Usually, no thank you.  Swords and mages through that door, spacesuits and FGMPs in the lobby please.  

However, now and then, along comes something like EC, and it's like spinach salad with strawberries -- two great tastes you'd never expect to rock together the way they do.

Now, if the next time I'm dining with my fellow gaming luminaries, say in some open-air bistro in Monaco, and one of them says, "So I wanna run a game that's heavily inspired by He-Man and Krull", I'd totally play that, jai-alai with the Royals be damned.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!However, now and then, along comes something like EC, and it's like spinach salad with strawberries -- two great tastes you'd never expect to rock together the way they do.

EC?

Quote from: Caesar SlaadEC?

Encounter Critical. S. John Ross' incredible love note to the RPGs of the past. Follow the link in his sig to check it out.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstI don't know if you've seen it, but Jeff's Gameblog has a great article on "Apocryphal Gaming", wherein he talks about games with "phantom" backgrounds, such as EC, Spaceship Zero, Mazes N' Minotaurs, and, of course, the Epic Legends of the Hierarchs RPG.  Fun read.

Speaking about Mazes & Minotaurs, one of its nods to old school role-playing is that the Hekatoteratos (monster manual) includes "Voyagers" with the description "These are actually human time-trallers from the very distant future."

Yeah, I don't know offhand how to predict my reaction to the mix of SF & Fantasy. One hypothesis: if the Fantasy is really swords & sorcery, then it's more okay, even cool.

Test cases follow...

Harn: I think there's some kind of SFish element somewhere in the background of the world; if nowhere else, there's the reference to multiple dimensions including modern Earth and a barely-disguised Middle Earth. My reaction: disinterest at best, hostility at worst. Luckily it can be ignored completely.

Blackmoor (original D&D supplement): Haven't seen it in decades, but I remember liking it.

Talislanta: Actually I'm not sure if there's an SF component or not, but if there were, in this wild, S&Sish background, it wouldn't trouble me at all.

Cidri (from The Fantasy Trip): The basic premise is actually a bit like Harn, but the difference is that Cidri embraces the S&S ethos without a whiff of high fantasy or faux-historical fantasy. I like it. The Security Station solo adventure is brilliant.

Also as I've mentioned a few times, I have fond memories of the old Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon, probably all the fonder for not having seen it in decades, but nevertheless... And I wasn't bothered at all by the funny sea-serpent-riding astronaut in one of the Lankhmar stories; but neither the story with a trip to ancient Earth, nor the introduction of Norse gods as "visiting deities" in the later novels, were to my taste.

Well... I think everyone here agrees that scifi can be thrown into a world with magic and low-tech.

But what if you stat with sci fi and move into magic? What if the world is uber-tech, but rife with forgotten arts and secret societies?

Or what if you start with a synthesis? I can't think of any RPGs that do this, but anime is full of examples. Neon Genesis Evangellion. Uh... Fullmetal Alchemist. Uh... Even Cowboy Bebop (to a much lesser extent).

I don't mind a little sci-fi in my fantasy games as long as it doesn't go to far. The same is true for fantasy in sci-fi.

Quote from: Elliot WilenOne hypothesis: if the Fantasy is really swords & sorcery, then it's more okay, even cool.

I think you hit the nail on the head for me.

Robots plus Tolkien is a no-go.

Robots plus Howard is aces.

Quote from: jrientsRobots plus Howard is aces.

Robots plus Howard is Thundarr.

(That said, I agree that Elliot hit the nail on the head.)

Quote from: John Morrow(That said, I agree that Elliot hit the nail on the head.)

Agreed, I hadn't thought it through before but I think that Elliot has captured what makes it ok or not.

Quote from: RPGPunditBack when the Blackmoor D20 books were coming out, I got into some serious argument with the creators of that book.
My argument: they were fucking up, royally, by ignoring the ONE thing that made Blackmoor very special and unique.  
Blackmoor was always an interesting fantasy setting, but made much more interesting by the presence of the Temple of the Frog, and the sci-fi technology that emanated from there.

I guess they felt this was too "old school", and of course the new Blackmoor book contained no light sabers or laser rifles.
And of course, it was a flop. ...

I remember that argument that you had with Dustin Clingman (although I can't remember whether it was at ENworld or RPGnet), and I think that you were right.  Cerainly I would have been more interested in the Blackmoor book had it included the 'yahoo' sci-fi elements.

But was Blackmoor really a failure? :confused:  Although I didn't get it myself, my impression is that it did reasonably well -- well enough to motivate Zeitgeist to produce a second printing, and start up that whole 'Living Blackmoor' thing.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen... One hypothesis: if the Fantasy is really swords & sorcery, then it's more okay, even cool. ...  

As others have noted, this is spot on.

The sci-fi stuff works for the Wilderlands and Mystara.  It would be horrific in Middle-earth or similar settings (e.g. Midnight).

Quote from: Elliot Wilen...
... And I wasn't bothered at all by the funny sea-serpent-riding astronaut in one of the Lankhmar stories; but neither the story with a trip to ancient Earth, nor the introduction of Norse gods as "visiting deities" in the later novels, were to my taste.

I agree about the german-speaking astronaut.  The trip to ancient Earth was a bit too weird.  I liked the idea of the visiting Norse gods, but Leiber's later stories were so lame that the idea was poorly executed.

Quote from: AkrasiaBut was Blackmoor really a failure? :confused:  Although I didn't get it myself, my impression is that it did reasonably well -- well enough to motivate Zeitgeist to produce a second printing, and start up that whole 'Living Blackmoor' thing.

They had a whole product line planned, which as far as I know turned into a whole line of vapourware.  Supposedly, they were going include a tiny bit of tech stuff about three years down the line (which would have been just about now if i've got my timing right). I foretold that they'd never get there because they clearly understood fuck all about what most people liked about Blackmoor, and you don't make a sucessful new game line by pissing on the game's existing fans.

RPGPundit

I flipped through the Blackmoor hardbound twice.  Both times I got the impression that the setting had been sanitizied by an overzealous editor and the author's original vision had been lost in the process.  Sort of the same feeling I got from the City of Greyhawk boxed set, which was a super product but kinda seemed to be an import from the Forgotten Realms.

What about fantasy that is scientific? Is a world where magic is an observable phenomenon that can be scientifically studied fantasy or science fiction?