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Post by alverant on Apr 1, 2015 18:45:58 GMT -8
Why do you think there are so many more RPGs and MMORPGs that are based in a magic/fantasy setting than a sci-fi setting? It seems like for any one Mass Effect, Traveler, or EVE there are multiple Elder Scrolls, D&Ds, and WoWs. Is there a greater demand for fantasy than sci-fi or is it easier to create or something else?
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Post by lowkeyoh on Apr 1, 2015 21:47:32 GMT -8
Fantasy is easier. Fantasy is modeled on the past, and on the present, and Sci-Fi is mostly modeled on the future. Hard Sci-Fi also needs to make logical sense with real world science. It's the same reason why Forgotten Realms is easier to explain than Star Wars, and why Star Wars is easier to explain that Star Trek. A wizard/the gods did it justifies more than the force/hyperspace, more than dilithium crystals and antimatter converters and warp speed.
You can steal Medieval social interactions and class structures and add fantasy races and call it a fantasy setting. For Dragon Age to make sense you have to 1) Balance the power of magic with the social order of the church, 2) Establish where darkspawn come from, 3) Create some fantasy countries and imagine their politics, 4) Add elves and dwarves.
Mass Effect has 16 races I can think of off the top of my head. You have to explain FTL travel. You have to explain unique cultures of each race. Their home worlds. The politics of the citadel. You are doing all the things you do for fantasy, and explaining technology, and inventing things that you don't have to invent in a fantasy setting.
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Post by alverant on Apr 5, 2015 15:33:14 GMT -8
Good answer. I can't really disagree. I'd also point out the difficulties of "future proofing" the future. In some ways we already have tech better than what we've seen in Star Trek (tablet computers, and cell phones, whatever that thing is Uhura has to stick in her ear). And if you went to all the trouble to create a good sci-fi setting you'd probably make in an IP. Meanwhile you can't copyright history. That's why we have "generic" fantasy and not "generic" sci-fi (not counting specific sub-genres of sci-fi like cyberpunk, dystpoias, etc).
Honestly I prefer sci-fi over fantasy because I'd rather look to the future than the past. I see the medeival era as something we should avoid and not romanticized and feel that most fantasy settings are stuck in a cultural and technological cul de sac. You could go a thousand years in the past or future in a fantasy setting and not much is going to change except where the ruins are.
But it doesn't really explain why fantasy is more popular. Does supply fuel demand or is there something else?
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Post by natebob on Apr 5, 2015 21:08:53 GMT -8
I think in Fantasy you hand wave the fantastical stuff as just "magic," but in Sci-Fi there are technical explanations to the fantastical which can be more intimidating to players.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 7, 2015 7:31:46 GMT -8
Hippy's - it comes back to the great smelly and unwashed . . . Hippy's. DnD had it's genesis in the herbal funk of the dying days of the counter culture revolution begun in the 60's. A revolution noted for it's active promotion of LoTR's as more a lifestyle choice than simply dedicated reading. We're talking a time when even in shitty little backwater Brisbane we had a the famous 'Gandalf's Garden' garden centre . . . famous because it could afford to advertise on the local radio; plus a 'themed' restaurant called 'The Pippin Took' (incidentally just up the road from where I grew up) . . . They were forced to change their name when a certain Tolkien Enterprises caught whiff of it (though, again, backwater Brisbane so they had good run at it for many years). Apart from 2001, and few others, there was very little 'good' sci-fi to really inspire the genre as a mainstream (or counter-culture mainstream) interest . . . until Star Wars. Before the SW haters start remember Star Trek had been cancelled for sometime at that point, as had Lost-in-Space etc etc. I dare say the best sci-fi being produced on TV, in 1974+, was mainly British and thus had limited penetration into the US market (I'll pit 'Blakes 7' against 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' any day). That's why IMHO most RPG's do fantasy, it's in their DNA . . . all thanks to the dope smoking hippy types that picked up and ran with those first 3 Little White Books (when Elf was a Class) Aaron
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Post by Fiona on Apr 7, 2015 14:21:20 GMT -8
I don't agree with the notion that romanticizing any period is inherently dangerous to anyone. Fiction romanticizes everything from crime dramas to professional sports. The only dangers are in the individual's inability to differentiate reality from fiction.
And for what it's worth I prefer fantasy because I enjoy history and a world that isn't crawling with people and still offers a wide array of natural wonders.
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Post by Stu Venable on Apr 7, 2015 21:21:53 GMT -8
For GMs, I think it's a matter of scale. Fantasy involves (usually) a single world, often a single continent. In most science fiction (I'm thinking of star faring SF) you have to develop whole worlds.
Traveller helped the GM in this by giving you a short hand system to develop a very basic framework for many worlds in minutes. But to really flesh out those worlds takes time and thought.
You can spend time doing that for a handful of cities in fantasy and be good for months of play.
Also, players seem to be more comfortable dealing with a homebrewed fantasy world than a SciFi setting (at least that's my experience).
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on Apr 8, 2015 5:39:05 GMT -8
Travel scale in general. My Fantasy campaign has involved the beat down plodding PCs travelling approximately 400 miles in a series of 40+ game sessions. The Star Wars game after a few sessions of fixing a broken down ship and being stuck on Tattooine has now left the local stars system and I now have to ask them a session in advance "Whats the plan ? Where would you like to go ?" Which at least gives me a heads up to prepare a few worlds, environments, NPCs for the next game. But they can so easily say "Alright this place is lame we are outta here, really outta here and head out into the black." I think that reason alone accounts for many of the single biome (desert, arctic, forest) planets found in science fiction.
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Kurt
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Post by Kurt on Apr 10, 2015 19:09:33 GMT -8
Fantasy is a lot simpler for the GM to prepare for but the question goes back to ask why so many players seem to prefer the setting. From my MeetUp group, I know that 80% of my members only wanted to play D&D, even though there were several other games and genres being run at the time. While Sci-Fi and Modern Horror games were hurting for players, the D&D games had full parties and several new players asking to join. I asked the members of my group why this was and no one could give an answer. Perhaps it's the scale of the game and the perceived impression that the campaign would last longer or be better somehow. Maybe it was only because of the Big Bang factor. I know that when I plan a game, it can be of any genre because it was influenced by some random idea I might have pondered. When I plan a campaign, it's always a fantasy setting.
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Post by squeatus on Apr 25, 2015 13:41:56 GMT -8
I think with fantasy, there's an understanding between players and gm's already. You "know" what to expect.
Gay elves, functional alcoholic dwarves, rapey green orcs, swords, fireballs, d20 rolls, etc.
With sci-fi, you could wind up with some jackasses Babylon 5 fanfic railroad even though they pushed it as "kind of like firefly" or "space opera" so potential players are more reticent.
Then there's combat, where I think a good deal of fantasy game systems abstract away a lot of detail. Sci-fi games of all flavors tend to lean toward the crunchier, and they add a lot of complications earlier on, like great speed (vehicles) and three dimensional environments (smaller scale atmospheric flight, and grander scale space flight), which are awesome in my book, but tend to slow down a lot of the "roll crit/drop a pound of dice for damage" gratification folks are looking for.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 26, 2015 3:29:59 GMT -8
Broader genre appeal. I truly doubt it is about system, like a player’s preference for checkers over chess or Risk over Monopoly. RPGs stem from a literary background rather than a mechanical one of speculative reality and what if scenarios. This distinction is at the heart of what separates wargames from role-playing games, and it has the ring of truth to me. Amongst players who have never played a player involvement game such as Avalon Hill's Point of Law prior to their exposure to Role-Playing Games many will comfortably engage in system debate: lighter abstract ruleset vs. a heavier ruleset, the latter wherein designers attempt to reflect the complexity of a genre by scaffolding rules within the RAW. WOTC’s vicissitude is a case study of this lack of understanding. I am much more a traditional “cowboys and indians” type player, favouring player elaboration over pre-designed definitions (rulings over rules, light or heavy); and I prefer the rules conversation subsumed by player involvement articulated in-game more than I do a designer's construct pre-game. A majority of vocal gamers tell me I play RPGs wrong because they approach the game through its designer’s system rather than approach the game through its players. They advise me to play another system as a better choice without understanding the question the poster here poses, or my answer. Fair enough. Our mileage will vary, as it should, as the distance between us increases. I suspect the same answer I propose here would be found in publishers’ sales figures comparing the genres of hard Science Fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy – underscoring the connectedness of RPGs and literature.
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Post by squeatus on Apr 26, 2015 10:52:33 GMT -8
I tried to understand a lot of that but I just kind of started skipping words and then found myself at the end of your post.
Anyway I think system mechanics have a role. By "think" I mean know, because that's how I feel about it.
I like the whole story telling thing, but I want a system in place to mitigate a GM's potential for trapping me in their basement for six hours in some masturbatory reading of their manuscript.
Hence, the system matters for those of us who aren't good enough to transcend from the pitiful and supremely limited doctrine of applying rules in a game to the Freeform Gamer Gods we're supposed to be.
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Post by Kainguru on May 2, 2015 5:57:24 GMT -8
I want a system in place to mitigate a GM's potential for trapping me in their basement for six hours in some masturbatory reading of their manuscript. Wait! You actually believe this or are you giving voice to your avatar? You think you, with the admittedly limited vocabulary, can out rule an asshole just with some designer's rules...? Admit it. You think like this because you're a munchkin-size rules lawyer.... Yeah, 'Daniel', unfortunately you have either deliberately or accidentally misunderstood squeatus's comment - I suspect it's deliberate because you have taken the time to edit it so as to facilitate this loss of context. You have further used this loss of context as a basis to introduce your own particular agenda, mainly to be personally abusive whilst hiding behind the justification of an imagined slight. 'Imagined' as this slight only exists in the context of being taken out of context. This bullshit smells very familiar . . . in all rhyme, reason and rhythm . . . Aaron
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on May 2, 2015 6:00:51 GMT -8
Hmm...more like "Hi its a "
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Post by Kainguru on May 2, 2015 6:10:46 GMT -8
I was thinking more likely a . . . Aaron
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