What is Science-Fantasy to you?

[kengar]

(start geezer voice)
Back in the day, "Science Fiction" referred to stories where the fantastic element was still based on hard science. Folks like Aasimov & Heinlein, for example, typically provided a real-world grounding for their fictional gadgets, etc. (I honestly think Heinlein could have built and flown a spaceship himself if he'd ever gotten up from his typewriter long enough ).

Science Fantasy referred to futuristic/otherworldly fiction where the "science" was weak to non-existent. Star Trek, Star Wars, Barsoom & Flash Gordon would be examples of this. The author wasn't really interested in explaining -in real world terms- how the Plasmatron X-1000 worked. It was just a machine that went PING and served as a plot device/special effect.
(end geezer voice)

I'm not trashing Science Fantasy, it's just a different sub-genre.

The reason I am asking is because I am working on a setting (and possible system, if I can't tweak d20 to fit the FEEL I am striving for) and I just want to get a general consensus on what people think of in terms of Science-Fantasy, especially as it pertains to RPGs.

What kind of feel are you after? If you want the pulpy feel of Flash Gordon or John Carter, I can heartily recommend Pinnacle's Savage Worlds. Heck! I'll recommend it anyway!

 

[Dogbrain]

sci-fi is Star Wars
fantasy is D&D

Star Wars is almost archetypal science fantasy. You've got a great deal of utterly inexplicable gee-whiz tech with no thought towards whether or not such a society could maintain itself for more than the 80 minutes necessary to play the movie. Likewise, the whole setting is chock-full-o-magic-powers.

Science fiction is something like Alas, Babylon, Stand on Zanzibar, or A Canticle for Liebowitz.

 

[NeuroZombie]

If you want the pulpy feel of Flash Gordon or John Carter, I can heartily recommend Pinnacle's Savage Worlds.

Savage worlds is on my purchase list, but that is really not the feel I am going for.

Maybe I can explain it by some (tentative, none of this is for sure as of yet) ideas that I am rolling around with. Mybe I should have been more specific on the type of "sci-fantasy" I am thinking of.

Here goes:

Many, many races... think Tatoine on a global scale (need a reason for this of course)
Atmosflyers (skyships)
Beanstalks (in the sci-fi sense, but "grown" by magick)
Post-Nuke wastelands, with mutants et. al., but caused by magick
Leyser guns, powered by the presence of Ley Lines and Nexus Points
Arcanolgy, pseudo-technology created by magick
Psiberware, mentally controlled symbiotic "cyber" tek
Clockworks/golems
Landrovers, steam or magick-powered land vehicles, big and crude

Etc...

Basically a world based in magick and fantasy fiction, but with the trappings of various science-fiction ideals, blended together and served hot!

Hope that helps

P.S. do not compare this to Rifts, although there probably would be possible simularities as I want a kind of a mixture of ideas. I do plan on making this mish-mash internally consistant and make sense, no affront to Palladium intended.

 

[Dogbrain]

Another way of looking at matters is to consider the basic thematic structure.

Is there some sort of "Great Evil" (TM) menacing everything or some sort of presumably objective standard of "Good" (TM) to which the "Heroes" (TM) adhere? Is there a lot of mystical boojum tossed in to "explain" things? Is there some sort of "Higher Purpose" (TM) or "Great Force" (TM) behind everything?

If so, then it's fantasy. The "science" part or lack is a matter of window-dressing.

 

[kengar]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like a good choice for Savage Worlds.

• Many, many races...
  Racial packages are absurdly easy to make or tweak in SW
• Atmosflyers (skyships)/Landrovers, steam or magick-powered land vehicles
  SW has extensive vehicle rules which play fast & easy
• SW also allows for many different kinds of Powers (magic, miracles, weird science, supers & psionics)

Things like beanstalks & ley lines are easy enough to do and mutants are just another creature or race.

SW lends itself to a pulpy feel in that the action tends to be FFF (Fun, Fast & Furious), but it handles almost any genre. I would recommend taking a look at some of the conversions (including CyberTek) done at the PEG forums as well as www.savageheroes.com. Then flip through the SW core book, you might be surprised.

 

[RigaMortus]

When I think sci-fantasy, the first two thoughts that came to my head were "Flash Gordon" and "Krull". After thinking about it some, I guess I would categorize "Star Wars" as sci-fantasy too...

"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader.
Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure
up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the
Rebel's hidden fort..."

That is very reminisent of sci-fantasy...

Now "Star Trek" and even "The Matrix" I would consider to be sci-fi.

 

[Dimwhit]

Like others have mentioned, Star Wars. Though I've always heard the term Space Fantasy, but I imagine that's pretty much the same thing as Science Fantasy.

I would throw Dune in there as well.

 

[Mark]

Here's one definition of Science Fantasy but I would go a bit further.

Inclusive of above, Science Fantasy makes little effort to explain the science in a story and focuses more on plot, moral, and/or characters. While it can include off-earth stories, it need not. Although Frankenstein is considered horror, it qualifies, as do Jules Verne offerings, Doyle's The Lost World, and even Stevenson's The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. A lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, such as Omega Man and Mad Max also fit the definition by my estimation.

 

[WayneLigon]

"Science Fiction is what we point at when we say it." --Damon Knight

In general, science fiction occurs in a universe that is possible or can be logically extropolated from known facts. Science fantasy is fantasy that has the trappings of science fiction; the look and feel, but not the substance.

Star Wars is science fantasy. Space ships cannot bank and turn in space like fighter planes, nor do they make noise (though in a modern theater environment, that's almost a given; see below). Many other nitpicky things render it more fantasy than SF.

And that's really where the definition bogs down. How nit-picky do you get? How dogmatic is the definition? Technically, we can say that each and every SF book that features a faster-than-light drive is more fantasy than SF but that's being overly picky to almost everyone.

 

[Umbran]

To my mind, what many people here are calling "science fantasy" I'd call "space opera". The fact that the mechanics of guns and space ships in Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers go unexplained doesn't make them qualify as science fantasy. Laser guns and space ships go without explanation in most hard science fiction, too. It is assumed that the reader knows they are technological in origin.

Science fantasy is science fiction with fantastic elements that clearly aren't science. Midichlorians be darned, The Force is magic. Star Wars is Science Fantasy. Dune as well - the powers displayed there are more a matter of spiritualism than science. IIRC, Doc Smith's Lensmen books also probably qualify. The issue here is that the powers invovled are explained more as supernatural, spiritual matters than as matters of technology.

In Flash Gordon, the gizmos go unexplained, but they are still gizmos. Ming the Merciless has no special spiritual nature that gives him access to them.

Space Opera is often loosely defined as a work that's got all the trappings of science fiction, but if you change the names the thing still holds together. Much of original Star Trek was Space Opera. Give Captain Kirk a six-shooter instead of a phaser, and make the Enterprise into a horse, and the show goes on. The recent series Firefly was also a Space Opera by this measure. John Carter of Mars also probably fits the description closely (and Flash Gordon somewhat less so). All he is is a pulp action character placed upon the exotic location of Mars instead of the Old West or Darkest Africa, really. John Carter, Flash Gordon, Allan Quartermain, and Indiana Jones are all cut from the same basic cloth.