Genre is one of the most useful guides for the action in a tabletop roleplaying game. It pushes consistency and gets everyone on the same page. Genre in TTRPGs isn’t a prison that a group cannot evolve or break out of. However, doing so requires open and clear communication, with everyone’s agreement. Also, genre is worth considering not just at the campaign start, but at each and every moment of play; it’s really useful, right the way up to the finale of a two-year campaign.
Genre as Communication Tool
The number one reason for openly discussing genre is how quickly it sets expectations for a game. That said, using genre as a guiding star never really stops being useful; this is despite getting forgotten about so often after session zero. More on this in a bit.
Before I go on, a quick note: I’ll be saying genre a lot; however, I’m really bundling up lots of terms here. Setting, atmosphere and tone, pacing and scope: anything that communicates an adventure’s vibe. That’s what I mean by genre throughout the article; thank you for bearing with the imprecision.
With that out of the way, what is talking about an adventure’s genre before a game begins actually doing? It puts everyone—GMs and players—on the same page with similar expectations over what’s to come.
Examples of Genre in TTRPGs at Work
Consider a group deciding their next adventure will be a high fantasy, swashbuckling, heroic campaign. Everyone can expect plentiful, fast combat with the rule of cool a priority over strict physics; there will be lots of magic, resource management is a small concern, and there’s only a slight risk to PCs. Some events might feel a bit ridiculous if you step back; however, so long as everyone is having fun, it’s all good.
Conversely, a game that’s grimdark, survival, hard science fiction with some political intrigue will be a very different experience. Events are likely to be unsettling with no clear good guys or bad guys. Death can come quickly to the PCs, and careful resource management will be important; additionally, the action will be more grounded and there will be powerful NPCs the characters cannot fight. From a distance, moments may feel horrifying, but again, if everyone is enjoying the game, everything is awesome.
Whatever genre—or blend of genres—a group taps into, the descriptions work as signals to avoid nasty surprises. This is definitely not a case of less is best. It’s vital groups aren’t shy with information here. Just like during gameplay, fun player agency comes from having more information to act on.
Telling someone the game is going to be fantasy is almost useless. For starters, it’s the most popular genre in the hobby. It doesn’t give much information beyond magic will probably be a feature. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter are all fantasy on some level. Groups must do better than that here. More information means less chance of confusion, disappointment, or outright frustration later.
Using References
This concept isn’t new. I remember Chris Perkins encouraging their use in his D&D 4e advice column The Dungeon Master Experience years ago. It wasn’t a new idea even back then, but good advice endures. Darrington Press’ Daggerheart is one of the latest systems to explicitly use genre in TTRPGs, calling them touchstones. They form part of a campaign frame, or outline, during adventure creation.
Touchstones work as a shorthand for genre descriptions. I could say my game is about schoolkids solving mysteries in a modern fantasy setting; it is high action, heroic, with a focus on fun, discovery, and wonder. Alternatively, I could say it’s like Harry Potter.
They’re faster, and work especially well with blended genres. Think about the paragraph needed to describe Tombstone meets Last Samurai meets The Matrix. I’d still need to add a description how these work together; the starting pieces are there, though, instead of starting from zero. (Something like cyberpunk cowboys in a frontier town join a rebellion against corporations destroying old values; the PCs begin unlocking time warp abilities, as a greater conspiracy from machine intelligence gets revealed).
The problem with touchstones is fairly obvious. They rely on people being familiar with the same films, music, books, and games. If you’ve never watched Last Samurai, The Matrix, or Tombstone, the referencing did nothing; though incidentally in the case of the latter, please do if you haven’t, Val Kilmer’s performance is phenomenal.
However, unknown references or touchstones aren’t a huge problem. Very few things are truly unique, so if someone doesn’t know one title, they might know another similar one. More importantly though, regular descriptions are always on hand to fill the gap. References and touchstones are just an attempted shortcut helping the descriptions along; remove the shortcuts and the destination doesn’t change.
Where Genre in TTRPGs Can Go Off The Rails
As mentioned, advice for using genre to set expectations at the start of a campaign is common. Unfortunately, it seems many people forget about it after a few sessions. This loses out on a lot of its potential as a guiding light that never stops shining.
Whenever players engage with the world, they generally think of three questions:
– What would my character do?
– What would be optimal?
– What would be cool?
An action that matches all three usually results in something awesome.
However, all three of the above should go through the lens of a fourth: what suits the genre? Breaking genre can lead to a common problem—especially in long-term campaigns—because initial expectations become inaccurate. If there isn’t enough foreshadowing or, more ideally, openly communication at the table, the risk of frustration can skyrocket.
For example, players in a Call of Cthulhu game engage with cosmic horror and the fragility of body and mind. But, without narrative reason, one player refuses to engage with the session’s focus, a haunted manor. Instead of going into danger and discovering occult knowledge and horrifying truths, they just burn the place down. This might seem a practical solution to keep the investigator living, but it kills the session.
Or, a knight in a D&D game decides not to answer the call to action; instead of saving the kingdom, they start up a school to train new knights, never leaving the area. Mechanically, this could be fine. There are rules for bastions in the D&D 2024 DMG, after all. However, it’s probably not the game everyone signed up for.
Breaking genre in TTRPGs should be for a reason everyone is on board with.
GMs Can Be Guilty Too
And it’s not just players who can break genre badly. If the group start a Pulp Cthulhu adventure, the GM should keep the fistfights and shoot-outs coming. Pulp demands action sequences like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. Building a session around a single eldritch monster, far above the PCs’ abilities, is for more concentrated horror; it would fit far better in regular Call of Cthulhu.
What works for one system or setting might not work for another.
Genre in TTRPGs Isn’t a Straitjacket
In no way am I saying genre should decide the action in each and every moment. However, it is a very good guide for what should probably happen most of the time. In a cosmic horror game, characters are more likely to run away from the King in Yellow. In a heroic fantasy, the characters are more likely to choose sacrifice over such pragmatism.
Genre is an ongoing reminder for what’s okay in a session. If an adventure features horror, then vulnerability will be there, too. A swashbuckling campaign encourages recklessness; tragedy allows failure. Breaking genre is fine, so long as its intentional and everyone in the group is on board with it.
As someone who loves variety, I understand the desire to change gears sometimes. That’s no problem there, so long as open communication states it plainly and everyone is okay with it. If session zero pitched a tense, survival narrative, simple ask: “Is it okay if we change it up this session?”
After a long period of sustained pressure, some comedy or action to let off steam might do the table good. Then afterwards, re-engage. Great books and films do this all the time. The masterpiece Alien has jokes and moments of tenderness following horrifying moments to vary the tension and accentuate the horror.
If It’s Good Enough for LoTR…
Peter Jackson and John Rhys-Davies—Gimli’s actor—gave the dwarf comedy moments to let the films breathe. Twelve hours, the extended editions being the only way to watch the films for this fan, is a long time. Twelve hours with only the hobbits as a source of comedy would have been tough viewing. And incidentally the payoff when Gimli is serious makes it one of my favourite moments in the final film.
Neither Lord of the Rings nor Alien are comedies. Once the joke hits, the main genre expectations come back. In the case of the genre in TTRPGs, everyone gets back into the vibe they wanted to play the most from the beginning. Recalling that last detail is important. If everyone is cracking jokes and that’s what the group are happy with, then it’s all good.
Apart from one-liners, breaking genre can work for individual scenes, too; however, I’ve found it’s often easier to do it before a break in the session, or give the whole session to it entirely. Everyone seems to get into the same head-space more easily.
Drifting Genre in TTRPGs
I mentioned long campaigns in particular can struggle to maintain their genre. This is natural in games like D&D or Pathfinder because characters develop such incredible power. The players are with their characters for so long that stakes naturally escalate to match these greater capabilities. It’s obvious—and a lot of fun—to see characters grow, taking on bigger and bigger quests.
But gaining more and more skills also tends towards comedy as threats get smaller and smaller; horror becomes action; mystery turns into politics; survival can evolve into grand resource management.
And this may be all fine if that’s what the group wants. The genre of the adventure can evolve along with the PCs. However, if that evolution isn’t what people signed up for, dissatisfaction can bleed in. Using open communication to check everyone is still happy and on the same page only takes a minute; doing so can save a lot of future heartache.
When the Game Has Changed
Not recognising the vibe at the table has changed is a mistake I’ve personally made. At the beginning of a two-year D&D campaign, the opening adventures were hard a brutal. Two characters died. And yet, towards the end, the characters were thirteenth level. The jokes were flying fast and everyone was having a good time.
With the end in sight, I tried to yank the action back to the original vibe; a big finale to what had been a tough and brutal beginning needed a tough and brutal final act. This by itself wouldn’t have been a critical error if I’d said, “Hey guys, it’s the final stretch. What about wrapping things up with a brutal final arc?” And of course, make sure I got the okay.
Instead, I committed the double error of not respecting the genre had evolved, and then forcing a change without warning. It wasn’t a choice out of malice. It felt totally natural to me at the time because that was what everyone had wanted to play in the beginning. I didn’t check in with anyone. A quick question would have saved a long, heated conversation.
The players felt—with justification—I had pulled the rug out on them without warning. It was a return to the original vibe, sure, but that was two years ago by that point. It’s definitely in the top three mistakes as GM, and I would have readily dodged it with open communication.
Back on Brand
So what are some ways to get everyone in the same mood? After everyone has agreed on the genre they want to play, music is the easiest vibe-setter. Let any joke land, wait a moment or two, and then change the music in combination with a new development. That might be an important reveal, a new NPC entering, a cut-scene to the villain, or jump to another location.
Other GM tricks for keeping genre in TTRPGs include a formulaic opening phrase for different stages of play (e.g. “Last we left our heroes, they were…” or “Roll initiative!” and “How do you want to do this?”). This signals what is about to happen (the start of the game, the beginning of combat, or its end); and coupled with that is the signal for the intended vibe (concentration, tension, or relief). Players can readily understand what’s happening along with the expectations, and react accordingly.
Another useful trick is introducing NPC archetypes. The way they enter the scene, how they talk to the PCs and respond to them, these all cue expectations. If jokes are getting out of hand, a leader, security enforcer, or someone desperately in need will reassert desired vibes. Conversely, players going too far towards melodrama can get pulled back with an explicit comic or someone ridiculously over-serious.
Players Getting in on the Act
Both GMs and players can tap into repeating themes and motifs. When GMs introduce a recurring symbol, link that with a recurring event. For example, the sound of warhorns signals yet another raid; a red flag means revolutionaries will attack again; a certain white flower starts scenes of respite or reflection.
For players, catchphrases, treasured inventory items, and very brief ritualistic acts work along the same lines. A character might make a certain gesture before drawing their sword in anger; they might murmur a quick prayer while thumbing a charm before making a provocative response. These function exactly the same way, with the added bonus of sharing the responsibility for the table vibe. It’s always nice to help the GM out wherever possible.
All of these work to constantly remind everyone else what kind of game the group said it wanted to play; they frame what kind of world the characters are living. They give sessions a steady foundation of consistency.
Conclusion
And that, ultimately, is what using genre in TTRPGs is all about. They are a tool to help achieve consistency. Not a straitjacket, or a prison in which everyone is stuck inside. Breaking genre for a moment—or a session—or blending it with another can be a lot of fun. But everyone has to be on board. Everyone has to want the change of vibe, otherwise things start to break down.
