Quote from: Madprofessor;911422Agreed.  After my post and yours, I think "familiarity" is a much better term than "reality."  So I'll modify my claim: the quality of a fantasy element depends on its relationship to the familiar.  Most of us have an impression of history, mythology, humanity and reality (no matter screwed up they may be).  These things are intimately familiar to us.  "Odin" has a stronger relationship to those (generally shared) impressions than "Gruumsh."  And even though many gamers may know more about the one-eyed orc god then they do about the "real" Odin, Odin is still a part of our common mythology and more potent in our imagination than something made from scratch to which we have nothing to relate.  You are right that few gamers know much about what life or feudalism was really like in 11th century France, but they probably have a very deep-rooted impression that is shared and real enough to make for good fantasy.  



I often find fantasy more believable than sci-fi.  I am not sure why.  Maybe it's because some of the pretenses are dropped.  Fantasy authors don't ask me to believe that there really were dragons, but many sci-fi authors will ask me to believe that travel through black holes to other galaxies is a reasonable possibility that really could exist, and probably will in another hundred years of exponential technological development (bull crap)... uh, but that's another argument. Let me just put the lid back on that can o worms.

Yeah, familiarity is more important than reality. Which is why D&D used to steal so much stuff from pop culture and really should go back to doing that more instead of crawling up its own butt with drow and all the rest.

Often fantasy is more familiar with reality. This is MUCH more important in RPGs than in fiction. If you're watching a period piece you don't really need to know all of the ins and out of feudalism to enjoy the story. But if you're playing in that setting and there's a huge gap between what the player knows and what their character knows that can cause a lot of problems (especially if the player "knows" things that aren't true).

Bog standard pop culture feudalism is a LOT more familiar than the real feudalism of any particular time or place. If you try to play stuff realistically people will get confused, if you put in Hollywoodisms it can be hard to get people on the same page as to how realistic you're trying to be. A fantasy setting gets people on the same page easier but can feel a bit stale and empty, Westeros does a good job of avoiding this but injecting a lot of personality into the regions but it's a pretty pale shadow of the mad complexity of actual feudal countries. I've found obviously a-historical versions of the real world work pretty well (like Pendragon which is obviously no real history in the slightest but gives people familiar things to latch onto). In fiction I find fantasy countries with obvious real world analogues very annoying (even in Howard, I  like Conan stories despite rather than because of the setting) but they work OK in gaming.

The real problem with sci-fi is having to answer questions like "what's for sale in the local store?" If you watch Star Wars it doesn't really matter what sort of things are for sale. Luke Skywalker certainly knows that but there's no reason for the audience to. But that sort of thing matters when you're playing a game and it's a lot harder to answer basic questions like that in sci-fi than in fantasy.

El and Anath work OK, since everyone in the world is familiar with Elohim and Anath is easy to get a handle on as an Ares equivalent. Even if you don't know who he is he's more familiar than those annoying "fill out the alignment grid" deities that feel so fake as he's something that has a lot of real cultural analogues you can hang on him. Kind of like my Man in the Moon god, you don't know what he is exactly but once you start playing it's pretty obvious he's Odin + the Wild Hunt + Fairytale Satan and everyone gets "creepy old dude who isn't what he seems who goes around rewarding/testing/screwing with people."

Quote from: Daztur;911430The real problem with sci-fi is having to answer questions like "what's for sale in the local store?" If you watch Star Wars it doesn't really matter what sort of things are for sale. Luke Skywalker certainly knows that but there's no reason for the audience to. But that sort of thing matters when you're playing a game and it's a lot harder to answer basic questions like that in sci-fi than in fantasy.

I've seen people say that around here a lot. But I don't recall either my co-GM or me having a difficult time figuring out what was (or was not) for sale in Star Wars. And in Star Trek, a Star Ship seems to be able to replicate most anything they've got one of to use as a pattern, so the answer is "almost everything."

Quote from: Bren;911432I've seen people say that around here a lot. But I don't recall either my co-GM or me having a difficult time figuring out what was (or was not) for sale in Star Wars. And in Star Trek, a Star Ship seems to be able to replicate most anything they've got one of to use as a pattern, so the answer is "almost everything."

One thing that tripped me up in the Star Wars d20 campaign is the way that the GM had it set up is that it ended up as a sort of Shadowrun in Space. Star Wars doesn't give you that much to chew on when it comes to that sort of thing like CCTV, hacking, etc. Sure it's not THAT hard, but it's harder than figuring out what non-magical defenses a fantasy keep is going to have.

Quote from: Daztur;911434One thing that tripped me up in the Star Wars d20 campaign is the way that the GM had it set up is that it ended up as a sort of Shadowrun in Space. Star Wars doesn't give you that much to chew on when it comes to that sort of thing like CCTV, hacking, etc. Sure it's not THAT hard, but it's harder than figuring out what non-magical defenses a fantasy keep is going to have.

I don't know if that is a system issue. We did D6. I did not GM any d20, though I was part of one of the original d20 playtest groups. But the vast, vast majority of my Star Wars gaming on either side of the table was WEG d6.

I gotta say, I think your GM's take on Star Wars was a little unusual. Shadowrun in Space doesn't sound like a very good fit for Star Wars. I don't think the setting really supports having a galaxy-wide network to hack. And since the genre presumption is that you should be bopping from one planet to the next - and explosions and blaster fire, any computer intrusion is always a local-only effect. If someone was playing an R2 unit, I see how there would be more focus on computer intrusion in the game. In the years we played we had a number of missions where a slicer (SW EU term for hacker) or a droid was important or at least relevant to the mission at hand. We had a couple of PCs and few NPCs (human and droid) with decent Computer Ops and Security skills, though only one player with one PC whose main focus/job was slicer.

Quote from: Bren;911440I don't know if that is a system issue. We did D6. I did not GM any d20, though I was part of one of the original d20 playtest groups. But the vast, vast majority of my Star Wars gaming on either side of the table was WEG d6.

I gotta say, I think your GM's take on Star Wars was a little unusual. Shadowrun in Space doesn't sound like a very good fit for Star Wars. I don't think the setting really supports having a galaxy-wide network to hack. And since the genre presumption is that you should be bopping from one planet to the next - and explosions and blaster fire, any computer intrusion is always a local-only effect. If someone was playing an R2 unit, I see how there would be more focus on computer intrusion in the game. In the years we played we had a number of missions where a slicer (SW EU term for hacker) or a droid was important or at least relevant to the mission at hand. We had a couple of PCs and few NPCs (human and droid) with decent Computer Ops and Security skills, though only one player with one PC whose main focus/job was slicer.

Not really the system more the setting. It's just that sci-fi characters know a lot of stuff that we don't know. In fiction it's easier since you only need to provide information that's going to be relevant to the story but in gaming you have no idea what sort of information is going to be relevant to the story.

For the campaign I played we were bouncing around a lot from system to system but when we were on planets were mostly sneaking around imperial areas which gave it a Shadowrun flavor. We were also very dependent on our R2 droid for hacking.

Might be relevant to a discussion.

http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/08/history-and-anachronism-in-rpgs.html

Quote from: Daztur;911470Not really the system more the setting. It's just that sci-fi characters know a lot of stuff that we don't know.

I assume the same is true of fantasy characters.Though what the knowledge is will vary based on the setting. Clearly you are seeing and experiencing a problem that I have not seen or experienced. I'm having a comprehension gap. What is the stuff that the sci-fi characters know that seems to cause problems in play?

Quote from: ostap bender;911512Might be relevant to a discussion.

http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/08/history-and-anachronism-in-rpgs.html

Oooo...thanks!