Genre Savvy

Basic Information

A character who is Genre Savvy is (on some level) aware of the most common genre tropes of the sort of story he's in. For example, if a character who's seen zombie movies before finds himself in a zombie apocalypse, he'll be a little better prepared, will try head shots in the first fight scene, and knows not to wander off alone. A savvy character won't fall for the simple tricks and ploys, nor make boneheaded beginner mistakes. They will score better on the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality because of it.

They also might be aware what roles they or other characters seem to fit, or be able to predict plot developments because life is imitating art. Or rather, art is imitating life imitating art.

See also:

• Contractual Genre Blindness
• Dangerously Genre Savvy
• Death by Genre Savviness
• Fourth Wall
• Genre Blindness
• Medium Awareness
• Post Modernism
• Wrong Genre Savvy

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki

Game and Story Use

• Players are nearly always genre savvy, but sometimes it's not appropriate for their characters to be. This can be more difficult to suppress than most other forms of Out Of Character Information. The player is justified in feeling it's not a matter of knowing monster stats or secrets of the setting, it's just about playing smart. If your game really needs characters to be genre blind, you'd best communicate that to the players.
• High level characters are likely to be very genre savvy, as they've seen much of how the world works.
• This could be a feat or edge (character knows all the tropes and can set them up or avoid them) or a disadvantage (character thinks the world works the way it does in stories).