Split from Breaking The Heart Of The Universe, which has been expanding at a geometrically increasing rate.

I'm sorry. I can't think of a single story in all of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, or Stargate that could not have happened without the technology. 2001 could have worked if Hal was an intelligent and educated negro slave aboard a seventeeth-century sailing vessel. Now, maybe there are a few episodes in which the technology really did matter, in which the same story could not have been told with minor variations in a different setting, but the bulk of this material requires the technology merely to maintain the setting.

Labels and categories are arbitrary and always gray. Anything we categorize with our human cognition is by necessity based on fuzzy patterns, because we purposely ignore differences in order to focus on perceived similarities. As Wittgenstein can tell us, categories are often word-families rather than one clearly delineated set of attributes.

How do we learn these categories? By example. I know what I consider to be green because different shades of green have been pointed out to me as a kid. Because of the way this has happened, some borderline shades I consider green that others, who have learned through slightly different examples, consider blue.

What's the point of this rambling? We learn what we consider to be Science Fiction by example, and afterwards try to extrapolate some common denominators. For some people, the similarity lies in advanced, imagined, expanded technology. For others, it's more about the style of literature that it produces or the way it creates settings that speak to one focused point.

When you say:

Most of the sources you mention seem like a cross between the Wild West, Jules Verne, Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote, and "The Odyssey" in space.

Snowden wrote: Split from Breaking The Heart Of The Universe, which has been expanding at a geometrically increasing rate.

I'm sorry. I can't think of a single story in all of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, or Stargate that could not have happened without the technology. 2001 could have worked if Hal was an intelligent and educated negro slave aboard a seventeeth-century sailing vessel. Now, maybe there are a few episodes in which the technology really did matter, in which the same story could not have been told with minor variations in a different setting, but the bulk of this material requires the technology merely to maintain the setting.

I disagree. Most of the sources you mention seem like a cross between the Wild West, Jules Verne, Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote, and "The Odyssey" in space. If anything, the HAL segment of 2001 (but not the Monolith and Star Baby segments) is the exception because it specifically explores the issue of non-human consciousness; simply replacing the computer with a human (no matter how racially or culturally "alien" to the crew) would miss the point in a way that replacing most space ships with boats or horses or covered wagons would not.

I think the technology is required to maintain the setting at a literal level, but functions as color on a thematic level.

Why is science fiction so hard to run as a game?

Because of exactly the reasons posted above: Flying a space ship ISN'T riding a horse, just like driving a car isn't like riding a horse. Realistically speaking.
This follows along with posts of my own in the same thread. No, they aren't the same, but in gaming terms they're TREATED the same. There is no wonder that "I own this starship", its just accepted as the mode of transportation for the genre, as is a horse. Its not a big deal I have a prostetic cybernetic arm. Hell, that scenario could be milked for a worth of character action and play. However, unless its got some uber bonus to it, not many players will pick it for their character if its just a replacement, cept maybe a touch more durable than flesh. it has to have all sorts of hacker abilities or enhanced strength, or built in force fields. It can't just be a prosthetic limb.

Flying a space ship ISN'T riding a horse, just like driving a car isn't like riding a horse. Realistically speaking.

daMoose_Neo wrote: Why is science fiction so hard to run as a game?

Noon wrote:

Flying a space ship ISN'T riding a horse, just like driving a car isn't like riding a horse. Realistically speaking.

True. But if your RPG doesn't exploit the differences, your not likely to feel much of a difference between the two in play.

Similar to your prosthetic arm issue. If the system doesn't help explore the ramifications behind such things, then it tends not to happen (and if it does, the RPG didn't do anything)

Yeah, sometimes the point of science fiction is how BLASE everyone is about the technology around them (much like us about cars... sure, we ooh and aah over high performance vehicles, but take for granted the every day transport).

So, in the Neuromancer scene that Marco describes, it is a foregone conclusion that some will have cybernetic prosethtics. No big whoop.

And that is perfectly valid in science fiction. Or it can be a HUGE deal, such as Niven's Gil who has a telekinetic arm.

Here is why I think SciFi is hard on RPGs. There is SO much more that the group has to collectively agree on.

In Fantasy, the scope is much more manageable. High or low magic? Medieval level of technology, perhaps Renneissance? A broadsword might be different than a scimitar in game stats... but as an technological impact on the way people live... not so much. Stirrup or no stirrup has more impact, to be honest. And lets be clear, there is an infinite amount of variety in fantasy within its borders.... ERB's Tarzan is fine next to Conan next to Tolkien next to Talislantia next to Greyhawk.

In SciFi, the check list is immense. Hard, best science we can muster, based.... or space opera? How do we get around the galaxy, FTL or stargates left by Ancients? Does the populace practice genemanipulation and we have dogmen, bunnymen and such (transhuman space) or are we jacking into the galactic net? Are hand guns really glorified small arms of today or blasters and rayguns and anti-matter torpedoes? Anti grav on spaceships? Or do we spin the dang things to simulate gravitiy? Aliens? If so, how many, what are they, how much does the man in the street know about them? Society? Fractured by colonization? Unified by outside threats?

and on and on and on. There is SO much to define. Because our player characters would have access to SO much information that they would take for granted. Would be ingrained. Information that the PLAYERS must absorb over time, no one can absorb it simply by reading the game book(s) and react to it like you can during a game.

Information control is a heck a lot easier in a fantasy game when its; "oh, you all start out as best friends in a tiny village on the frontier. None of you have travelled more than 30 miles from home. When..."

I think this forum has a tendency to overthink and over define things... a necessary evil to what is trying to accomplishe but Snowden, sometimes being literal is precisely what a definition needs. Who cares if technology in sci fi is literally the diffence or simply the color? It doesn't matter. If a crime story takes place in a land of swords and horses, it is probably historic novel. If it takes place in the lands of cars and highrises... it is probably a thriller. If it takes place on a space station, it is probably science fiction.

most spaceships are, IME, modeled after sailing ships, not horses. There are very few points of similarity between horses and most RPG spaceships.

Thanks for starting this thread Snowden!

Science Fiction can add more than just color, it can alter the very mechanics of play.

For instance, imagine a police procedural RPG set in a future where cloning is common, rendering DNA evidence nearly useless. I can imagine a scenario where a murder has been committed, and the DNA trail ends up with a man and his five clones. The physical evidence indicates that the crime was committed by one person, so which of these six people did it?

Top it off with the PCs all being clones themselves, it can really change how a game is played.

Another idea in the same vein was a SF series where teleportation was possible, but not the way you think it would be. You would be scanned and the information would be sent to another world, where a new you would be assembled. Some people would "sell" themselves off and a "dumbed-down" version would be creates as a servant on the other world. In the story in question they were investigating a world and artifacts that were deadly, so probes would be sent near the artifacts and repeated scans would be made of the same person, and through transmissions the original, well second generation copy, would watch what happens and then send a new version of himself when his scan clone gets offed. Just imagine how this would affect how a scenario would play out. You run yourself as the clone, then later, as the original working out what had happen and trying again with another clone.

Boggling isn't it?

Marco wrote:

Noon wrote:

Flying a space ship ISN'T riding a horse, just like driving a car isn't like riding a horse. Realistically speaking.

True. But if your RPG doesn't exploit the differences, your not likely to feel much of a difference between the two in play.

Although this is easy to say, I'm not sure that anyone will really agree on what it means. Does a table involving square roots that's used to calculate travel time mean you are "exploiting the difference?" Does a ship-combat system mean that? An onboard computer? A turbo-boost button?

The fact that a spaceship is nothing like a horse doesn't seem to convince you so what's your standard?

And if you tell me, how does your statement hold up in light of that fact that it isn't mine?*

Similar to your prosthetic arm issue. If the system doesn't help explore the ramifications behind such things, then it tends not to happen (and if it does, the RPG didn't do anything)

IMO this is based on a misunderstaning about science fiction elements. It is perfectly valid that the prosthetic arm simply establishes that the cyborg is a combat veteran in a way that broadcasts it to everyone he meets. It needs only to be as 'supported by system' as a character's scar or eyepatch or special forces tattoo.

The I, Robot methodology wherein the robot arm is wrapped around a contrived melodrama is not in any way superior to the throwaway scene in the begining of Neuromancer where the bartender with the clunky soviet-steel appendage casually shreds someone's weapon.

Both are valid in the literature but one (the movie), IMO, jumps through exausting hoops to make one relevant. The other, IMO, uses the cybernetics to tell us volumes about the world in a few chilling sentences.

The idea that an arm or a game system must lead one to an issue is making poor generalizations about what people other than the speaker would want in a game or fiction.

Its not a big deal I have a prostetic cybernetic arm. Hell, that scenario could be milked for a worth of character action and play.

Storn wrote: Now. Why is science fiction so hard to run as a game?

I'm wondering if part of the observed phenomenom that SF is harder to "get into" than fantasy isn't that we're using different standards.

For the fantasy case, we're pretty much limiting ourselves to "stock fantasy" or minor variations thereof. I haven't seen anybody consider playing in, say, the setting of Pollack's Unquenchable fire, or Lessing's The marriages between zones three, four and five, or one of Leguin's psyochomyths. Heck, even the simple point change in Donaldson's Mordant's Need will already floor most fantasy RPG systems.

On the SF side, we're allowing ourselves much more leeway, so naturally the problem is harder. Add to that there is a lot less experience with SF RPGs out there and you end up trying to handle a harder problem with less mature tools. The difference is indeed impressive, but, IMO, largely, possibly entirely, due to comparing apples and oranges, not to intrinsic difficulties with SF.

A similar argument applies, I think, to the problem of playing a character in an SF setting. Certainly it is difficult for us to think through a three-dimensional combat, but is it more difficult than grasping the outlook of a 1,000-year old immortal elf? So again, I think the crucial distiction is that we're willing to accept verisimilitude over veracity for the portayal of the elf, but insist on the unattainable goal of veracity for the starship captain. Apples and oranges.

SR
--

Rob Carriere wrote: I'm wondering if part of the observed phenomenom that SF is harder to "get into" than fantasy isn't that we're using different standards.

For the fantasy case, we're pretty much limiting ourselves to "stock fantasy" or minor variations thereof. I haven't seen anybody consider playing in, say, the setting of Pollack's Unquenchable fire, or Lessing's The marriages between zones three, four and five, or one of Leguin's psyochomyths. Heck, even the simple point change in Donaldson's Mordant's Need will already floor most fantasy RPG systems.

Marco wrote: As someone who tried to play in Star Trek, we ran into problems: Does the bridge crew really beam down? That doesn't sound smart. Is there military protocol (it's not displayed on the TV show, reall--no salute, very little 'Captain on the bridge,' etc). Who runs the ship when Kirk and co. are asleep (there'd need to be some more crew, we thought). And so on.

At some level we expected SF worlds to make 'more sense' than fantasy ones.

Noon wrote:
Sci fi tends to imply logic as part of the genre, but particular shows don't actually stand up to logic being applied to them. Basically an emphasis on one part of the genre (logic) is breaking the rest of the genre.

The answer, it would seem, is to apply logic to the same degree they do in that show your emulating. Like in M.J's example, they identify Khan as using 2D planning...but then do so themselves, pointlessly.

A similar argument applies, I think, to the problem of playing a character in an SF setting. Certainly it is difficult for us to think through a three-dimensional combat, but is it more difficult than grasping the outlook of a 1,000-year old immortal elf? So again, I think the crucial distiction is that we're willing to accept verisimilitude over veracity for the portayal of the elf, but insist on the unattainable goal of veracity for the starship captain. Apples and oranges.

Noon wrote:

Marco wrote: As someone who tried to play in Star Trek, we ran into problems: Does the bridge crew really beam down? That doesn't sound smart. Is there military protocol (it's not displayed on the TV show, reall--no salute, very little 'Captain on the bridge,' etc). Who runs the ship when Kirk and co. are asleep (there'd need to be some more crew, we thought). And so on.

They don't have any toilets either. But then again that wasn't the point of the show, nor are those other things (by not being covered in the show)

All this discussion of "the millenial elf" is reminding me of "Stranger In A Strange Land," where it seems like the sci-fi trappings (space travel, Mars, etc.) are mostly color around issues of alien culture, nature vs. nurture, etc.; had Heinlein been inclined towards "fantasy" instead of "science fiction," he could've swapped "a now-vanished race of unspeakably ancient elves" for "a now-extinct alien species from Mars" and written basically the same book.

I'm leaning more and more towards "speculative fiction" as a separate label for the underlying approach here. In the past I've assumed this was tightly tied to "science fiction," but I think (as you seem to be pointing out) that's more a reflection of past literary trends rather than an intrisic property of the genre. I think the fact that "alternate historical" novels often get lumped in with "science fiction" suggests I'm not the only one who has made this mistake!

Several scenes in Babylon 5's run where shot in the bathroom.

FYI.

Marco wrote: I don't know if you'd conclude that the modern-day nuclear submarine in Crimson Tide didn't have a head because it wasn't shown in the movie but I don't think that'd convince anyone submarines don't have those facilities.

If we presume that Star Trek depicts an actual, working, logical universe--and imagining that 'whole, consistent' universe is part of the appeal (and, judging from deck-plans showing facilities, Star Fleet Battles, a bunch of books, etc. it definitely, and inarguably was for a lot of people) then you have to reconcile what you are given with what you happen to know would be necessary. Or conclude would be logical.

Storn wrote: Several scenes in Babylon 5's run where shot in the bathroom.

contracycle wrote: I disagree. [with my statement that playing a 1,000-year old elf is no less difficult than playing a starship captain skilled in 3-D combat --SR] I have exactly as much difficulty relating to a 1000 year-old elf as with many funky SF concepts. In fact I can confidantly say that I do not relate to a millenial immortal elf AT ALL; even less so than with many SF concepts.

Snowden wrote: All this discussion of "the millenial elf" is reminding me of "Stranger In A Strange Land," where it seems like the sci-fi trappings (space travel, Mars, etc.) are mostly color around issues of alien culture, nature vs. nurture, etc.; had Heinlein been inclined towards "fantasy" instead of "science fiction," he could've swapped "a now-vanished race of unspeakably ancient elves" for "a now-extinct alien species from Mars" and written basically the same book.

Rob Carriere wrote:

contracycle wrote:

My point was that
1) the captain and the elf are equally difficult to play to the same standard.
2) in the case of the elf a much lower standard is generally accepted. (more or less your "suck elf history out of [your] thumb".)
which leads to the conlusion:
3) SF RPGs are held to a higher standard than fantasy, and the observed phenomom of SF being "harder to get into" is at least in part due to this.

But the only place to find "elf history" is your thumb.

On the other hand, everyone and their dog thinks theyve a valid opinion of what a starship captain should be like.

And, I think the decisions about how the captain should be have more effect on the rest of the world than elvish history have on a fantasy world.

I think the problem for 'realistic' sci-fi and modern games is coming up with play thats neither Heroic (IMO incompatible with firepower) nor Mundane (Papers and Paychecks!)

NN wrote: But the only place to find "elf history" is your thumb.

On the other hand, everyone and their dog thinks theyve a valid opinion of what a starship captain should be like.

I think the problem for 'realistic' sci-fi and modern games is coming up with play thats neither Heroic (IMO incompatible with firepower) nor Mundane (Papers and Paychecks!)

Rob Carriere wrote:
I believe you are arguing a similar viewpoint when you say that you would consider fantasy that properly speculates something other than fantasy. I read that as saying that only the low-standard (in the narrow sense of speculative quality) stuff should be called fantasy--which would translate directly to different standards of evaluating play in this respect.

You seem to be concentrating on the possibility of "upgrading" fantasy games (let's really think about what this elf should be like) where I was concentrating on the possibility of "downgrading" sf games (is it important how 3-D the captain really thinks?)

Noon wrote:

Marco wrote: I don't know if you'd conclude that the modern-day nuclear submarine in Crimson Tide didn't have a head because it wasn't shown in the movie but I don't think that'd convince anyone submarines don't have those facilities.

No, I'd conclude that I shouldn't have a lot of play that happens in the head, otherwise I'm not really exploring the movie.

Marco wrote: I wrote an essay on this our site that I need to get posted back up but, with a TV medium, it is, IMO, reasonable to assume that precisely what was shown on TV is not what was presented in the fiction (often due to budget). If we play in Dr. Who, we need not assume that every enemy looks like a cheap special effect--the characters don't react to them as though they looked extremely fake.

contracycle wrote: Hmm, rather I think [SF and fantasy] are different beasts with different needs. My preference is merely mine and no value judgement on fantasy proper beyond that preference is implied.

My point was that this application of "double standards" is in fact the application of different standards for different genres.

Part of the impact of Stranger in a Strange Land is the feeling of realism that comes from the SF coloring (and, indeed, partly from Heinlein's rep as a fairly-hard SF author.)

Cutting back to games, I believe that means that you can create games based on color or on structure or both, and that that is equally true for science fiction games and for fantasy games. It is a historical artifact that SF games have tended more to the structure side than have fantasy games.

Snowden wrote: I was under the impression that "Stranger In A Strange Land" had achieved a limited cult status as a "countercultural" novel beyond Heinlein's existing sci-fi fanbase, or even sci-fi fandom in general; I would take this to suggest there was something "beneath" the coloring that gave it this broader appeal.

But in order to avoid bringing the thread full circle, I guess we can agree to disagree!

To provide some context, there are some interesting past discussions of similar topics at The Limits of Sci-Fi and a spinoff thread at Groundbreakers.

Things like Big Idea games, see threads above, are orthogonal to the SF elements discussed so far in this thread.

- Eric