Sci-fi likes/dislikes

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I like futuristic anime-based sci-fi games - a mixed amalgamation of Macross/Cowboy Bebop/Dirty Pair/Ghost in the Shell campaign universe is optimal (and is what we play - not d20, though).

Holy crap!

That sounds like a blast!

I'll bet it has a rockin' soundtrack, as well!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For those of you who liked Traveller, and wanted certain things to be more realistic...

Do yourself a favor and see if you can find a copy of SSI's Universe. This game has been out of print for forever and a day (SSI went out of business shortly after releasing the game), but it had some real gems in it. They had an accurate starmap out for a couple of light years, a nice world generation system, and it handled robots fairly well. There was also the "Delta V" space combat system: Think of Babylon 5's fighters...no wooshing around- you want to change directions, apply force; want to continue in that direction? Coast...

 

[Ranger REG]

I like aliens, but I'm sick to death of the Star Trek-style humans-with-funny-noses aliens.

That's why Hortas* are sexy ... and hot.

*See TOS "The Devil in the Dark" episode.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

That's why Hortas* are sexy ... and hot.

*See TOS "The Devil in the Dark" episode.

Oh, I remember the horta, and Trek had a number of other "alien" aliens, but they were often just plot devices rather than actual characters.

 

[Hussar]

All I ask is that it be self-consistant. This means that if you want me to use a one-hand gun other than a machine pistol, it must be better than a machine pistol.

That's exactly the point I was making. So much of SF RPG's is not consistent. If you step your world a couple of hundred years into the future, you're stepping into Sir Arthur's realm of looking a lot like magic.

Think about it. Take something like Aliens for example. Great movie, sucky SF. The marines were supposed to be bad arsed right? Then why in heck are they not sporting cybernetic enhancements and all the nifty doo dads that we are developing today?

Take something simple.

Right now, DARPA is developing a widget that looks a lot like an oversized dragonfly. It has a camera on it. They can be released, fly autonomously to the target and take up an observation position. This isn't SF, this is being tested right now. So, why in heck are the Colonial Marines heading into the buildings without checking things out first? Release a swarm of these things, hooked up to a heuristic AI capable of detecting hostiles and sit back while the machines do the work. Short time later, the computer tells you that the colonists are all bundled up at the reactor core and there's a bunch of big, bad, black aliens waiting down there. Oh, and there's a little girl hiding over there too. If you would like sir, the autonomous UAV's can kill all those aliens with their electrically fired miniguns and would you like cream in your coffee?

It's annoying that most SF RPG's become dated before they even hit the newstands. I think I would much prefer alternate history stuff like Space 1889 if I were to go back to the genre.

 

[Ferret]

That's not science, that's technobabble (or Treknobabble for the specific setting that does it a lot). It's the same as in a fantasy setting where a story is finished by pulling some kind of magic out of nowhere in the last five minutes, in either case it's just weak storytelling, not a problem with the genre.

Oh I have nothing against science-fiction as a genre, I loved farscape, Firefly, Stargate etc.

What I particularily like is when it doesn't work, or whn theres cables and things have been fisxed with sticky tape and elbow grease (like Kaylee's Room).

 

[Ranes]

SSI's Universe...

I think you mean SPI. I'd forgotten about that one. Before its acquisition by TSR, SPI published some seriously good SF wargames as well. My favourites were Star Force: Alpha Centauri, Star Soldier and Outreach. SFAC's hex map was a 20 light year radius 3D map centred on Sol that saw much use in my later Traveller games. Starships travelled by telekinesis (sure, why not) and the combat system was also 3D (including weapons with 3D cone effects). In Star Soldier, opposing armies comprised about half a dozen individuals in powered armour capable of waging war across an entire planet. Outreach took the future history of the first two games and went 2D and galactic with it. The trilogy combined to make epic interstellar wargames.

 

[Ranes]

So, why in heck are the Colonial Marines heading into the buildings without checking things out first?

John Ford, the great film director, defined the stagecoach chase beloved of the Western genre. When an interviewer asked Ford why the Injuns always chased the stagecoach, instead of ambushing it from ahead, Ford replied with words to the effect that, if the Injuns had done that, there'd have been no movie.

But I agree with you: Aliens is a great film, just bad SF. Of course, Alien is a horror movie and Star Wars is fantasy and... OMG, I'm OT!

 

[SWBaxter]

For those of you who liked Traveller, and wanted certain things to be more realistic...

Do yourself a favor and see if you can find a copy of SSI's Universe. This game has been out of print for forever and a day (SSI went out of business shortly after releasing the game), but it had some real gems in it. They had an accurate starmap out for a couple of light years, a nice world generation system, and it handled robots fairly well.

I think Universe's starmap went out to 40 or 50 light years, much like 2300 AD's; I found the latter one easier to use, but I think they were based on pretty much the same data. Which of course is wildly out of date nowadays, there's a variety of websites with more up to date data. My favourite is Project Rho:

http://www.projectrho.com/starmap.html

I can't say I was particularly impressed with Universe, but I know it had its fans.

 

[eris404]

John Ford, the great film director, defined the stagecoach chase beloved of the Western genre. When an interviewer asked Ford why the Injuns always chased the stagecoach, instead of ambushing it from ahead, Ford replied with words to the effect that, if the Injuns had done that, there'd have been no movie.

But I agree with you: Aliens is a great film, just bad SF. Of course, Alien is a horror movie and Star Wars is fantasy and... OMG, I'm OT!

Agreed. Not to mention that humans, being human, like to see other humans doing cool, scary, and/or heroic things. Watching a robot kill the aliens, regardless of how cool the robot is, is just not the same thing and it can seem like a cop-out.

True story: we were playing a scifi game and our characters were investigating a crime. After several sessions of intrigue, detective work, and attacks by assassins, the crime was solved not by the heroes, but by what amounted to one character's PDA simply blurting out the answer. :\ Now, one could just dismiss that as lousy game mastering, but the truth of it is that the computer in terms of the game rules was simply smarter than the characters. And while that may be more plausible, it certainly wasn't more fun.

I don't think that Aliens was necessarily terrible SciFi either (though the alien itself stretches belief in some ways), but I think that the creators of the film purposely wanted the film to be gritty and feel real (oh dear, that sounds dangerously close to another topic). So rather than giving the marines weapons that would seem farfetched to the average slob or going with SciFi cliches (laserguns, etc), they opted for machine guns and lots of explosions.

In SciFi RPGs, technology is a huge stumbling block for me. In fantasy RPGs, certain things can exist because they are magic; they only have to make sense to a certain extent. In SciFi games, I have a harder time "hand-waving" how the technology works.

(Going waaaay off topic, this also why I hated the "midichlorian explanation" of the Force in Episode I. The Force went from being a mystical to biological entity and it wasn't even a plausible explanation.)