Science Fiction in Your Fantasy Game?

[TarionzCousin]

Do you like science fiction (spaceships, robots, lasers, aliens, etc.) in your fantasy game?

Paizo recently announced their next Adventure Path: Iron Gods, following after the Mummy's Mask which just released its first adventure. So it will be a few months before its first module is released.

1. Yes, I love it and include some sci-fi tropes in nearly all of my games.
2. I enjoy it. I played/ran/read Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and liked it.
3. I would play in a game/campaign where there was some sci-fi elements, but I wouldn't have them in a game/campaign I ran.
4. Generally not. I keep my fantasy and my sci fi games separate.
5. Absolutely not. That's a terrible idea.

 

[DMZ2112]

Do you like science fiction (spaceships, robots, lasers, aliens, etc.) in your fantasy game?

Paizo recently announced their next Adventure Path: Iron Gods, following after the Mummy's Mask which just released its first adventure. So it will be a few months before its first module is released.

1. Yes, I love it and include some sci-fi tropes in nearly all of my games.
2. I enjoy it. I played/ran/read Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and liked it.
3. I would play in a game/campaign where there was some sci-fi elements, but I wouldn't have them in a game/campaign I ran.
4. Generally not. I keep my fantasy and my sci fi games separate.
5. Absolutely not. That's a terrible idea.

I guess I'm a #2? I like a little sci-fi in my fantasy, particularly as remnants of an ancient culture, suggesting a past apocalypse, but while 12-year-old J was super stoked about Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, 35-year-old J is a little more circumspect. Campaign saturation like that raises a lot of red flags for me as an experienced dungeon master.

I am looking forward to Iron Gods, but I probably won't run it as-is.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Mostly no. I don't even care for Rennaisance-era guns in my games.

If I thought hard enough I could probably come up with an exception or two...but nothing springs immediately to mind. I like my fantasy and sci-fi separate.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I ran Barrier Peaks three or four times when it first came out for different groups, but that was enough mixing for me.* I'll play in a game that has some sci fi elements, but it's not my preference.




However: chocolate and peanut butter do taste great together.

 

[Umbran]

I seem to think in three categories. There's Fantasy. There's Sci-fi. And there's Strongly Mixed (like, say, Deadlands, and Shadowrun).

I am not a big fan of, "This is a fantasy game, but I'm now suddenly and inexplicably going to make a left turn into something else" like Barrier Peaks. This strikes me as... bait and switch, I guess.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I would draw a distinction between wanting something that is literally science fiction versus something that has the tropes we associate with that term. Using science to generate story is great. I've based plenty of things on fantastical ideas derived from real science. I'm a little more reserved on the idea of having robots and ray guns and little green men in my games (though I have done some of that).

 

[Fanaelialae]

I enjoy it when it's done right (well thought out), but the mix isn't necessarily well-suited to every game.

The campaign that my group recently completed was heavily inspired by quantum theory. It was set in the vaguest sense in the time of the first world war, but there were guns and dimension-tunneling spaceships, as well as gods and magic. It was a fantastic campaign.

The new campaign that GM is gearing up for is Viking inspired. He's made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that there will no sci-fi elements and the group's good with that.

 

[Ichneumon]

I picked the second option, though I haven't actually run or played in Expedition To The Barrier Peaks.

I think there's a difference between having it in as an ongoing part of the game, and corralling it to special locations (like the Barrier Peaks) which are visited for a change of pace. Not everyone's going to welcome having laser cannons on the weapons list, but many players won't mind the occasional battle with bleeping droids.

 

[Balesir]

I find that mixing genres, in general, can work well if it's done carefully and not too often. I once ran a one-off that was ostensibly a historical BRP scenario, set in medieval England just after the end of the Anarchy, but was actually a Call of Cthulhu set piece. It was probably the most intense, scary and dramatic session I have ever run.

Most of the time I don't mix genres - but sometimes I do

 

[Morrus]

I like it so much that I'be spent the last year writing two games designed to do exactly that thing!