What's Sci Fi Got that Fantasy Don't Got?

[tetsujin28]

Hey! Stop reading my mind.

True. But Temple of the Frog had lasers and giant frogs

 

[boredgremlin]

I admit, I'm a bit baffled. What's the difference between fantasy and sci fi that precludes one from the fold, but not the other? Sure, one has magic and strange life, while the other has high technology and strange life. Is this just part of the old "D&D = evil" meme?

Yes, Yes it is. Some religious groups, lets call them Y groups (lol) see D&D as evil. I am sure they think they have good reasons for this. Its not really the point though. If this player is serious about recruiting people he needs to present a certain image that his church wants.

Like if your a car salemen you need to be clean cut and shaved with a tie. You might dispise ties, love your goatee and feel like Samson after his haircut when your mountain man haircut goes. Doesnt matter. Sometimes you do what you have to do. It sounds like your freind just made a hard choice about his priorities.

Sci fi does not provoke that kind of response because it doesnt involve demons or magic. As silly as it sounds these are the same folks who boycott Harry Potter books. Magic=evil, Demons= subversive. So fantasy with its magic and demons is evil. No if ands or butts. Religion is just like that sometimes.

 

[Arkhandus]

Yeah. At least part of it is religion and fantasy; in fantasy games, player characters are generally expected, encouraged, or rewarded for promoting fantasy divinities (i.e. receiving divine spellcasting ability, occasional salvation from unfortunate events (also known as DM fudging ), aid from fantasy temples (i.e. the church of heironneus restoring life to a dead comrade for a price in gold/gems/whateer, or selling potions of cure serious wounds to adventurers), and so on and so forth). I know that many devoted religious folks will use their own faith in the game if it comes to it, rather than the game's fantasy pantheons or whatnot, but most gamers probably use the game's imaginary deities, religions, and so on. In fantasy RPGs, a character may wield the power of magic by virtue of only his or her own personal will, bending reality to their own whims. To some folks, the very thought of any such activities, even in a game of imagination (even with no intention of ever doing such things in real life), is blasphemy.

To others, there's just a foolish, overblown misconception that something about fantasy games (or particular ones) might encourage occult or otherwise evil activities, insofar as many branches of popular religions are concerned. Which is about as well-founded a notion as some idjit insisting that playing sports encourages blasphemous activities. Absolutely absurd and mind-numbing in how hideously idiotic and backwards such notions would be. People like to build straw men to blame for stuff, because it's easier than trying to deal with the real problems, ones that many people take part in themselves and don't want to admit as problematic. Stuff like alcohol, smoking, anger management issues, irresponsible drivers, etc., or whatever. /sarcasm on 'And, hey! That thar wierd game, D&D, mentions demons and magic! Let's blame that fer the kids gettin' into the occult and pyromania an' stuff! It's not the rampant neglect and abuse of the children that's to blame! Yeah! It's that thar game I know nothing about but heard mentioned in the news about two decades ago!' /sarcasm off

I like that quote by Agent K from Men In Black, something like "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it." Mob mentality and all that. Propoganda. The bandwagon. People want to go with what their neighbors, coworkers, or community thinks, even if they don't know anything about it. Even if the people they're emulating got their opinion from one paranoid, arrogant, self-aggrandizing fool of a cousin who came to their own paranoid or underinformed conclusion, after seeing something negative mentioned alongside, or placed in the vicinity of, something neutral, and hypothesizing that they're connected simply because he or she has no real idea what the cause of the negative something was. People like to take the easy way out, which typically involves picking out a scapegoat they can direct stuff towards without being easily dismissed by their peers as just grasping at straws.

Getting back on topic...... Sci-Fi typically at least smacks of realism, even if only during the era in which it is produced, and while it can be imaginitive like fantasy, it has at least some foundation in what we all perceive as reality, and it usually doesn't deal directly or heavily in the matter of imaginary, new, or odd religions. In science fiction, people don't tend to wield divine powers, nor sorcerous or unexplainable powers (anything unexplainable in it can be chalked up to some level of physics or psionics or whatnot that simply isn't understood by Man yet, but which is still, in the context of the story, not a violation of natural laws). Science can be understood and proven, and much current science is fact to at least some extent. Whether science applies simply because of causality or something, or because a divine will has chosen for the universe to follow certain laws that Man could learn and utilize naturally, is up to the individual's belief and is not inherantly dictated by science itself. One can be scientific and religious, or just one or the other, and it won't really have too much impact on whether or not one could enjoy science fiction stories or games (aside from those few who think science is evil or something; but then, if so, Man must have been irrevocably corrupted and infinitely sinful since the moment he has learned to make fire and use it to stay warm and cook food, which would obviously be a stupid notion and defeat the point of believing that Man is either inherantly good at heart or at least capable of good; so the notion that science is evil is really just an ultimately silly and strange idea).

 

[Hand of Evil]

'tech-o-babble' it is all about the 'tech-o-babble' - Fantasy was first, then sci-fi came about in the 50's when science fact (A-Bomb, E=MC2, SoL) started to be used in stories.

 

[Warehouse23]

Once upon a time, I taught a friendly Mormon fellow to play the WEG Starwars d6 game. I'm not sure I could have persuaded him to play D&D.

A few thoughts:

* Fantasy tropes traditionally are means of explaining the unexplainable (e.g., Timmy got sick because the werewold infected him, the milk turned because the Fey weren't happy, Something Evil and Dark lives in the scary forest, a circle of garlic is a "spell" against sickness). This is traditionally the role of religion as well. There's a turf war.

* As has been mentioned, many faiths equate thought/intention with action. The thought, "I slay the monster and take its loot" is morally more ambiguous than, "I pilot my starfighter to defend Earth from the aliens"... providing your good at thinking that way about moral situations.

* Sci-fi is more respectable and mainstream. Evidence include the success of the Starwars franchise over the D&D franchise (movie, sugary snacks, etc.--not games).

 

[Desdichado]

Once upon a time, I taught a friendly Mormon fellow to play the WEG Starwars d6 game. I'm not sure I could have persuaded him to play D&D.

There are many Mormons that are active posters on these very message boards, and thus actively play D&D regularly. Tracy Hickman was an active Mormon when he worked at TSR and co-wrote the Dragonlance novels.

Mormons are not very much like your typical Revivalist christian group, in my experience. I've never met a Mormon who had a doctrinal problem with D&D.

 

[diaglo]

True. But Temple of the Frog has lasers and giant frogs

corrected that for you.

diaglo "who is still using it" Ooi

 

[jester47]

Meh. If one truely believes in the Bible and the precepts put forth, fantasy is just that, fantasy. None of it is real because it is completely contradicted by what you know is the truth. If Dungeons and Dragons can shake your relationship with your higher entity of choice the problem is not the game its you.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Meh. If one truely believes in the Bible and the precepts put forth, fantasy is just that, fantasy. None of it is real because it is completely contradicted by what you know is the truth. If Dungeons and Dragons can shake your relationship with your higher entity of choice the problem is not the game its you.

Quoted for de trut'ful word.

 

[The Sigil]

There are many Mormons that are active posters on these very message boards, and thus actively play D&D regularly. Tracy Hickman was an active Mormon when he worked at TSR and co-wrote the Dragonlance novels.

Mormons are not very much like your typical Revivalist christian group, in my experience. I've never met a Mormon who had a doctrinal problem with D&D.

Heh... yeah, there are few, myself included! Although my choice of source below might give it away, too.

To others, there's just a foolish, overblown misconception that something about fantasy games (or particular ones) might encourage occult or otherwise evil activities, insofar as many branches of popular religions are concerned. Which is about as well-founded a notion as some idjit insisting that playing sports encourages blasphemous activities. Absolutely absurd and mind-numbing in how hideously idiotic and backwards such notions would be. People like to build straw men to blame for stuff, because it's easier than trying to deal with the real problems, ones that many people take part in themselves and don't want to admit as problematic. Stuff like alcohol, smoking, anger management issues, irresponsible drivers, etc., or whatever. /sarcasm on 'And, hey! That thar wierd game, D&D, mentions demons and magic! Let's blame that fer the kids gettin' into the occult and pyromania an' stuff! It's not the rampant neglect and abuse of the children that's to blame! Yeah! It's that thar game I know nothing about but heard mentioned in the news about two decades ago!' /sarcasm off

I actually thought Orson Scott Card had an excellent take on this misconception. He put forth the idea that there are three types of "evil" in literature...

1. Literature that depicts evil.
2. Literature that advocates evil.
3. Literature that is itself evil.

To avoid using (Card's) "real world" examples and the flame-fests that would ensue, I'll give a fantasy example:

1. A fairy tale story telling of a young wizard who finds the Necronomicon and finds it quickly corrupts him and eats his soul... the moral: stay away from the Necronomicon.
2. A set of detailed notes written by a wizard for how to find the Necronomicon, along with explicit suggestions on how to best use it to destroy a village and corrupt others, with suggested targets and methods for sowing the most problems.
3. The Necronomicon itself.

(If you prefer a more D&D-ish example, use the "Book of Vile Darkness" - the Magic Item found in the DMG, not the WotC-published book of the same name)

Now, as Card points out, most religious texts - and in fact almost all stories - depict evil in some form or other... if you don't, you're pretty much limited to "man vs. nature" stories and those get boring in a hurry. Religious texts depict evil at least in telling you "what not to do" - in telling you what not to do, they have to list those "evil" items, which is in and of itself depicting them. Of course, these texts do not advocate evil... they specifically proscribe it, so they don't fall into the second category. Even stuff that doesn't specifically forbid against evil may not be advocating it... for instance, "Little Red Riding Hood" depicts and evil wolf, and never actually forbids you from breaking and entering, eating grandmothers and scaring little children... but it hardly advocates doing so.

The problem, of course, comes when you get people who can't distinguish between that which depicts evil and that which advocates (or is itself) evil. This holds true for Harry Potter, Tolkien, etc. as well as role-playing games... most who are "against" such things don't make the distinction between "depicting" and "advocating."

Does D&D depict things that many religions today consider "evil?" Well, it has entries in the Monster Manual for demons and devils and such, so I would say so! Does D&D advocate evil? I don't think so, at least, not in any "normal" incarnation of a D&D campaign I've played in. Even players who are playing evil PCs are not advocating wholesale murder of innocents, but rather depicting it... by saying "murder of innocents is an evil act" (as D&D does) I think it's pretty clear D&D does not advocate murder as a good thing.

The usual retort from those who see D&D as incompatible with religious belief is along the lines of "the knowledge of sin/occult tempteth to commission" or "well, it gets you used to such things and makes you accept them." I guess if you can't tell your stories/playing from the real world, the latter could be a problem, but if you can't tell your stories/playing from reality, you have bigger issues than D&D. As to the former, well, as I mentioned, the most famous religious text features murder, incest, rape, threat of physical violence, harlotry, nudity, adultery, fornication, attempts at forced sodomy (heck, Sodom itself), drunkenness, selling a sibling into slavery, lying, deceit, false prophets, explicit references to male anatomy (look at what preceeds Zipporah's comment to Moses, "surely thou are a bloody husband unto me")... and that's just in the book of Genesis (there's something to be said for getting the chance to teach religion to high schoolers - they don't miss a trick)! If the knowledge of sin tempteth to commission, religious text, with their long lists of "do nots" are about the worst ways to go about learning about how to avoid sin!

At any rate, I think that's generally the problem. To a religious type, depicting "magic" involves the depiction of (a) blasphemy and/or (b) worship of false gods, and if the religious type can't tell the difference between "depicting" and "advocating," he's likely to get worked up about it.

--The Sigil