Quote from: BalbinusIncidentally, I don't see a value judgement personally in hardness or lack thereof.  Being harder does not mean being better.

  No it doesn't.  Hard SF is just a particular sub-genre of SF.

  I talked about FTL and Mundane SF so as to distinguish between Hard SF, SF in general and fantasy-in-space style SF like Star Wars.

Quote from: flyingmice"Proper SF" is apparently ultra hard Brit SF.

Ken McLeod, Alistair Reynolds, Iain M Banks, Charles Stross are all pretty floppy science anyway.

Real engineering is Hard man. It has rules and everything.

I dunno - I love the mind expanding space operas of the nineties, but I'm not sure I can believe it is going to be that easy.

Skiffy is really still looking for the next big thing, I think.

2006 wasn't a great year for SF.

The noughties haven't been great for US SF as loads of US writers have retired or moved to other genres or just aren't producing anything.  People who should be kicking arse like Neal Stephenson are writing historical fiction and Greg Bear is writing slightly ropey thrillers.

This is one of the reasons why the UK authors are doing so well at the moment... they're actually putting stuff down on paper.  American SF is in serious trouble.

Good books are still appearing but American SF really needs to pick up again.  Stross wrote a while ago how the malaise in US SF is down to the malaise in US politics and how there's no obvious vision of the future.  Instead, US writers are looking to the past to try and wonder what went wrong or they're stuck in the present.

Quote from: BalbinusProper sf is just a term from another thread which sparked this one, which is why I coined a definition in the opening post.  I don't actually think that the only proper sf is the sf that fits that definition, but I wanted to use the same term as the other thread to keep that linkage.

That said, Cold Space is IMO plainly hard sf, or if not certainly mostly hard sf.  It only has one gimme.  Starcluster 2 I think is moderately hard sf, very much in the CJ Cherryh line which I also think is moderately hard sf.

Incidentally, I don't see a value judgement personally in hardness or lack thereof.  Being harder does not mean being better.

I wasn't intending to give that impression, Balbinus! I had just realized I had wandered into a discussion where I was talking about something totally different than you without knowing. I was just thinking "whup! I put my foot in it and look like the fool now!" That's why the apology, which was sincerely meant.

-clash

Quote from: BalbinusNow, IMO that's because it takes work.  There's a lack of kewl powerz, the players (not the characters) need to understand the setting and how it works, many traditional plots simply don't function.

Jumping the PCs in an alley doesn't work so well if they simply upload their consciousness by satellite to get away.

So, for me it fails for being too difficult for players to get their heads round, too much work for GMs who need to think up new plots and not use the old plots that work in every other game and for lacking the kewl powerz beloved by today's kiddies.  But maybe there are other reasons, what do you think?

Any decent HardSF game would have "kewl powers" in it.Bodily regeneration of severed limbs and such due to genetic augmentation.Also longevity and cyber implants would also give the "kiddies" their kewl powers, not to mention the advantage of being an infomorph that can download into a superhumanly strong android body.No game that I've seen has come anywhere near emulating the literary Hard SF technology.If the kiddies had a rpg with all this kind of neat technology in it, then they'd soon be playing it with gusto.
As for thinking up new plots...you can always rip off Alastair Reynolds (or any other Hard SF author's) latest book.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstBulldogs!, Splicers, Traveller d20, HardNova ][, Nebuleon, Burning Empires...and that's just off the top of my head. (I think there's always room for more, though!) I think Clash's games sell well more because they're easy to pick up, are written in an engaging, friendly manner, and have plenty of fun ideas. Just my $0.02.

Burning Empires is generally quite hard (though hard being a term tha means "what I think is reasonable", so therefore subjective)....and to tie it into that other thread very character bouncing off each other. Ironically for the source material books (Iron Empires) the original author did a lot of nerd stomp worldbuilding, especially considering the relatively small size of the few works.

But there is this one sort of wierd anomaly in BE if you pry just below the surface. A skill called Demonology that was put in for High Inquisitors. WTF? You flip to the description and it is for identifying "possessions" by demons that are causing "wrong-thinking, heresy and illness" and then for attempting to drive them out. Uhmmmm. Then you go down further and see that you can use this skill for Torture and Interrogation under certain circumstances.  So it has sort of a hard explaination, basically the same as today's exorsists. Or not. Or you all just agree to skip the skill and not make your game about it.

Quote from: AnthrobotEventually Hard SF ideas will become much more familiar to gamers as these ideas percolate into TV SF shows like Battlestar Galactica, etc.

  ...says the man with the Star Trek avatar.

Sci-fi doesn't get a lot of love from publishers because it is a soft market in terms of RPGs. It is hard to build a line of support on a few thousand (nowadays you might even be talking hundreds) of sales.

From fans, who knows. Sci-fi, without any fantastic elements, is much like strict historical rpgs. Lots of substance, little flash. Don;t get me wrong, I have had fun with my Respublica role-playing but it is a hard sell. Look at movies. Star Wars sells. Hard sci-fi movies? I am sure there are some but I can;t recall any right now. A lot of times, hard sci-fi lacks the easily compounded elements that can be summed up in a blurb. It does not mean they are not good but it means it is difficult to sell. In the end, that is who you get people to read a book/see a movie/try an RPG. You sell it to them.

That said, Clash's Cold Space is an excellent example of hardish sci-fi that can be sold due to the themes involved. The themes have little to do with the sci-fi nature of the game and more about...well...the theme. The problem being, the type of designer drawn to hard sci-fi will tend to focus on the sci-fi elements of a setting while a story oriented designer will tend to look on the science as window dressing. Striking the balance is a rare thing.

Bill

I'd like to see a nearest-future scifi RPG that's so hard/mundane it's not even based on fiction, or only minimally. Something based on a NASA forecast for "the next hundred years in space."

So, a mission to Mars, for example. Months and months of astronaut training, and then a whole year on route. Repairing a satellite dish is this major endeavor, and halfway through the Soviet-built toilet gives up the ghost. If they're lucky they even survive the actual landing.

So what's the "premise"? Well, it's real life. Surely there's a premise there somewhere? Uh, there is, right?

It's funny, this could be equally some ultra-gearhead game or a Forge project.

Quote from: BalbinusOther than the broadly unplayable THS, and the now defunct Blue Planet, and the equally defunct Jovian Chronicles, this stuff just don't get the love.

I know it wasn't heavy-gear fantastic but I am surprised you include Jovian Chronicles in this category. Maybe I don't remember the game well.

Your comments on THS may reveal part of the problem. THS is not unplayable. It's just hard and cold and difficult. I think the things you are looking for will tend to be hard, cold and difficult to design, to write, to learn, to prep and to play.

There's also a lot more moral relativity in those settings than in standard fantasy gaming. The goals are usually not as well outlined. This is when some of the Forge stuff comes handy, IMO. You need to have character-driven elements if the world is just a neutral canvas, full of possibilities. THS is such a world and uses a system that does not fully support it. Because GURPS is also a neutral game whose strength is possibilities.

Neutral/possibilities system + neutral/possibilities setting = a shitload of neutral possibilities and no direction whatsoever.

It's possible to play it but will require more effort from the actual participants (players and GMs).

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI'd like to see a nearest-future scifi RPG that's so hard/mundane it's not even based on fiction, or only minimally. Something based on a NASA forecast for "the next hundred years in space."

So, a mission to Mars, for example. Months and months of astronaut training, and then a whole year on route. Repairing a satellite dish is this major endeavor, and halfway through the Soviet-built toilet gives up the ghost. If they're lucky they even survive the actual landing.

So what's the "premise"? Well, it's real life. Surely there's a premise there somewhere? Uh, there is, right?

It's funny, this could be equally some ultra-gearhead game or a Forge project.

I'd play that game, and enjoy it if it was done right. I'd write that game if I thought more than 20 people would buy it. What's stopping you from playing that game using existing rulesets and a NASA forecast?

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceI'm sorry I posted anything, actually, Zachary. I think they're talking about some Brit definition of SF that doesn't include what we think of as SF. The concept that Traveller isn't even proper SF because it had FTL was the clue. "Proper SF" is apparently ultra hard Brit SF. I knew the definition of Hard SF had moved on, but I didn't realize the definition of SF itself had become so very narrow. Apologies, Mr. A and Balbinus! If I could remove my post I would.

Yeah, I've been putting up with the "if it has FTL, it's crap" pundits for a long time now... but I had no idea it was isolated to brits.

Gladly, it does seem to be limited to outspoken blowhards on the intarweb. I honestly can't say I've met anyone in meatspace who looked down on Traveller because it had FTL.

Quote from: flyingmiceI'd play that game, and enjoy it if it was done right. I'd write that game if I thought more than 20 people would buy it. What's stopping you from playing that game using existing rulesets and a NASA forecast?

Inertia, clearly.

But... while this may never sell 5000 copies, half or quarter that is a possibility, I think. If you get a proper handle on the thing. Maybe along the lines of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff (I remember disliking it, but it's an example for the almost-not fiction / documentary approach).

Or those Pilot Pirx stories by Lem. That one would actually write itself. "Real-Existing Socialist" sci-fi: "toilet's overflowing, I'm going to crash the landing module, but at least I'll get the Lenin Medal."

Quote from: Caesar SlaadYeah, I've been putting up with the "if it has FTL, it's crap" pundits for a long time now... but I had no idea it was isolated to brits.

Gladly, it does seem to be limited to outspoken blowhards on the intarweb. I honestly can't say I've met anyone in meatspace who looked down on Traveller because it had FTL.

You've got the wrong idea, Ceasar! Mr. A. and Balbinus like Trav. When I first posted, I thought they were just talking Hard SF in general. Then I figured out they were talking about a particular kind of Hard SF, which didn't include what I was talking about, and I tried to apologize, and came off sounding totally wrong. I really put my foot in it, I'm afraid.

Sorry again!

-clash

The problem comes from the fact that, speaking as an SF critic, the term "Hard SF" has quite a precise meaning, particularly over the last 10 years or so.

However, apparently, in gamer circles, the term "Hard SF" simply means that at some point someone tried to be realistic.