You Got Sci-Fi in my Fantasy!

[Silver Moon]

I've also mixed Sci-fi with fantasy with mixed results. I did a one-nighter where the D&D characters were shifted to another dimension and had to fight a Ming-the-Merciless type on a space station that went well. I later attempted to do a sequel to that, on a Paranoia-type world, and that game just fell flat.

 

[Zappo]

I voted "we mixed systems once in a while", but I need to be more precise. A couple of times we had campaigns that were designed to be cross-genre. But we don't take a normal campaign and add extraneous elements for an adventure or two. It invariably ended with a campaign crash soon afterwards, every single time we tried to.

 

[mmu1]

I like Shadowrun because it was developed from the start to be a "crossover" game, and it feels like, well... Shadowrun.

Whereas mixing sci-fi into D&D never really worked for me. Aside from Star Wars d20 (revised), but that's only because SW has its own very well defined feel, and it's really just a fantasy setting with spaceships thrown in. (Hate it when players miss that point and try to realign the main deflector dish to emit a phased particle stream...)

 

[Wombat]

They only time I have crossed two games together has been expressly for comedic purposes (he says as dryly as he is able).

Well, I ran a couple of fantasy-with-horror-elements games, but they were more 19th C. Gothic horror than Lovecraftian existentialist anihillations, so it felt okay, but even there I was using pretty much standard critters (ghosts, vampires, werewolves).

But Paranoia mixes well with any genre!

 

[Turjan]

The first fantasy book I ever read was Jack Vance's "Dying Earth"; this has functioning flying cars in the ruins of the city Amphridatvir. Later on, there was the M&M series as my start into CRPG's. As you can see, I don't have any problems with SciFi in my fantasy games, as long as it is used sparingly and doesn't destroy the entire mood.

 

[D+1]

The single most applicable response seemed to be "I mix sf and fantasy". I like a little bit of a mix of sf in fantasy, but oddly enough I dislike adding fantasy to sf if that makes any sense. Elves and dwarves in outer space flying magical galleons is fine, but Elves aboard the USS Enterprise or Millenium Falcon makes me wanna gag.

Mixing RULES is really a different question from mixing genres because when we do it, it's for very different reasons than mixing genres. Still, almost ALL of my experience at mixing various rules systems together comes from SciFi games. The first was a mixture of Space Opera and classic Traveller. The next was a mind-blowing conglomeration of bits and pieces from all the OTHER editions of Traveller except the original (twilight 2000, 2300, etc.). Even the DM who inflicted it on us referred to it as "Hybrids & Headaches". I think that one sorta soured me on mixing rules - but genres I have much less of a problem with.

SF monsters like Predators and Aliens, space flight, ray guns, contemporary guns, robots, steam trains, submarines, travelling to contemporary America, contemporary Americans travelling to D&D settings... all that kind of stuff has at least a potential for showing up in my D&D game one way or another. I'm currently leaning toward a new campaign where clockwork constructs will be a common encounter, and perhaps even be a PC race.