what it's called.

Again, see my examples above about the effect of variations in naming and spelling on the usefulness of a search function.

Would setting up an RPOL poll asking for game tags be feasible/helpful? Maybe have the current list and ask for anything new? Just a suggestion.

@Arkrim
First, I should have said that many people infer Future from Sci-Fi, not that it's implied.  The sender of a message implies, the reciever is the one that infers.  In any case, I have a hard time thinking of classical or current sci-fi works that don't take place in the future at the time of the works creation.  Wikipedia seems to mostly agree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction:

I'm not saying you can't have Sci-Fi in the past, I'm saying the term makes many people think of a futuristic setting.  This is why I added "Speculative" to my suggested list.

Personally, I see the two terms like this:
Sci-Fi = "What if X happened tommorow"  ("what if robots became sapient")Speculative = "What if Y happened instead of X" ("What if the internal combustion engine was never discovered")

When Wells and Verne were writing, they created works of Sci-Fi.  They saw the potential of technology and wrote about where it may go.  If I were to expand on their works, now that science has disproved or surpassed many of their ideas, my writing is a previous era about an alternate technology would be better described as Speculative than Science.

---

@jmkool
Overall, the goal is to make the system the most flexable and user friendly so everyone can find what they are looking for.  My suggestion includes two parts.  They first doesn't work without the second.

To address your points:
For Anime, The reason I would remove it is because it's an improper use of the word.  Even Manga would be a stretch, at least it's a print format.  But in any case, you can't really say it describes the setting.  Vampire Hunter D is substantially diffrent than AKIRA or Bubblegum Crisis.  Lets not even touch any technicalities with Pokimon and DragonBall.  I think we can all agree those two deserve their own class of hell.

Moving on, how is Arena diffrent than Strategy?  In an Arena game, you are typically forgoing Roleplay and instead focusing on the "Roll-play" of a particular system.  Other then the mechanics of the game system, how is a DnD Arena catagorically diffrent than Magic or Pokimon?  They are all systems of trying to build something that can defeat your opponent.

Super Hero I could let by.  It's a pretty broad catagory.  Maybe Super Power would be a better choice though.  Would cover games with a more "evil" tone as well.

I didn't mean to kill Western, my bad there.

Sci-Fi (see above, this post started as a reply to Arkrim)  But you saying that Space and Sci-Fi overlap so heavly really just proves that Sci-Fi reads as future.

Strike Urban.  You're right, it's the same a contemporary.

I wrote Speculative, but maybe "Alternate History" is more appropriate.

I agree with the -1 on a Solo tag.  That's specifically a game that doesn't need to be found.

The benifit with an open keywords field is that you can search for a very particular term easily.  The list doesn't need to be changed over time.  ANY subject is availible.  If we keep with the checkbox system with all it's entries, it's only going to grow with time.  The checkboxes should be general sub-genre indepenant terms, while the keywords can quickly narrow the search to your specific flavor.  For the players it's almost no work.  Check a few boxes like normal, and then put in a keyword or two.  For the GM it's only a small bit more, they need to put in a complete list of relevent terms... once.  Doesn't seem to hard to me.

@BBR
I'm not saying one over the other, I'm suggesting a combination of the two.  A text field allows the less popular topics to still be easily found.  Yes, there may be some spelling variations, but nothing says the GM can't list them as well.  It works on any normal search engine, I don't see why we wouldn't use it here for our game "search engine".

In reply to ninthbit (msg # 39):

One obvious reason that the GM can't list all the possible variant spellings of his self-chosen keywords is that those keywords would be listed alongside the game's name in the Main Menu search, and alongside the game ad in the Wanted - Players menu (as well as in the ad itself).  There isn't really space in those locations for six or seven variations on a keyword.

Instead of the game ad info box saying "The game is located in the Historical, Scifi categories." it potentially becomes, "The game is located in the Historical, Scifi, Steampunk, Steam-punk, Steam punk, Steampumk, Steam age scifi, Steamworks, Clockpunk, Victorian speculative fiction, Bob's cool games categories."

And yes, they have to be listed in those locations, because the current tags are listed, by user request, to assist people who are simply browsing for games (especially in W-P) to spot those that might interest them.  Not listing the tags/keywords would remove that ability to spot games "at a glance".

Edit: And time travel would fall under scifi, but doesn't necessarily take place in the future (12 Monkeys takes place, for the most part, in the same time period as the movie was released).  Dr Who often deals with alien attacks and plots on contemporary Earth.  Then there is a certain scifi movie series which starts with the words, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... "
This message was last edited by the user at 21:04, Thu 30 May 2013.

There would be no reason to list the keywords on the main menu screen.  It would be a separate field.

Example Search Box:
http://sadpanda.us/images/1633258-EBSAGSH.png

The tags would still function as they did before.  In the Players - Wanted thread, the search box would be of a similar design as the main menu.  The listed games would still show the three tags selected by the GM.  If we would display keywords anywhere, I would think it would be within the advert itself.

Example Advert:
http://sadpanda.us/images/1633252-UU3FIJN.png

I think you've misunderstood...

The whole point of displaying all the selected tags in the search results (and in the W-P menu) is that the player can see what the game is about, at a glance, without their having to open up every game (or W-P ad) to see what categories it falls under.

In W-P, this was a user request - people got fed up with opening up ads with interesting (or just uninformative) titles, only to find that the game was Scifi and not Fantasy (which is what they were looking for).

Unless the GM entered keywords are also displayed (and there isn't really space to do that), then that doesn't work.

Say, for example, a site user is interested in a Historical game, but not interested in Steampunk.  He selects the tag, "Historical" and gets a list of every result that has been tagged with that.  If the search results from either the Main Menu or W-P list only the predefined tags, then he's going to have to open up every game (or ad in the case of W-P) to check if the GM has also entered the keyword, "Steampunk" and/or its variations.

Five minutes later he reports the Search function as bugged because it doesn't show all of the tags and keywords, and requests that it be fixed because he doesn't want to waste time clicking on every link only to find out that he's not interested in that game.

So, still a definite -1 to user defined keywords.

Using your current example, this same player currently has no way to limit his search. With keyword he could exclude words as well.  Historical is a check box in either case, but adding "-steampunk" as keyword would filter all entries that include that term.  Let's sy he preferred roman history.  He would check historical then enter "+roman rome -steampunk -ww*". This way he only gets games tagged historical and have the keyword roman or rome, but not steampunk or ww1 ww2 wwi or wwii.

A modern "war on terror" game could tag as contemporary and then search "terror iraq afghanistan"

Using SQL match, the + serves as a boolean AND, requiring the word.  The - prefix is a NOT, and just listing a word acts as an OR.

Unfortunately free-text entries are unlikely to happen, for several reasons.

Firstly, especially compared with a list, they're terribly inefficient.  Storage is around 10-20 times larger (per entry), and matching/searching has to use a much more complex index.  Searching on text is also only efficient if it can match from the start of the text, if you want a search for "fiction" to show up a game tagged with "Victorian speculative fiction" then it can't even use the index at all, and that's woeful.

Though a little extreme, the example bbr gave goes from 1-3 bytes of data with 1-3 indexes to 132 bytes of data with 11 text index entries.  That's an increase of 44, 88 or 132 times (depending on how many genres the game initially had tagged).

More importantly; without a fixed set of genres (like we have with the game systems) then we're just going to end up with a disorganised mess.  People with their own spelling, their own terminology, leaving a fragmented and missmatch list of genres and non-genres.  The example W-P screen shot had, to my eye, a mess of keywords.

We're talking about changing genres from a small group of quick and easy tags to a massive miss-mash of anything goes.  It's a complete change in direction, purpose and functionality.

---

In reply to Zag24 (msg # 32):

An interesting idea, but I must admit that I'm not inclined to sign myself up for something that requires constant monitoring, collation, and manipulation.

---

We could have additional keywords just a free text entry field, not searchable on, not displayed on the main menu and not displayed in W-P searches.. only visible in the W-P game summary, as in the screen shot, but then what's the point?  You're already reading the advert, surely it'd say "steampunk" somewhere at the start.. if it didn't already in the title!

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In reply to rogar308 (msg # 38):

A poll wouldn't work as it has to have defined choices, we're after the choices.

---

I think I understood that after several reads, but aren't you trying to convince me of something we've pretty much all already agreed upon?

---

You selfish sod!  Consider me reprimanded.

---

As to the actual genres (now that I've written myself back into the discussion):

"How is Arena diffrent than Strategy?"  Arena was asked for multiple times after Strategy was already in place (or visa versa, I can't quite remember), so I think they're sufficiently different in users' minds to warrant us separating them.  If we come up with something that encompasses both, then fine, but if we keep one as-is then I think the other has to be present as well.

Holocaust, et al:  Apocalypse has a religious bend - out.  Cataclysm is a violent upheaval encompassing social, political, and physical (earthquake, flood) - seems good.

Monster, to me, invokes thoughts of kobolds and ogres, not Vampire the Masquerade.  Supernatural would, imho, be the more appropriate replacement for vampire and werewolf.

Superhuman - Only the one race?

Keep in mind we shouldn't just remove a genre, we should aim to merge and/or replace.

I still vote -1 on that.  It looks like too much work for too little payoff.  Lets say there IS a Roman-era war game out there.  So I use your search.  Problem, is, GM gave it the keyword 'Romans' and figured that was enough... so I don't find it.  And trust me, there is no WAY I'm listing every possible variation, either as a GM or a player.  Too much work, too unreliable.

But since all of the tags are currently listed right there, in the search results, he can immediately see which games have tags that don't interest him.

Boolean searching ?  -1 from me ... I want to just click a box or two and browse what comes up.  I like things simple.

And as bigbadron says, what if your erstwhile tagger used clockpunk or steampunk or steanpunk etc etc for his custom keyword ?  Bang, no match.

I echo others - there's already a facility to include custom keywords in the game title and search on that, so it's a lot of work for little result.

---

Personally, when I look for a game the most important things for me are system and posting rate.  If I'm playing D&D I know it's Fantasy. If I'm playing Traveller, I know it's Scifi.  If I'm playing Paranoia, I know the Computer is my friend.

And yes, I know, there's exceptions to every rule ... I'm sure there are games being played out there using D&D rules for games set in historical Medieval times with Human only players ... but I think it's a fair assumption that there's more with their roots set firmly in Fantasy.

On the other side of the coin we have systems such as GURPS which are not genre specific, and Freeform which could be anything.  These are the ones that need GM's to narrow things down for potential players.

I'm less flexible on system than I am on genre - I'd certainly consider that D&D historical Medieval game with Human only players, but wouldn't even look at the same in Freeform.  I likes my rules, I does.

By the same token, I'm equally as inflexible on posting rates - I can't manufacture more time to spend on the computer from nowhere, so if a game requires daily posting, I'm not going to apply, no matter how intriguing the premise - I can't meet the posting expectations and I don't expect other players or GM to work around me.

So ... I'm looking for System and Posting rate, not Genre.  I'm sure others have the same search criteria as me ... and equally sure even more others have different criteria.

System we have, I can search on system.  Posting rate I can't ... but to get that in means revisiting the tagging option, which is probably not going to happen. :<

In reply to ninthbit (msg # 39):
"Such as" are important words you missed in your own quote. Their context means that the following examples (futuristic stuff) are just that: only examples. They are not the core of the genre nor the exclusive reflection of it. No matter how you may WANT to view it with a limited perspective, Science Fiction and Futuristic Technology are NOT the same thing and they do NOT imply the same thing. One is merely a sub-category of the other among many other sub-categories such as steampunk, dieselpunk, cyberpunk, godzilla-like monster games, scifi fantasy in all its many forms, alternate realities, dimension hoppers, time travelers and so on and so forth. That is the only point I'm making. Keep Future and the other eras as separate categories so people can still mix-match Scifi with varying eras to describe a sub-genre and you're good to go.

---

In reply to jase (msg # 44): (incoming humor)
How unkind! Good sir, I must disagree with your assessment of Monster and Superhuman.

For one, "Monster" has always been a term to refer to dangerous non-human creatures or humans who have grossly inhuman or immoral qualities/behaviors. The term is so generic and versatile, leaving it out of a possible genre tags is a sin and you risk your immortal soul in doing so. Besides [Monster + Horror] can easily describe typical Vampire or Werewolf games. And if you're specifically looking for a more World of Darkness type theme: [Horror + Intrigue] or [Action/Adventure + Horror] or even [Horror + Contemporary] (or Horror + Intrigue + Contemporary).

Secondly, superhuman itself does not specifically limit itself to the human race. In fact, it EXCLUSIVELY applies to non-human attributes that exceed human capacity.
But if you really want to be picky and unique, you could always go with SUPERHUMANOID, DEMIHUMAN, or even METAHUMAN but they may not be as well recognized as SUPERHUMAN.

Also jase, I'd like your opinion on my earlier proposal. Is the idea sound? Replace the existing sub-genres (just the overly specific ones) with more generic genres so that more possible combinations open up. Even if you disagree with my proposed replacement genres, is the idea something you'd be willing to explore?

I honestly thought Monster games meant Godzilla and friends from Monster Island. Maybe the "werewolf", dracula etc singular type things where there was just one monster character and everyone else was a human dealing with the monster of the week.

I'm still in the... as much as I would like Steampunk to be a genre... that there is a finite list of genre of staff selected wording + open text w/free search in the game name.

How big that list is... 20 ish (like we have now), 30 ish? 40 ish? well in that ball park. Not much more than that.

Oh.. we also have another fixed list in the Game Systems. Thats a pretty long list and the staff generally add to it when you actually point out a name published game.

Yes, the main difference there is that when somebody asks for a system to be added to the list, the system name is fixed before it's added - everybody knows that the system has a specific name, which appears on the cover of the books (or on the pdf).  All very clean cut.  And, as you mentioned, we retain the final say on what goes in that list.

Genre names seem to be much more nebulous.  One man's "cyberpunk" is another man's "techno-noir thriller".

It's a little like all those bands that try to make themselves look innovative and original by eschewing an existing label - "No, we're not a heavy metal band at all, what we play is speed thrash death metal.  Entirely different thing."
This message was last edited by the user at 08:00, Fri 31 May 2013.

Systems are also.. well, systems.  They're cut and dry - they either exist or they don't.

Genres are open to interpretation and personal opinion.  There'd be an elongated discussion about whether a newly proposed "genre" should be added to the list every time.



You don't need my approval any more than anyone elses.  (c;  As to what should or shouldn't be on the list; I'm just one opinion.

I think it makes sense to rationalise what we've got (I'm sure I've already said as much), I'm just mindful of things being made too generic.  "Monster" to mean VtM and WtA (etc) springs to mind of something that doesn't sit well with me.

Superhero/Superhuman -- why not just Supers?

I don't know how representative I am or how much an outlier, but when I'm looking for a new game to apply to, I just watch 'Wanted-Players' and 'Game Proposals, Input, and Advice.' That is, I almost never use 'Browse/Search the Games' as I find it rather inefficient for my purpose. The Topic, Genre, and Game System fields generally give a clear indication of what might interest me.

Monster makes me think of creatures -- Godzilla or the creature from the black lagoon. It does not make me think of supernaturals that can appear to be mostly human (vampires, werewolves, and so on). Maybe it's because monster brings to mind a "thing" that hunts on instinct, more like an animal than a person. Vampires and werewolves have been portrayed that way in some stories, but in others they have a superior intellect and live and work alongside humans. Also, in some games, the beings that you are labeling as "monsters" are actually the heroes.

If you want to apply monster both to supernatural creatures and evil humans, such as serial killers, than the word doesn't have much value for our purposes. The term monster becomes synonymous with horror -- either man-made or supernatural. If you aren't going to make a distinction, than you might as well just use horror.

I, obviously, think it would be worthwhile to make the distinction.



If I want a game about the evil things humans are capable of, I could look under horror and skip anything also tagged as supernatural. If I want a game about werewolves or vampires but I'm more interested in angst and drama than actual horror, then I could look for supernatural and skip horror.

Ok... a generic searchable field is out.  Moving on... Then the question is tags.  Are we looking for broad categories that don't really change with popular trends, or are we looking to build a list of the hottest buzzwords a player may be searching for?

If it's broad categories, then so far I would choose the following tags:
Alternate History   Comedy    Contemporary      Discussion
Fantasy             Future    Historical        Horror
Interstellar/Space  Medieval  Post Cataclysmic  RPoL Forums
Sci-Fi              Strategy  Super Powers      Supernatural
Western

If we are looking for a list of buzz words, then I'm fine with the current list, just add Steampunk, replace Vampire/Werewolf with Supernatural, and drop Pokemon.

Not flavour of the month buzzwords, no.  Otherwise in a little while the whole steam/magi/clock/stone-punk argument will start up again.

However, I notice you missed Anime from your list.  Yes, I understand that you don't believe it's a valid tag, but anime tends to have a distinct story-telling style of its own.

Besides, if there is an Anime category, it makes it easier for me to avoid those games.

Also you missed Arena.  As jase has said, Arena was specifically requested by a large number of people, so taking it out would probably annoy an equally large number of people.  Strategy and Arena do not necessarily mean the same thing (as was argued at the time the second category was added).

I would suggest dropping Alternate History, which can be covered by Historical (with the possible addition of Scifi) and Interstellar/Space, which is covered by Scifi (or by Contemporary, or possibly Historical, if you're dealing with real world space programs).

I'm also not sure that we need both Future and Scifi, but I'll leave it in there for now.

I'd also add an eastern/Oriental category, to go alongside the Western one.  And a Punk category for all those stories where cutting edge developments (for whichever era) hit the mean streets and are used in ways that their creator never really intended.

Anime             Arena          Comedy        Contemporary
Discussion        Eastern        Fantasy       Future
Historical        Horror         Medieval      Post Cataclysmic
Punk              RPoL Forums    Sci-Fi        Strategy
Super Powers      Supernatural   Western

Again, while you may think some of these things don't need to be included, what we're aiming for is categories which can describe people's choices in games, not reflect academic opinions on what represents a valid genre in mainstream media.  As I said before, think of them as "tags" rather than "genres".

And a rethink...

Ancient           Anime          Arena         Comedy
Contemporary      Discussion     Eastern       Fantasy
Future            Historical     Horror        Medieval
Post Cataclysmic  Punk           RPoL Forums   Sci-Fi
Strategy          Super Powers   Supernatural  Western

Throw "Ancient" in there for all your Greco/Roman (and earlier) needs, and to complete the set:- Ancient, Historical, Contemporary, Future.

No Pokemon/Digimon in there now, of course, but it's covered by the Anime and Arena tags.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:34, Fri 31 May 2013.

I'm always kind of surprised at how passionate this topic always gets!  It's kind of fun, I like organizing things, but wow.

But I did want to ask, Eastern vs Western relative to where?

Versus those snobbish people who decided they were the center of the world.  They also have us counting our time on how different it is from theirs, you know. :P

I'm for 'Cataclysmic' as opoosed to 'Post Cataclismic'.  The latter specifically implies that the game is after the event.  The former merely implies an association, and could be after, during, or even before, with players dealing with an impending doom.

Ok... You've won me over on Anime.  You have a very strong point to justify it.

I'd also say we make it official and call them Tags instead of Genres.  The only other one I can think of is "Spy\Mystery".  It's been requested a few times too.

link to a message in another game
link to a message in another game
link to a message in another game

Yes, because thinking about it, RPoL Forums definitely isn't a genre.  :)

I've been semi-following this discussion as it's something I've given thought to on and off.  I find that I mostly approve of this list:



A few comments; what about something along the lines of a 'realistic' tag?  Before you say contemporary covers this, it could easily be used in unison with historical, western, etc. to signify that this is something that is intended to stick close to reality/facts rather than going off into sci-fi or fantasy or whatever.
I'm not entirely sure I understand what 'punk' means, but if you think it would solve the steampunk/cyberpunk/whateverpunk argument I'll +1 it.  I suppose I feel like the word alone doesn't actually mean much of anything in this context, but if it will help people find the games they want to play in, I won't object to it, since that's what the tags are supposed to be for, after all.
I might agree with Cataclysmic, though perhaps as an addition rather than a change from Post Cataclysmic, since I think games that would be tagged as one or the other would have definitively different styles.  A tag like this could possibly cover things like games taking place during major wars on a planetary or larger scale as well.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:09, Fri 31 May 2013.

As i said up there, when I suggested it, "And a Punk category for all those stories where cutting edge developments (for whichever era) hit the mean streets and are used in ways that their creator never really intended."

Cyberpunk and Steampunk stories often seem to involve people using the latest technology (well, latest for their milieu) to achieve their goal, usually in some innovative or ingenious manner.

In reply to jase (msg # 51):
I wasn't looking for your approval as much as your opinion, but I'm glad to know you agree with the basic idea. ^_^

I know some people have a more Twilight-like view of vampires and werewolves where we associate them as people with supernatural powers rather than monsters and undead creatures of the night. In either case, the monster category is more generic and would be a better choice than keeping both vampire and werewolf. Supernatural is also a good choice. I'm pretty good with either.

---

I'd second that. That's probably the best list I've seen so far. I would like to offer some possible suggestions though:

POST CATACLYSMIC -> CATACLYSMIC or APOCALYPTIC
If we change this to just CATACLYSMIC, it can also apply to games that revolve around the currently ongoing destruction of the world. Movies like Armageddon, Deep Impact, The Day After Tomorrow and so on and so forth have stories like this. I also don't see a problem with APOCALYPTIC. Even though it technically implies religious connotations, it is much better recognized as the fictional genre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...-apocalyptic_fiction

And since the whole point in this is easy recognition for people to find games, apocalyptic makes more sense. Unless of course, we specifically have another agenda in mind?

COMEDY -> LIGHTHEARTED
If we change this to LIGHTHEARTED, it would also include games that are more family-friendly or less serious rather than strictly comedic games. It would also be more inclusive. Not a big deal, but just a possibility.

CONTEMPORARY -> MODERN
I don't care either way, but this is just a possibility to consider. "Modern" just sounds cooler to me and its a faster read and more easily recognized word/genre.

MORE SPACE?
IF there is any possibility for more genre slots, I'd like to see Intrigue/Mystery, Monster, Victorian/Renaissance and Speculative added/considered.

But other than that I'd +1 bigbadron's/Silver_Cat's new list.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:16, Fri 31 May 2013.

So we currently have:

Ancient         Anime           Arena           Cataclysmic
Contemporary    Discussion      Eastern         Fantasy
Future          Historical      Horror          Lighthearted
Medieval        Punk            RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi
Strategy        Super Powers    Supernatural    Western

Is Spy/Mystery a no then?

Edit: Corrected spelling
This message was last edited by the user at 19:09, Fri 31 May 2013.

In reply to ninthbit (msg # 64):
Lighthearted is an actual word. You don't have to turn it into a phrase by adding a space. Although a dash works as well if it suits anyone's fancy (Light-hearted).

I suggested that if we could squeeze another row in (big IF there) we should add Mystery among a few other things. But the list as is pretty much has the core genres that I think will be most used.

Corrected the spelling...  As for additional slots, we actually need 3 more, or to drop 1 to make it look ideal.  The existing window only has three entries on the first row.

Not as far as I'm concerned.  Though I'd probably be inclined to separate them.  Not every mystery is an espionage story, and not every spy story focusses on mystery - some (I'm looking at you Mister Bond) are more aimed at gadgets, guns and girls with improbable names.

So...

                Ancient         Anime           Arena
Cataclysmic     Contemporary    Discussion      Eastern
Fantasy         Future          Historical      Horror
Lighthearted    Medieval        Mystery         Punk
RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi          Spy             Strategy
Super Powers    Supernatural    Western

I like this list. I wonder if Future is actually covered by sci-fi? Can you have a Future setting that is not Sci-Fi? That's the only one I question but, I'm not strongly opposed to it either.

I offer you Jack Vance's Dying Earth books - a basic cornerstone of original D&D, and the source of the game's magic system - a fantasy series set millions of years into the future, when the sun is flickering and fading.  Not really science fiction - there's deadly swordsmen, cunning thieves, magic, demons, strange women with mystical powers, wizards who could send a man to the far side of the world with a few words...

Future Fantasy.

One reason I didn't push the future = scifi button.  :)
This message was last edited by the user at 21:38, Fri 31 May 2013.

You could also have a game set in the near future.  Overpopulation and fiscal instability cause a collapse in governments.  (Future+Cataclysmic).  Same or lower tech levels, not really sci-fi.

Future could also address things like 5 years into the future. A new war at XXX hotspot.

Oh yay, people liked my Lighthearted idea. Nobody up for replacing Contemporary with Modern or Cataclysmic with Apocalyptic (since that's the technical term for the genre)? Oh well, take what I can get. :P

Yeah, this list looks fantastic. Somebody pinch me, if moderators are actually considering changing the genre list to this one, I'll be super-psyched.

At least one moderator likes the list.  :)

I think the Apocalyptic thing was addressed earlier - msg #44.  Apocalypse has religious connotations, while Cataclysm doesn't.

I'm entirely neutral on the Modern vs Contemporary question, though I will mention that Modern is easier to spell.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 73):
I actually commented on that earlier too, since it is only a technicality but is not how the word is actually used. In fact, "Post-Apocalyptic" is the ACTUAL term used to describe the genre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...-apocalyptic_fiction

Even libraries and book shopping sites use the term "post-apocalyptic" to describe the genre. It is the most universally recognized term for the genre, worldwide. This is why I'd suggested we rethink the use of words based on what people will recognize and use, rather than just trying to eliminate the possibility of religious connotations.

Not sure if that post was noticed. I don't think it matters either way, I just know that "Apocalyptic" will be better-recognized than "Cataclysmic" though I'm sure either way people will eventually figure it out. I'm just suggesting we DON'T go against the grain on this one since it really doesn't help us.

Either way I'm still happy with the list. ^_^
This message was last edited by the user at 22:41, Fri 31 May 2013.

What happens to all the currently existing games that are already tagged?  Especially, obviously, those that are using tags that will no longer exist?

Do those tags just quietly vanish?  Should the GMs get a notice that they're gone?  Should we have a day where all the tags get wiped clean and the first time each GM logs into a given game after that they're dropped into a one-time Edit Game Details screen with a notice that the tags have been revamped and need to be re-flagged?  Will I ever end a sentence without a question mark again?

Will these and many other questions be answered next week?

I imagine that none of this will take effect until the next RuBB release, at which point their will likely be an announcement listing the changes jase has made.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 67):

I'd add Victorian, perhaps?  It was suggested above by someone else, and it's as distinctive as Medieval or Western.

Also, I don't think we need Spy AND Mystery.  Just mystery seems enough to me.

As arkrim says, I am also of the opinion that 'Apocalyptic' strikes the brain in the right way more readily than 'Cataclysmic' does, but either one is an apt name, so I'm good with either.

So, here's my take, and as it still has an empty slot, I'm open to voting for another tag.

                Ancient         Anime           Arena
Cataclysmic     Discussion      Eastern         Fantasy
Future          Historical      Horror          Lighthearted
Medieval        Modern          Mystery         Punk
RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi          Strategy        Super Powers
Supernatural    Victorian       Western

How about merging Spy and Mystery to just "Intrigue"?  Not perfect, I know, but it gives us 1 more category to play with.  "Category", btw, is what they used to be called.  If genre is deemed inappropriate then I'll probably revert to that (avoiding using "tags" to circumvent confusion with character tags).

Modern vs Contemporary - I can't find the thread, but I'm sure when being introduced the argument was made as to why it shouldn't be "modern".  It certainly is easier to spell, but thankfully you never have to do that!

Cataclysmic vs Apocalyptic - I'm just mindful of the (secondary) connotations of the latter.  I'm perfectly comfortable with apocalyptic, just not sure if everyone else will be.

Super Powers - It may just be me... but does it sound like, in avoiding other terms, we've just ended up with a forced matching of words?  Was it changed from superhuman because of my query about the human part (which I thought was sufficiently debunked).


Going back to previous requests (summarised in msg 19), we could add one (or two if we merge Spy/Mystery) of;

Drama, Pulp, Speculative, Survivor, Weird, Romance, Dark/Noir, Wuxia.  Dropped the ones I think are far too niche (or just didn't like, 'cos I'm spiteful like that).

Wuxia could probably be included with Eastern (calling it "Eastern/Wuxia").  Another category crammed into the pile!

Survivor is probably my favourite from there, for what it's worth.

---

I'll have to figure out which genres can silently be merged to another, write some SQL statements to handle that, and then figure out what to do with the rest.  It'll coincide with the next code update and an announcement will be made in the forum of the same (similar) name.

I would add in Drama/Romance, though it would be nice if we had a single name for it.  I've browsed enough games to wish this category existed.

My version did drop Spy, though I'd be cool wi calling mystery Intrigue.

I prefer Apocalyptic, but I'm totally on board with not offending anybody.

I'd call it either Superhuman or Superpowers.  Looks better as one word.

I'd be good with Superhuman (not every superhero is human, but they do all tend to be superhuman) and Apocalyptic.

Drama/Romance could be merged into a single category - FallingMorning, who mentioned it originally in this thread said

So just call it Drama, since that can cover romance as well.  Or Relationship, since that would be what it was dealing with.

Blending Spy and Mystery back together and call it Intrigue would also work.

I'd go for Drama, then.

'Eastern,' by itself, would take in a far wider scope and range, I think.  Games with an ancient-Egyptian flavour?  Historical + Eastern.  A magical romp through a storybook Persia?  Fantasy + Eastern.  A twist-and-turn filled game of Chinese mystery?  Intrigue + Eastern.  A breath-taking tale of the hardships and heroism of Feudal-era Japan?  Drama+Eastern.  Not every combination, of course, but it maybe works?

I also prefer Drama, Intrigue and Apocalyptic; Contemporary works just as well by me as Modern, Superhuman seems to give all the right implications, and I'd adore to see a Survival category.

Edit:  On a side note to address the religious aspects of Apocalypse vs Cataclysm:  Cataclysm originally referenced the great flood in Genesis, didn't it?  So aren't they both Biblical?

Edit the second:  The Oxford Dictionary's entry on 'Cataclysm' http://oxforddictionaries.com/...an_english/cataclysm
This message was last edited by the user at 06:16, Sat 01 June 2013.

Hmmm... seems like most words for the end of the world have religious undertones.  Maybe we should just call the category, "DOOOOOM!!!!"?  :p

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 83):

I love that so much.

From the last few posts it appears that most everyone is on board with this:

Ancient         Anime           Apocalyptic     Arena
Discussion      Drama           Eastern         Fantasy
Future          Historical      Horror          Intrigue
Lighthearted    Medieval        Modern          Punk
RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi          Strategy        Survivor
Superhuman      Supernatural    Victorian       Western

• Added Drama, Survivor and Victorian
• Changed Cataclysmic to Apocalyptic
• Changed Super Powers back to Superhuman
• Merged Spy and Mystery into Intrigue

I think all we're really missing are Action/Adventure and Speculative, but not sure how badly we need those.

What do you all think? This starting to look pretty solid?

The brainstorming in this thread has been fantastic, I just want you guys to know that. Really, you're all geniuses. In fact, if those goons at Apple can be called geniuses, you all must be super geniuses.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:44, Sat 01 June 2013.

Yeah Victorian!


What about Action which opposes Drama and Intrigue

In reply to Brygun (msg # 86):

I think the list is full at this point. We'd have to start merging or removing to add Action/Adventure.

I wonder if we could merge Arena with Strategy? If we did that then maybe we could add Action/Adventure (or just Action or just Adventure or whatever).

Not sure how much support that idea would get, though.

+1 to Categories (vs Genres/Tags)

-1 to Lighthearted.  I likes my Comedy !  Shakespeare wrote Comedies, not Lighthearteds !  Nor will you find a Lighthearted section in your DVD shop.  Besides Lighthearted sounds more like a tone than a Category ... if we have Lighthearted, then do we need Dark & Gritty and or Deadly Serious too ?

I want to say -1 to Eastern cos it completely changes the context of Western !  Eastern is ninjas and samurai, Western is cowboys and cattle-rustlers.  Eastern and Western turns it all rather global/political.  BUT I agree we need a Category for our ninjas and samurai ... would just Oriental suffice ?  Could combine Wuxia with that if necessary.

Definitely Post Cataclysm. I like the Post bit too (fighting to avoid a cataclysm means it doesn't happen if you're successful) but remove it if you will - I can live without it.  Post Catastrophe would do, but is no better.  Apocalypse and Holocaust both have other connotations (moreso than Cataclysm).  I'll accept Psst Disaster if none of the others want to play.

I think Spy and Mystery are sufficiently different Categories, and Intrigue doesn't really work for mem - like Drama, all games should have Intrigue.  Thriller doesn't really do it either.  But perfectly happy with Spy/Mystery as a combined Category ... are there so many of either games on here that it'd really be a problem ?  And look at all the variation the Fantasy and Sci-Fi Categories have to cover.

Superhero/Superhuman/Super Powers - meh, there's insufficient difference between the terms to matter - any or all are acceptable.

And I like bigbadron's suggestion of Relationship to cover a multitude of sins. ;>

MY list:

                Ancient          Anime           Arena
Comedy          Discussion       Fantasy         Future
Historical      Horror           Medieval        Modern
Oriental        Post Cataclysm   Punk            Relationship
RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi           Spy/Mystery     Strategy
Super Powers    Supernatural     Victorian       Western

As mentioned, happy with Cataclysm or Disaster instead of Post Cataclysm and a combined Oriental/Wuxia.  Also don't mind running with Contemporary instead of Modern if anyone remembers why we went Contemporary in the first instance.

DOOM! sounds like an interesting idea. Then again, I'm good with Cataclysm, Apocalypse, Catastrophe, Disaster, End of the World. The only problem with DOOM! (however many O's you choose to use) is that it might end up over-represented, added to things for no real reason.

Personally, I'm not against 'Holocaust' because of any religious or fiery connotations, though I suppose some might be, but rather because of the (relatively) recent history in association with World War II. Another word that isn't found in a lot of movies and books, fiction and non, associated with a very specific series of events just seems like a better choice than one that is associated with such.

As for merging Arena and Strategy, I think that's been discussed multiple times in this thread, so the reasons for keeping Arena are readily available.

I'm not sure how to fit in Action/Adventure. Of note, though, with the list arkrim posted up, it didn't take into account the empty 'label' space, if that is kept around.

Oriental does seem a better choice, in relation to Western, to keep the true theme of each front and center, and so you don't have someone arguing for Northern, Southern, and Central a few months or years down the line.

I would balk pretty badly at Oriental; where I'm from it's considered a racial slur.  Not as bad as some, but certainly insulting.

BUT!  'Where I'm from' doesn't likely constitute more than maybe a tiny amount of RPoL's population, so even if I'd be super gunshy about it I don't know that I can make sufficient argument against it.  I believe, in the late 70's, is about when it started to become an insult but I wasn't around then so I couldn't really say; I also don't know if it's at all widespread or just still lingers in my area for some reason.

edit: My timeframe on that is off, I think.  I'm trying to remember the book, or the author, but I can't get my brain around it.  It was essentially a long critique on all the racist notions gathered together under the banner of Oriental.  Google is failing me, or I'm failing it, I'm not sure.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:59, Sat 01 June 2013.

-1 for Victorian.  Too specific, and too narrow a time frame.  If we allow Victorian, then there is an argument for adding Regency, 14th Century, 15th Century, Elizabethan, etc...

And removing Victorian gives space to add Action/Adventure (though that's probably a default setting for an awful lot of games).

LIGHTHEARTED(+1) / COMEDY(-1)
I'm still in support for lighthearted, like most everyone else who seems to have commented on it so far. I like comedy, but Lighthearted is more generic and opens up the possibility of people using it to describe any lighthearted game whether it's centered specifically for comedy or just family friendly type games. And if we really need a "gritty" category, one could always argue we change HORROR to DARK. *shrugs*

EASTERN(+1) / ORIENTAL(-1)
I have to agree with Lunaris. Oriental has too many racial slurs and is far more specific than Eastern. Not only do we run a huge risk of offending people, we also exclude a lot of other Eastern-styled games that are not necessarily taking place in the Orient. (besides, Oriental means Eastern by definition anyway, no point in taking a risk for a redundant idea). Oriental is a bad idea all around, it needs to remain Eastern.

APOCALYPTIC(+1) / CATACLYSMIC(-1)
I also have to disagree with changing Apocalyptic to anything else since the ACTUAL name of the genre is Post Apocalyptic. It'd be like us trying to call a genre "Study Fiction" instead of Science Fiction and just expecting people to figure it out. There's already official terminology for it. Trying to create our own is going to make it more difficult for people to relate and discern the meaning of the label. And that's something we DON'T want to do.

---

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 91):
Agreed. I like Victorian, but I'd prefer Action/Adventure more than Victorian. Plus you make a good case on it being too specific. If anything, Renaissance probably would've been a better choice if we had to include another era.
This message was last edited by the user at 07:34, Sat 01 June 2013.

I think we should lock in "Cataclysm", though prefixing it with "Post" is still up for negotiation.  Actually, why not just make it "Cataclysmic"?

"Survival" is possibly better than "Survivor"?


Not quite sure how a combination of two categories could have a smaller scope than just one?

If "Oriental" isn't appropriate (personally I've never heard it being used as an insult, from my quick research it seems to be an American thing, but that is where a lot of our visitors are from) then stick to "Eastern".  "Eastern/Wuxia" (to push that barrow again) might also make it clearer what we mean by it.



Lighthearted doesn't sit well with me either.  I assumed it was just me.



Wish I could!  Should we be avoiding slashes?  Otherwise we could cover our bases with "Modern/Contemporary" (though that's probably too long).



If you made a game about it here you'd have to tag it superhuman.  (c;

How about this?

Categories:     Action          Ancient          Anime
Apocalypse      Arena           Discussion       Eastern
Fantasy         Future          Historical       Horror
Lighthearted    Medieval        Modern           Punk
Relationship    RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi           Spy/Mystery
Strategy        Superhuman      Supernatural     Western

There is still some overlap, but the terms that overlap are pretty broad in scope anyway, while still being distinct at their core.

Overall there are four more categories than the list currently in use.

The Pokemon/Digimon, Vampire and Werewolf categories are removed, and Action, Ancient, Eastern, Relationship, Spy/Mystery and Supernatural added.  Comedy is changed to Lighthearted, and Cyberpunk to just Punk to allow for any type of game with "-punk" in the description.
This message was last edited by the user at 07:47, Sat 01 June 2013.

I propose simply Eastern because one term doesn't tend to lean in any one direction, and makes it broader.  When you add to it a very specific term like Wuxia, you give the category a very specific seeming.  Wuxia is, if I'm correct, more about martial arts and heroes of that style, yes?  So are all aspects of the proposed Eastern/Wuxia category about martial heroes?  I just keep coming around to thinking it would be more confusing to squash those two together.  :D


I still disagree about Cataclysm: as has been said before, there is an actual genre term for it and changing it behooves no one. :3
This message was last edited by the user at 07:44, Sat 01 June 2013.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 94):

Other than also being in the Lighthearted should be Comedy boat, I really like the list you've got there.

Updating again, trying to keep it current as the critiques keep coming:


Categories:     Ancient         Anime           Apocalyptic
Arena           Discussion      Drama           Eastern
Fantasy         Future          Historical      Horror
Intrigue        Lighthearted    Medieval        Modern
Punk            RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi          Strategy
Survival        Superhuman      Supernatural    Western

1. Changed Survivor to Survival.
   
2. Removed Victorian.

Changes being disagreed on:
Add ACTION/ADVENTURE?
Change DRAMA to RELATIONSHIP?
Change INTRIGUE back to SPY/MYSTERY?
Change LIGHTHEARTED back to COMEDY?
Change APOCALYPTIC to CATACLYSMIC?
Change MODERN back to CONTEMPORARY?

---

My opinions (they are great):

Add Action/Adventure
If we can fit it I'd +1 this. But not going to stress over it if we can't.

Drama vs. Relationship
-1 for Relationship. Relationship is far more specific than drama. Overly specific. I'd sooner go with Victorian. Drama is far more inclusive.

Intrigue vs. Spy/Mystery
I think Spy/Mystery will be more easily recognized, though Intrigue avoids us using slashes. I'm +1 for Spy/Mystery anyway as long as no one else minds the slash.

Lighthearted vs. Comedy
Like I said, Lighthearted would be more inclusive to other forms of games such as pokemon/digimon and family friendly games. Comedy is much more specific. I'm thinking the more inclusive we are the better but it wouldn't be the end of the world if we switched back to comedy.

Apocalyptic vs. Cataclysmic
I'm a bit more insistent on this one. The ACTUAL name of the genre is Post Apocalyptic. This is the officially recognized term world-wide. Unless you can argue we could get away with calling Science Fiction "Study Fiction" instead, there's no good way to justify it. We'd be losing recognition and making it harder for people to utilize.

Modern vs. Contemporary
They mean the same thing and both words are well-recognized. I have a slight lean towards Modern as it's shorter and rolls off the tongue more easily but I think we're good either way.
This message was last edited by the user at 07:56, Sat 01 June 2013.

Oops, missed Survival.  :)

Hey jase, you need to change the layout of the Main Menu search to keep things neat.  Put "Categories" above the list.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 98):

You can do that? That would give us another slot to work with! Action/Adventure could happen!

*tears of joy*

Bigbadron, you're a genius!
This message was last edited by the user at 07:57, Sat 01 June 2013.

Categories on its own makes the whole list one line longer.  If we're going to make it a line longer, then why not... just make it one line longer (at the end)?  That'll give you FOUR extra slots rather than ONE.

Alternatively it could possibly withstand being 1 column wider, which would give SIX.


I read "/" as meaning " or ", not " and ".  The sum of the both, not the intersection.

In reply to jase (msg # 100):

I think my head just exploded with excitement. So what # of slots would be are max? 25 slots with a 5 columns by 5 rows?

If Action/Adventure makes the cut, then Eastern + Action/Adventure could easily encompass Wuxia without the very specific suggestion of Chinese martial operas.  It's just a lot more niche than the majority of the other categories already suggested/in use.  I think that's the whole of what it boils down to for me, to be honest, so that probably wraps up my part in this aspect of the discussion.  I look forward to seeing the consensus on this, and everything else suggested though.  This is crazy exciting.

Is this something that people can agree on?

Categories:     Action          Ancient         Anime           Arena
Cataclysmic     Contemporary    Discussion      Drama           Eastern
Fantasy         Future          Historical      Horror          Intrigue
Lighthearted    Medieval        Punk            RPoL Forums     Sci-Fi
Strategy        Survival        Superhuman      Supernatural    Western

It removes all the "/" and any potential confusion.  Or the / can go back in, allowing Action/Adventure, Drama/Romance, and Spy/Mystery (instead if Intrigue).

Names may be different from their final incarnation, but at least the framework is there.  There are 24 categories, as opposed to the current 20.

Actual format may change if it turns out that five columns looks hideous.
This message was last edited by the user at 09:19, Sat 01 June 2013.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 103):
You forgot to address the following:


See previous post. Nobody's 100% on these yet.
This message was last edited by the user at 10:20, Sat 01 June 2013.

I thought I covered those?

Action is in there.

The rest is covered in the notes I put after the list, in the lower part of the post.  In particular the part which says that the names might be changed in the final version.

Really I was just checking to see if anybody thinks something should or shouldn't be in there, not the precise nomenclature.  There's no sense spending time discussing what we should call something, then deciding that it doesn't need to be in the list anyway.
This message was last edited by the user at 11:22, Sat 01 June 2013.

I like the selection bbr presented in msg#103. Gets a +1 from me.

Sure, we might end up debating the names, but I can't think of anything big that got left out, and what is there covers a lot of possibilities. Obviously, not sure how a 5 column selection would look in practice, so I can't really comment on the aesthetics of a potential final product.

I would suggest a slight alteration in the setup to 'group' the categories in some way other than alphabetical, especially if terminology isn't standard to draw the eye to the differences -- something like this, maybe:



RPOL Forums   Ancient           Horror          Western        Anime
Discussion    Historical        Supernatural    Eastern        Lighthearted
Arena         Contemporary      Sci-Fi          Cataclysmic    Drama
Strategy      Future            Fantasy         Punk           Intrigue
Survival      Medieval          Superhuman                     Action





As for renaming, my preferences would be:

Oriental over Eastern - either go with Eastern/Oriental or just Oriental
Modern over Contemporary
Apocalyptic over Cataclysmic - the first is the more widely accepted term and its religious connotations have been steadily eroding
Drama over Relationship
Humor over Lighthearted

By and large, I'm happy with the basic list bigbadron proposed.

As to preferences ...

Action vs Action/Adventure, prefer Action/Adventure ... just seems more Indiana Jones to me.

Oriental vs Eastern, prefer Oriental though note a) Wiki says considered derogatory in USA and Canada, but b) D&D has "Oriental Adventures".  Go figure.

Modern vs Contemporary, don't mind either.

Apocalyptic vs Cataclysmic ... decided I like Disaster instead - covers anything from Towering Inferno scenarios to Gamma World, and could even encompass Zombie infestations if you ticked Horror category too (something I don't think the other terms really encompass).

Drama vs Relationship, on reflectionm I suppose all games have elements of both drama AND relationships ... perhaps we should go with Romance ?

Humor over Lighthearted, I did prefer Comedy, but would be equally happy with Humour, particularly if we can spell it the English/Australian way ! <grrrins>

Intrigue vs Mystery/Spy, prefer Mystery/Spy - it was a good try, but I don't think Intrigue covers both well enough.

And sorry Shan, but unless we're going to separate groups under headings such as Era then I much prefer alphabetical.

I don't mind the /, especially if it's a better fit. I don't like Relationship at all. Romance is better, but I'm not crazy about it. I'd prefer just Drama over either of those.

+1 Action/Adventure instead of just Action.

+1 to Spy/Mystery instead of Intrigue, but I still lean toward making those two seperate categories. Spy makes me think James Bond while Mystery makes me think detective stories like Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.

+1 to Eastern/Oriental

+1 Modern instead of Contemporary

+1 Apocalyptic/Disaster

+1 Comedy instead of Lighthearted or Humor. Lighthearted, to me, makes it sound like you aren't taking the game seriously. Even if it's a fun comedy, I think most people want their games taken seriously. Humor can be a part of a lot of games, even Horror games. I think Comedy is a more distinctive category that gives a better idea of the kind of game you're running.

I know drama has been rejected before.  I'm paraphrasing, but I'm pretty sure jase said something about it being too common/general.  Almost every game has aspects of drama, so it served no purpose.

I think most people can figure out Eastern vs Oriental.  Neither is perfect, but I suppose Oriental is more understood.

Lighthearted seems more accurate.  If someone wants to play a game with characters that are 4th wall aware (eg Thunt's http://www.goblinscomic.com or Rich Berluw's http://www.giantitp.com/ ), I would think lighthearted.  Their wouldn't be a serious tone to the game.

Humour:  This site never ceases to enlighten me to just how many words are spelled differently in different areas.  When I first got here, I almost reported a typo for organise, but luckily I realized I was an ignorant 'merican before I posted it.

Comedy/Lighthearted:

Comedy can mean two very different things: a story with a happy ending, and a story in which humor is the central theme. In some cases (most Muppet movies) it is both. Lighthearted can mean either of those things, but can also cover a comic book superhero game with no ending and no deliberate humor.

I favor lighthearted, myself, or even "light," but it's not something I would fight over.

Eastern/Oriental/Anime/Western:

Western -> Old West would be less ambiguous.

I would rather avoid Oriental. I don't know that Eastern is much better -- would a Vietnam Sim game be Eastern? How about a demigod conflict among Hindi gods? And I don't know why "Certain Trops Common to Japanese Animation but Not Really" needs to be separate from "Games Set In Something Other Than Traditional Western Civilization," which is what Eastern seems to be.

Personally, I would drop all four of those ;-).

My +1s

RPOL Forums   Ancient           Horror
Discussion    Historical        Supernatural    Lighthearted
Arena         Contemporary      Sci-Fi          Cataclysmic    Drama
Strategy      Future            Fantasy         Punk           Intrigue
Survival      Medieval          Superhuman                     Action

Basically, the whole list other than Anime, Oriental/Eastern, and Western (but see below).

My Additions
Since that gives some extra breathing room, my suggestions for additions would be:

Frontier: As an alternative to Old West/Western. Frontier also lets you mark those stories which follow the "western genre" format (semi-nomadic heroes in dusters wandering a frontier land, righting wrongs or wronging the Wrights) but don't adopt any of the other stylistic conventions (horses, cows, and six-shooters). A Star Wars frontier-space adventure format, for example.

Weird: For stuff that isn't properly horror or fantasy or superhuman, like magical realism or X-Files; and also to mark things that have a decidedly pulp/weird bent, like Indiana Jones (Contemporary, Action, Weird). I suspect some GMs will use it to mark items that just don't fit any other category, too -- and "weird fiction" is one of the few genres that might embrace that sort of miscellany status.

Anime: So I don't have to listen to the wailing.

Actually, now that I think about what I read, I believe "Oriental" is derogatory when used to describe another human.  Considering we're not doing that, should be fine to dodge that bullet.


Keep one eye on the length of the combined (/) genres, some might be making a particular column rather wide.



Something like http://beta.rpol.net and Beta W-P.

OK, for me;

+1 on Comedy over Lighthearted.  I see the points, but I like Comedy better for the purpose.

+1 on Frontier over Western - that's a great idea!  It describes what it needs to, and it blends better with the other options.  For example, one could well argue that the Firefly universe isn't `western', because, um, it's, what, Outer Rimward?  The cardinal directions don't hold up that well once you involve multiple gravity wells.  But Frontier handles both elegantly.

+1 on dropping Eastern and Oriental completely.  I know there's a small subcategory of games that have that as a defining trait, but those are actual systems and can demonstrate that in the system name.  Or the game name.  I'm not really big on the PC thing, but I can understand why having your whole culture defined by which direction it was from someone else's would be a little insulting.  (It's not considered derogatory for describing an object, like a rug; for describing the whole culture, it still is, and that is what we're doing.  And D&D came out with Oriental Adventures in...what, the '80s?)

+1 for keeping Anime, though.

Oh, and +1 for clipping Superhuman to just Super.  I had liked that.  Maybe even Super-.  It strikes me as both more versatile and more precise, which is an odd combination, but there you go.

you could use Asian, if you want to avoid derogatory terms.  It would encompass any area you would cover with oriental or eastern, other than Australia I guess.

A summary of my proposed fave list:

RPOL Forums    Action         Ancient      Anime    Arena
Cataclysm      Contemporary   Discussion   Drama    Fantasy
Frontier       Future         Historical   Horror   Intrigue
Lighthearted   Medieval       Punk         Sci-Fi   Strategy
Superhuman     Supernatural   Survival     Weird

Now I just want to start a Frontier Super- Punk game...

That said, super- is simply a prefix meaning above or beyond.  Superman is superhuman, but not human.  I think that Superhuman best captures the categorization we are hoping to represent.

On other topics, Frontier is a fantastic alternative to Western. +1 Frontier

I think that Intrigue is the core element of both the spy and mystery genres, and would be well understood and widely adaptable (like Frontier vs. Western). +1 Intrigue

+/- at this point on Lighthearted vs. Comedy/Humour.  I do feel a little as though if Drama isn't going to be included, why add Comedy?  Why then add Lighthearted?

+1 to Contemporary.  Contemp. and Modern are synonymous, but Contemporary seems to actually be in the great big list of literary genres whereas Modern is not.

+/- on Frontier vs. Western.  On the one hand I like how descriptive it is.  On the other hand, it's very, very niche.  It's also entirely possible with Western + Historical.  Just like Eastern, Western suggests more than a place but a set of cultural variances and values and casts a wider net, in my opinion.

+1 on Eastern and not Oriental.  Asian might work?  But it does still leave games that want to be in the near or far east a little in the dark.  It isn't as common these days to refer to those portions of the world as part of Asia.

+1 Drama.  There are games that won't have it, like plotless crawls and the like.  There are games that will emphasize it to a massive degree.

+1 Intrigue.  It covers wider territory than Spy or Mystery or Spy/Mystery.  For example, which part of Spy/Mystery could describe a game focusing on the machinations of court nobles as they privately erode at the powerbase of their peers while attempting to gain the throne?  It would be political Intrigue.

-1 on Anime in general, actually.  It would be like wanting a Category for games based on books.  Or games based on non-animated shows.  Or those based upon movies, animated or not.  I know this one is already established, but it has always seemed out of place.

+1 on Super, too.  Though I'd suggest Supers, if not Utsukushi's 'Super-' suggestion.

+1 on Apocalyptic over Cataclysmic.  Again I reiterate, there's no point in changing what is already established other than to confuse.

I like BBR's overall list in #103 but Shannara's suggestion of how to format the list makes me so happy in most ways.  I'm against combining terms with slashes.  It tends to narrow the field instead of widening it, from what I'm seeing.

_{So full of typos today, I am.  So.  Full.}
This message was last edited by the user at 17:23, Sat 01 June 2013.

the problem with the oriental vs eastern vs Asian problem is that there is a difference between geographic or cultural descriptors, and fiction genres.  Oriental is looked on as biased in terms of history or politics, but it does describe the classic fiction types about samurai, wuxia, even stuff like Arabian Nights.  Those fiction genres are based on stereotypes, not real history or culture.  So if you want to be politically correct, it would be Asian, which would include everything from Turkey to Japan.  Or call it Oriental, which is the more classic name for the genre and would probably fit what most people are looking for.

I think this is also similar to some of the other tag name arguments.  there is a difference between what is the most comprehensively correct title for a genre or category, and what term most players on rpol will use to find specific games. Like the Anime tag.

And the point of this entire list is not to exactly match genres in literature and other media (and they're all a bit vague and fuzzy around the edges anyway), but to make it easier for people on this site to find games that they think they'd like to play.

right, which is why tags like oriental and Anime make more sense than eastern or lighthearted.  At least to me.  I think they fit specific games styles.  I just meant it's probably a better idea to aim for accuracy in terms of game types over political correctness and accuracy to literary definitions.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:23, Sat 01 June 2013.

Okay, reading your posts, this is what I've got from the last update (as best I understand everyone's comments since some posts were more vague than others):


Categories:
Action           Ancient          Anime            Apocalyptic
Arena            Discussion       Drama            Eastern
Fantasy          Future           Historical       Horror
Intrigue         Lighthearted     Medieval         Modern
Punk             RPoL Forums      Sci-Fi           Strategy
Survival         Superhuman       Supernatural     Western


SUGGESTED CHANGES
ACTION/ADVENTURE +4
ACTION           +4

EASTERN          +6
ORIENTAL         +5
ASIAN            +2

WESTERN          +4
FRONTIER         +3

DRAMA            +5
ROMANCE          +3
RELATIONSHIP     +1

INTRIGUE         +5
SPY/MYSTERY      +3

LIGHTHEARTED     +5
COMEDY           +4
HUMOR            +2

APOCALYPTIC      +6
CATACLYSMIC      +3
DISASTER         +1

MODERN           +3
CONTEMPORARY     +3

SUPERHUMAN       +5
SUPERS           +2
SUPER            +1

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS
VICTORIAN        +2
WEIRD            +1

This message was last edited by the user at 18:40, Sat 01 June 2013.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 120):

I think there is a pretty drastic difference between politically correct and being racist.  If Eastern isnt acceptable, Asian is at least not a slur.

I don't think oriental is racist, but if it is that offensive than you could just get rid of it entirely.  There aren't many specifically oriental games outside of anime styles that wouldn't fall into other categories.

I have to agree with Lunarius. I'd like to avoid being racist and insensitive if I can.

I highly disagree that all Eastern/Oriental/Asian games are Anime-based and vice versa. Anime is it's own style and it may have originated in the East but they are no more the same than saying "Cowboy" and "American" are essentially the same thing.

People seem to be getting stuck on the word genre.  So, why not change "Genre" to "Elements" thus you can select the elements which make up particular genres.

• Pokemon/Digimon could be best summed up as the elements Lighthearted (or Comedic) + Anime + Monster.
• Steampunk is then Historical + Sci-Fi + Punk.
• etc.

On contemporary vs. modern, I lean towards contemporary.  Modern seems a very broad stroke.  The plane is a modern invention, but the first planes certainly aren't contemporary to us.

Super(-) isn't narrow enough either.  Something could just as easily be super-natural (ghosts, vampires, Sam and Dean Winchester) as it could be super-human.

Also, "Victorian" is "Historic," and far too narrow a band of time to warrant inclusion.  "Ancient" is an adjective, not a time period, so I much rather "Pre-Historic" (i.e. anything before recorded history) over "Ancient History."  And, it seems silly to have Pre-Historic, Historic, and Contemporary without also having Futuristic.  Futuristic and Sci-Fi aren't synonyms.  If I set a realistic game in 2020, but adhered to all current known laws of science, I wouldn't have a Sci-Fi game, I would have a form of speculative fiction.

I didn't say all Asian games are anime.  I said outside of anime, Asian games could fit into other categories.  L5R would fit into Fantasy, Medieval.  A game involving the Triads of Hong Kong would fit into Contemporary mystery or intrigue.  I just meant Anime seems to be the one type of game that Asian or oriental or eastern would apply to that is distinctly different than other games.

And I apologize if what I said was taken as racist.  I am a historian, and one of my focuses is the middle East.  I am well aware of the stigma put on the term oriental.  But it isn't racist to call a rug an oriental rug, or talk about the Orient express.  It's dated, but it's also the term often used for games like this, which was brought up earlier, like oriental adventures.

In reply to Lancebreaker (msg # 125):
I was under the impression we were already doing that. Especially since that was mentioned several dozen posts ago several times. :P

Except for actually changing the word "genre" to "elements" bit, that's new. I like that idea. It's interesting.

Bah, if figures the moment I try to update the +/- someone would start giving me new ones. Will be ready to update again after some more posts.

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 126):
Ah, okay. Your original comment made it sound like you were essentially trying to combine the two ideas rather than just ignoring one in favor of the other.

I think people's location and culture changes how "racist" they think the word "Oriental" is. I've seen so many people get upset over dated words that nobody knew were racist. I dislike being the naggy politically-correct guy, but I'd rather that than risk being the obnoxious guy who doesn't realize he's being racist. Pick your poison and all that. :/

Yes, jase specifically said to call them "categories".


Which is good, because we're trying for "broad".


We have both Super (referring to Superhuman) and Supernatural as separate categories, so it is possible to distinguish between the two.

Victorian would be there as there is branch of gaming and gamers on RPOL looking for something like that, aka Steampunk. SP has been very frequently requested and Victorian soothes the savage the beast.

For all the + requests for SP/Victorian see this thread:

link to a message in another game

They just aren't all reposting in this thread having recently gone through the hash up yet again and again and again.

---

I do think the rewording from genre to elements/categories is a good idea. Still want a Victorian/Steampunk elements entry. It does avoid some of the future genre debates. We have on RPOL authors of various genres who are quite bothered at times when the genre they make their living on isn't called a genre. (no I'm not one but I do know who some are).

As mentioned previously in this thread, "Victorian" is too narrow a time period - we're trying for broad categories.

And, as has also been covered in this thread, Steampunk games can now be listed as "historical scifi punk", just as cyberpunk games will be listed as "future scifi punk" or "contemporary scifi punk".  Note that the term "Cyberpunk" has been dropped from the list.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:44, Sat 01 June 2013.

Except we aren't talking about genres in literature, we're talking about categories of game on RPoL.  That's why we decided to drop the term genre.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:41, Sat 01 June 2013.

Right, but "Super" doesn't mean anything in and of itself.  The very act of putting "referring to Superhuman" in parenthesis as clarification in your statement is indication that it needs the clarification.  Conversely, removing the clarification and just saying "Super and Supernatural" is like saying "Anime and Pokemon/Digimon," or "Rectangle and Square."
This message was last edited by the user at 19:49, Sat 01 June 2013.

And looking back, the most current version of the list (msg #121), does actually say "Superhuman".

I tallied the +/- only about halfway through this thread, I'm not digging through other threads for it. It was difficult enough to avoid repeated +1s from the same people just in this thread, let alone across multiple threads and conversations that I'm not even a part of.

The tallies I got are not 100% accurate of the attitudes on RPOL, just the attitudes in this thread so far (and even then, it's not 100%, some people's posts were unclear and I gave my best guess as to what they meant).

*shrugs*

In reply to jase (msg # 112):

That does look interesting. Probably want to tighten up the last column, so there's less blank space on the edge of the search box, though. Settling on either Apocalyptic OR Cataclysmic (whichever is decided upon) would probably do that.

---

I'd give a +1 to the Frontier idea. It was mentioned earlier in the thread, and I still think it could have broader uses than Western. Western could easily be represented by Historical+Frontier. And the same set of categories could be used for, say, a game taking place in penal-colony era Australia (definitely not what many would consider 'Western,' though there are some 'Western' style movies and such taking place in that great country/continent), or a game similar to the movie 'The Ghost and the Darkness.' Probably add Horror to that last one.

On the Eastern/Oriental/Asian issue, I'm not fond of 'Eastern.' I like Oriental (+1), then again, I've never personally heard it used as an insult, and had never even considered the possibility of such usage before reading through this thread. I'm not sure how much of an issue it could be with the general user-base of RPoL, however.

Mystery/Spy vs. Intrigue, I'd +1 Intrigue. It's broad, and as someone else mentioned, it helps cover such things as political intrigue.

Victorian seems to keep popping up. It is a very specific time period (far less than a century), historically speaking, and also very specific in its cultural implications. Among more broad categories, I don't think it fits in. I'd give it a -1. If there was a suitable alternative that encompassed this, but wasn't so very narrow, I might support it.

Supers/Super-/Superhuman, I think I'd still go for Superhuman. I'm not specifically against the others in any way, though, I just like Superhuman better.

I've probably missed something, but that's the stuff that popped out while reading the new posts that came in while I slept.

I think that's why I'm not liking Intrigue as much. It makes me think of political intrigue, which seems very different from a spy story or a detective story. Maybe that's just me.

I prefer Superhuman over Supers or Super-

I agree that Frontier is good, but Firefly was described to me as a "Space Western" and I thought it summed it up well.  Frontier is good, but I think on its own it'll cause confusion.  "Western/Frontier", on the other hand, might work well.


In reply to arkrim (msg # 121):

Nice list, maybe we should start it from scratch and have people reply with a running tally, will leave people's thoughts less open for interpretation.



We have changed it to "Categories", as that's what I said was previously used.  I've since realised it was "Classifications".  Not fussed on any particular term, though I do suggest avoiding "Tag" to avoid confusion.



"Apocalyptic/Disaster" is causing that, nothing to do with me!



A forward slash (aka virgule) is commonly used as a substitute for "or" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_(punctuation)).  Going to have to do more to convince me that us using a slash is restrictive.


Less inclined to avoid "Oriental" now considering we're aiming it at a location, not a person, but I'll bow to popular consensus on that one.  I think Eastern is the only suitable alternative, however.


Modern vs Contemporary - In design/art modern actually refers to the 1920's-50's.  Contemporary is "as of now".  In other uses, contemporary actually means "of the time we're currently discussing".  It's all very confusing.  I don't think that helped, actually.


I'm not professing that Intrigue is perfect, but "Mystery/Spy" leaves those who've requested Politics out in the cold, and it's been asked for several times.

I was already aware of the use of the slash (though I didn't know its proper name & appreciate the information all the same!), but from experience in real life I can't say that I've seen enough people other than a handful who do.  I'm sad to relate it, but it took a college professor of Advanced Literature before my various and sundry English classes ever had someone attempt to correct the use of the virgule (I'm going to be hooked on that word now) when they weren't wrong.  So it's with a dose of reality that I'm suggesting it is both restrictive and a little bit contrary to what we're trying to do:

Why would two terms that are different enough to be defined as such with a virgule belong together?  We're trying to go for broad categories that will house a lot of concepts under their umbrellas, right?  So is there any real reason why we need to muddy the waters?  Is it Eastern, or is it Wuxia?  Which one?  But Wuxia should fall under Eastern's purview.  However if we went with Eastern/Wuxia, to avoid the 'is it this or that?' question it would make sense to start putting on other things to be certain that it's just describing what falls under the Eastern umbrella, or everything that Eastern could account for, instead of using the virgule properly:  Eastern/Wuxia/Samurai/etc/etc.

Western/Frontier/Settler/Cowboy/etc./etc.

Apocalyptic/Cataclysmic/Disaster/Doom/End of Days/etc./etc.

It becomes far more simple, far less restrictive, and far less cluttered to simply pick a single title--especially since we'd have to use the / wrong in this situation anyway.

And if it is a worry about terms being confused, there are already helpful little question marks located next to each possible selection with a nicely concise definition.  Those could easily house a short note of typical things, like Wuxia, that fits within the Eastern category.

Agreed. Would everyone with an opinion to change the list please list their + and - again?

Please make your posts easy to read. I'll redo the list.


Categories:
Action           Ancient          Anime            Apocalyptic
Arena            Discussion       Drama            Eastern
Fantasy          Future           Historical       Horror
Intrigue         Lighthearted     Medieval         Modern
Punk             RPoL Forums      Sci-Fi           Strategy
Survival         Superhuman       Supernatural     Western

Here is the current list so far if you see anything you wanted CHANGED or ADDED, please provide a + for it but no -.

Only put a - for something you want completely removed (not for things you just want to replace with something else).

For example, if you want Eastern changed to Oriental just say +1 Oriental instead of Eastern. Do not say -1 Eastern unless you want it completely removed (no Eastern, no Oriental, no Asian, nothing).

---

SUGGESTED CHANGES
ACTION/ADVENTURE
ACTION

EASTERN
ORIENTAL
ASIAN

WESTERN
FRONTIER

DRAMA
ROMANCE
RELATIONSHIP

INTRIGUE
SPY/MYSTERY

LIGHTHEARTED
COMEDY
HUMOR

APOCALYPTIC
CATACLYSMIC
DISASTER

MODERN
CONTEMPORARY

SUPERHUMAN
SUPERS
SUPER

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS
VICTORIAN
WEIRD

I appreciate that some people might wonder about the slash, but I'd bet that "Frontier", to use it as an example, on its own would give far more people pause.

I think when faced with two options - either use a slash or have a possibly incomplete or confusing category, the slash is the lesser of two evils.

The questionmarks are good and there to be used, but should only be needed to further clarify what a category means, not to find out what it does mean.

Well, since we're tallying:

+1 Action/Adventure
+1 Oriental
+1 Frontier/Western (slash for previously mentioned clarity)
0 Drama/Romance/Relationship. I like having the category, but couldn't say which I prefer over the others.
+1 Intrigue
0 Lighthearted/Comedy/Humor. Same as the drama bit.
+1 Apocalyptic
+1 Contemporary
+1 Superhuman

-1 Victorian. Too narrow, at least in my opinion.
-1 Weird. I don't have a very specific reason for this one. Just a feeling, I suppose.

SUGGESTED CHANGES
+ ACTION
+ EASTERN
+ WESTERN
+ DRAMA
+ INTRIGUE
+ COMEDY
+ APOCALYPTIC
+ CONTEMPORARY
+ SUPERHUMAN

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS
- VICTORIAN
- WEIRD

how do you define a weird game?  I am not sure what that tag means.

on SUGGESTED CHANGES
+1 ACTION
-1 EASTERN/ORIENTAL/ASIAN (what's the point?)
+1 FRONTIER
+1 DRAMA
+1 INTRIGUE
+1 LIGHTHEARTED
+1 POST-HOLOCAUST
+1 CONTEMPORARY
+1 SUPERHUMAN

on POSSIBLE ADDITIONS
-1 VICTORIAN
?? WEIRD (I wouldn't know what this is...)
+1 MONSTER
+1 DARK (in place of HORROR.)

This message was last edited by the user at 04:55, Sun 02 June 2013.

+1 Action/Adventure
+1 Oriental
+1 Frontier/Western
+1 Relationship
+1 Intrigue
+1 Comedy
+1 Apocalyptic
+1 Contemporary
+1 Superhuman

-1 Victorian
-1 Weird

SUGGESTED CHANGES
+1 ACTION/ADVENTURE
ACTION

EASTERN
ORIENTAL
+1 ASIAN

+1 WESTERN
+1 FRONTIER

DRAMA
+1 ROMANCE
RELATIONSHIP

+1 INTRIGUE
SPY/MYSTERY

LIGHTHEARTED
COMEDY
+1 HUMOR

+1 APOCALYPTIC
CATACLYSMIC
DISASTER

+1 MODERN
CONTEMPORARY

+1 SUPERHUMAN
SUPERS
SUPER

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS
+1 VICTORIAN
+1 WEIRD

What, no post-apocalyptic?

Actcherly, just had a look at the Beta site, and while there's a two or three categories I'd rename/omit, on the whole I'd be very happy with the current listing - there's nothing on there that I can't live with and I think it's all better than the existing list:

Categories:      Action/Adventure   Ancient         Anime         Apocalyptic/Disaster
Arena            Comedy             Contemporary    Discussion    Drama
Eastern/Oriental Fantasy            Future          Historical    Horror
Intrigue         Medieval           Punk            RPoL Forums   Sci-Fi
Strategy         Superhuman         Supernatural    Survival      Western

At this point, I don't think we're ever going to all agree on specific wording for every category, so perhaps we can agree to disagree and vote on whether what jase has on Beta would be a big step forward ?  :>

On that basis ... +1 from me for the above list.

Actually, I believe that's part of what we're all voting on right now.  In the theory that the categories with the most votes is most likely to be the end result.  We all only have to agree to accept the majority's opinion on the matter for this to work, and to accept that in the case of a tie it will probably fall to whatever jase thinks is best.
This message was lightly edited by the user at 05:33, Sun 02 June 2013.

In reply to Piestar (msg # 146):

The original suggestion was for Post-Apocalyptic, but it was pointed out that if you switch it to Apocalyptic, then it also covers the period while the Apocalypse is still going on.

Lunarius - to my mind I don't think we're going to get actual consensus, just a handful of votes either way, and I think the list has matured enough now that the rest is just semantics ... but if we're still playing, then:

+1 ACTION/ADVENTURE
ACTION

EASTERN
ORIENTAL
-1 ASIAN
+1 EASTERN/ORIENTAL

+1 WESTERN
FRONTIER
+1 FRONTIER/WESTERN

-1 DRAMA
+1 ROMANCE
RELATIONSHIP

INTRIGUE
+1 SPY/MYSTERY

-1 LIGHTHEARTED
+1 COMEDY
HUMOR

APOCALYPTIC
CATACLYSMIC
+1 DISASTER
+1 APOCALYPTIC/DISASTER

MODERN
+1 CONTEMPORARY

SUPERHERO
SUPERHUMAN
+1 SUPER POWERS
-1 SUPERS
-1 SUPER

+1 HORROR
-1 DARK

+1 SUPERNATURAL
-1 MONSTER

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS
-1 VICTORIAN
-1 WEIRD

Hope that covers all the ones still under discussion ! <grins>  Voted -1 on those I don't like, +1 on preferred and blanks for those I can live with/don't mind.

SUGGESTED CHANGES
+ACTION/ADVENTURE
+EASTERN
+WESTERN
+DRAMA
+INTRIGUE
+COMEDY
+APOCALYPTIC
+MODERN
+SUPERS

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS
-VICTORIAN
-WEIRD

Throwing in another vote before this goes off. These just seem practical to me.

My votes, based on Skalds list

+1 Action/Adventure

+1 Eastern
There is also India/Hindu in the east. Vs Asian/anime

+1 Romance
Everything has Drama and Relationship of some sort. Romance means a focus on finding love

+1 Spy/Mystery
Sounds clearer. Find out stuff

+1 Comedy
Gives a flavour. Humour kinda sounds like a joke of the day club.


+1 Modern
Contemporary: while we understand the word younger or English-Second-Language users might not. Modern is simpler.

+1 Super Powers
Covers the whole range better IMHO

+1 Horror, Zombie games would want this. Zombies are the new Vampire.
-1 Dark? Could be Film Noir without zombies or constant death. You would be opening the door to Dark Romance where it doesnt work out and everyone pouts. Vs Horror Romance where its Love amid the Zombies.

-1 Supernatural  Is there really that much of those games?
Monster I thought meant like "a monster"

---

Additions:
+1 Victorian, cause there are interest groups on rPOL
-1 Weird Wtf? Thats gonna get misunderstood.

---

?? Anime, It does give a unique set. Do we have enough games for that to matter? Im not sure. However there are Anime that are also Action vs Light Hearted etc.

Maybe put it on inplace of Supernatural.

---

Skalds msg #147 had 24 Categories plus the word Category

If Category displays above the list we have room to add one more (IMHO Victorian) for a total of 25 categories.

Maybe swap out Supernatural and in Anime based on the # of games
This message was last edited by the user at 07:16, Sun 02 June 2013.

FYI decided to see what came up for Anime right now.

Had to hit "Next 25" 4 times to see all of them. Which makes it 100+ games are in that Category. Ergo IMHO +1 to keep it.

---

edit:

If we add one more row to the table we'd go from 25-30  (or 24-29) entries.

That would still be easily visibile in the display. At the same time it would give room for some of the debated ones like Victorian & Anime & Eastern plus another spot or 2. Then we'd have everyone whose talking here mostly happy, which is kinda rare on the internet. ^_^
This message was last edited by the user at 07:48, Sun 02 June 2013.

I shall try to collate this as best I can.  24 categories to fill.

Locked in:

 1)  Ancient - New
 2)  Anime - Existing
 3)  Arena - Existing
 4)  Discussion - Compulsory
 5)  Fantasy - Existing
 6)  Future - New
 7)  Historical - Existing
 8)  Medieval - Existing
 9)  Punk - Renamed from Cyberpunk
10)  RPoL Forums - Compulsory
11)  Sci-Fi - Existing
12)  Strategy - Existing
13)  Survival - New
14)  Supernatural - Merge of Vampire and Werewolf


Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase
• Keep but undecided on name
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight
• Cataclysmic
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun
• Dark - Lancebreaker
• Dark/Horror

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker
• Humour - Piestar

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, jase
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight
• Super Powers - Brygun

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight
• Frontier - Lancebreaker
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight

Weird

• Add - Piestar
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add

Those who have voted for an addition, be aware something has to be removed.

If I've misrepresented anyone then please let me know, or feel free to quote me, remove the gunk (including the quote tags) and repost.

I think, based on these results, we can lock in "Action/Adventure", "Intrigue", "Superhuman", and possibly some others.

I'll throw in my 2 cents. I copy/pasted what you did jase and just adding myself in to it. I've made NO other alterations.

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Humour - Piestar

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, jase, arkrim
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight
• Super Powers - Brygun

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Frontier - Lancebreaker
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight

Weird

• Add - Piestar
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add

Yes, speak now or sometime in the near future as we continue this thread, or forever hold your peace!

If we are locked in at 24 entries not 29 I'll concede Victorian if we keep both Historic and Punk. Don't like it but without the extra options we'd need more room.

In intervening time I had run an effort to count the Steampunk, Steam Punk and "Victor" named games and found only a few. Given that if it was supported in the categories there would probably be more its still not small portion here. Still looking an order of magnitude below the 100 of Anime.

---

Also I'm

Monster = don't add


Western = keep as western
We know John Wayne Westerns and Clint Eastwood Westerns, not "Frontiers". I may not play in a Western right now but I have and it might not have connected as well as a Frontier.
This message was last edited by the user at 10:15, Sun 02 June 2013.

Ooh, you're actually planning out changes. Nice one! :)

*Scrolls back*

Re: Fixed ones (I'm probably too late to comment on these)
6) Future: I like 'futuristic' better
9) Punk: Still preferring 'cyberpunk'

Re: Suggested Changes:

15) Action, Adventure: 'Action/adventure' seems best to me, but they'd be much better as two separate categories. The two aren't always linked.

16) Post Holocaust: 'Post Apocalyptic'
(Unless the category is to represent games dealing with the disaster itself?)

17) Drama, Romance, Relationship: 'Romance'

18) Horror Rename: 'Horror'

19) Asian, Eastern, Oriental: 'Eastern/Oriental'

20) Intrigue, Mystery, Spy: Again, I think these are deserving of multiple categories. I vote 'intrigue'

21) Comedy Rename: Keep 'comedy'

22) Contemporary Rename: 'Modern'

23) Superhero Rename: 'Superhuman'
(they needn't be heroic)

24) Western Rename: I like western, as it's clear cut, but if you have Eastern/Oriental you should have Western/Frontier. It makes for symmetry, and is clearer beyond the term's use as a direction.

Re: Possible Additions:

Keep Victorian, ditch Monster and Weird.

If you can create more by adding an extra row to the table, that might be the better option going forward. However, if I had to trim one so that there were precisely 24, it would be 'survival'.

It seems like the categories cover different material. Some are based on time period (medieval, future, etc), others on genre (horror, sci-fi), and others still on the function of the game (discussion, rpol forums). Maybe split it into 3 tables, and have three types of categories.

Ok, I've been reading, figured it was time to cast my votes in what I hope is a clear and useful way :)

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - Action/Adventure

16)  Post Holocaust - Disaster or Apocalyptic/Disaster

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - Drama

18)  Horror - Horror

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - I can see the value of it as a category, but don't know which name is best

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - Intrigue.

21)  Comedy - Lighthearted

22)  Contemporary - Contemporary

23)  Super Hero - Superhuman

24)  Western - Frontier (or Frontier/Western)

Possible Additions

Victorian Don't add

Weird Don't add

Monster My favourite of the three 'extras', but there's nothing I'd remove to add it in, so don't add.

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Humour - Piestar

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, jase, arkrim, Nightowl
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight
• Super Powers - Brygun

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Frontier - Lancebreaker
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight

Weird

• Add - Piestar
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl

Voted for Intrigue/Spy because I think Political Intrigue fits better with Spy than with Mystery, and voted for Mystery to have its own separate category. I think separating Mystery and Intrigue/Spy is more useful than adding Drama or Romance because I find Drama/Romance too generic. They can be applied to almost any kind of game.
This message was last edited by the user at 11:38, Sun 02 June 2013.

Just fixed a few of mine that were overlooked or where I only got one vote <sulks and grins %S >

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl, Skald
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Humour - Piestar

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, Nightowl
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Frontier - Lancebreaker
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Skald

Weird

• Add - Piestar
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl, Skald

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl, Skald

And to add my .02

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Shannara

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl, Shannara

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, Shannara
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, Shannara
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, Shannara
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Humorur - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl, Shannara
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, Nightowl
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Skald, Shannara

Weird

• Add - Piestar
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl, Skald, Shannara

I haven't got my suggestions on the list yet, so this is factoring the list-based ones in.

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl, Shannara

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl, adrasteia1
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Humorur - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl, Shannara
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, Nightowl, adrasteia1
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl, adrasteia1

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Skald, Shannara

Weird

• Add - Piestar
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1

edit: somehow missed the current way of posting preferences, despite all of the posts using the new format. Will re-post the correct way.
This message was last edited by the user at 14:30, Sun 02 June 2013.

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl, Seahawk
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Humorur - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Skald, Shannara

Weird

• Add - Piestar
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl, Seahawk
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, seasong
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic - seasong
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship - seasong
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker, seasong
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim, seasong
• Humorur - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker, seasong
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Skald, Shannara, seasong

Weird

• Add - Piestar, seasong
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl, Seahawk, BlackRavyn
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, seasong
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Cataclysmic - seasong
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship - seasong
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker, seasong, BlackRavyn
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl, BlackRavyn
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim, seasong
• Humorur - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - BlackRavyn
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker, seasong
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Skald, Shannara, seasong, BlackRavyn

Weird

• Add - Piestar, seasong
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn

Oooh...this is exciting!  Hehe...

The ones I want to add detail to my votes are;
 Horror: I use this, and it matters to me.  "Dark" isn't the same.
 Weird: Is a neat idea, actually, but it's going to get misused as a "Misc.", and we had very good reasons for not adding a Misc.

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl, Seahawk, BlackRavyn
• Keep but undecided on name -
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, seasong
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1, Utsukushi

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Utsukushi
• Cataclysmic - seasong
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, Shannara, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance
• Drama/Relationship - seasong
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl, BlackRavyn
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong, Utsukushi
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim, seasong
• Humorur - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, Utsukushi
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - BlackRavyn
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara, Utsukushi
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker, seasong, Utsukushi
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Skald, Shannara, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Weird

• Add - Piestar, seasong
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, adrasteia1, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

</quote>

Fine by me as is.




[*] Action/Adventure



[*] Keep but undecided on name



[*] Drama/Romance



[*] Horror



[*] Add but undecided on name



[*] Mystery/Spy
To me Intrigue says political and social maneuvering not mysteries and spy capers.



[*] Keep but undecided on name



Super Hero, Superhumam, or Super Powers all work for me. The short form Super could be confused with supernatural.



[*] Frontier/Western

UPDATED to reflect EVERYONE who has voted here since jase put up this list back in msg #154:

---

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl, Seahawk, BlackRavyn
• Keep but undecided on name - arkrim
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, seasong
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Low Key, Shannara, adrasteia1, Utsukushi, jmurrell

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Utsukushi
• Cataclysmic - seasong
• Disaster - Low Key
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Low Key, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Low Key
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, adrasteia1, Shannara, BlackRavyn
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance - jmurrell
• Drama/Relationship - seasong
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi, jmurrell
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - Low Key, jmurrell
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, adrasteia1, Shannara
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl, Skald, BlackRavyn
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, Utsukushi
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun, jmurrell
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, adrasteia1, Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim, Low Key, seasong
• Humour - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Low Key, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - BlackRavyn
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, jase, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Seahawk, seasong, jmurrell
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara, Utsukushi
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald, jmurrell

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Brygun, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker, Low Key, seasong, Utsukushi
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Low Key, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, BlackRavyn, jmurrell

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Low Key, Skald, Shannara, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Weird

• Add - Piestar, seasong
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Brygun, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

This message was last edited by the user at 04:46, Mon 03 June 2013.

In reply to arkrim (msg # 169):

One quick thing:  You've got Skald listed twice in 19, under Eastern/Oriental.  I haven't spotted any other doubles yet, though.

Thanks for catching that. I've doublechecked it and that's the only double I could find. Skald was already on the original list before he added his "revote" causing the double vote. Fixed!

Oh, and some people still do have multiple votes in a category but not on the same exact name. Some were okay with multiple choices.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:53, Mon 03 June 2013.

You're welcome!  And thanks very much for keeping track of the tallies!  ♥

In reply to Lunarius (msg # 172):
Happy to help. This development has me really excited. I've been wanting to see those genres updated since I got here at RPOL and seeing everyone pitch in like this to brainstorm and offer suggestions and votes is fantastic.

I'm super psyched that bigbadron and jase are on board with the idea. You guys rock! ^_^

arkrim ... I do appreciate getting multiple votes (I think I should, in fact +2 to me getting multiple votes if anyone is counting), but I suspect I really shouldn't. <grins>

My message #150 had multiples to indicate where I didn't really mind betwixt some options, but I modified that according to the new paradigm in #160 with my 'if I have to pick only one' choices.  The latest list you've compiled still has duplicates for me in the Intrigue, Mystery, Spy and Superhero categores, so I've (hopefully) fixed that up in the below.

Hey, in Oz we use a preferential voting system, not simple majority, so there was method in my madness. :>


REPOSTING WITH CORRECTIONS:

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl, Seahawk, BlackRavyn
• Keep but undecided on name - arkrim
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, seasong
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Low Key, Shannara, adrasteia1, Utsukushi, jmurrell

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Utsukushi
• Cataclysmic - seasong
• Disaster - Low Key
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Low Key, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Low Key
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, adrasteia1, Shannara, BlackRavyn
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance - jmurrell
• Drama/Relationship - seasong
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi, jmurrell
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - Low Key, jmurrell
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, adrasteia1, Shannara
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl, BlackRavyn
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, Utsukushi
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun, jmurrell
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, adrasteia1, Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim, Low Key, seasong
• Humour - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Low Key, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - BlackRavyn
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Seahawk, seasong, jmurrell
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara, Utsukushi
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald, jmurrell

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Brygun, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker, Low Key, seasong, Utsukushi
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Low Key, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, BlackRavyn, jmurrell

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Low Key, Skald, Shannara, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Weird

• Add - Piestar, seasong
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Brygun, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

So, I notice I neglected to vote on a couple of these. Added that in. And shifted one vote I placed to a different entry. I don't think that entry was on the list of options when I cast my vote originally.

---

Suggested Changes:

15)  Action, Adventure - New

• Do not include - jase, Nightowl, Seahawk, BlackRavyn
• Keep but undecided on name - arkrim
• Action - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, seasong
• Adventure
• Action/Adventure - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, Low Key, Shannara, adrasteia1, Utsukushi, jmurrell

16)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Utsukushi
• Cataclysmic - seasong
• Disaster - Low Key
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Low Key, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

17)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Low Key
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, adrasteia1, Shannara, BlackRavyn
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance - jmurrell
• Drama/Relationship - seasong
• Relationship/Romance

18)  Horror - Rename

• Do not include
• Horror - Brygun, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi, jmurrell, FallingMorning
• Dark - Lancebreaker, arkrim
• Dark/Horror -

19)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - Low Key, jmurrell
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, adrasteia1, Shannara, FallingMorning
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

20)  Intrigue, Mystery, Spy - New

• Do not include
• Add but undecided on name
• Spy
• Mystery - Nightowl, BlackRavyn
• Intrigue - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, ErrantKnight, jase, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, Utsukushi
• Mystery/Spy - Skald, Brygun, jmurrell
• Intrigue/Spy - Nightowl
• Intrigue/Mystery

21)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, adrasteia1, Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim, Low Key, seasong
• Humour - Piestar, Shannara

22)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Low Key, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Contemporary/Modern

23)  Super Hero - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - BlackRavyn
• Superhuman - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Piestar, jase, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Seahawk, seasong, jmurrell
• Super
• Supers - ErrantKnight, Shannara, Utsukushi
• Super Powers - Brygun, Skald, jmurrell

24)  Western - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name
• Western - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Brygun, Shannara
• Frontier - Lancebreaker, Low Key, seasong, Utsukushi
• Frontier/Western - FallingMorning, bigbadron, Piestar, Skald, Low Key, Nightowl, adrasteia1, Seahawk, BlackRavyn, jmurrell

Possible Additions

Victorian

• Add - Piestar, Brygun, adrasteia1
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Low Key, Skald, Shannara, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Weird

• Add - Piestar, seasong
• Don't Add - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi

Monster

• Add - Lancebreaker
• Don't Add - Brygun, adrasteia1, Low Key, Nightowl, Skald, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi, FallingMorning

Hey folks, please stop copy/pasting the whole thing if you're only changing one or two of your votes. That's annoying, confusing and inconsiderate to those of us who actually care about keeping track of everyone else's vote. Thanks!
This message was last edited by the user at 06:34, Mon 03 June 2013.

Just wanted to say a quick thank you for all your hard work keeping all this straight and coherent arkrim! :)

Ummm, while I do care about everyone else's vote (particulary when they match my own, of course), personally I prefer people to post a running tally.  It's certainly proved easier for corrections (my case in point - votes were right at message #160, but somehow duplicates were added in during later collation) - I think this is because it's far easier for a person to ensure their own votes are right, than for others to manage the lot.

If the latest post is the up to date summary, surely that's less confusing than trying to work out which of the many posts above was the one to draw the line under ?

Yes, this thread is probably one of the longest to date with all the posted lists, but that's cos we're changing so many genres at once - certainly seems to be working, at least from where I'm sitting.

But perhaps we should vote on which method people prefer ?  <grins, ducks, runs>  ;>

I'm sure it might be easier on you, Skald, but if arkrim finds it more confusing and he's the one kind enough to be doing the tallying, isn't it just more polite to go with what works best for him? :D

Hmm, thought it was my list (and I do find it better all in one spot), but no matter.

---

Not sure how you got the impression you weren't allowed to add your own varient, I certainly added in some suggestions when composing the list.

---

I think we can lock in a few more options, namely Action/Adventure, Horror, Intrigue, Superhuman and Frontier/Western.

Locked in:

 1)  Action/Adventure - New
 2)  Ancient - New
 3)  Anime - Existing
 4)  Arena - Existing
 5)  Discussion - Compulsory
 6)  Fantasy - Existing
 7)  Frontier/Western - Renamed from Western
 8)  Future - New
 9)  Historical - Existing
10)  Horror - Existing
11)  Intrigue - New
12)  Medieval - Existing
13)  Punk - Renamed from Cyberpunk
14)  RPoL Forums - Compulsory
15)  Sci-Fi - Existing
16)  Strategy - Existing
17)  Superhuman - Renamed from Super Hero
18)  Supernatural - Merge of Vampire and Werewolf
19)  Survival - New


This leaves us with the still-to-be-decided changes below.  I've crossed out anything I don't think should be included as a valid voting option anymore, which means some of us will need to recast our votes.  What you preferred might no longer be an option, which means you should cast your second preference.  Hopefully this way we can get the best consensus.

If I've crossed out something you think should be left it, let me know, I'm not trying to force my will, just tidy things up and steer us all in the right direction.

If you do suddenly think of another word that'd be better, don't hesitate to suggest it, we might all love it and change our votes!

Suggested Changes:

20)  Post Holocaust - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Holocaust
• Apocalyptic - FallingMorning, Lunarius, bigbadron, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Utsukushi
• Cataclysmic - seasong
• Disaster
• Post Holocaust - Lancebreaker
• Post Apocalyptic - Piestar, adrasteia1
• Apocalyptic/Disaster - Skald, Low Key, Nightowl, Shannara, Seahawk, BlackRavyn

21)  Drama, Romance, Relationship - New

• Do not include - Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Drama - Lunarius, Lancebreaker, ErrantKnight, arkrim, Low Key
• Romance - Piestar, Skald, Brygun, adrasteia1, Shannara, BlackRavyn
• Relationship - bigbadron
• Drama/Romance - jmurrell
• Drama/Relationship - seasong
• Relationship/Romance

22)  Asian, Eastern, Oriental - New

• Do not include - Lancebreaker, seasong, BlackRavyn, Utsukushi
• Add but undecided on name - Low Key, jmurrell
• Eastern - Lunarius, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim
• Oriental - bigbadron, Seahawk
• Asian - Piestar
• Eastern/Oriental - Skald, adrasteia1, Shannara, FallingMorning
• Asian/Eastern
• Asian/Oriental

23)  Comedy - Rename

• Remove
• Keep but undecided on name - FallingMorning
• Comedy - Lunarius, bigbadron, Skald, ErrantKnight, Brygun, jase, adrasteia1, Nightowl, Seahawk, Utsukushi
• Lighthearted - Lancebreaker, arkrim, Low Key, seasong
• Humour - Piestar, Shannara
  (I've left humour in, though I'd recommend that it's not used due to "u" issues.)

24)  Contemporary - Rename

• Do not include
• Keep but undecided on name - jmurrell
• Contemporary - FallingMorning, Lunarius, Lancebreaker, bigbadron, Skald, Low Key, Shannara, Seahawk, seasong
• Modern - Piestar, ErrantKnight, Brygun, arkrim, adrasteia1, BlackRavyn
• Contemporary/Modern (But if we continue to be split, this might be our only way of satisfying a majority!)

Possible Additions

Victorian, Weird, Monster