Space Adventure RPGs

[Thomas Shey]

What are SHRPGs?

Sorry. "Super Hero Role Playing Games".

 

[Undrave]

As I posted in other threads I think fantasy is so much more common than sci-fi RPGs because it lends itself much better to power fantasies.

Nearly no one has any experience with medieval times, going so far as most people not even recognizing what is medieval and what is not. You have a guys with swords and there were kings is the extend of peoples knowledge, and because combat with swords take skill its completely believable you have high level characters who mows through enemies while being able to do anything he wants as medieval times were lawless (and there is truth to that).

SciFi on the other hand often build up on the modern world which everyone knows how works and its harder to pretend that the future works differently. When people shoot other people with guns or, even worse, long range artillery you need a lot more suspension of disbelieve that this high level person shrugs off everything.
And you all have those pesky modern institutions which would interfere with your power fantasy. Why wouldn't in the future there be a effective police force like we have now which takes care of things? Or armies which can oppose the BBEG with his planet destroying plot.

Yeah I think that there's all the infrastructure of modern life, the governments, the regulations, the paperwork, surveillance systems, the fact you usually have communication with anybody... it's a lot of STUFF to consider.

What are SHRPGs?

Super heroes?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

If power fantasy was what it was all about, SHRPGs would be even more popular than fantasy.

Agreed. I think fantasy also taps into the nostalgic appeal of a romanticised past.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed. I think fantasy also taps into the nostalgic appeal of a romanticised past.

Though I think part of it is just commonality; that a lot of people have a sort of generic sense of fantasy, where their sense of SF tends to be more specific.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Level 1 medieval fantasy RPGs are easy to DM. It's easy to handle players who have to scrape through mud before they can afford plate armor, and to handle wizards who can occasionally plink someone with a magic missile but can't hurl fireballs yet.

Level 20 medieval fantasy RPGs are rather difficult to DM, because how do you challenge a party that can blow stuff up at range, teleport all over the place, communicate over any distance nigh-instantaneously, and take advantage of a hundred other tricks/technologies practically with impunity?

In a sci-fi RPG, it's hard to explain why any competent individual with a modicum of resources or connections can't do all of that stuff right away. "Ooh, sorry, you just don't have enough credits for both the sub-orbital plasma bazooka and the personal transporter beam right now," only takes you so far.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In a sci-fi RPG, it's hard to explain why any competent individual with a modicum of resources or connections can't do all of that stuff right away. "Ooh, sorry, you just don't have enough credits for both the sub-orbital plasma bazooka and the personal transporter beam right now," only takes you so far.

Only true if its quite that high tech, which often isn't the case.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Though I think part of it is just commonality; that a lot of people have a sort of generic sense of fantasy, where their sense of SF tends to be more specific.

Do mean that, because more specific needs require more specific solutions and no one game can hope to meet this specificity, the game buying public are less likely to be satisfied/want to buy SF games?

Level 1 medieval fantasy RPGs are easy to DM. It's easy to handle players who have to scrape through mud before they can afford plate armor, and to handle wizards who can occasionally plink someone with a magic missile but can't hurl fireballs yet.

Level 20 medieval fantasy RPGs are rather difficult to DM, because how do you challenge a party that can blow stuff up at range, teleport all over the place, communicate over any distance nigh-instantaneously, and take advantage of a hundred other tricks/technologies practically with impunity?

In a sci-fi RPG, it's hard to explain why any competent individual with a modicum of resources or connections can't do all of that stuff right away. "Ooh, sorry, you just don't have enough credits for both the sub-orbital plasma bazooka and the personal transporter beam right now," only takes you so far.

Yeah nah.

In DnD the only thing stopping level 1 characters from buying the in-game equivalent of orbital weapons platforms and teleporters is the amount of GP they have. Which is to say DnD has the same issue you have just ascribed to SF games. Even more than that, DnD expects that level ups will grant the bigger guns. Most of the SF games I'm familiar with actually eschew this design concept of X level grants X power-ups. Hell, most them eschew levels.

Some fantasy games other than DnD have different expectations re. power-ups. Warhammer for instance. But DnD is all about getting them orbital weapons platforms. In this case take "orbital weapons platforms" to mean "overwhelming, superior fire power."

 

[Thomas Shey]

Do mean that, because more specific needs require more specific solutions and no one game can hope to meet this specificity, the game buying public are less likely to be satisfied/want to buy SF games?

No, its more that people have a lot of kind of generic ideas of what a fantasy setting is, and relatively few fantasy settings in RPG go far off from that.

On the other hand, with SF settings, what are people picturing? Star Trek? Star Wars? The Expanse? Something else? And most SF tend to either end up in one of those buckets, or do something else relatively specific; some will try to mix and match, but I think they're the exception.

 

[dragoner]

Theme wise, SF as a genre is bigger than fantasy, given all the SF programs on. However, gaming wise, there is a certain Newtonian physics to D&D, due to its size, in that it has its own inertial motion. It's easy to learn, the setting is mostly folklore: plus one goes and attacks monsters to level and get treasure; add in dungeons, and it is very basic. SF is some harder to figure out a story for, I don't think the barrier is too high, or hard, except it is there, nonetheless.

 

[payn]

Theme wise, SF as a genre is bigger than fantasy, given all the SF programs on. However, gaming wise, there is a certain Newtonian physics to D&D, due to its size, in that it has its own inertial motion. It's easy to learn, the setting is mostly folklore: plus one goes and attacks monsters to level and get treasure; add in dungeons, and it is very basic. SF is some harder to figure out a story for, I don't think the barrier is too high, or hard, except it is there, nonetheless.

From another angle there are like 25 fantasy video games with the D&D gameloop to every sci-fi video game.