Why no one plays sci-fi RPGs

[Wombat]

I think we are seeing in this thread why science-fiction/Sci-Fi/Science Fantasy is, in the aggregate, less popular for rpgs than fantasy -- no one can even agree on definitions.

Fantasy has, as has been shown in other threads, the advantage of having a base set of assumptions -- medieval/renaissance tech level (barring, for the most part, gunpowder), emphasis on melee combat, some sort of magic, dragons, castles, feudal setting. While these might vary in detail from game to game, but overall there is some sort of agreement on what we are talking about.

Sci Fi? Science Fiction? Science Fantasy? What ties together Red/Gree/Blue Mars, Barsoom, Star Wars, Star Trek, Brin's Uplift Wars, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Foundation, Warhammer 40,000, Dune, and Honor Harrington? Almost nothing. Most, but not all, involve space travel of some sort. Some of them emphasize combat, others technological achievement, still others politics. The level of technology is wildly variant, as are the rules of physics that are broken or not, and social institutions are all over the board. And one persons love in this area becomes another person's nausea -- see reactions simply between those who love Star Wars and Star Trek, leaving out the argument over whether they are truly science fiction or not.

In other words, unlike Fantasy, there are no base assumptions in Science Fiction.

So if a GM starts up a game and says it is Fantasy, people know what to expect; if the GM says the game is Science Fiction there will have to be a lot of questions about tech, social, etc., details (unless you go for a direct license, such as Star Wars).

 

[Ranger REG]

I think we are seeing in this thread why science-fiction/Sci-Fi/Science Fantasy is, in the aggregate, less popular for rpgs than fantasy -- no one can even agree on definitions.

Of that statement, I agree with you to the point that fans are plain-based silly and ridiculous, trying to make distinction and filtering out which is sci-fi and which is not.

Chill. I don't care. If it has spaceships and energy-based firearms and heavy weapons, and we're going to the stars, then I don't care if there are lightsabers or witches in the future. I don't care if we have technobabble or plain English-Chinese mixed language. I don't care if magic is mixed with psionic. I don't friggin' care about the minute details. They're all sci-fi to me. It's a friggin' BROAD genre. So enough of the friggin' high-brows and friggin look-downs and your friggin' judgmental ego telling me what's sci-fi and what's not.

P.S. Don't ever make me say "friggin'" more than five times ever again.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

So enough of the friggin' high-brows and friggin look-downs and your friggin' judgmental ego telling me what's sci-fi and what's not.

Care to join me at a Star Trek con running through the place with a "Star Wars Rules, Star Trek Sucks" T-Shirt on?

Not that I actually really like either all that much anymore. I just like to cause trouble.

 

[WayneLigon]

Traveller is somehow obsolete? Hopefully you're not still stuck on that 'one-ton computers' joke from an old Murphy's Rules? (And that's what it is, a joke based on a superficial reading of the rules, like a lot of the later MR's. Still funny, but also still annoying on some level.)

The fad idea mentioned in another post really hit home with me, and explained to me the idea that some people get that Traveller - an open-ended SF game if there ever was one - was 'obsolete'. I first started hearing that around the time that cyberpunk was getting very popular. Because somehow the Traveller authors of ten years previously had not thought to mention the idea putting computer circuitry into everyone, suddenly the game was 'irrelevant'. Same thing with the nanotech explosion that followed.

Really, there's nothing in Traveller that's been totally outdated by modern discoveries. The game as written - even the setting that comes with it - is large enough to acomodate almost anything.

 

[mmadsen]

The definition of science, and therefore science-fiction, keeps changing.

The definition of science keeps changing?

So if you really have your heart set on playing a sci-fi RPG, you make a choice: you either play a sci-fi game that isn't really science-fiction at all (such as Star Wars or Gamma World, both fantasy) or you pour your time and energy into a "hard" sci-fi setting (such as Transhuman Space) knowing that in a few short years your game will be laughingly obsolete.

I can't imagine playing a science fiction game that became dated while I was playing it. OK, I guess I can imagine it, but it would have to be really, really near-future, e.g. "After the nuclear war of 1997..."

People still watch and enjoy the original Star Trek. If it works for 50 years as a TV show (and movie franchise)...

To think, there was a time when people viewed Ray Bradbury as a "science-fiction" writer! (falls on the floor laughing)

I know this is intended as a bit of a troll, but why are you falling on the floor laughing again? Is Fahrenheit 451 no longer science fiction?

 

[Ranger REG]

Care to join me at a Star Trek con running through the place with a "Star Wars Rules, Star Trek Sucks" T-Shirt on?

While I like Star Wars (at least the Original Trilogy), in my heart I'm a Trekkie (up until Braga started being an executive producer of VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE).

In case you're interested, I play both Star Wars d20 and LUGTrek (Icon System).

 

[mmadsen]

I think we are seeing in this thread why science-fiction/Sci-Fi/Science Fantasy is, in the aggregate, less popular for rpgs than fantasy -- no one can even agree on definitions.

No one plays sci-fi games because we can't agree on just what is and is not sci-fi? (Or SF, or science fiction, or ...) I don't think that's the problem.

I think the problem is that hard science fiction is difficult to write, and it's especially difficult to make up on the fly. It doesn't have the familiarity of the real world, but it has all the complexity.

I can "hand wave" just about anything in fantasy. The only real trouble comes when I've accreted a large enough mass of "facts" that they start to contradict one another.

 

[Desdichado]

I think the problem is that hard science fiction is difficult to write, and it's especially difficult to make up on the fly. It doesn't have the familiarity of the real world, but it has all the complexity.

I can "hand wave" just about anything in fantasy. The only real trouble comes when I've accreted a large enough mass of "facts" that they start to contradict one another.

Maybe I'm unusual, then. I don't think it's any harder to handwave science fiction then it is to do so with fantasy.

 

[mmadsen]

Maybe I'm unusual, then. I don't think it's any harder to handwave science fiction then it is to do so with fantasy.

I don't think it's any harder to handwave sci-fi (e.g., Star Wars, Gamma World, John Carter of Mars) than fantasy, but I do think it's harder to handwave hard science fiction, where nothing contradicts accepted science -- even once you look for all the odd, unintended side effects.

 

[Treebore]

Traveller is only as "outdated" as the DM/GM. Traveller also addressed why cybernetics are not in the game, in general. It is outlawed in the Imperium. Made too many problematic super-humans. So instead of killing them when they went "bad", and suffering the costs of all the damage done, they out-lawed it. Of course there are probably governmental and corporate "black" agencies that may or may not have an impact on the "reality" of cybernetics not existing.

Sci-Fi is the exact same thing as Science-Fiction. Sci-Fi is the nickname for science fiction. Sci=science, Fi=fiction. At least that is what I was taught in college/High School/all my life. That is why Sci-Fi books and Science Fiction books are in the same section of shelves in book stores. That is why the Science fiction boook club sells Sci-Fi books.