(One More Time) You Got Sci-Fi in my Fantasy!

[steev42]

I have been known to mix genres on occasion, and commonly mix systems within the same genre. One of my favorite games was a World of Darkness (primarily Vampire) game in which Palladium's Nightbane were a strong force. It worked out so well that I don't do a WoD game without them anymore.

I have had jedi make occasional appearances in my D&D games, due to the simplicity of conversion. Most people think they're just sorcerors.

I've also had a time-travel campaign where a brief jump into the far future produced fear among the travelers from the myriad of 'modern' devices in use.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Example: Shadowrun-type settings that take a technologically advanced Earth setting and then one day a bunch of tolkienesque creatures pop up along with a bunch of magic. They always try to explain it with some kind of special event, such as a meteor shower, nuclear explosion with radioactive fallout, etc., or the Shadowrun's Ghost Dance. It seems more of an excuse to put these things into a modern setting than a designing of the world from step one to fit the idea. A total lack of creativity and effort is what I see in these types of worlds, and I hates it!

..wha?

The Ghost Dance, in no way, shape, or form, returned magic to the world of Shadowrun.

Magic, in the shared Shadowrun/Earthdawn universe, is cyclical; the level varies over time. While occasionally the levels change drastically in a limited area, on the whole mana levels increase and decrease. The mana reached a threshold on December 24, 2011 that allowed spells to work consistently (and to allow dragons to come out of hibernation). One could still use magic during the downtime, if one knew how and was willing to spend the effort, but for most it wasn't possible. The mana level, in-game, is currently increasing, and will continue to do so for a couple of thousand years, until it starts to go back down. As an example, elves and dwarves started appearing before orks and trolls, since they have fewer changes from mundane humans.

In other words, it just happened, and is a feature of the world, no different than D&D worlds having low-, high- and wild-magic areas, or having magic work at all.

Brad

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I have had jedi make occasional appearances in my D&D games, due to the simplicity of conversion. Most people think they're just sorcerors.

I've also had a time-travel campaign where a brief jump into the far future produced fear among the travelers from the myriad of 'modern' devices in use.

In our Birthright game, which just concluded, the DM had faerie creatures use Force powers, so gnomes and elves could be Jedi. We even had an occasional player play an elven Jedi Guardian, and my tiefling rogue had a gnome Jedi Master possessing one of his shortswords.

We also went through the Anvil of Time adventure from Dungeon, and after that, we were harassed by Hounds of Tindalos from CoCd20, until, eventually, a time-traveler from the future lent us a gun to use to beat them to death. (We could beat them down, but they'd regenerate, so it was easier to coup de grace them with the butt of the pistol!)

Brad

 

[Desdichado]

In our Birthright game, which just concluded, the DM had faerie creatures use Force powers, so gnomes and elves could be Jedi. We even had an occasional player play an elven Jedi Guardian, and my tiefling rogue had a gnome Jedi Master possessing one of his shortswords.

Did you do anything about the lightsabers? That seems to be an integral part of the Jedi classes; did you just drop them and wing it, or replace it with something else? Or use them anyway?

 

[MerakSpielman]

I've never mixed systems, but I'm willing to try anything once. That said, I don't think it will ever come up with my group.

 

[Desdichado]

I've never mixed systems, but I'm willing to try anything once. That said, I don't think it will ever come up with my group.

I think mixing systems is a bit of a misnomer; the question seems to be about mixing genres. I doubt I'd mix systems, although I'll kitbash all kinds of d20 stuff together. But I'll freely mix genres, if it makes sense to do so.

That's the real kicker, though; I don't want a sloppily mixed scenario. Giant robot mecha, dinosaurs, Camus-style philosophical explorations and bodice-ripping romances are genres that don't mix well without a lot of thought. Other genres, such as relatively traditional fantasy and some types of sci-fi mix extremely easily. My own game mixes some elements of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pirates of the Caribbean and The X-Files. But I think other than a few of the trappings, the genres represented there really aren't that different.

But you have to give it some thought, or it just comes across as a random mish-mash. I'm sure nobody is in favor of that.

 

[Arnwyn]

FWIW, I have never found Joshua generally condascending,

Really? There's a reason he was nominated as "most obnoxious poster"...

(No offence intended to JD - just remembering an old thread and laughing at the "coincidence".)

 

[Mallus]

Mixing SF and F just seems...

...so well, D&D. Its been there since the very start. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, certain plane-hopping Greyhawk quasi-deities, etc.

I like to do it. My first big homebrew was imagined as being Earth some uncounted millions of years from now, a la Book of the New Sun or Dying Earth. The moon was blue and green, terraformed at some point in the past/future. One 'god' built a starship and took off in search of other lifeforms in the galaxy, leaving his sister to wait/pine for him in her radio astronomy installation at the south pole... Her 12 Paladins carried portable fusion-powered laser canons that ran on water. The 'ethereal plane/Overworld' might just have been the cyberspace created by a network of nanomachine AI's the permeated every part of the planet's ecosphere [which also provided the rationale for 'magic']. Most monstrous species were the handiwork of a 'god' who may just have been an ancient geneticist with a working biotechnology foundry.

 

[Desdichado]

Really? There's a reason he was nominated as "most obnoxious poster"...

(No offence intended to JD - just remembering an old thread and laughing at the "coincidence".)

Nominated, yes. But I didn't recieve much in the way of votes! I still haven't decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

 

[d4]

Giant robot mecha, dinosaurs, Camus-style philosophical explorations and bodice-ripping romances are genres that don't mix well without a lot of thought.

don't tempt me.