Quote from: King of Old SchoolLikewise.  I wasn't trying to use hardness as some kind of barometer of quality either, or suggesting "if it's not hard, it's crap!"  My SF gaming preferences definitely tend more towards the mushy middle (just like Iron Empires).  In fact, as I get older I'm starting to realize more and more that there is no uniformity of genre in my gaming and reading preferences -- a lot of the stuff I like to read (i.e. hard SF) doesn't necessarily translate easily to the gaming table and conversely, a lot of the stuff that I enjoy RPing (medieval fantasy and modern occult/supernatural stuff, to name two) tends to make for crap literature IME.

KoOS

No, no problem. You already pointed out you were cool with Iron Empires. It'S just my expectation that I'll probably end up playing a somewhat 'harder' subset of Burning Empires. The Psychology rules look cool but the concept doesn't really light my fire, so unless another player feels really strongly otherwise we likely wouldn't. *shrug*  In fact I was thinking I'd be good even with contemporary tech. So the politics/propaganda angle + mixed in a little modern battlefield and specops and spooks with roughly contemporary tech and I'll be good.  Maybe a Rumsfeld facing off against Colin Powell? Toss in someone playing Rupert Murdock, someone heading up a CIA dirty tricks team, a Vaylen subversion of Greenpeace, slide around the timeline to include some stories from the front page and we are good to go. Tom Clancy meets the Puppet Masters.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalBut it's interesting WHY fantasy should be playable cold and stupid.

Because common folks just want to sit down, roll dice and play the game.  They don't want to get into the details of a setting, or read the manual, or doing any stuff that looks and feels like work.  If they can pick it up as they go, fine, but front-loading it makes it work and work is anathema to good entertainment; the tabletop RPG, as a commercial venture, is at its best when it's at the level of a beer & pretzels glorified wargame.  (This, BTW, is why World of Warcraft rules the MMO roost, taking the parallel spot in its niche to D&D's niche in TPRGs.)

QuoteThe setting of your standard fantasy game is no less complicated than that of Traveller.  This is why I suggested that the problem is that gamers are addicted to fantasy.  Fantasy is the default setting of all gaming.

Not to the common man.  That perception makes all the difference.  Traveller looks like it requires far too much active participation to be any fun.  Fantasy games are far more passive; folks really only have to get active when they have to decide what to do- everything else can be assumed or left to the GM (and if he has any sense, he'll default to norms as much as possible to reduce the workload).  Gamers don't want a second life; they want a theme park.  The more they are expected to actively participate, the less successful the games are.

If you play a non-magical character you require no real setting knowledge to play a fantasy game, because most fantasy settings are Hollywood medieval and pretty much everyone knows how that works.

There's no technology to worry about, no complex social or political issues, you're a guy with a sword in a cod-medieval setting.

The accessibility of fantasy gaming has very little to do with the fantasy genre in fiction, and a lot to do with it requiring no real prep on the player's part and to the basic familiarity - it's kind of like our world, but with a hollywood medieval level of tech.  Anyone can grasp that, a knowledge of genre is far from necessary.

Also, most fantasy settings aren't that complex and to be blunt most players have little interest in the settings anyway.  The more successful settings tend to be the blandest, the most generic, precisely because they then avoid the need to learn more than generic assumptions.

Quote from: Consonant DudeIt's completely, 100% "gameable". This is fact.

Virtually nobody plays it, the actual play threads I've seen are almost always either one shots or prep for games with no followup to indicate it actually got played.

Mostly as the game lacks any particularly easy hooks for plots and most of all because to play it the players need to understand the setting and there's a lot of setting to understand.  It's just more work than most people are willing to put in, particularly given they could probably have the same amount of fun with an easier system.

It's telling I think that when I played in a demo ran by Phil Masters, the first thing that happened was that we lost contact with all external information sources and the outside world.  When the game was demoed for me, the setting was basically taken out, that I think speaks volumes.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI've never tried to run THS because GURPS makes baby Analytical cry but as someone who reads a lot of SF, it doesn't strike me as a particularly difficult setting to game.  There's an economy, there's a criminal/dangerous economy, there's politics... it's all fairly standard stuff.

But I can understand where the idea that it's not easily playable comes from and that's from the fact that the game line itself is all about describing a setting.  I know what to do with the tool kit because I've read the same books the designers have read but if you're coming to the game looking for A SF experience then it can appear like a lot of setting with no obvious ins.

But then, I remember people saying much the same thing about Nephilim and I never had any problems with it whatsoever.  It just struck me as intuitive what kind of adventures you were supposed to play with it.

Even the driest of settings is gameable as long as there's some kind of description of the economics.  Once you have economics you have the possibility for characters to sell things and there you go.

You have to think a lot more, if you see someone in the street your wearable computing interface can pull up all the info available online on that person instantly, that alone gets through a lot of plots plus putting quite a burden on the gm.

Commit a crime and you need to be up on your tech else the forensics drones will place you there easily, you need to know how things work to work out how to get round them, and then there's the risk a session would be a lengthy planning discussion rather than something more gripping.

And then, how many five to six player groups will have everyone having an interest in hard sf?  I think if you got two or three you'd be doing well, and then the other players would be getting frustrated because they couldn't do anything.

I think hard sf can be done, but I'm not sure that THS is the best way to do it.

Quote from: BalbinusIt's telling I think that when I played in a demo ran by Phil Masters, the first thing that happened was that we lost contact with all external information sources and the outside world.  When the game was demoed for me, the setting was basically taken out, that I think speaks volumes.

Oh, mama.

QuoteI think hard sf can be done, but I'm not sure that THS is the best way to do it.

Is that to say that THS isn't served well by GURPS, or that hard Sci-Fi isn't served well by THS?

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaIs that to say that THS isn't served well by GURPS, or that hard Sci-Fi isn't served well by THS?

I think he's talking in terms of hard sf rpgs and not hard sf in general, and specifically in terms of a hard sf game being accessible.

It's like a friend of mine pointed out yesterday - I have 25 years of experience. I am a science-ficton/fantasy nerd. What I think is not complex, setting wise, probably takes a little thought for the average non-setting nerd.

Quote from: BalbinusYou have to think a lot more, if you see someone in the street your wearable computing interface can pull up all the info available online on that person instantly, that alone gets through a lot of plots plus putting quite a burden on the gm.

Commit a crime and you need to be up on your tech else the forensics drones will place you there easily, you need to know how things work to work out how to get round them, and then there's the risk a session would be a lengthy planning discussion rather than something more gripping.

I've seen a few people say very similar things about Shadowrun 4. Specifically people that play Shadowrun 3 and don't like the idea of the "wireless" Matrix. They contend that it "kills" shadowrunning because you couldn't possibly get away with anything.  However there isn't anything particularly inherent in the rules about this, they are mostly hanging this contention on a few pieces of fluff that are taken in issolation. There is only a couple short paragraphs on the matter of hiding your "data trail" in Shadowrun 4, that comes down to a tech savy character making a fairly easy roll.

Now that said if you wanted to interpret the setting in a way in which it effectively kills the archtypical shadowrunning business you could. But that involves someone reading into the fluff that problem, which is actually counter to what the game is trying to be about (as judged by what the rules are about).

In THS do they actually have a detailed set of actions revolving around this sort of thing? Are the characters themselves unable to determine what the required course of action is? (so at least only the GM needs to know the 'right' set of procedures)

P.S. On the other hand I too would have huge warning flags go up about the setting anytime the setting was effectively sanitized out of the demo with the sort of decisiveness you describe.

Quote from: blakkieIn THS do they actually have a detailed set of actions revolving around this sort of thing? Are the characters themselves unable to determine what the required course of action is? (so at least only the GM needs to know the 'right' set of procedures)

This is from a copy of The Fifth Wave I had laying around from somewhere (it looks like a playtest copy and I'm not sure where I got it):

"Criminal investigation is, in many ways, much easier than it was a century ago. Even in the most liberal societies, it's usually possible for police to get the authority to place a suspicious area under tight surveillance. Police agencies worldwide share information efficiently through the web, so it's easy to gather information on potential suspects. Meanwhile, modern forensic methods can work on details as small as the DNA patterns in shed skin flakes or hair. A criminal who acts on the spur of the moment will find it almost impossible to fake the crime scene, concealing or destroying all evidence pointing to his identity. Most major crimes require careful planning, often concealing the very fact that a crime has taken place for as long as possible."

Notice the "spur of the moment" portion - this covers most PC actions. Elsewhere it mentions that criminals tend to get caught much faster than in modern society.

That requires more forethought on the players' part, as well as more GM brain-power devoted to how the crime is investigated. Kind of like JimBob's thread about his players, it becomes a struggle to justify not having the PCs all locked away.

Quote from: WilNotice the "spur of the moment" portion - this covers most PC actions. Elsewhere it mentions that criminals tend to get caught much faster than in modern society.

That requires more forethought on the players' part, as well as more GM brain-power devoted to how the crime is investigated. Kind of like JimBob's thread about his players, it becomes a struggle to justify not having the PCs all locked away.

Well that'd suck the 'fun' right out of it and bog sessions down into a bunch of preplanning meetings to plan for the planning meetings.  That's the attitude that I picked up, like a bad case of Norwalk, when I first started out in SR a number of years ago. First as a player and later GMing. But then I noticed we had all these sessions that contained nothing but "planning". It felt like I was trapped in a Dilbert cartoon set in Dr. Evil's lair. Only you can read through a Dilbert cartoon in under 20 seconds and move on with your life, no real need to bang your head on the table to relieve the boredom.

Now? Screw that. Let 'er rip I say. We are there for girl stuff: stealing, boning, blowing shit up. *pelvic thrust+high fives* Sure there's still legwork and some downitime and some vermistitude in places and a bit of seriousness....even some planning. But I don't try to 'teach' the players they have to be cautious all the time. And now there isn't a session now that goes by without at least one gunfight/carchase/action. Of course things get wacky at times.....but for crying out loud the setting has a dragon running Germany Inc. and a flippin' spirit running one of the larger Japanese corps .....out of a Soviet port city!

All without the word "Pulp" appearing anywhere on the cover, front or back.

It's the same conundrum with telepathy, divination magic, time-travelling...there are certain things that logically put big dampers on either player choice, GM choice or both. While there are some of us who can imagine, "What would it be like living in a society of telepaths?" and maybe even make the game work, there are many others who wouldn't be able to handle it so well.

Another great example: all of the real-world modern hardware in the new Battlestar Galactica. They didn't have Starbuck driving a Hummer because they were too lazy to design a futuristic looking vehicle - they did it because it's familiar. It lets the audience more easily get into what's going on and leaves more room for the show to get on to the good stuff. The same applies to most popular roleplaying games, the less you have to think about what is different about the setting from the norm the more brain power you have to concentrate on the good stuff.

It is more than just different. It isn't even 'thinking'. It's the damn detail. You could do a contemporary crime based game based on normal people that just worries about todays tech and if you played up the police to their potential (in some jurisdictions, and I'm not talking the magical world of TV's CSI either) it would bog down to the same careful-careful-careful doing anything "major" above say residential B&Es.

Quote from: blakkieIt is more than just different. It isn't even 'thinking'. It's the damn detail. You could do a contemporary crime based game based on normal people that just worries about todays tech and if you played up the police to their potential (in some jurisdictions, and I'm not talking the magical world of TV's CSI either) it would bog down to the same careful-careful-careful doing anything "major" above say residential B&Es.

Well, the same holds true of, say, military operations. The term "hurry up and wait" is there for a reason - you can spend days, or weeks, preparing for an operation that lasts hours. Or, in the case of an extended operation, you could spend days waiting around for nothing to happen only to experience 20 minutes of sheer terror. Or on the technology side you could spend weeks planning a new server deployment that, when you actually do it, takes 5 hours. Things in the real world don't just fall into place like they do in games or fiction, so games that cater towards portraying reality in that light (like some science fiction games) are going to involve a lot of planning, waiting, and not a lot of action.

Quote from: WilThat requires more forethought on the players' part, as well as more GM brain-power devoted to how the crime is investigated. Kind of like JimBob's thread about his players, it becomes a struggle to justify not having the PCs all locked away.

This is the old conundrum of "My character has Intelligence 18, while I have only Intelligence 13 -- how do I portray that disparity of 5 Intelligence points?"  In this situation, our characters are fully integrated in a world of the future, while we're enculturated in the present -- how do we portray a citizen (and/or competent criminal) in that world?

Perhaps this is where the abstractions need to take over.  Rather than the GM waiting for the players to come up with a competent and realistic plan, maybe it's the characters who ought to come up with a viable plan by means of a successful roll.  In other words, usually the GM has a plan about how the scheme should go down, and successful character rolls are occasions on which the GM reveals those plans to the players as their characters' ideas.  It's a lot like the issue of investigation in games like CoC and Esoterrorists -- the players themselves can't be expected to discover clues that exist in an imaginary world.

!i!

Quote from: WilWell, the same holds true of, say, military operations. The term "hurry up and wait" is there for a reason - you can spend days, or weeks, preparing for an operation that lasts hours. Or, in the case of an extended operation, you could spend days waiting around for nothing to happen only to experience 20 minutes of sheer terror. Or on the technology side you could spend weeks planning a new server deployment that, when you actually do it, takes 5 hours. Things in the real world don't just fall into place like they do in games or fiction, so games that cater towards portraying reality in that light (like some science fiction games) are going to involve a lot of planning, waiting, and not a lot of action.

The word you're looking for is boredom.

The closest I want to the kind of reality you're discussing is "after 38 hours of boredom standing watch on the highway, you hear the approaching sounds of helicopter rotors".

Or "after 18 weeks in cryo you awake to the ugly face of your drill sergeant, cigar already in his mouth intoning "what are you waiting for, breakfast in bed? another glorious day in the corps..."

But again- I think games that try to cut out things players LIKE to do in games, like space combats in sci fi or dungeons in fantasy, are doomed to fail.

It's basically telling the players "I know you like to do it, but it's just not realistic enough".

That's when I head for the next gaming table. And Ive seen plenty of sci-fi games try this and plenty of reviewers who expect realism over fun, even when doing so makes absolutely no sense.

When I wrote an adventure for Dragonstar, part of it involved flying through a dangerous asteroid field. A reviewer pinged the module for how UNREALISTIC that was. In Dragonstar.