tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34834473.post4136987743900852685..comments2023-08-28T08:23:06.845-04:00Comments on Scrolls of the PlatinumWarlock: In Which The Warlock Swings on the Pendulum Once More...A.P. Kloskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09719352533858966154noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34834473.post-23331760636282748862011-05-21T16:10:16.077-04:002011-05-21T16:10:16.077-04:00The key thing here is intent. Torg, while a great...The key thing here is intent. Torg, while a great example of a cross-genre game, is more like Stargate--the players expect those shifts, and always have something common to fall back on.<br /><br />"Time After Time", though, really uses the shift in drama to achieve dramatic tension. That's what makes it a great pendulum adventure. <br /><br />So, in essence...yeah. It's a matter of keeping the players on their toes, and using each shift purposefully to build drama and increase tension.A.P. Kloskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09719352533858966154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34834473.post-79900312062252896042011-05-20T18:55:56.244-04:002011-05-20T18:55:56.244-04:00Would you say that there is a difference between t...Would you say that there is a difference between the "Genre-Pendulum" and simply having a cross-genre setting? It seems to me that the Call of Cthulhu example you gave above is certainly an example of the genre-pendulum because it shifts from the expected "default" Call of Cthulhu genre into the unexpected sci-fi genre.<br /><br />But what about settings that are by definition cross-genre? The best example I can think of is Torg, where the core rulebook alone describes 15 different "cosms" that the players can travel to, ranging from the paleolithic Living Land to the pulp Nile Empire to the modern Core Earth to the dystopian future of the Cyberpapacy. Jumping from the Living Land to the Cyberpapacy is definitely a giant shift in genre, and it's possible that the players can unexpectedly find themselves in different cosms, and therefore different genres. It's sort of like the Planescape D&D setting which allows you to cross between any of the D&D settings, each of which has sort of a sub-genre of fantasy (e.g. Fantasy Pulp for Eberron, Fantasy Horror for Ravenloft, Fantasy Sci-fi for Spelljammer).<br /><br />I imagine that if a player was playing Torg or D&D Planescape, they would be expecting at some point to be switching genres and it would be less of a shock no matter how hard the GM tries to pull a 180. So is the difference between a cross-genre setting and a Genre Pendulum whether or not the players expect a genre change?Thunderforgenoreply@blogger.com