Genre Mashup

[Mr. Mask]

I was bored, so I thought it's be interesting to try mashing random genres. The results can be pretty interesting.


Napoleanic era + Scifi: The colonial powers discover ancient portal technology, and proceed to colonize various low-tech alien planets, subjugating the strange inhabitants to their iron will and fearsome powder weapons. The slave trade is extended to all kinds of aliens, and sportsmen travel to distant planets to hunt weird alien animals.

Horror + Pirates: There is a town with a song they are known for. It is about a boy who snuck out to the docks to hear news from the sailors, but he went out a little early. And off the boats didn't come sailors, but mice. "Hi, hi diddle di-dee, the life of a sailor is a life to be free! Hi, hi, diddle di-das, come up you boys and off at last!" The boy's breath stops, and he tries to stop his quickening heart. He escapes away from the mice, but encounters the chorus of the song again. The song ends with the boy explaining the mice got him good, and for the last ten years, he's been a sailor proud--then the mice's chorus again. With such an amusing song, many are drawn to the sea-side town. The mice don't sing, but they do hang out on the boats. They hang out just about everywhere. Getting under your feet, in your food, chittering to themselves in the dark, as you complain about the mice to the inhabitants. The townspeople make evasive comments in response, saying they aren't hurting anyone; they only watch... and no one gives them cause to hurt anyone.


My suggestion is to make a game of it. Combine two random genres yourself, or just put one forward to be mixed with someone else's suggestion.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I like the idea of pirate/horror, reminds me of Sunless Sea... LOSE YOUR MIND. EAT YOUR CREW.

Now let's try something different.

Pharaonic Egypt x Wilderness Exploration (Gritty Deconstruction Mode). Roll up new character. Die of malaria. Roll up new character. Die of thirst. Roll up new character. Ooh, die in a chariot crash! Roll up new character. Die of thirst (again).

Hmm... that didn't turn out so well, did it?

[Raimun]

Western with Zombies! No, wait... that's Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.

Dracula vs. the nazis! ... And that's Hellsing.

Spies with superpowers. No. It's Metal Gear... and some Marvel comics.

Sci-fi + Fantasy! ... damn it. It's basically Star Wars.

... This is kind of hard.

No, wait! Space vikings! ... Aaand that's Space Wolves of Warhammer 40k.

Yeah, it is hard.

[Draconium]

Napoleanic wars + dragons = the premise of the Temeraire novels.

[mikeejimbo]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_..._(short_story)

Twist on the Napoleonic Sci Fi.

My mashup? Steampunk Fantasy Film Noir. So Steampunk really.

[Mr. Mask]

I would like to see another Western Zombie take. I think the writing was better in Red Dead Redemption than in the zombie edition (I mostly remember it being littered with failed humour). That does give me an idea, though.


Scifi + Zombies: It's the year 2,112. Bionics have advanced to the point where your lifespan can be greatly increased with self-repairing artificial organs, which can be replaced and maintained more easily than the ones we receive at birth. These organs are constantly being improved, and updated, capable of repairing themselves and improving based off the latest download. Out of bravery and a monetary incentive, many people download the trial updates, to see if there are any bugs and to make themselves human test subjects so that those trials can be ushered into general usage much more quickly (which once long ago would've been highly illegal). How the virus got past the trials.... no one is quite sure. We turned off the updating process since then, those who remained sane, but they still receive their updates, continually growing worse and more savage. Even some of us who, "switched off," have somehow become... tainted, struggling with the violent urges that plague the, "Latest". I've wondered for some time who it is that keeps making those updates. Someone trying to cure the Latest, and not succeeding? No... whoever it was that made that virus to begin with, worsening his new creations.

There's only so much time to wonder, when scavenging for nano-gel. That self-repair aspect that keeps the steady rhythm of our heartbeats, that doesn't come free. Nano-gel is an adaptive nanite which replaces and reinforces our nano-machines, but more importantly feeds them the toxins we can't eat which they need to keep functioning (don't ask me what's in it--all I know is the over-stated 0.0004% platinum). The adaptive quality is notable in that these nanites can work for your heart or your liver, changing to match the most recent build of the ones already working there... I bet you see the problem coming, with neon lights reading, "infection". The Latest are perfectly willing to share their nanites, through force, and they carrying the Latest's updates will, necessarily, excruciatingly, make you get with the program. Who knows, it mightn't be such a bad idea... one of them's jumping this way, some twenty feet in the air. Of course, I might be biased. They started hacking my brain yesterday.



To add to the premise, you need more than nano-gel to survive. Aside from food and other standards, you sometimes need to fix or even replace your organs, which could be damaged or infected in a fight (requiring you to shut them down before the Latest Update spreads). You also need to make sure you're protected against hacking, which is harder than it sounds since many of your organs communicate and function through short-range frequency.

Not everyone has the same update before the Latest Update came, so some of them are suffering quirks which no one had foreseen or worried about since you could just get replacements or download a patch. Some crazy people haven't gotten with the times, and lack bionic organs, happy to live for a mere estimated 110 years. Those people can't be infected, but then they don't have a bionic skeleton or muscles to help them fight the Latest (whom are very, very strong).

For some reason, not all the latest are updating in sync, presumably because many of them were subscribed to different trial groups (one of the few ways to afford bionics). So, some of the Latest are.... different.



There's a reasonable chance someone already has a similar premise of this, of course.

[nedz]

Wight Apocalypse and Cold War

Two Empires face off with mutually assured undeadiness. Tactical use of Wights in Limited Undead War is much debated. "Turn and Survive" pamphlets instruct citizens on how to make your own forbiddance bunker.

Vampire Ponies
Gothic and Cute — I'm not sure how this works.

[Vonwalt]

The great thing about combing genres is you can combine them a hundred different ways! For instance:
Space Vikings: the space wolves from 40k.
Easy, let's try again.
Space Vikings: earth's real Vikings, abducted to fight against monstrous beasts for the entertainment of a dissolute alien empire.
Or perhaps even...
Space Vikings: heading out into the star-lanes and boarding ships is just a job for Ragnar. He's stolen data crystals from the monks of the infinite expanse, drugs from the decadent khans of the horsehead nebula, and precious gold (for microchip parts) from the Caliphate Stars, all in his reaver-ship with custom Uninvited Docking Array.
As for my real submission, I choose Western/Lovecraftian.
The Law is sparse out on the fringe of society, and only the boldest of sheriffs can defeat both ordinary illegal prospectors and the ancient horrors they've unwittingly awakened...

[Raimun]

The great thing about combing genres is you can combine them a hundred different ways! For instance:
Space Vikings: the space wolves from 40k.
Easy, let's try again.
Space Vikings: earth's real Vikings, abducted to fight against monstrous beasts for the entertainment of a dissolute alien empire.
Or perhaps even...
Space Vikings: heading out into the star-lanes and boarding ships is just a job for Ragnar. He's stolen data crystals from the monks of the infinite expanse, drugs from the decadent khans of the horsehead nebula, and precious gold (for microchip parts) from the Caliphate Stars, all in his reaver-ship with custom Uninvited Docking Array.
As for my real submission, I choose Western/Lovecraftian.
The Law is sparse out on the fringe of society, and only the boldest of sheriffs can defeat both ordinary illegal prospectors and the ancient horrors they've unwittingly awakened...

Western+horror? That's just Deadlands. The roleplaying game. You know?

... Besides, [anything]+lovecraft is just lazy writing. Seriously. It's done to death.

[ThinkMinty]

Cattlepunk meets Heroic Fantasy. Well, Dark Tower? Westerns are cool, heroic fantasy is cool, it's an underutilized combination. Plus, gun wizards. GUN WIZARDS. I shouldn't have to convince you with more than gun wizards.

Biopunk meets High Fantasy. The full-on, splash-pagiest Mutant Megawar that X-Men keeps cockteasing but never really gets around to showing. Sure, it'll be the backstory for the bad Sentinel future or Age of Apocalypse or whatever, but the franchise weirdly refuses to cut all the way loose. A bunch of bio-enchanced metapeople going nova on eachother, pretty much.

Dungeon Punk meets Wuxia. It'd be like The Raid, but with wizards, monsters, and higher stakes! Or if you don't know what The Raid is, this mashup would like if Die Hard was also Big Trouble in Little China.

Steampunk meets (hard) Science Fantasy. This would be incredibly hard to pull off without coming across like a jackass, but if you could do it...you'd be a legend, just sayin'.

Ocean Punk meets Dark Fantasy. Be what Pirates of the Caribbean and the Risen games wanted to be. Or like...Seinen One Piece. Or...Berserk, in the ocean? You get the idea. Lots of people die because they drown or get eaten by sea monsters. For a fancy twist, the heroine is a plucky pirate girl like Polly from Polly and the Pirates. This protatonista would **** up all the sea monsters and rapacious evil pirates/rapacious evil sailors with her pirate skills and funky ocean sorcery.

Sky Punk meets Comic Fantasy. It'd be great to see these two come together. Lots of propeller aircraft and dragons, and a grim, sharp sense of humor for flavor. Pistols are referred to as "extra parachutes". That kinda thing.

... Besides, [anything]+lovecraft is just lazy writing. Seriously. It's done to death.

Aboleths, tho? Also, Lovecraftian horrors are easy to do. Just write extraterrestrial seafood that wants to eat your brain, which proves that the presents were never from Santa and that nobody loves you.

Vampire Ponies
Gothic and Cute — I'm not sure how this works.

They did a whole episode about this. It turns out...kinda cool, to be honest.

[tgva8889]

Has any popular media actually set the zombie apocalypse in a typical High Fantasy or Medieval Fantasy setting? Zombie apocalypse is itself sort of overdone, but that could be interesting.

Vigilante Steampunk! I have no idea what that would look like exactly, but I'd love to see costumed superheroes in a Victorian era technosetting using steampunk weaponry and gadgets. If I knew more about the Steampunk genre I'd consider just running it.

[Mr. Mask]

Vigilante Steampunk sounds like Dishonoured.

Not sure of any good zombie apocalypse plus high fantasy settings.

[ThinkMinty]

Not sure of any good zombie apocalypse plus high fantasy settings.

Apparently someone's trying to Kickstart a PF thing with that premise in mind.

Or there's those episodes of Adventure Time with the Candy Zombies?

[Draconium]

Now I'm curious about how good of a show you could get if you took the Slice of Life genre and put it in a Post-Apocalyptic setting. Is there any shows out there that do this already? It really wouldn't surprise me.

[Knaight]

The heist genre is underdone, and could be hybridized with a number of things. Post apocalyptic heist, fantasy heist, hard sci-fi heist. Once you get to science-fantasy heist you just have Shadowrun though.

[nedz]

The heist genre is underdone, and could be hybridized with a number of things. Post apocalyptic heist, fantasy heist, hard sci-fi heist. Once you get to science-fantasy heist you just have Shadowrun though.

Is Heist a genre ? I've always thought of it as more of a scenario thing, multiple sequential scenarios perhaps ?

[ThinkMinty]

Is Heist a genre ? I've always thought of it as more of a scenario thing, multiple sequential scenarios perhaps ?

Yes, it's a genre.

The heist genre is underdone, and could be hybridized with a number of things. Post apocalyptic heist, fantasy heist, hard sci-fi heist. Once you get to science-fantasy heist you just have Shadowrun though.

One of the Harry Dresden books has a heist, I think? I really need to get around to reading those.

[Mr. Mask]

Now I'm curious about how good of a show you could get if you took the Slice of Life genre and put it in a Post-Apocalyptic setting. Is there any shows out there that do this already? It really wouldn't surprise me.

School Live Club gets into that part way in. It's an anime they just released. I recommend it.


Knaight: Zombie Apocalypse almost has heists. having to get past undead to scavenge. All they need to do is work out a more detailed, elaborate plan for such a scavenging run. You could potentially have other humans be antagonists as well, where the heist characters do stuff like lure a horde of zombies their way to distract them.


Nedz: I'd say it's at least a sub-genre. In the end, genre is just to indicate a trope or set of tropes common of popular media.



Giant Robots and Western? Trigun is almost that, but robots were never a major plot element. They recently had a game that was small robots and the American Civil War. Western robots would carry Gattling revolvers, cannon rifles, and maybe ride trains like horses to get where they want to go? hey might have have a giant, metal-chain lasso, too. Probably salvaged from a lost alien civilization, or actually a post-apocalyptic world, where people are trying to give their robots big powder weapons.

Fighting a giant robot without one would mostly need cannon and traps, but a really fine shot might be able to put a bullet past the vision slits. Robot wielding outlaws scourge the land with their cattle rustling, it up to whatever do-gooders with their own robots or tricks to set them straight.



Coincidentally, I think they did make a game about giant robots in world war 2.

[tgva8889]

Vigilante Steampunk sounds like Dishonoured.

I suppose "Superhero Steampunk" might be closer to what I was thinking of, but man now I have to play Dishonoured. So glad I got it in the last Steam sale.

Heist is also a great genre, though I can imagine a Heist in some settings would be weird. Fantasy Heist would be interesting just to see how they do all the things we expect from the Ocean's Eleven crew but with medieval tech and magic, but any sort of Apocalypse heist raises questions like "where did they get all of this gear?" and "what's so important about this thing that they're willing to spend lots of resources acquiring it here rather than from somewhere less defended?" which would be very interesting to answer.

Isn't the movie Zombieland sort of Zombie Apocalypse Slice of Life/Comedy?

Giant Robot + Slice of Life?

[Mr. Mask]

I'd say Super Hero steam punk works in Dishonoured too, though it's more Batman than Avengers. Superhero steam punk would probably have your Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes, your corrupt colonial officials and your Jack the Ripper, all with steam punk flare. Possibly some plot lines based around trains and airships. That is, assuming it's a Victorian steampunk, which is the main era that comes to mind with such.


I'm sure there's a giant robot slice of life one somewhere, but I haven't heard of it. It'd probably involve doing silly things with your giant robot, because you're bored.

[ThinkMinty]

Giant Robot + Slice of Life?

Megas XLR, at least somewhat. It was very character-driven, and a fair amount of Coop's problems were mundane, such as his DMV misadventure.

[tgva8889]

Oooh, High Fantasy Criminal Investigation! CSI: Eberron.

[Draconium]

Oooh, High Fantasy Criminal Investigation! CSI: Eberron.

Is it bad that I'm not surprised that OotS has a related strip? And It's probably not the only one.

[ThinkMinty]

Oooh, High Fantasy Criminal Investigation! CSI: Eberron.

Sounds familiar...

[GorinichSerpant]

Oooh, High Fantasy Criminal Investigation! CSI: Eberron.

The Guards line of Terry Pratchett's books is basically that. Maybe not if you don't consider the discworld to fall under high fantasy, but it is definitely fantasy.

[Drakeburn]

One idea that comes to mind is Mecha + Steampunk. A game with a Jules Verne feel would be really awesome. Although the idea sounds more ideal for a wargame than a roleplaying game. A Steampunk Battletech game is still a pretty cool concept nonetheless.

[Mr. Mask]

Someone actually made just that:


Since we keep coming back to zombies and mechs, what about zombie mechs? Would it involve huge mutant zombies that need to be fought with giant robots? Or zombies who pilot mechs even after their death? Or the Mech computers contaminated by a virus, causing them to attack humans?

[NRSASD]

One I'd be curious to see (and I don't know of any examples of) is Space/Sci-Fi Vampires. What would that even look like?

Was a part of a loooong campaign that was a Zombie Apocalypse/Medieval game in 2nd AD&D. It was fantastic!

Medieval/Espionage/Heist: The Dark Mod, and to a lesser extent, the original Thief games. It's a blast if done well

Space/Medieval: The Excalibur Alternative. English knights from the 100 Year War get abducted by aliens to serve as mercs, backstab the supremely overcocky aliens, and cruise across the Galaxy frantically trying to figure out how to fly their ship.

Space/Western: Oh wait, Firefly

Least successful genre mashup in my opinion has to go to Vampire Pirates; otherwise known as "how many different ways can we get dusted in 24 hours?"

[tgva8889]

I forget the name of it, but there was a comic that was effectively Vampires + Apocalypse, and that in itself sounds pretty interesting.

[Drakeburn]

The idea of an robot uprising has me thinking about Cyberpunk + Apocalypse where drones from Law Enforcement and the Military are infected with a virus that has them turn against humanity. Then again, that sounds a lot like Terminator. But it would be a cool campaign idea for Shadowrun though.