I’ve played too many games that fit genres and tropes that I usually like that suuuck or don’t live up to the promise and I also have been delightfully surprised by enough games that didn’t initially sound interesting and turned out to be AMAZING that I give less and less weight to genre and tropes as something to judge a game by.

I mean, it’s a shorthand way of grabbing attention or communicating information, and I’d be deluding myself if I thought I was completely above it (watch: tomorrow I’ll completely forget this conversation and be all: whhhy aren’t there more superhero vampire games?!), but I really do care way more about how a game plays.

I’ve been talking with Judd Karlman about rogues, which is character type I love, and it got me thinking why I haven’t played more of them given the opportunity, and it kind of comes down to this: just because the character has lockpicks and a knife doesn’t mean it’s going to be fun and feel like a rogue to me. If lockpicks were all I cared about: right on – lots of games for me! But if undermining the power structure or planning complicated adventures or the feel of being fast on my feet is what’s important to me, then that narrows down the playing field. A lot.

And I may even find that parts of what I love about playing a rogue are handled amazingly well by games that are not about rogues at all but have mechanics or structures that really speak to me.

This isn’t to say the shorthand of genre and trope and setting and flavor aren’t important, but they often feel like smoke and mirrors to me.