Irrational Hatreds in RPGs

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Ladybird said:
I like pew pew pew, because it means I can contribute to fights in a wizardy way, even if it is just a skin on a normal attack. It makes the Wizard and the Fighter stand out more. But I get your point, it makes wizarding less of a puzzle to solve.
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I prefer a more classic army approach to it. Heavy fighters correspond to line infantry; they stand firm, define zones, and keep the enemy off the artillery. Light fighters/thieves/etc are the cavalry; they harass and confine. Wizards are the artillery; fragile in melee and not rapid fire, but if used properly they do the serious killin'.
 
TristramEvans said:
I hate that every "fantasy world" has to have magic. Especially as real-world historical conceptions of magic are "99%" just prototypical attempts to science.
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So at what point does it stop being 'fantasy' and just be science fiction?
 
Chris Brady said:
So at what point does it stop being 'fantasy' and just be science fiction?
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I imagine a world can be fantastical in a manner that doesn't correspond to being like our own without there being magic.

Of course in this broader sense Sci-Fi is essentially just a type of fantasy in the vast majority of cases. For example you just can't go faster than light, so imagining a world where you can violates physical laws just as much as one where a spell summons things into existence.

EDIT: This is really no different to what TristramEvans TristramEvans said above. Sci-Fi and Fantasy aren't really seperated I think. Just many Fantasies are set with a pre-scientific society and thus they don't think of processes in a scientific way. A Sci-Fi with powerful psionics is basically just a fantasy setting with wizards but the general populace of that setting conceive of it a different way. Edgewise Edgewise made a point about this in a recent thread where spells would just be a systematised form of knowledge in a modern society.
 
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TristramEvans said:
isn't all fantasy science fiction?
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They used to categorize it back in the day as under the same umbrella, but somewhere along the line (and I mean that I don't know exactly when or why) they got split.

Maybe the better question is: Without magic, what makes a setting 'fantasy'?
 
Chris Brady said:
Maybe the better question is: Without magic, what makes a setting 'fantasy'?
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Science fiction is the extrapolation of what is possible and plausible, and fantasy is beyond that, where it's not even possible to pretend it's possible. How's that?

OK, OK, but I know the difference when I see it. Usually.

The other question asked of fantasy is "if anything can happen, why do we care what does happen?" Fantasy is often a setup for some philosophical question, and so there's some immutable conditions for it to work (which the characters in science fiction would be studying to figure out how to get around).
 
1)
Fantasy = in the past

Science Fiction = in the future.

(Yes, yes a long time ago in a galaxy far far away and all that, but Star Wars is fantasy in drag anyway. Plus it may be a long time ago, but it's a future that's a long time ago).

2)
Ok, more seriously what makes fantasy? The fantastic! Or more precisely some presence of the irrational or the extra-rational, or the metaphorical intruding into the reality of the fictional world as a presence.

The problem with that is that many perhaps most fantasy novels don't really meet that definition. Brandon's Sandersons novels with their meticulously and tediously worked out magic systems certainly don't.

3) Ok one more try.
A genre is just about the kind of ongoing conversation a work has with others that come before it. As fantasy and science fiction split into increasingly separate conversations they become increasingly separate genres. From this perspective, the actual elements of the genre don't matter so much.
 
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I think fantasy and science fiction are just to broad to even bother defining beyond "not realistic"

subgenres are much easier...
"Sword and Sandles", "High Fantasy", "Space Opera", "Urban Fantasy", "Hard SciFi", "Cyberpumk", "Boy's Own Adventure",etc
 
Gronan of Simmerya said:
The late John M. Ford whom Neil Gaiman said was the best writer he'd ever read, used to say that if the hero wins by being smart it's science fiction, and if the hero wins by being good it's fantasy.
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This post made me check if John. M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting is finally availabe as an ebook or back in print.

The answer to both is yes. Go and read it people!

One of the best books I've ever read.

If you know anything at all about medieval history you'll love it.
 
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Gabriel said:
No. It's the wood panel look.

The past was all about wood. Wood was everywhere. We had wood all the time.
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Even at breakfast! And there was nothing else at breakfast! And we had to like it, 'cause it was said to build character:thumbsup:!

Gronan of Simmerya said:
The late John M. Ford whom Neil Gaiman said was the best writer he'd ever read, used to say that if the hero wins by being smart it's science fiction, and if the hero wins by being good it's fantasy.
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Thank you most sincerely! I've been looking for the source of that quote for...what, at least a couple of years now?

I think Zelazni had mentioned it in one of his essays, but I've had scarce luck finding that one, either, although I know I own a copy in one of my books...:shade:
 
An interesting one is Ghostbusters. There are ghosts, spells, planes, gods, psychics. However in all cases Egon and Ray treat them scientifically. Ghosts are associated with heightened particle decays, psychic effects are due to previously unrecognized force fields, people leave an echo in the new fields that persists after death which in most cases moves out of this dimension into one where that field is dominant. This is basically the exact same as Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy. However the latter is always called Sci-Fi.

I think TJS TJS has a good point that they can be sort of defined by belonging to seperate literary traditions/conversations. However there is enormous blurring at the edges. Subgenres are much more clearly definable as Tristram said. It's surprising how little for example Cyberpunk and Space Opera intermingle.
 
Séadna said:
[ . . . ]
It's surprising how little for example Cyberpunk and Space Opera intermingle.
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William Gibson did Neuromancer in part as a rebellion against the space opera and future-as-america tropes that were prevalent in sci-fi up to the 1980s, and I've seen it argued that the two genres are antithetical. While I think that particular argument is bunk, the Cyberpunk movement in literature did incorporate a rebellion against conventional (for the time) sci-fi tropes and that event was a watershed in diminishing the prevalence of space opera in the science fiction landscape. These days video games are the major medium where you see a mix-and-match between the two aesthetics.

I'm a less precious about the specific definitions of cyberpunk than some (or steampunk or any other sort of punk for that matter) and I'll argue that you could certainly fold cyberpunk high-tech low-life and other dystopian tropes into a space opera setting. Purists might argue that it's not strictly cyberpunk if you did that, but I don't see space opera and cyberpunk tropes as being immiscible. Alien/Aliens, Blake's 7 or The Expanse, for example, could be re-imagined as cyberpunk without materially affecting the story - and in fact (even through B7 predates it) there are plenty of cyberpunk or cyberpunk-like tropes in those franchises already.

Japanese media is even more liberal with those tropes (and in fact originated many of them) and there is a lot of cyberpunk manga and manga incorporating cyberpunk tropes in print. I daresay it wouldn't be too hard to find mashups of the tropes somewhere in the manga space, although I doubt I could be be arsed getting into a forum argument about whether it was truly cyberpunk.

As an aside, the Vetawa city I'm working on at the moment has an explicit design goal of mashing up cyberpunk and space opera tropes in the setting. It's intended to by a cyberpunk megacity with a starport on another planet, with its own internal politics, factions and local intrigues as well as intrigues driven from its strategic position in the setting. I have in mind a sort of Peaky-Blinders-in-Space campaign for it, which is definitely about high-tech low life on the make.
 
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This discussion reminded me of an old John Scalzi blog post:

"
December 02, 2005
How To Tell SF from F
Uh-oh. Just when we least expected it, a seminar on genre theory broke out online! It's about what the difference between science fiction and fantasy really is.

Call me unbearably shallow, but here's how you know the difference. You walk up to the main character of the story in question and say: "Hey! Main character! That deus ex machina doodad you have on your belt, does it have, like, a battery?"

If he says "Why, yes, there's a tiny nuclear fuel cell in there that will power this baby for 10,000 planetary revolutions," well, then, you've got some science fiction there. If he says, "Of course not, it was forged in the eternal flames of Mount [insert typewriter spasm here] by the dwarves who serve the elder and/or fallen god [insert second typewriter spasm here], and holds captive his immortal soul" or some such, well, that's fantasy. Everything else is pretty much elaboration and variation on the point.

If the story features a nuclear fuel cell made by the dwarf servants of the dread god Typewriter Spasm, what you've got is an editor asleep at the switch. Never fear, he or she will be beaten presently.

There. Settled. Now, let's cure cancer!


Posted by john at December 2, 2005 11:28 AM"
 
Gronan of Simmerya said:
"Crapsack" worlds. "Dark" worlds. Gloom in general.

I'm already in a full time LARP of living in a shattered, broken world where virtue is a laughingstock and nothing matters. It's called "real life."
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I hate crapsack worlds. But I don't mind dark settings, I think they're cool, but I don't like settings with no hope. But most dark settings have no hope... See why it's irrational?
 
Chris Brady said:
They used to categorize it back in the day as under the same umbrella, but somewhere along the line (and I mean that I don't know exactly when or why) they got split.

Maybe the better question is: Without magic, what makes a setting 'fantasy'?
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Most early genre fantasy was snuck out under the sf umbrella because at the time sf was the more commercially popular form but even then they were understood as different although closely related, the great Unknown magazine was dedicated to fantasy as opposed to sf for instance. Of course it is all fantasy in the broad sense.
 
Gronan of Simmerya said:
"Crapsack" worlds. "Dark" worlds. Gloom in general.

I'm already in a full time LARP of living in a shattered, broken world where virtue is a laughingstock and nothing matters. It's called "real life."
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But then surely you can't dispute that dark crapsack worlds have an advantage when it comes to verisimilitude, right:thumbsup:?
 
Nobby-W said:
William Gibson did Neuromancer in part as a rebellion against the space opera and future-as-america tropes that were prevalent in sci-fi up to the 1980s, and I've seen it argued that the two genres are antithetical. While I think that particular argument is bunk,
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To expand on the bunkiness of this argument: You have to basically ignore the entirety of 1970s science fiction and the New Wave that proceeded it. Anyone pushing this theory desperately needs to read Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin, Roger Zelazny, and Harlan Ellison. *Dangerous Visions* isn't a bad place to dip your toes in.

Definitions of Speculative Fiction

In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud carefully constructs a very detailed and specific definition of what the term “comics” really means. With that definition in hand, he goes on to explore the incredible depth and breadth of the art form without any preconceptions or biases.

I first read Understanding Comics when I was fourteen years old. This approach to critical analysis had a profound effect on me. Forever after I understood the importance (and power) of having precise definitions.

Which brings me to the definitions for the various genres of speculative fiction which I devised and then perfected over several years of participating in discussions of science fiction in the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup and at various other places face-to-face and around the ‘net. If you, like me, are heartily dissatisfied every time you read someone quoting Damon Knight’s definition of the genre (“science fiction means what we point to when we say it”), then this should be right up your alley.

SPECULATIVE FICTION: A form of fiction in which the story takes place in an imaginary world which exists as a result of one or more “what if?” questions.

SCIENCE FICTION: A form of speculative fiction in which the “what ifs” which define the imaginary world are based on science and/or technology. Usually this setting is an imagined future, but this is not always the case.

FANTASY: A form of speculative fiction in which the “what ifs” which define the imaginary world are based on the existence of magic. Usually this setting is an alternate reality or an imaginary epoch in Earth’s ancient past, but this is not always the case.

MAGIC: The term “magic” can be applied to any ability, effect, phenomenon, or creature which cannot be explained through the rules of science as they exist in this universe. This does not include theoretical future revolutions in scientific theory, the technology which those revolutions make possible, or authorial mistakes. If a work explicitly refers to an ability, effect, phenomenon, or creature as ‘magic’ (or synonymous term), then the ability, effect, phenomenon, or creature should be considered magic, regardless of its other characteristics.

SCIENCE FANTASY: A form of speculative fiction in which the “what ifs” which define the imaginary world are based on magic and speculative science and/or technology. In other words, any work which meets the definitions of both science fiction and fantasy.

ALTERNATE HISTORY: A form of speculative fiction in which the “what ifs” which define the imaginary world are based on hypothetical changes in the way that history actually played out.

And a couple of clarifications:

First, certain technologies (like non-relativistic FTL and most time travel) are grandfathered into the SF genre. By this, I mean that they have become so traditional within the genre that it is no longer necessary to actually invoke the speculative science necessary to justify them. Thus, if you have someone using a jumpgate, stepping through a time portal, or using psionic powers, it’s not necessary to launch into an explanation of the speculative scientific revolution which made them possible: The reader will simply assume that such an explanation is lurking under the covers.

Second, there are a few works in which characters will describe something as “magic” even though the author’s intention is for the reader to recognize that the “magic” in question is actually science or technology that the characters don’t recognize as such. Even though the definition of “magic” might lead one to classify such a work as fantasy, they are more properly classified as science fiction: The characters may be referring to it as “magic”; but the work is not.

This, of course, is all my opinion. But, in my opinion, these definitions do a better job of matching “science fiction” and “fantasy” to the stuff which is actually labelled as such on the shelf than any other objective definition I’ve seen.

Final thought for the day: It can be argued that there is a continuum between fantasy and science fiction, and the line between “speculations with magic” and “speculations with science” is a fuzzy one. But for the sake of argument, let us call this division the Clarke Line, in honor of Arthur C. Clarke’s famous Third Law.
 
Oh I remembered another good one: I can’t stand when fantasy settings have barely reskinned versions of ancient real-world cultures, I still have a soft spot for the first game I encountered this in because it did it best: Dragon Warriors
 
Hatred is strong... hmm. What've I got?

- The game has a randomization method that requires me to have a special kind of die or set of cards I do not already own.

- A game has classes and levels, and progression seems to mostly be about getting better at killing things because new kewl powerz unlock in a way that reminds me of Diablo, Dragon Age, or any other overly video-game feeling way. WotC D&D feels a little like this to me, but I'm talking about games that both bore me by being a bit D&D clone-y, and then have this more video game powers feeling layered on top (rather than evoking fantasy fiction). I love the Street Fighter RPG, so it isn't video-game feeling entirely that does this.

- The game requires me to keep track of encumbrance or inventory in a detailed way, or my XP, or a list of treasures I've obtained. Relatedly, a game like Shadowrun that might require me to have a budget to buy a bunch of gear and cyberware, etc. It's not that I hate this, so much as I know I'll scribble something somewhere and promptly forget all about it. I like an encumbrance system like in Stars Without Number just fine, but I'm not gonna track pounds and ounces. Strangely, maybe because you can spend them in game, I don't mind XP like Hero Points in DC Heroes or Karma in MSH. It's not fully rational...

- Most "Gamer Settings", where getting excited about the game requires me to buy into some made up generic fantasy-dom where I get to play "The Emperor's Anointed" vs. the Gloom-wraiths of Darkhaven, while Driftwalkers track the Fell Lords of Deusenborg or some shit like that. Just fucking kill me already. This also extends to games that use a lot of jargon to lay out their made up cosmology in a way that got launched with the old World of Darkness, but even more poorly imitated. It's like the difficulty of the jargon is supposed to make me feel there is something deep hiding underneath it all, but I've gotten lazy and have come to doubt it.
 
Edgewise said:
Oh I remembered another good one: I can’t stand when fantasy settings have barely reskinned versions of ancient real-world cultures, I still have a soft spot for the first game I encountered this in because it did it best: Dragon Warriors
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I liked the D&D Expert Set for this. It didn't even try to reskin the cultures. Arabs next door to Vikings? Why the hell not?
 
Stevethulhu said:
Arabs next door to Vikings? Why the hell not?
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Considering how well-traveled the Vikings were, that wouldn't shock me so much. I just find the transplanting of actual cultures to be enormously lazy - at least the way it's usually done.
 
Edgewise said:
Considering how well-traveled the Vikings were, that wouldn't shock me so much. I just find the transplanting of actual cultures to be enormously lazy - at least the way it's usually done.
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It does depend how it's done. Some games, like Legend of the Five Rings do it superficially well, but actually quite badly when you get under the surface.

But manage to be playable anyway.

Warhammer 1e is like that, too.
 
SavAce said:
Most "Gamer Settings", where getting excited about the game requires me to buy into some made up generic fantasy-dom where I get to play "The Emperor's Anointed" vs. the Gloom-wraiths of Darkhaven, while Driftwalkers track the Fell Lords of Deusenborg or some shit like that. Just fucking kill me already. This also extends to games that use a lot of jargon to lay out their made up cosmology in a way that got launched with the old World of Darkness, but even more poorly imitated. It's like the difficulty of the jargon is supposed to make me feel there is something deep hiding underneath it all, but I've gotten lazy and have come to doubt it.
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While I laughed out loud at this bit, I tend to agree. With one exception: if the weird terms are in plain language and literal, I don’t mind them as much.

“Red Lion Knights” vs. “The Ascended Faithfuls”

Or “Briarland” vs. “Myr’lar’th’ar-konass”

LOL
 
Gronan of Simmerya said:
Apostrophes in names.

Linguists use an apostrophe to designate a glottal stop, dammit! It's not just decoration.
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I hate that, in addition to the unpronounceable string of consonants I encounter in sci fi novels used as a lazy way to indicate "alien name," which merely results in a character whom I have no idea what to call.
Gronan of Simmerya said:
Umlauts too. Did you know your favorite band is actually named Meetly Cree?
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Well, that's debatable. If it's German, that's more like "mately" and closer to "croo" than "cree." But who knows what language it's supposed to be? (That's what you get when you're drunkenly inspired by Löwenbräu. Their original record label was Leathür Records, too.)

I'm personally more interested in the dotless I and umlaut over the N in Spın̈al Tap. :trigger:
 
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