Mood and Tone

In literature the tone of a piece of writing is the attitude of the author towards the subject matter and mood is the atmosphere and character's feeling created. The same can be said for an rpg but the definitions change slightly due to the nature of the beast. In this case the tone of an rpg is how the GM and players choose to play the game and the mood is the feel of the setting as determined by the system. Both mood and tone will be co-created by the GM and players since rpgs are all about collective story telling. These should be roughly decided before the game begins.

The tone of the game is basically whether its a comedy, tragedy, or epic. It also describes how light-hearted or serious the game is. When most people think of an rpg campaign they tend to think of an epic. These are generally longer stories with a more serious tone that focus on the character's quest. They contain larger-than-life characters that overcome incredible odds to achieve their goals with serious implications for success or failure. Games like Dungeons and Dragons exemplify this style of game-play. In a comedy game the challenges the characters must overcome are usually fairly simple and the consequences are less than dire with a high chance for success. The whole point is that, in the end, all the characters live happily ever after. When most people think comedy they think humorous and, while that is not necessarily the case, the GM should create plenty of situations for humorous events to arise. The old Ghostbusters rpg is a good example of a game that was never meant to be taken seriously. Then you have tragedies, the games in which the characters are doomed for failure. These are not common but, as they offer a rich story telling experience, they are worth mentioning. In these games the character's chance for success is bleak and usually because of some flaw within the character themselves.The Call of Cthulhu series is the best example of a tragic game. A good story will generally have several elements of all of these but the tone is where the groups chooses to focus.

The mood of the game is the genre in which the story occupies. For the most part the mood is determined by the game the group selects. Shadowrun wouldn't be the same if it wasn't in the cyberpunk genre and World of Darkness would have to change its name if it wasn't a horror game. While mood is predetermined that isn't to say that the GM and players don't have some wiggle room within them. By focusing on certain aspects of the game over others the mood can be shifted slightly. GMs should be warned about changing the mood of a game too much as most people, when they decide to play a particular game, have all ready decided they want to play within that genre.