Science Fiction Heartbreakers...

[KeithBVaughn]

What ever happened to that article? I remember several months ago it was discussed about as another essay soon to be in the Articles section. I've been looking forward to it--and the advice would be greatly appreciated/needed for a project I have.

Hopefully, it will be posted soon and not on indefinite hiatus.

Keith

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Keith,

Bad news - that essay is definitely on hiatus. In fact, I've encouraged others to try their hand at writing it. Part of the reason is that my own experience with these games is limited, and most especially I'm not a veteran of Traveller or some of the earlier "parental" games.

Best,
Ron

[KeithBVaughn]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for being honest.  Would it be possible to do this as a group project?  I have played Traveller, 2300AD, Gamma World and looked at other games in a effort to write my first game: Embers of Empire.  Yes, I've written a SF Heartbreaker.  And yes I believe the baseline for any SFRPG would have to be Traveller, not Metamorphis Alpha or Gamma World or Warriors of Mars.

I may be able to do a few parts of it, especially the early years as I was more actively gaming at that time. Would it be possible to provide a skeleton or outline of what needs to be in the article.  Also how would you solicit other writers for this project.

Keith B. Vaughn

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Keith,

Sadly, what you're proposing is a recipe for disaster. Why not just write the damn thing yourself? Think in terms of my own Heartbreaker articles; they're quite short, actually. Just do it!

Best,
Ron

[DevP]

Keith,

You seem well qualified, and as someone who science-fictionally heartbroke at least twice, I'd like to see it be written. Consider this encouragement.

[Matt Wilson]

Keith:

Why not consider a "part 1: the early years" article? Then someone familiar with more recent games can write part 2.

[John Kim]

Thanks for being honest.  Would it be possible to do this as a group project?  I have played Traveller, 2300AD, Gamma World and looked at other games in a effort to write my first game: Embers of Empire.  Yes, I've written a SF Heartbreaker.  And yes I believe the baseline for any SFRPG would have to be Traveller, not Metamorphis Alpha or Gamma World or Warriors of Mars.

I may be able to do a few parts of it, especially the early years as I was more actively gaming at that time. Would it be possible to provide a skeleton or outline of what needs to be in the article.  Also how would you solicit other writers for this project.

Hi, Keith.  I have to agree with Ron, in that I've rarely seen any multi-author essays work out, especially anything more than two or three.  I'd be willing to review and give feedback on a draft of such an article.  

As a bit of a suggestion, I might point to my own essay http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/fashions.html">History of Fashion in RPG Design as an alternative model.  Basically, while fantasy games are dominated by the example of D&D which is often imitated, science fiction games don't have a single dominant model.  There are some Traveller imitators, some GURPS imitators, some odd D&D imitators.  It might be best to think of them as different fashions of scifi rather than a single category of "heartbreaker".

[KeithBVaughn]

I've always said it's easy to bitch about something but hard to do something about it.  That's how I started my first SF Heartbreaker.  Anyway this essay may give me some insights that I was wanting from the Science Fiction Heartbreakers article to begin with.

I'll set a timeframe on myself of a month to have an article completed (Mid-January) and try to have it up to the board.

Ron-do you normally want to review these articles before they go up? And if so where do I send the file?

Keith

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Keith,

We do have an automatic article submission process somewhere; check around the top links for it. But I do prefer a direct mailing to me, which frankly has a better chance to get to the top of my mental pile.

Also, the scope of the article is totally up to you. You can limit yourself to a time period, or to particular influence and work from there (as John suggests), or whatever.

Best,
Ron

[b_bankhead]

SF rpgs have always broken my heart. First I like SF a lot better than fantasy and there are a LOT fewer gamers playing SF games, so I got relatively little chance to do much of it. But that isn't the only thing about them that has broken my heart.

Basically, while fantasy games are dominated by the example of D&D which is often imitated, science fiction games don't have a single dominant model.  There are some Traveller imitators, some GURPS imitators, some odd D&D imitators.  It might be best to think of them as different fashions of scifi rather than a single category of "heartbreaker".

I think this has to do with the fact that therre isn't a single model for science fiction. Fantasy has basically only a couple of examples to work from (or better to say it only works from a couple of examples).  Tolkien and to a lesser extent Robert E. Howard.  American fantasy literature has settled down to endlessly replicating these writers. (mostly Tolkien).

Science fiction is a much more varied genre.  Science fiction ranges from 'Man in the High Castle' to '2001 Space Oddessy' to 'Darwin's Radio' to (maybe) 'Perdido Street Station' and beyond.

My impression of the baseline of a 'science fiction heartbreaker' is a game that is based largely on.
the classic 'space' game featuring a far future setting with spaceshipsnrobotsnrayguns of various degrees of hardness following the paradigm of post E.E. Smith to mid sixties space operatic short stories, embodied by writers like Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov,Robert Heinlein and host of lesser lights. It's a vision of the future that  already  seems quaint.  

Coupled with this a a system wedded to paradigms established by miniatures wargaming. Complete with highly gamist, crunchy combat, and elaborate weapons lists.  This actaully goes down well with simulationists,too, zap guns should HURT!

Many people have commeted on the problem of combat in science fiction games.  The weapons in SF game are often exceedingly deadly. With the concentration on combat as the almost only form of conflict this means you will tend to loose lots of characters.  In many spaceship combat systems the entire campaign can be exterminated by a SINGLE die roll.........

D&D has a solution to this problem. Segregation of Challenge. If you don't go to the 10 level of the dungeon you wont run into the 10th level monsters. The original Gamma world, was systemically almost identical to D&D but it completely lacked D&D's method for SoC. A beginning party limping along through the toxic jungle armed with slingshots and 300 year old road flare is just as likely to run into a flying death platform bristling with weapons as a 'high level' party. Also in SF games 'magical' healing is generally much more restrained than in fantasy. The overall effect is that the survival rate in SF campaigns can be very low without plenty of fudging by the GM.

Sure there is plenty of military SF, but the major failing of the Sf heartbreakers is that it never found any other way to make anything but combat interesting or exciting. There are many other kinds of science fiction heroes,Doctors ,scientists, Diplomats , Merchants etc.

This is what is heartbreaking about these games, they repeat the same mistake, they make promises their systems can't keep.

SFHBs look like you can have heroes like this. They usually have extensive skill systems with all kinds of non-combat skills.  But with a wargame at it's heart, these are mostly just wasted paper.  Your doctor engineer, space archeologist etc, will be dragged from one firefight to another as, of course  you can't have an rpg without all the characters in a  PARTY can you?

And if the GM thinks to try to give them something to do, it will be a single roll-under skill roll done after a 2 hour battle, which the player is just as likely to whiff.

The SF heartbreaker will often have ONE thing that you can do that isn't combat related. Its usually either mind numbingly boring (Traveler trade rules) or has nothing to do with what anybody else is doing (cyberpunk games netrunner rules).

And speaking of cyberpunk game, they are a primary example of SF heartbreakers to, just in different settings.  R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk, had Techs and Medtechs,and Fixers and Mediasand Corporates, with no real guidelines for using them, (and inadequate rules for netrunning) but had an entire BOOK of combat rules (Friday Night Firefight), the second edition only improved the situation slightly, you had to buy an entire extra supplement to get anything out of your non-gunbunny. Again the promise, again the failure.

Cyberpunk was supposed to be a genre about the rule of information, but most people in cyberpunk rpg games make more use of their guns than their terminals, and indeed use the 'net' a good deal less than I do.....

Another problem in SFHB is lack of focus.  They try to do to much, and attempt to accomodate too wide a range of adventures with miniatures wargame rules. This lead to games like 'Space Opera' with gigantic, character build systems and skill systems a hundred pages long by themselves that must be understood to create a successful character.


Want to aviod the pain of an SF heartbreaker?

If your game involves 'leveling up' think about segregation of challenge.

Focus on a clear single concept of what your characters are supposed
to be doing in this setting.

Make it a form of conflict with high stakes.

Make is something other than shooting things

Write your physical combat system LAST.

By the way if you have an attached miniatures-based mass combat system or space combat system. you are probably writing a heartbreaker.

Examples:

L. Ron Hubbard's Old Doc Methusaleh, and Jame White's Sector General were about futuristic doctors and managed to create excitement and drama, indeed medicine is widely mined for this by popular entertaintment....

Dune, Megacorps or some similar environment with deadly byzantine politics, and physical combat is a duel after game numerous session of elaborate, political manuvering, or death comes by poison or assasin's dagger.

A game of interstellar commerce that is narrativist, because simulationist ones always turn into accounting exercises, and gamist ones are just hand operated versions of a hundred 'build your empire' computer games.

Anyway that is my hat in the ring for what constitutes an SFHB, and my reccomendations for avoiding them....

[clehrich]

As long as Brian has his hat in the ring, I'll add a few points.

Aliens
Oh deary deary me.  All aliens come from huge monocultures where everybody thinks alike.  And you can tell they're alien because they have these absolutely inflexible ideas that cannot be altered by reason.

Aliens come in three varieties in the heartbreaker:[list=1][*]Bug-Eyed Monsters, suitable for shooting
[*]Really Alien Guys, who are just like you except anatomically and have a number of deeply-held irrational convictions just to show how alien they are
[*]Complicated Deep Alien People, who are just like you but with rubber things on their foreheads, and who have complicated and sophisticated cultures that have gone on for gazillions of years and if only we could learn their great wisdom we could all go puke in the corner[/list:o]
Planets
For "planet" read "small town."  'Nuff said.

Historical Reenactment
The Planet of the Civil War People.

Real-World Physics
<boink>

Science To Explain Silliness
See, we have super-duper ultra-lightspeed engines because of the singularity matrix at the yadda yadda.  Or how about what John Kim used to call "absolutely-positively-just-can't-break-ium," the stuff that Ringworld is made of?  Well, you see, there's this crystalline lattice of carbonoid blah blah.  If they try to explain it, preferably at great length and with a few references to Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven, that's a heartbreaker.

Religion
A hint to heartbreaker writers.  Frank Herbert got away with it because it was pretty new and he did cool things with it.  But Islam In Space isn't nifty any more.

Wasted Space
If there is a lot of detail about just how big space is, and how long it takes to get anywhere, and this actually matters for the players to have to calculate out strategically, which probably means that it's about space battles taking decades or something, and probably gets into quick-and-dirty relativistic effects of the Jupiter Twins or something, that's probably a heartbreaker.

Spaceship Stats
With pictures and deck plans.  Lots of 'em.  In detail.  With names of manufacturing companies.  <buzz> Hearbreaker.

----
Some suggestions.

Stop Explaining Things
Nobody cares, really.  If they did, they'd read a hard scifi novel.  Just lay it out there and get strange.  That's one of the things that sucked so hard about the Star Wars prequel horrors: they started explaining stuff like The Force.  I don't want The Force explained; that's what's cool about it, dummy.  You want to tell me how long it takes to get from point A to point B, fine; I'll look it up.  I don't really care how you calculated it.

Stop With The Damn Aliens
Aliens aren't human.  You can tell, see, because they're aliens.  Unless you intend to go on interminably about exactly how their very intricate and elaborate cultures really work, and that's going to take hundreds and hundreds of pages, don't bother.  Stick 'em in and keep 'em weird.  Like really weird.  And don't explain, either.  They're like that because they're aliens.

If You Want a History Game, Write One
Haven't you noticed that it was silly when original Star Trek did the historical moral allegories?  It's even sillier now.  Stop it.

[John Kim]

I guess it's good to ask: what is a heartbreaker?  I'm now doubtful if its useful as a term.  For Chris' and Bryan's suggestions, I think perhaps "pet peeve button pusher" or simply "game I don't like" would be a better term.  Ron at least had specific criteria for his fantasy heartbreakers:
1) in a fantasy genre very close to D&D
2) published independently as a labor of love, with little understanding of the three-tier business model of RPG publishing
3) rules similar to D&D or other games published in the 70's or early eighties

To really do a direct parallel to Ron's heartbreaker article, you should buy a bunch of indie sci-fi games and review them.  You could try Dead Night of Space: Psibertroopers, The Colonies, and Red Shift, maybe.  On the other hand, I could understand if you're not really interested in doing that.  Conversely, though, I think pet peeve lists are pretty personal -- so if you're going to write a pet peeve list, it should just be your own.  [/img]

[b_bankhead]

Aliens
Oh deary deary me.

Oh deary me is right. And let's not forget the planet of the cat people, planet of the dog people, planet of the Gila monster people and planet of the naked mole rat people.  Unless it's 'Albedo' its a heartbreaker.

Well for my part the actual 'Albedo' rpg is a hearbreaker too.  They have this elaborate attached wargame type system. when Albedo is really Trollbabe with furries and SF military for incidental color. Firefights aren't what Albedo is 'about' at all...Albedo is about Ermal Felna's relationships.

[clehrich]

Yes, John.  Pardon us for being a little silly.

Look, you've said that there is no one "thing" or genre that is SF, right?  So criterion 1 of your list doesn't apply.  For the same reason, since there is no central standard, criterion 3 doesn't apply.

Brian's argument, and I agree with him, was:

My impression of the baseline of a 'science fiction heartbreaker' is a game that is based largely on the classic 'space' game featuring a far future setting with spaceshipsnrobotsnrayguns of various degrees of hardness following the paradigm of post E.E. Smith to mid sixties space operatic short stories, embodied by writers like Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov,Robert Heinlein and host of lesser lights. It's a vision of the future that already seems quaint.

So the question becomes, what exactly is that?  What sorts of qualities and characteristics are usually found?  If you prefer your list, what exactly is criterion #1 -- that is, what exactly are the qualities of this undefinable (because no single game standard) genre?  And in our semi-helpful jocular way, that's what we're trying to point at.

I maintain that there is genuine value in a friendly chat about the kinds of unfortunate qualities that crop up in these games, and I can list one indie SF game I've been closely involved with that if you look not terribly closely fits most of these qualities we've listed -- and is indeed a heartbreaker.  And yes, it was a labor of love, by people who really thought it was going to sell like hotcakes and had great business strategies.  So there's your criterion 2.

One last point:

To really do a direct parallel to Ron's heartbreaker article, you should buy a bunch of indie sci-fi games and review them. You could try Dead Night of Space: Psibertroopers, The Colonies, and Red Shift, maybe. On the other hand, I could understand if you're not really interested in doing that. Conversely, though, I think pet peeve lists are pretty personal -- so if you're going to write a pet peeve list, it should just be your own.[/img]

I have never known what "/img" is supposed to mean, but I've known you more than long enough to catch that here it means "yes I'm being snarky."  I do in fact own various indie SF games, and I'm sure Brian has lots more, but that's really not the point.  Or is it?

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'm a little unclear on why everybody assumes that there is such a thing as a SF Heartbreaker. Ron's fantasy one is a historical phenomenon (or rather, an interpretation of one), based on the popularity of D&D. If there were SF heartbreakers, they would by definition be close imitations of a parent game, made without full understanding of the marketplace.

Traveller has frequently been offered as a baseline, as well as D&D itself, for a genre of SF heartbreaker. I'd say that they are largely the only options; it's not a heartbreaker if it's not a close imitation made under limited understanding of the field, and those are pretty much the only games that even nearly qualify.

So if you want to write about SF heartbreakers, the first thing is to prove that they exist. I for one haven't seen any. Then again, I'm not in America, so it's natural that most borderline games don't reach here at all. Might be that you have a whole subculture of sf games I've never even heard of. If so, let's hear some names and comparisons on how those names are really heartbreakers.

Cyberpunk 2020, Star Wars in it's various incarnations, Shadowrun, Dark Sun, Fading Suns and Blue Planet are not one of them heartbreakers in any sense of the word, to close off the first scifi games that spring to mind. I'm sure there are more, but somebody well versed with them has to comment on that. The point is, I'm not familiar with any scifi heartbreaker phenomenon at all, and here there is a discussion that nearly assumes it's existence.