Basing Concepts on Genre

Why is Genre Important

Genre can impact everything, from tone to what concepts fit the world you're creating, by starting there you can explore classic tropes and favourite ideas from any TV series, movies, books etc. that you may want to use. With any luck, immersing yourself in a new genre or picking one of your favourites will spurs some new ideas of your own!

Genres to choose from

Here are some genres you may want to choose from with some ideas on how that genre may impact your world, your world may fit one or several of these categories, this is also not an exhaustive list so if the genre you want to choose isn't here you may just want to read some similar ones instead to help you start thinking on what you have in mind.

While going through the ideas below it's important to remember the themes and ideas at the heart of Biosphere Guardians 2050 so here's a refresher if you need it:

'Biosphere Guardians 2050 aims to create an optimistic view of the future, one where the world has made active efforts to resolve climate change issues on a global scale. Set in the year 2050, it imagines this is being achieved through the creation of The Biosphere Project: large scale re-wilding projects to create carbon negative regions across the world.'

The sections in bold are central to the world of the Biosphere across every genre, they are the foundations to help you build ideas on top of. However, it's optimistic tone doesn't mean your world has to be without problems, in fact we would encourage there to be some degree of struggle as, in-game, climate change is an issue in the ongoing process of being resolved - there are bound to be mistakes and challenges along the way. The point is that, at the end of the day, all hope is not lost and there is always a way forward - it's just a question of finding it.

Sci-Fi

This is what we'd class as the default genre as it tends to be the one that best lends itself to Biosphere Guardians. Climate change is an issue that can often make the future seem pretty bleak, but right now science is being used to develop possible answers. Through exploring how science could innovate solutions to climate change in-game, you can start to envision how a brighter future could look in reality. If we are to be optimistic about the future regarding climate change, then its much easier to imagine a world where science and technology (whether contemporary or more advanced) is applied further towards that goal, making Sci-Fi the easiest genre to create your Biosphere in, as well as the best to help visualise a positive, real-life future.

Fantasy

In contrast to the Sci-Fi genre, Fantasy may be the least conventional genre for a Biosphere Guardians setting. However, don't let this dissuade you as Fantasy can provide an optimistic form of escapism, allowing you to explore a real-world problem with the buffer of imaginary and whimsical elements.

A fantasy game of Biosphere Guardians can be approached in roughly 3 ways:

1. Entire modifications - these will upheave a lot of the default ideas in favour of completely game-shifting magical/fantasy mechanics e.g. your world is a classic medieval fantasy and the players are Elves responsible for managing a huge magic forest, their aim is counter the encroaching orcs and their industry that poisons the land makes the thick with smog. In that world you have the existence of magic and fantasy creatures, both of which will fundamentally alter, not only the game's genre (changing it to purely fantasy), but how you play the game - in this case it may be helpful to see some examples of Additional or Alternative Rules. Choosing this approach may be harder to do as you may have to create some of your own rules in order to achieve the effect you're looking for, so this may be better suited to slightly more experienced players. If this is the route you want to take, then exchanging technology for magic may be a good place to start before consider some worldbuilding questions on how it impacts your world.
2. Blending fantasy with the original sci-fi format - this will add a fantasy tone but not completely alter the game mechanics e.g. perhaps magical creatures exist but technology drives the climate change solutions, maybe technology is powered by magic but still requires scientific engineering etc. - the possibilities are only as limited as you want them to be. This may be better suited to more beginner players as it allows you to incorporate fantasy without having to rewrite or introduce some of your own mechanics.
3. One-shots - one-off games where you can take a different-genre-based world and add a singular session of fantasy, maybe your Biosphere is set in a Crime genre for example, but you want a one-shot adventure to explore what would happen if that session's crime was caused by a strange creature that had infiltrated the Biosphere. Or maybe you want to add fantasy by having your standard Sci-fi Biosphere game suddenly start communicating with the Earth God Gaia, either as a one off episode or one that ends us affecting a whole campaign.

Alternative Genres

These genres are listed as Alternative because they may not, at first glance, appear to fit the optimistic tone of Biosphere Guardians, however they can lend themselves very well to the idea that resolving climate change issues is an ongoing process. A good way to merge the often darker elements of these genres with the optimistic tone is by using the darker moments or elements to make the light elements seem brighter by contrast. For example, if you restrict the darkness to the world outside, the Biosphere can be a beacon of hope and wonder by comparison; and they don't have to be mutually exclusive, you can have rogue elements straying into the Biosphere in whatever way you like, just remember to make sure there are better things on the horizon when you do.

The difference between Dystopia and Post-Apocalyptic

Now dystopias and post-apocalyptic fiction tend to overlap, every post-apocalyptic piece could technically count as a dystopia, but not vice-versa. Though trying to determine if a piece of fiction that includes both dystopian and post-apocalyptic elements, is not a perfect science, but as a general 'rule of thumb [the answer] tends to lie with the core focal point of the story. If the story is about the powers that be, it’s probably dystopian. If it’s about the damaged state of the world, it’s probably post-apocalyptic.'