02-20-2010, 09:24 PM
Rafael Wrote:Yeah. The sci-fi elements were a problem for me as well. - A medieval world where people frequently loot spaceships for their technology is not essentially chivalric any more.
But as I said, you might want to take a look at the old JG stuff. They were able to handle that surprisingly well; in fact, the same way I handle it in PL.
I used to really get bugged by people mixing science fiction and fantasy (despite liking both). In fact there was a time when I would have not wanted to go anywhere Blackmoor, because I would have been suspicious about the mixture.
I think that part of my own "problem" was watching TV shows where a lazy writer passed off fantasy elements as a sci-fi plot or created magic items for fantasy shows that were badly disguised sci-fi elements.
But over the years I have seen a few well made things that have made me more willing to enjoy fantasy things in my science fiction and also enjoy science fiction elements in my fantasy.
Psionics are pretty much a sci-fi reboot of magic. And some fantasy monsters (like constructs) are pretty much fantasy reboots of robots.
But I think it has actually been the way these things have been used (rather than what they are) that has sold them to me.
I had a similar issue with the horror genre, because I got fed up with stories where women walked around trancelike in see through nighties or films where a bunch of kids got stalked by a serial killer and then all went off one by one. I've been turned around on that too (by things like the Alien films, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Van Helsing). But at the time of Ravenloft, I was still avoiding horror like the plague.
I fell instantly in love with the Spelljammer concept (space without science fiction) because I've always liked the idea of taking a trip from one RPG world to another RPG world. And my initial thought was "great, I can avoid the sci-fi stuff".
But I've come around to the sci-fi stuff a bit more now. I think the way to deal with it is to realise that it is based on "industry" and that creates a flaw in sci-fi that stops it being too much of a threat for fantasy.
Take a revolver. It might be loaded with 5 bullets (and an empty chamber), but once you have fired those bullets, you can't really do much with it. Even if bullets could kill dragons, that would still only take out 5 dragons. That might seem like a lot, but if there were 10 dragons trying to kill you, the device could not stop dragon number 6 from eating you.
The same goes for a laser gun. That has a battery. In the sci-fi society, you would probably pull the battery and pop it into a charger that was hooked up to the local power station. But in a fantasy world all of that is gone.
Effectively, most sci-fi weapons are going to be no better than a wand of fireballs.
I think your real problems are going to occur if you have a sci-fi civilisation that works this out and makes advanced materials that can create more powerful versions of the sort of things that exist in a fantasy world.
Imagine a society that could combine a sci-fi thing like a monofillament whip with oriental swordmaking, to create swords that were twice as effective at cutting than the local swords in an Asian culture. That sort of thing might allow a sci-fi culture to turn out items that seem to be magical to the local population.
In a world of longbows, you could create composite bows that allow your side's archers to stand "out of range" of the enemy archers and still kill them. If you have pnemotic technology, you could possibly create a pump-action crossbow that loads faster than an enemy crossbow.
Other things like a compass, telescope or microscope could give you an advantage over a society that hasn't got that far yet.
Even history books from a sci-fi world could allow them to always be 50 years ahead of a targeted civilisation. And if you are talking about a space civilisation, they could gain access to history books from dozens of cultures and look for patterns.
gsvenson Wrote:But Sci-Fi and Fantasy are lumped into the same section in most bookstores.
That always used to bug me, when I was younger (and only liked science fiction novels). I like both fantasy and science fiction now, but would still prefer sections for both types of book.
gsvenson Wrote:Historically, by 1973 there was a concurrent Star Empires campaign, run by John Snider, going with an RPG element which we naturally combined with the Blackmoor campaign, making Blackmoor's world part of a star system in the Star Empires campaign (which was almost immediately quarrantined due to the loss of several scout ships from two empires, one human and one avian)...
Interesting. I often get the feel that a designer's personal campaign...and what actually makes it into the gamebooks, are two different things.
Do you know of any of the Star Empires elements that made it into Blackmoor products? I can imagine that it would be fairly easy to stick in somethng like a Star Empire's creature (with a modified background). I know this was done with a couple of Spelljammer monsters (that were recycled from old sci-fi games).
gsvenson Wrote:The Star Empires RPG rules seem to have sat on a desk at TSR through the late 70's. Adventure Games (Dave Arneson's game company) got them in 1983 (I edited the rules during the summer of '83 - no I didn't keep a copy), but they were never published. Traveller was already deeply intrenched. If they had been released in the 70's they would have given Traveller a real run for the money, as they solved the 2D-3D issue of space in Traveller and they worked with the Star Probe and Star Empire rules among other things.
It is a shame that nobody put these out. As I said elsewhere, TSR sat on these after the massive sci-fi boom caused by Star Wars. It would seem that Adventure Games had these during Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
I agree with you, that the 1970s would have been to optimum time, but I still think that the 1980s would have been a good time for this game to come out.
Does Adventure Games still own the rights to Star Empires? Or did they revert back to TSR (and therefore WotC)?
If Adventure Games still owns them, it would have been a great opportunity for some elements to have been slipped into the design bibile/notes given to ZGG and Code Monkey staff. Are you aware of any examples of this happening?