The Culture: It's All The Same Thing

These are all the same story.

Different costums. Different set dressing. Exact same story, BEAT FOR BEAT.

Yet they will tell you that these are three separate genres. That can only one of two things; either those specific genres are fake, or the very concept of "genre" is nothing more than a product label the same that you put books separate from shoes separate from toothpaste.

What this is, consistently, is a Drama. That's the substance--the narrative structure--that defines what a story is; too many professionals and wanna-bees mean "product category" when they say "genre" and that's how publishers, distributors, developers--all the business types--see this topic, and they always have.

Too many creatives--such as John Truby--confuse "product label" with "narrative structure" when they say "genre"; if you doubt this, get your library card out and go read Truby's book on Genre.

We see how fake "genre" is again with Appendix N, where Adventure Fiction is split between two equally fake genres: "Fantasy" and "Science Fiction".

"Horror" is also a fake genre.

If they are not real, what are they? The lead in Kristen McTiernan's latest interview makes this plain: Audience Expectation Templates-cum-Product Categories.

And in Tabletop, we have two well-known Brands that prove how fake genre is: TORG and RIFTS. (There are others, but these are go-to.)

It's all the same thing. For us, it's all Fantastic Adventure. That's what we do; the rest is just varations of costumes and set dressing, as the substance--the strucutre--is always exactly the same.

Which is why well over 99% of all Tabletop products can't justify their existence, are surplus to requirements, and and thus have no right to exist and must be abolished.