Why does fantasy dominate RPGs?

[darjr]

Gah! Forgive the following. Autocorrect. I'm editing.

Not really. I mean if you want to ignore the subjective sense of what fits where. Like space fighter battles in a space game. You could put it a fantasy game but I'd wager for a lot of people it wouldn't be great. Like a dungeon crawl as a regular thing in space games. Might as well do fantasy.

But of coarse you can do anything in anything. Strawberries in meat pie, shure nock your self out.

But if you really want to know why fantasy is king for RPGs then you should consider what tropes people generally like in one vs the other.

And what works well as an RPG trope.

I suspect that Dungeons work well for most, and work best in fantasy.

I don't think that's it completely, nor am i willing to be stubborn about it. It's really kinda a guess.

I am reaching.

In part because I don't really know. If I did i suspect I'd have a very different kind of job.

I do deeply regret that I couldn't be a part of that game of yours. I'm sure it was awesome!

 

[tomBitonti]

I think we need to make the question clear. Otherwise we could wander a while in a large gray area and not find any satisfying answers. There is a lot of overlap between fantasy and sci-fi. I do agree that D&D is almost entirely in the fantasy realm. Almost entirely, but not entirely: The original Blackmoor campaign had sci-fi elements, and aspects of 1E psionics have a sci-fi feel, and there is Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. StarJammer tends towards sci-fi. If you widen the range to PathFinder, there optional areas which are definitely sci-fi: the Iron Gods adventure path; gun slingers in the core rules; androids as a PC race. And in recent years there have been lots of very nice systems which are entirely sci-fi, or which have large sci-fi elements: Traveler; Gamma World; Metamorphosis Alpha; Paranoia; Blue Planet; Iron Kingdoms; Earthdawn; WH40K (including Rogue Trader and other variants); Eclipse Phase; Apocalypse World; WOIN; the adapted system used for Santiago; Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green (conditionally); Rifts (conditionally); Champions (conditionally); Alternity and Dark Matter; the forthcoming StarFinder. Santiago and StarFinder show that the mostly fantasy D&D can be played as sci-fi. The question becomse more about what sort of content folks put in their games, and less about the systems themselves.

Of course, noting this listing of systems helps to demonstrate the premise of the question: Even though there is a good variety of systems and options, fantasy still dominates RPG play.

I know my own experience is almost entirely with fantasy systems. I currently play D&D 3.5/PathFinder. I have tried Traveler and Call of Cthulhu, but wasn't able to keep up play with either system. I used to have a dis-inclination to sci-fi systems, but that was mostly a dis-interest in the systems then available (Traveler and Gamma World). Lately, there are systems which I'd be willing to try (WH40K: Dark Heresy, Space Marine, There Will Be War, Rogue Trader, Death Watch, or Black Crusade; Eclipse Phase, or Alternity), so I can't say I am still dis-inclinded. I am limited, however, by already being in a long standing fantasy RPG, and by the difficulty in finding a group for any of these sci-fi systems.

I think those two practical issues are most determinative for me: I just don't have enough time for a second game, and finding players for a sci-fi system is harder. (Or seems harder; I haven't actually tried to form a new group, so maybe it's not actually hard to find players.)

Re: Sci-Fi dungeons: WH40K has examples of sci-fi locales which range from dungeons to dungeon-like. Three examples from adventures that I can recall are a manor house, a huge gothic cathedral, and a conglomeration of ships and asteroids, otherwise known as a space hulk.

Only for the manor house was there a focus on detailed exploration; the cathedral was mostly mapped out from the beginning. The hulk did have exploration, but it was highly abstracted.

At least in the case of exploring the space hulk, the scope of the "dungeon", that being a many kilometer assemblage of ships, was just too large for any kind of detailed exploration. But, there was scope for all manner of hazards, ranging from environmental (vacuum; shifting and collapsing passageways; leaking reactors; tears leading to the warp) to creature (gene-stealers; chaos space marines; eldar of two types; tau; void zombies; enslavers; rogue psykers), which made for a very explorable and dangerous environment. There seemed to be enough there that a good GM should be able to run a decent adventure.

Thx!
TomB

 

[Tony Vargas]

The hobby isn't dominated by fantasy, but by D&D, which happens to be (nominally) fantasy. D&D dominates the hobby because it has mainstream name recognition, so is the primary gateway to the hobby. It has mainstream name recognition because of BADD, Mazes & Monsters, the 80s Satanism scare, Michigan State steam-tunnels, and nerd stereotyping.

Admittedly, it'd've been a stretch to connect Traveller to Satanism or suicide, but if some distraught mother had founded BAT, instead, we might now be asking why space opera dominates the hobby... ;P

 

[TerraDave]

Are there a bunch of successful sci-fi movies and TV shows I don't know about?

Fantasy, when some sort of minimum effort is put into it, seems to be hugely popular. GoT has been far bigger in the US then any sci-fi TV show for several years now.

As for movies, they did a bunch of those harry potter movies. They made huge money. Even those sad hobbit movies made money.

Some people will point to Star Wars, but by design, it is full of fantasy tropes. Full of them.

Of course it also has sci-fi elements. As do a lot of supers movies, which also have many fantasy elements. In fact, for movies where budget is not an issue, the secret seems to be to do both.

I guess this is one half of the question.

The other half is about fantasy RPGs. But really thats about 1 RPG. D&D. And thats easy. As that RPG totally kicks but!

 

[TerraDave]

The hobby isn't dominated by fantasy, but by D&D, which happens to be (nominally) fantasy. D&D dominates the hobby because it has mainstream name recognition, so is the primary gateway to the hobby. It has mainstream name recognition because of BADD, Mazes & Monsters, the 80s Satanism scare, Michigan State steam-tunnels, and nerd stereotyping.

Admittedly, it'd've been a stretch to connect Traveller to Satanism or suicide, but if some distraught mother had founded BAT, instead, we might now be asking why space opera dominates the hobby... ;P

It has that. But it had that when TSR nearly went bankrupt, and when 4E basically tanked, and all these decades latter when its a huge success with people who don't know anything about those things.

Think like this, whats the #2 game? D&D with a different name.

The name is good, but its not just the name.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Are there a bunch of successful sci-fi movies and TV shows I don't know about?

Fantasy, when some sort of minimum effort is put into it, seems to be hugely popular. GoT has been far bigger in the US then any sci-fi TV show for several years now.

As for movies, they did a bunch of those harry potter movies. They made huge money. Even those sad hobbit movies made money.

Some people will point to Star Wars, but by design, it is full of fantasy tropes. Full of them.

Of course it also has sci-fi elements. As do a lot of supers movies, which also have many fantasy elements. In fact, for movies where budget is not an issue, the secret seems to be to do both.

I guess this is one half of the question.

The other half is about fantasy RPGs. But really thats about 1 RPG. D&D. And thats easy. As that RPG totally kicks but!

Historically, sci-fi & sci-fant has it all over fantasy for TV & movies.

Serials like Commando Cody & Flash Gordon.
Twilight Zone and the shows that emulated it- Outer Limits, Nighr Gallery, etc.
Star Trek's decades spanning franchise in movies and TV.
X-Files
BSG
Bab5
Star Wars
The Expanse
Killjoys
Dark Matter
Andromeda
Chuck
Dr Who
Godzilla
Independence Day
Close Encounters
Blade Runner

Meanwhile, Fantasy has had recent major successes with LotR, the Potterverse and GoT. Xena was big in its day. Legend of the Seeker did well for a while.

But for sooooo many decades, you got weak Conan ripoffs & LotR wannabes churned out by producers who- in many cases- seemed not to care all that much. The Highlander franchise was truly a mixed bag.

(There's also superheroic & horror stuff that straddled both.)

 

[darjr]

The hobby isn't dominated by fantasy, but by D&D, which happens to be (nominally) fantasy. D&D dominates the hobby because it has mainstream name recognition, so is the primary gateway to the hobby. It has mainstream name recognition because of BADD, Mazes & Monsters, the 80s Satanism scare, Michigan State steam-tunnels, and nerd stereotyping.

Admittedly, it'd've been a stretch to connect Traveller to Satanism or suicide, but if some distraught mother had founded BAT, instead, we might now be asking why space opera dominates the hobby... ;P

Yea, probably.

Though did Traveller ever do as well as D&D? Even in the golden age of Traveller? And I don't mean just in sales, but also number of tables played in any given week? OK I know no one could possibly have good numbers on the later, except for maybe convention schedules.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While Traveller is kind of the D&D of sci-fi RPGs, AFAIK, it never even got close to it in terms of sales/popularity.

 

[Storminator]

You've been playing the wrong space dungeons!

Many sci-fi shows have a derelict space ship episode. That's basically a dungeon crawl. Aliens was a dungeon crawl. The scene in Han Solo's other ship in The Force Awakens is a dungeon crawl. The Reaver ship in Firefly was a dungeon crawl.

It's actually pretty common.

PS

 

[Tony Vargas]

Though did Traveller ever do as well as D&D? Even in the golden age of Traveller? And I don't mean just in sales, but also number of tables played in any given week? OK I know no one could possibly have good numbers on the later, except for maybe convention schedules.

I don't believe it ever came anywhere near, no. Never made the news or anything, never impinged on mainstream consciousness. I picked it because it was 1) sci-fi and 2) a very close contemporary to 0D&D.

Many sci-fi shows have a derelict space ship episode. That's basically a dungeon crawl. Aliens was a dungeon crawl. The scene in Han Solo's other ship in The Force Awakens is a dungeon crawl. The Reaver ship in Firefly was a dungeon crawl.

When I started trying to come up with my own dungeons as a kid, it was the shows I'd watched in the 70s (often re-runs from the 60s) that inspired me. James West would often sneak through corridors, dealing with bizarre mechanical traps, monsters haunted caves in the Outer Limits and Star Trek, and movies, Journey to the Center of the Earth for instance, was one long dungeon crawl - maybe spelunking was easy to pull off on a sound stage or something, IDK. But, at the time, fantasy sources of inspiration were art, books, and the few wonderful films of Ray Harryhausen, for the most part.