Couple of notes on this video I found:
- Actual video name is clickbait, but the video itself makes good points.
- I don't like these guys much, but the video itself makes good points.
- The video is about video games rather than tabletop, but it really works for both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQg9oJ7paS8

What do you folks think?

I don't know about video games (though Deus Ex and Red Faction and Half-life and Project Eden all pop immediately to mind as scifi games I've played)... but for RPGs I think part of it is that they're perceived as being harder to run... that you'd have to be something of an expert on many subjects to pull it off.
Something I've seen many times in modern and futuristic games is Players who want to argue about how the GM or the game setting is 'getting it wrong'. As soon as there is a claim to a game being set in anything like the real world, with real physics... the bean counters come out of the woodwork.
I saw it with Shadowrun, Traveller, Cyberpunk, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Cthulhu Now, Delta Green and even Dark Heresy.
Game sessions brought to a screeching halt because Joe needs to tell us all about how Shadowrun got their telecommuncations wrong (Joe should know, he spent a month doing tech support for Comcast...).
Sure, 'don't play with assholes' usually takes care of that... but Joe was just fine through the previous six month campaign of Earthdawn and the side game of 4e D&D.

A Traveller game I was in recently kept stalling as the various players found elements of the GM's presentation grating on their own knowledge of space stuff and military tactics.

Not that there are no such jerks in fantasy, but generally you can just handwave a lot of those contentious details... unless you've got a Player in the group who is a hard-core 4H alumnus who wants to pester you about crop yields vs. population densities in your fantasy city. Things don't have to conform to modern scientific knowledge nearly as much to satisfy nerdy Players.

I lasted all of 52 seconds before it became clear that the video is the work of a complete fucktard. The only people who think Star Trek is "true science fiction" and Star Wars isn't are disgruntled Trekkies who have been sore since 1977 when their pet sci-fi franchise was surpassed in popularity. So they make up some horseshit silver lining that Star Wars isn't "really" sci-fi, and therefore Star Trek is supreme once again or something. It's like Colts fans being all cunty and crying about how the reason the Patriots have habitually kicked the Colts' asses is because of deflated footballs -as if that somehow means the Pats' championships don't really count.

Both franchises feature telekinesis, telepathy, FTL travel and communications. Star Wars has ghosts for favorite dead characters, and Star Trek has reincarnation. The main difference is that in Star Trek, they throw the word quantum around like Rip Taylor flings confetti, to dupe scientifically illiterate types into thinking there's REAL SCIENCE going on as they fill up time giving a bullshit explanation as to why a piece of machinery works (or doesn't work). In Star Wars, they don't waste time/bore the audience with explanations about why something works (or not), they simply show it working or not working, and then get on to the next action sequence or dramatic revelation.

Imagine this kind of thinking being applied to any other genre. For example, a gangster movie like The Godfather. Only a pedantic bore is going to go into detail about the inner workings of Clemenza's shotgun, or the elevator bringing Victor Stracci to the floor where Clemenza is going to blow him away. The devices are there and they either work or don't work as desired for the plot.

I can't wait for this marvel of intellect to post his next video about how Roy Rogers movies are "real westerns" and Gene Autry movies aren't

I think he made it pretty clear that he was using 'looser' definitions.
He used Star Trek and Star Wars because most people are familiar with those... and I don't think he was wrong in drawing the distinction that Star Wars at least makes some attempt to explain things, or imply that there is an explanation... whereas Star Wars does no such thing (and fell flat when it tried with the lame Midichlorians retcon).

Much much easier to get someone on the same page with fiction drawn from the past than from the future. If you're just consuming media then it doesn't matter if the audience is on the same page but for gaming it does.

The difference is between Science Fiction and Science Fantasy is actually how much detail that's given to the technology.  Science Fiction likes to explain why things work the way they do.

Science Fantasy simply accepts them as part and parcel of the setting, and never bothers explaining.

As for why Science Fiction isn't as popular, it's actually much simpler:

The usual power fantasy of being able to make a difference is easier in a Fantastic setting.  There are no real cohesive overarching social and financial aspects that dominate everything.  A single (or small group of) person can 'make a difference' and feel like their existence means something.  There's also a lot more personal freedom, where you can explore the unknown places.

Unfortunately, in Science Fiction which is closer to the real world, certain factors get in the way of making some real change.  Things like politics, money, social pressures, information dissemination, human apathy, all of which gets in the way of the adventuring life and the personal sense of freedom that one gets in Fantasy.

And Elfdart, as a Star Wars fanboy, I say that Star Trek The Next Gen IS Science Fiction.  Not the silly 'Hard' Science Fiction that a lot of people LOVE to use as a weapon against it, but Star Trek uses science to suppose things and tries to explain why and how their world works.

Sounds to me like someone who doesn't know there is hard scifi and soft scifi. And mistakes it for science fiction and science fantasy. And then gives a wrong example by mentioning Star Wars and Trek who are both soft scifi.

What actually gives me more pause than the tech is the culture. It's pretty easy to have a fantasy culture that looks basically like historical ones since magic can be hidden away in the dark corners of the world, but you can't do that with sci-fi the tech is front and central and thinking about how that would shape culture over hundreds or thousands of years gives me more headaches and would be harder for me to hand wave than the tech itself.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;880725The usual power fantasy of being able to make a difference is easier in a Fantastic setting.  There are no real cohesive overarching social and financial aspects that dominate everything.

That seems like a fairly large assumption. Even the generic Pathfinder game I play every week has 'overarching social and financial aspects'... our PCs are consistently reminded we're small fish in a big pond.
I do think there's something about the appeal of power fantasy though... on a personal level rather than just the external acquisition of better equipment and contacts. But not all fantasy games feature huge personal advancements either.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;880710What do you folks think?

Can't use YT here, and the question has been answered already, I think. In spite of that, I'd remind about "money" factor. I get the feeling that true work of love is rarer nowadays than it was in the past.

Productions, be it games (in a broad sense), movies, books settle for "safe bets" rather than risk venturing into the lands unknown. Therefore we're flooded with cloned stuff that's supposed to be digestible by as broad auditorium as possible, and thus assure some money, rather than products well supported by serious research and with a strong dose of realism relevant to tastes of a very thin, niche group of potential customers.

BTW, there's a more or less "hard" SF RPG titled Blue Planet. I recall a few people complaining that they skipped the game, because the initial description of space travel (and its conditions) was too much for them.

It's far easier to say bye-bye to "hard" aspect and become a laser katana wielding samurai-sorcerer who doesn't have to deal with the possibility of shitting your lungs out during a space flight. ;]

Well... I skipped Blue Planet because playing a sentient dolphin has zero appeal to me.*

But sure: it was their depiction of space travel I couldn't grok.




















* Now that I think about it: I've never liked any game that even hinted at sentient dolphins in the main book. Rifts and Traveller squeak by on technicalities (the Dolphins are hidden away in niche products. Rifts in... what was it? The seventh worldbook and Traveller (at least MongTrav) stashed them away in the late stage Solomani Facebook (er... fifth in the race series, more or less?)...

So, yeah: its a thing.

Straight up Sci-Fi RPGs are more prevalent than Science-Fantasy ones. In fact I can think of very few Science-Fantasy RPGs.

Universe, Albedo and Star Frontiers are my favorites of the Hard end of the SF scale. Metamorphosis Alpha and Buck Rogers are somewhere after that with MA marginally near the middle.

I can think of very few RPGs that are Science-Fantasy that arent just mergers of D&D+Space.  So at the other end of the spectrum you have games like Trinity, Scraypers or Rifts: Phase World, 40k.

None of these examples include media based RPGs like Star Wars and so on.

That is my take on it. Other people have wildly varying ideas on what is and isnt SF. Some can and will slap FANTASY!!! On anything with aliens, FTL, or psionics. And that includes 2001 of all things. Luckily these nuts are few and far between. More oft people will draw the line at Psi powers or super-Science that function like magic unless its function is very defined.

TSR was actually surprised and confused at the negative reaction to the introduction of psionics to Star Frontiers. Players liked the near Hard Fiction setting and didnt want "magic" muddying it up. But then Zebs Guide messes up so much that its just one of several problems.

Ran into the same thing when working on Albedo. Players loved the really hard fiction setting and no one wanted to see the psi powers. So I left it out. That was easy as it was both very rare and did effectively one thing. Effectively a Functional Invisibility by editing themselves out of perception.

YMMV of course.

Quote from: Simlasa;880741That seems like a fairly large assumption. Even the generic Pathfinder game I play every week has 'overarching social and financial aspects'... our PCs are consistently reminded we're small fish in a big pond.

So your players have to deal with constant bureaucracy?  Like making sure they have the right permits to carry their weapons openly and making sure they're the right length or that they don't have any illegal spells?  They can turn on their magic box and find out that a murder occurred seven leagues away and that Princess Skullbreaker is having an affair with a peasant?

Every dungeon is explored and taxed by the local ruler?

Quote from: Simlasa;880741I do think there's something about the appeal of power fantasy though... on a personal level rather than just the external acquisition of better equipment and contacts. But not all fantasy games feature huge personal advancements either.

That's where the 'exploration' aspect kicks in.  A lot of Science Fiction games explore a 'known' section of the setting, and it's assumed that it's been mostly tamed.  Whereas the more fantastical settings you have vast swaths of the unexplored with little stations and outposts and ruins you can interact with.

Quote from: Spike;880753Well... I skipped Blue Planet because playing a sentient dolphin has zero appeal to me.*

No wonder.

If, for some weird reason, one of PCs comes from entirely different environment, or can't otherwise travel in typical places/interact with typical elements of the world, then it produces helluva problems for players and DM alike, and making sure that the scenario contains at least a few moments when "the otherkin" feels at home is just the tip of an iceberg.

btw, I've never in my life participated in a session featuring non-NPC dolphins, even if Blue Planet relies heavy on aquatic scenery. Everyone agreed it's just too much. ;]

...for similar reasons familiars bigger than, let's say a giant spider are usually no-no in our fantasy settings. I'd really wish to see how people manage a dungeon crawl with a big dinosaur familiar, though.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;880757So your players have to deal with constant bureaucracy?

Yes, to varying degrees. Our home town in the game has a definite hierarchy of government, laws we're expected to obey... taxes on the land and buildings we own. There are laws against wearing armor and weapons openly in town.
My sorcerer PC had to register with the local archmage and the wizards' college.

QuoteThey can turn on their magic box and find out that a murder occurred seven leagues away and that Princess Skullbreaker is having an affair with a peasant?

Nope.

Once again you seem to be under the impression that everyone plays their games according to your preconceived notions...