Why no one plays sci-fi RPGs

[robberbaron]

My two-penneth:

Some of my favourite games have been "Sci-Fi".
Traveller, Space Opera, "StarQuest" (a love-child of Space Opera and Runequest penned by Plane Sailing) - all were entertaining and enjoyable.
I've even played Star Trek RPG.
Cyberpunk/CyberSpace were also fun and definitely Sci-Fi.

I now run Star Wars d20 and it is a blast. I intend to run Spaceship Zero and that will be a blast.

That said, I have played D&D since '75 and it still makes up the vast majority of my gaming.
Why? Because more people prefer Fantasy to Sci-Fi.

In my experience, some players like the way they can behave in a Fantasy setting and don't like the fact that you can't do that in Sci-Fi.
You can tool up with some mega-armour and swing an amazing sword, but in a Sci-Fi game you are very much more restricted. You can't normally wear armour giving significant protection and are restricted to weapons that can't vapourize buildings.
Power-gamerstm just can't take these restrictions so they don't play Sci-Fi games.

One of the problems already highlighted seems to be that in a Sci-Fi game, the GM needs to be at least as on top of the science as the players.
This is the main reason GMs prefer to run Fantasy. It is easier.
If you are "lucky" enough to have a science-literate group of players you really have to work to keep their attention. Just saying something works "because it does" is fine in D&D (it's magic), but doesn't sit well in Sci-Fi. Then again, if you don't understand something, perhaps you should just leave it out.

Oh yeah, my view is that anything we can't do today counts as Science Fiction.
And some of Asimov's books are laughable (Space Rangers, anyone?), even 25 years ago when I read them. Give me E.E. Doc Smith anyday.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, I prefer Science Fantasy, as opposed to Hard SF. Most of the stuff in my games would be extremely pulpy. Like swords made of Uranium that gave you POWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's not pulpy, that's anime. Pulpy would be Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Mummy.

 

[buzz]

I have three examples of how this causes problems for us.

Sweet Jeebus! Remind me never to game with you guys.

Anyway...

Back in the day, SFRPGs weren't so unpopular. I mean, some of the first RPGs in general were sci-fi/SF games: Metamorphosis Alpha, Traveller, Gamma World, Space Opera, Universe, Starships & Spacemen, Space Patrol... Heck, they used to have their own *magazine*: The Space Gamer. The various incarnations of Star Wars and Trek have generally been pretty popular, and Shadowrun and Cyberpunk2020 were dang popular in the '90s, and Alternity still has a pretty hard-core following.

Frankly, though people have made some good points in this thread, I think it really comes down to a combination of faddism and "killer apps".

Fantasy, in various incarnations, seems to be in ascendance right now. Between the LOTR films, Harry Potter, and Buffy/Angel, fantasy is simply "on the brain" of the geek populace. And let's not forget that, among the gaming populace, the biggest fad in recent years has been 3e/d20, which is primarily focused on fantasy/D&D support. Fandom, in general, just doesn't seem inetersted in SF right now. Along with supers (which has seen an amazing resurgence... and what are Buffy/Angel but a confluence of fantasy and supers), fantasy is simply the shiznit right now.

(Look at how disappointed, IMHO, people and/or media companies have been with SF of late, too. The SW prequels were lame, the Matrix sequels were lame, Enteprise is probably going to get cancelled, Firefly was cancelled, audiences seemed indifferent to films like AI and Minority Report, and so on. Heck, besides SW, when was the last time you saw a major movie with spaceships in it?)

Alongside that, SFRPGs simply haven't had a "killer app" in recent memory. Reactions to both SWd20 and Decipher's Trek seem kind of mixed. Transhuman Space is really cool, but it's also pretty obscure, subject-wise. Blue Planet is even more obscure, as well as being pretty dead as a product line. And cyberpunk as a genre is pretty much passe, as it were.

Ergo, it's just not SF's "time" right now. Ergo, gamers aren't trying to emulate it (which is what gamers tend to do).

Whether SFRPGs are harder to run or not, I dunno. All I know is, I'm eagerly awaiting d20 Future, and I'd join a Star HERO game at the drop of a hat. And if someone were to release an updated Known Space RPG (not just Chaosium's old Ringworld RPG), I'd buy the first copy.

 

[Bagpuss]

Yeah, science-real is generally moving faster than science-fiction.

-- N

Right that's why we have a colony on Mars and interstella travel already.

 

[buzz]

...interstella travel already.

[Brando]
Stella!
[/Brando]

 

[buzz]

Another quick thing: let's not ignore the fact that even if dedicated SFRPGs might not be hot items, generic RPGs often get used for SF (seeing as SF means so many different things to different people). I got the impression that SF is one of GURPS' most popular genres: GURPS Traveller, Transhuman Space, GURPS Prime Directive, the venerable GURPS Space, GURPS Uplift, GURPS Mars, GURPS Lensmen...

 

[Desdichado]

Another quick thing: let's not ignore the fact that even if dedicated SFRPGs might not be hot items, generic RPGs often get used for SF (seeing as SF means so many different things to different people). I got the impression that SF is one of GURPS' most popular genres: GURPS Traveller, Transhuman Space, GURPS Prime Directive, the venerable GURPS Space, GURPS Uplift, GURPS Mars, GURPS Lensmen...

And the impression, correct of not, amongst a log of fans is that GURPS is the kind of system that sci-fi should have; somwhat detailed and complicated and "realistic."

Personally, I'd just run sci-fi with d20 Modern; I already do if you consider non-future sci-fi types of things.

 

[Malk]

The SW prequels were lame, the Matrix sequels were lame,

ok not the place to start this discussion at all but i feel that i must give out
a big "SAYS YOU!"

hehe ok im better now

 

[buzz]

ok not the place to start this discussion at all but i feel that i must give out a big "SAYS YOU!"

Heh.

True or not, I'm just talking about overall perception and reception. Reviews of both were mixed enough that I don't consider them to be any motivation for an SF renaissance or whatever. I mean, it's not like any of them got 11 Oscars...

 

[Ranger REG]

That's not pulpy, that's anime. Pulpy would be Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Mummy.

You mean Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. There were pulp sci-fi back in those days. Even the mini-game Iron Lords of Jupiter is an example of a pulp sci-fi RPG.

That's what George Lucas tries to emulate with his Star Wars films.