Backwater is a tabletop roleplaying game in the genre of southern gothic horror. The southern gothic genre explores social issues relating to fear, poverty, religion, and alienation through its southern U.S. setting. Prominent among the genre's themes is a conscious criticism of superficial values and regional or familial history, depicted through the region's decaying structures and aristocratic families. It contains the supernatural, though the true horrors are often humans themselves. Backwater is set in a post-apocalyptic future with a tenuous social order, and it reimagines the genre as a reflection on issues in not only American history but also our present world.