D&D General Who put all this Sci-Fi in my soup!?

[Brendan Byrd]

I was a fan of Farscape long before I heard of Spelljammer.
Reading through the 2e books years later I couldn't help but notice similarities.

So I'll toss this out there:
Farscape is Spelljammer (Space Opera) translated into Science Fantasy!

 

[Dioltach]

Didn't one of REH Conan stories have a wizard from outer space? And Saber Hagen's book of swords turns out to be techno not magic right? (It's been so long since I read them I may be confused on that one)

"The Tower of the Elephant". A sorcerer has captured the alien and uses its power to fuel his sorcery.

There's actually a Tower of the Elephant in Cagliari in Sardinia, which is a bit of a disappointment if you're expecting anything like in the story.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Tower of the Elephant". A sorcerer has captured the alien and uses its power to fuel his sorcery.

It’s not really a space alien though, just a non-human species.

 

[Corinnguard]

The Warforged are another good example of putting sci-fi into a fantasy setting. Science fiction has robots and Fantasy has constructs, some of which can be sentient.

And if you want something that's more than meets the eye in a Beast Wars sort of way for a fantasy setting, you can always play a Warforged Druid with either the Circle of the Moon or the Circle of the Forged subclass.

Druid: Circle Of The Forged (HB) - DND 5th Edition

Pathfinder 1st edition also has the Robot subtype. This subtype can be added to a Construct and transform it into something created by technology.

 

[dave2008]

I've been noticing (obviously purely anecdotal here), that those in circle of DM's have been including more and more science fiction elements in their otherwise Tolkien/medieval/high fantasy games. I have no issue with it and know the rich tradition of slipping sci-fi in at times, but specifically with my peers who run D&D 5e, they are heavily pursuing science fiction elements in their plotlines - Spelljammer space battles, creating pocket realms of mechanical societies with vanishing mysticism, and the like. I could totally be off-base here, but has anyone else noticed this drift or shift occurring and how do you feel about its increasing prevalence?

Being an old time this "shift" occurred about 40 years ago for me (aka when I started the game). It has never impacted my games, but has been a part of the game from the start.

 

[...m...]

The Warforged are another good example of putting sci-fi into a fantasy setting. Science fiction has robots and Fantasy has constructs, some of which can be sentient.

...warforged are not robots; they're more akin to mechanically-sophisticated golems...

 

[Corinnguard]

...warforged are not robots; they're more akin to mechanically-sophisticated golems...

I know. In 3e, the Warforged were Constructs with the Living Construct subtype. A subtype that was designed as a workaround to the Level Adjustments and Effective Character Levels in 3e's Savage Species book. The new subtype allowed the players to play as a playable Construct race. I have forgotten what type/subtype they were given in 4e. 5e had them being Humanoids with the Constructed trait.

The thing that separates a robot from a construct IMO is the genre they were created for. Robots for sci-fi and Constructs for fantasy. If you put a Warforged into a Sci-fi setting, what would they be viewed as? Ditto for a robot being into a fantasy setting.

Would the Eberron setting count as a Sci-Fantasy setting?

 

[Wolfram stout]

It’s not really a space alien though, just a non-human species.

Yeah I think I overstated it a bit but I was vaguely remembering this passage: "I am very old, oh man of the waste countries; long and long ago I came to this planet with others of my world, from the green planet Yag, which circles for ever in the outer fringe of this universe. We swept through space on mighty wings that drove us through the cosmos quicker than light"

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

And then you have things like this, and you go WTF is this - I want to play in that!
View attachment 421181
Which is from March 1989, BTW.

Wonder if the writers for Reign of Fire saw that cover.

There was a movie about an aircraft carrier being displaced to a time shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and once they realized were and when they were, they were considering intervening with their modern fighter jets. Was it called Philadelpha Experiment?

This kinda gave me an idea for a different type of setup:
Maybe we find some kind of wormhole in the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. And we figure out that we could send a ship through, the other end is located on another planet's water surface, and the planet has breathable atmosphere.

So they send an aircraft carrier group through the portal to explore this world. And they find the world has life - including dragons. So we get fighter planes fighting dragons, and they presumably will find land and maybe some sort of medieval or fantasy civilization (perhaps under Dragon control). And now they start doing whatever heroic multi-national heroes would do if they see oppression like that!

 

[CreamCloud0]

when you can't convince your players to play a sci-fi system so you just play spelljammer with a species list of humans, warforged, githzerai, plasmoids, thri-keen and lizardfolk and it's 99% the same