What is different in sci-fi gaming? [The Limits of Sci-Fi]

[Cadriel]

The question has just occurred to me, based on the (getting to be quite lengthy) The Limits of Sci-Fi thread.  What is it that really separates science fiction gaming from any other form of games, at a deep level?  Color is often different (as Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 and Transhuman Space reflect changing perspectives on the world and the current thought in sci-fi as a field), but what is significantly changed from, say, fantasy gaming?  Are there moral Narrativist questions that can only be explored in science fiction?  Is the exploration of setting significantly altered?

Essentially, what I'm questioning is:  is there an aspect other than Color where science fiction is a significant, major choice in crafting an RPG?  If not, why is it that the games are not as successful overall as their fantasy and modern-occult counterparts?

-Wayne

[clehrich]

Personally, I think there is no inherent difference whatsoever.  Any given game might be different, but as a genre?  None.

If not, why is it that the games are not as successful overall as their fantasy and modern-occult counterparts?

I'm just going to take for granted that you're right about this; I don't know that it's true, and I leave it up to others to answer.

Assuming that it is true, however, I would guess it's because people think there should be a fundamental difference between SF and other genres.  The science "should" be "realistic."  X, Y, and Z genre conventions "should" be respected.  It "should" be about exploration (in both the GNS and the "seek out new worlds" senses).  There are a lot of not-terribly-well-examined "shoulds" here, and that imposes hidden constraints.

[Cadriel]

Assuming that it is true, however, I would guess it's because people think there should be a fundamental difference between SF and other genres.  The science "should" be "realistic."  X, Y, and Z genre conventions "should" be respected.  It "should" be about exploration (in both the GNS and the "seek out new worlds" senses).  There are a lot of not-terribly-well-examined "shoulds" here, and that imposes hidden constraints.

(As for sci-fi not being as successful:  aside from Traveller, there's really no sci-fi game that has made an overwhelming splash; Traveller is no longer a really major force in RPGs, though it keeps resurfacing.  For the rest - well, Shadowrun is a strongly Gamist sci-fi game, but it also has a major fantasy element and probably succeeds through straddling the line.)

You've got a very interesting bit of analysis there - it makes sense, certainly:  people think that the games must, by nature, be extraordinarily pervy.  While I think that's a decent thing for a certain kind of gamer, it runs into the invisible brick wall quite often.

But how can the hidden assumptions be outed and dealt with?  And once they are, should a game attempt to address them, or should it work with the unspoken conventions of the would-be science fiction gamer?

(I ask, and bring this up, because I'm in the beginning-planning stages of a sci-fi game that's aimed at Narrativist play; I'll be running games in other systems to see what I really need before I get down to nuts and bolts, and I want to see what is really, absolutely required of science fiction roleplaying games.)

-Wayne

[clehrich]

Er, "pervy"?  Sorry --- I honestly don't know what this means.

For Narrativist SF, you might take a look at pages 3 and 4 of the Actual Play thread, "About Time for Another Woe."  Fang Langford in particular explained Star Wars: A New Hope from the GM's perspective.

As for getting rid of the preconceptions that SF has to be different, you'd have to ask someone who thinks that SF does have to be different, and get him or her to explain what's supposed to be so different about it.  Then you know the kind of beast you have to hunt, if you will.

[b_bankhead]

One reason for the lack of sci-fi campaigns is the inherent difficulties  the Gm of the typical 'space-game' is faced with  when gaming within the standardparadigm.

 First the issue of universe design. In the first sentence we see the problem.  The typical space-game can in theory involve hundreds of planets.  The average Traveler subsector with normal start density will have 44 planets and there are 16 subsectors in a single sector. Each one of these is potentially as complex as an entire fully realized fantasy world.  

 Given this all the problems of the typical gaming paradigm become apparent.  The problem of preparation: the issue of generating lots of unused campaign material can be an order of magnitude worse.  Another problem is the freedom of travel. In most space games the players have a spaceship which gives them the capacity to simply blow the cozy scenario you wrote up and go someplace completely different. You could detail a whole subsector just to have the players fly over to another one.  Likewise the bit of trouble they created can be easily and conveniently escaped.  Because of this it is VERY difficult to channel the direction of the campaign.

Another unoticed factor is that sci-fi never developed anything close to the dungeon crawl, i.e. the conceptually simple ,gamist default (keyed map area filled with various challenges)scenario.  The closest thing to it was a pure Traveler Merchant campaign played with the Trade rules, the only problem was that few found campaigns like that interesting ,I used to call it 'CPA's in SPAAAAACE!' but I think a a narrative approach could actually make a space trade game fun.

I would be very interested in discussing the issue of narrativist and author/director stance in SF game as I think they present a way around the above issues...

[Le Joueur]

As for sci-fi not being as successful: aside from Traveller, there's really no sci-fi game that has made an overwhelming splash; Traveller is no longer a really major force in RPGs, though it keeps resurfacing.  For the rest - well, Shadowrun is a strongly Gamist sci-fi game, but it also has a major fantasy element and probably succeeds through straddling the line.

What?  What about Rifts, Battletech, or Star Wars (to name three)?  You're setting the bar awfully high if you say that only Traveller is a 'major force.'  I know I don't accept that scenario.  Does anyone else disagree?

Fang Langford

p. s.  And I don't see any 'major fantasy element' in Shadowrun.  The magic is about as different from nanotech as my left ear from my right.  Just because a McGuffin is named after fantasy doesn't make it have a 'fantasy-ifying' effect on the stories; Shadowrun, magic or not, is still about 'black ops.' Fantasy isn't.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

I'm with Fang regarding the three games he cites.

As for Shadowrun and fantasy vs. SF, this is an interesting question, because ultimately Shadowrun is mid-80s D&D in an urban setting. Which would suggest to me that mid-80s D&D is not itself fantasy, but rather "black ops." That makes a lot of sense to me, actually, in tune with the metaplot-heavy mode of play that we're probably about to discuss re: AD&D2.

Best,
Ron

[Andrew Martin]

I'm with Fang regarding the three games he cites.

As for Shadowrun and fantasy vs. SF, this is an interesting question, because ultimately Shadowrun is mid-80s D&D in an urban setting. Which would suggest to me that mid-80s D&D is not itself fantasy, but rather "black ops." That makes a lot of sense to me, actually, in tune with the metaplot-heavy mode of play that we're probably about to discuss re: AD&D2.

I agree with Fang and Ron. I'd like to add FASA's Star Trek and the Renegade Legion series as well.

Regarding AD&D as "black-ops", that sounds about right to me as a player. I think it comes through from the source, because D&D started off as the sapping/counter-sapping combat underground for fantasy table-top battles. That's why the GM had a screen, hidden forces, prepared "dungeon" layout and so on.

[Cadriel]

Fang, Ron, Andrew:

I can concede that in some places, I was going a bit overboard in my classification of science fiction as a roleplaying genre; however, I would say that Shadowrun is "mixed" science fiction, and that the fantasy plays a co-equal part with the SF elements.  And I think Star Wars and Rifts, whatever technological elements they have, are fundamentally fantasy.  I do admit that I overlooked Mechwarrior (which I believe is the RPG part of Battletech) and the Star Trek games.

But I'm not really interested in that discussion.  I wanted to talk about science fiction as a gaming field, as a part of design, and so far I think that three very interesting points have come about.

1)  Science fiction contains a lot of hidden assumptions.
2)  The freedoms often assumed in science fiction stories can become problematic when introduced in a roleplaying game, especially when it interacts with pre-planning.
3)  A lot of the time, science fiction games tend to thrive when they throw some fantasy elements into the mix (like Shadowrun).

The first point leads to some interesting thoughts:  what are the assumptions, how do they impact game design, and what can be done about them?  Can they be embraced positively, or should design strive to overcome them?

The second issue makes things very interesting.  There really is no way a GM or game author can make up enough detail to cover the amount of ground that a science fiction game can very easily come into contact with; even basic planning becomes repetetive and tedious with such vistas present.  How can a sci-fi game get past that difficulty?

The third also leads to a question that I think is very relevant:  does "straight" science fiction (in the sense that it's not comingled with mechanisms from other genres, such as fantasy) have an innate disadvantage when compared to "mixed" work?  Is it significantly more alluring to play in a game with elements such as magic as well as science?  (Clarke's Law aside.)  I'm asking this in part because I want to see more work in the vein of sci-fi as sci-fi and not "sci-fi and...," and so the question becomes meaningful to me.

Sorry if this is being disrespectful, but I don't see the direction where things are starting to go as being fruitful and I'd rather not pursue that avenue.

-Wayne

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Wayne,

Disrespect, schmisrespect, it's your thread, so it's your call.

Folks, let's turn our attention toward the issues raised in the post right above this one.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Wayne,

I don't know if I'm throwing your thread out of whack with the following question, but I think it's pertinent.

During the Religious phase of discussion I was thinking about my notion that the truly religious person, in my view, is always open to the next mystery being revealed.  In the same post, I noted that the truly scientific person is too.

Then, in thoughts later that day, I noted that what frustrates me about religions in games is that they're usually totally fixed: no where to go.

But then I realized most SF games are the same way with their science.

Which brings me to my point: A lot of SF fiction is based on a law (or laws) of pressumed science being completely overturned and the implications of that being dealt with or assumed into society.  (In Ben Bova's Millinium, an ABM sattelite laser network will render ICBM's useless, and the balance of global power is about to shift forever.  Compare this, please, with Crichton's whatever books, where the SF premise is always tidily swept under the rug by the book's end -- he's not a SF writer, but armchair tourist to the genre.)

Here's my question:

Has anyone ever played an SF game / campaign where the players -- as active protagonists -- through research, theorizing or whatnot -- actually reshaped the fundemental laws of reality?

Until a GM is willing to accept this, I think we can safely say there will be no SF in RPGs.  I think that's the distinction from color and I think it's yet to be done.

Christopher

[Blake Hutchins]

Hey all,

A quick note to add mention of Dream Pod 9's Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear in the S-F gaming camp.  Neither includes fantasy elements other than the practical feasibility of giant military robots.  Jovian Chronicles does have optional rules for more fantastic stuff, cinematic rules, etc.

I'd like to address Wayne's third point about fantasy.  I think fantasy elements in an otherwise S-F setting may reflect a simple way of injecting accessible mystery into the setting.  If you consider the difficulty for most people of coming up with hard science mysteries, including the usual Analog-literature style of storytelling - the idea story bound up in a problem solved via paradigm shifting discovery - that's hard for most groups to grapple with.  Most folks don't have an advanced knowledge of physics or biology or engineering.  To make a hard science S-F game work, I submit the protagonists have to be science savvy to a degree that requires their players to be science savvy.  So fantasy or Trek style technogabble becomes a substitute for hard science.  I mean, let's say you're running in a game with Ron as a player, and you want to offer something that has a strong biological sciences element.  You'd need to be pretty up on biology yourself to give Ron a real SF-nal conflict to tinker with.

In short, hard science stories are mostly about the ideas and the science.  "Soft" science or space opera, uses technology for flavor, and magic or psi usually supplies the cosmological/paradigmic mystery aspect (viz. Fading Suns, Metabarons, even Traveller with its psionics).

Best,

Blake

[Cadriel]

Blake:

Interesting point.  So the question is leaning toward, "Is it possible to recreate hard sci-fi in RPGs?"  And I think that the answer slowly tilts toward "No."  You really can't simulate the technological fixes for problems that exist.  And that's okay; the "soft" variant, I think, has more depth than you've implied.

What I'm interested in working with is RPGs where the effects of technology impact on centrally human issues - not fiction where science is the solution, but rather where it's a part of the problem.  I think that it is a live and interesting subject, different from hard sci-fi, and has a lot of potential as a Narrativist subject.  I like cyberpunk (not in the chrome-and-big-guns sense of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 or Shadowrun, but more in the sphere of ideas), and the game I'm trying to get players together for will ask the question:  "When technology advances faster than morality, what does it mean to be 'human'?" as a point of Premise.  I guess it's more "tech fiction" than "science fiction," but it falls under the same umbrella without making the technology into mere color.  And, obviously, I think that this realm of game has a lot of merit behind it.  It's an approach to SF that I don't think has been explored much in RPGs.

And that's where all my questions lie.  I think the hard SF inapplicability in gaming helps out a lot with regard to the admixture, and also it may be a step in helping with the hidden assumptions.

-Wayne

[Alan]

What is it that really separates science fiction gaming from any other form of games, at a deep level?  Color is often different ... but what is significantly changed from, say, fantasy gaming?  Are there moral Narrativist questions that can only be explored in science fiction?

Hi Wayne,

I know that we don't want to get into the definition of SF, but I believe the answer in the question "What is fundimentally different between SF and Fantasy."  I think this leads unavoidable to defining opinions.  Not only that, I think we have to look at the source literature, not just RPGs.  Here's my analysis.

Both SF and Fantasy literature involve changing one or more elements of human existance to produce a conflict which engages the personal themes  of the characters in the world.  In this sense they are both subsets of speculative fiction.  The difference is in the nature and quality of element which may be changed.  

I would suggest that fantasy always contains an element involving the indivual's ability to influence their reality though mind alone - or the consequences of that.  

However, I would say that SF retains a basic assumpton that mind can't directly effect reality.  Some instrumentality is required, whether it's knowledge and technology, or an organic structure in the brain that produces psionic effects.  If I want to say "SF always contains", I'd suggest that it always contains a new element of instrumentality, whether it's just a new social idea, or a hard gizmo.  Another underlying assumption is the focus on understandible cause and effect.

These two assumptions lead to different kinds of premise.  Fantasy tends to address themes of personal development, endurance, and actualization - relationship with the inner self (or inner reality).  Meanwhile, SF tends to address inginuity, understanding, and acceptance - relationship of self (inner reality) to things not-self (outer-reality).

Hence, neither SF nor fantasy literature distinguishes itself in a particular element of setting, situation, color, or character.  Instead, they are distinct in primary theme.  The chosen primary assumption sits like a hub around which the spokes of setting, situation, color, and character revolve.

How does this apply to designing an SF RPG?  If you accept my assertion that SF addresses themes of self to other, then an the design must provide elements that encourage these kinds of themes.  I would suggest that this is why most SF RPGs focus on exploration of a universe (or world or area), or the consequences of new technologies.  These are the easiest new frontiers to respresent in an imaginary adventure.

Common assumptions of SF literature that can (and have been applied to RPGs):

- Setting forms characters
- Self can only affect other through instrumentality.
- New knowledge leads to new and unexpected instrumentality
- Knowledge is gained through observation and experiment.
- Situation arrises due to some element of technology, biology, or society which is different from ours, interacting with elements which we are familiar with.
- The situation must result in a new relationship between individuals and their outer universe.

I'm not sure how to put it into concrete terms, but I can envision a game system stripped down to a given core element of our existance which has changed and these principles.  

Hm.  Now that all this is written, I'm not actually sure if I've been able to get my finger on the distrinction of fantasy as self to self vs. SF as self to outside.  Maybe you guys can kick the idea around some more.

[Blake Hutchins]

Hello,

Should point out that I didn't mean to imply soft S-F lacks depth.  Dune, technically, qualifies as a sophisticated form of space opera, given the far future empires, dueling culture, pseudo-feudal Houses, and superhuman abilities.  Softer S-F by its non-techy nature has to focus on the societal impacts of technology, war, alien contact, and the like, rather than on the pure tech idea or application of hard science to solve a conflict.

Otherwise, yeah, I think we're reaching an answer here.

Best,

Blake