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Why does fantasy dominate RPGs?
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<blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 7096497" data-attributes="member: 6777696"><p>From a film and television standpoint, Science Fiction really lends itself to minimalism in costumes and set design. Space is just a black backdrop with some pinpoint lights in it. Space-ships can be entirely indoors, and the sets can be made with cheap materials. The costumes can be whatever we want them to be, so why not cheap synthetic onesies? Sure, plenty of Science Fiction movies and shows go for massive set design and elaborate aliens, but I think the acceptable baseline is much lower. A science fiction movie can achieve good production values within a reasonable budget. I love to point at Alphaville, which is shot entirely in undressed mundane modern locations, but manages to evoke a dystopian future.</p><p></p><p>Science fiction as a genre is also a much bigger tent when we define it. Star Wars and Star Trek might be the big titles, but space opera and space exploration are just one small subset of the science fiction genre. Pretty much anything can be called Science Fiction. In fact, a great deal of science fiction is really just fantasy in the present or future time. (eg most superhero movies.) Fantasy, by contrast, seems to be generally understood as having a much narrower definition. At a distance, it all bleeds together.</p><p></p><p>This uniformity in fantasy works great for RPGs, because there is an implied meta-setting that most players can settle into without actually needing to know many of the actual details. When I sit down to play a fantasy RPG, I have a pretty good idea of what the world will be like, whereas, when I sit down to play a "science fiction" rpg, I have no idea what kind of game I am playing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="redrick, post: 7096497, member: 6777696"] From a film and television standpoint, Science Fiction really lends itself to minimalism in costumes and set design. Space is just a black backdrop with some pinpoint lights in it. Space-ships can be entirely indoors, and the sets can be made with cheap materials. The costumes can be whatever we want them to be, so why not cheap synthetic onesies? Sure, plenty of Science Fiction movies and shows go for massive set design and elaborate aliens, but I think the acceptable baseline is much lower. A science fiction movie can achieve good production values within a reasonable budget. I love to point at Alphaville, which is shot entirely in undressed mundane modern locations, but manages to evoke a dystopian future. Science fiction as a genre is also a much bigger tent when we define it. Star Wars and Star Trek might be the big titles, but space opera and space exploration are just one small subset of the science fiction genre. Pretty much anything can be called Science Fiction. In fact, a great deal of science fiction is really just fantasy in the present or future time. (eg most superhero movies.) Fantasy, by contrast, seems to be generally understood as having a much narrower definition. At a distance, it all bleeds together. This uniformity in fantasy works great for RPGs, because there is an implied meta-setting that most players can settle into without actually needing to know many of the actual details. When I sit down to play a fantasy RPG, I have a pretty good idea of what the world will be like, whereas, when I sit down to play a "science fiction" rpg, I have no idea what kind of game I am playing. [/QUOTE]
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