Quote from: S'mon;519144Re sf & Physics - I think it's hard to run hard SF if you don't have a basic GCSE level concept of Newtonian Physics.  That objects keep moving at a constant velocity in a straight line unless acted on by a force, sort of level.

Yup, yup. And when Vipers in Battlestar Galactica run out of gas they come to a dead stop.

Quote from: S'mon;519144Why, how many fire-fights has he been in?  Or is it just correcting Hollywood Physics - most bullets miss* even at short range, people may not even realise they've been shot, if they do realise they tend to stop fighting, bullets don't push you backwards, sort of stuff?

*I saw a figure that CO-19 police marksmen had a hit rate of just over 30%.

I think we know the Hollywood Physics stuff is wrong anyway, but he has an encyclopedic knowledge of modern firearms and their capabilities. It's always nice to be able to turn to him and say, "John, what's the rate of fire on an FN-FAL?" and get an immediate answer. I don't know how many fire-fights he's been in, but he's undoubtedly been in lots of mock fire-fights and also fired lots of guns, which is infinitely more than the experience the rest of the group has put together (i.e. 0).

I have another player who is a vet, and he comes in handy for animal-related questions. It's all grist for the mill.

I just insist on the "fiction" part of science fiction. It's speculative and that's all anyone needs to know about it.

Hey, people a thousand years ago thought they knew what it was all about. And nowadays we corrected their findings. A thousand or so years ago people will be doing the same about us.

So I just start my players out with, "Assume what you know about science is wrong and irrelevant to this new world, and accept what I'm saying about my setting is right. Your metagamed external scientific knowledge is irrelevant to my FTL/Time Travel/Space Station/etc. universe. Abide by this and everything will go smoothly."

Contemporary games can be harder, but my quick fix is running most of those under the monicker "Cinematic." Do that and it's all cured. If they ask why cinematic, ask them if they really want to file tax returns and navigate voice mail credit card statement inquiries in-game. You'll be surprised how amenable they'll become!

Quote from: Opaopajr;519175So I just start my players out with, "Assume what you know about science is wrong and irrelevant to this new world, and accept what I'm saying about my setting is right. Your metagamed external scientific knowledge is irrelevant to my FTL/Time Travel/Space Station/etc. universe. Abide by this and everything will go smoothly."

Sometimes this can be used to the DM's advantage.


I remember one DM which did this in an evening one-shot pickup game of Traveller I played in.

Almost immediately, the really belligerent players yelled "fuck you" to the DM, got up and walked out.  They didn't come back.  The game was much more pleasant and enjoyable when these belligerent players were not around.

Quote from: Soylent Green;519145Yup, yup. And when Vipers in Battlestar Galactica run out of gas they come to a dead stop.

Inertial dampers obviously, they always activate when a viper power cell diminishes and as they run of their own sub-system a cunning engineer could even reroute the auxiliary power grid and use them to get an additional hour's life support RTFM

Seriously though the weird thing in BSG is how come in 3D (or 4D) space with no main directional gravity well everyone always flies in the same plane what is with that??

Quote from: soltakss;518969The only time it has happened to me is when an architect said that the building I had designed would fall down in real life.

A gamer friend of mine is a Structural Engineer, she tells Architects that all the time in the course of her job...

Quote from: Opaopajr;519175I just insist on the "fiction" part of science fiction. It's speculative and that's all anyone needs to know about it.

Hey, people a thousand years ago thought they knew what it was all about. And nowadays we corrected their findings. A thousand or so years ago people will be doing the same about us.

So I just start my players out with, "Assume what you know about science is wrong and irrelevant to this new world, and accept what I'm saying about my setting is right. Your metagamed external scientific knowledge is irrelevant to my FTL/Time Travel/Space Station/etc. universe. Abide by this and everything will go smoothly."

This is what I call the science fantasy approach and it works well with many groups. However, I liken it to playing tennis with the net down.

There can be a happy medium between the science and the fiction in science fiction.

Quote from: Soylent Green;519145Yup, yup. And when Vipers in Battlestar Galactica run out of gas they come to a dead stop.

Well, aren't you comparing two different kinds of media here? Television and RPGs? Unless you are saying that RPGs should be more like television or that television should be more like an RPG.

Quote from: ggroy;519186I remember one DM which did this in an evening one-shot pickup game of Traveller I played in.

Almost immediately, the really belligerent players yelled "fuck you" to the DM, got up and walked out.  They didn't come back.  The game was much more pleasant and enjoyable when these belligerent players were not around.

With this and your other stories, I nominate you having one of the most actively hostile gaming environments I've ever heard of. Your active groups either must have the patience of saints, or have learned the art of pro-active selectivity. Sad to see such bad social manners, and it would've been worse if it was in a FLGS.

Quote from: Opaopajr;519495Your active groups either must have the patience of saints, or have learned the art of pro-active selectivity.

For open tables and games held at local gaming stores (or nearby conventions), it was usually the former.

For other groups I'm aware of, it was usually the latter.  After awhile, the locals usually had a good idea who to turn away.
 

Quote from: Opaopajr;519495Sad to see such bad social manners, and it would've been worse if it was in a FLGS.

I have no idea what makes these particular undesirable players tick.  Never got to know any of them that well.

Outside of gaming, the only interactions I ever had with some of these individuals, was at the occasional happy hour.

Ironically, a few of them were much more pleasant to deal with when the subject of tabletop rpg games and other geek/nerd type fandom was not mentioned at all.  It seems like when their geek/nerd "switch" is flicked on, they automatically turned into a maniacal raging hulk.  :banghead:

Quote from: noisms;519157I think we know the Hollywood Physics stuff is wrong anyway, but he has an encyclopedic knowledge of modern firearms and their capabilities. It's always nice to be able to turn to him and say, "John, what's the rate of fire on an FN-FAL?" and get an immediate answer. I don't know how many fire-fights he's been in, but he's undoubtedly been in lots of mock fire-fights and also fired lots of guns, which is infinitely more than the experience the rest of the group has put together (i.e. 0).

Ah, right. Cheers. By UK standards I used to be a bit of a gun nut myself, though the only weapon I recall firing (in the '90s) was my army SA80/L85 assault rifle.  Everyone said the SLR/FN-FAL they used in the Falklands War was a lot better.

The main things I noticed about live firing the SA80:

1. "Recoil" isn't really.  The gun doesn't really push you back.  What does happen is that the barrel jumps up, so you have to correct your aim after each shot. Presumably not having to do that is the main benefit of tripod/bipod weapons like the SAW. In the past six years or so I've finally seen shooter games that recognise that.

2. The biggest worry was always that the gun would jam. The way to get around that was to only put 28 rounds in the 30-round magazine.

3. Situations where you would actually want to fire on full-auto seemed very limited, basically only when assaulting through a position; in which case a grenade would probably be better & safer.  Our training manual said something similar.  Even during an assault it might be better to stick to semi-auto, rather than run out of ammunition at the critical point.

I'm glad that I brought this up. Good discussion.

The reason I ask is that while I have awesome players, they can sometimes nitpick the science behind something in a game. I can only do so much research on a particular scientific topic before my eyes glaze over.

I must be a completely different type of GM than the other blokes here.  I always run a game with the concept that if a player can convince me that physics would have X happening, then the player can absolutely rely on such physics.  

It has never caused a game to grind to a halt.  Rather, it utterly prevents pixel bitching and gives the players a consistent and solid basis upon which to determine their actions.  If I told a player that X wouldn't happen even if the physics were solidly in their favor, I would find that to be the epitome of pixel bitching.

Also, I learn things from time to time, which is a good thing.

Coming from an engineering background, I very rarely run into technical aspects I can't "handwave" away. Castle and especially medival mazes tend to frusterate the hell out of me, though ("It's Magic! That's why it's so difficult!" "Dude, the Wizard is lvl10. This dungeon would eat him up on the ground floor...").

I...have been the person to point out things wouldn't work in a superhero game though. Getting into orbit is more difficult than just going Mach 1 straight up...

My approach is always to look at the science, try to understand the science as best you can, then you can make an informed decision on what to change to suit your purposes.  

I've spent some amount of time researching the physics of FTL, for instance, for Project 1701, even though in nature it's not intended to be a super hard SF game or setting.  In the past I've discussed at great length the physics of plasma with actual physicists when trying to design a plasma weapon for a post-apocalyptic game.

I think that knowing the actual science enriches the fiction, even if in the end you've taken a step back from that science for the sake of doing what you want anyway.  Sometimes though, you find things you didn't know that actually strengthen the fiction or offer additional consequences to how you're manhandling it, and those things would never be found if you didn't do your homework to begin with.

On the other hand, sometimes you really do just want to blast some 5 legged aliens with a laser pistol, and there's nothing wrong with that either.