Quote from: David Johansen;984984Of course, one might make the alternative argument that the presence of a sanity or humanity or morality mechanism actually prevents the discussion of the social impact of technology on humanity by defining it rigidly and making a proclamation rather than allowing the players to interact with the technology and come to their own conclusions.

For the purposes of evaluating Sci Fi it doesn't matter if the author is asking the question or answering, both seem to be equally valid approaches to handling the effect of technology on humanity, or the interaction of humans and their tools.


So while a morality/sanity mechanic may take the question away, it only shifts the type of sci-fi into the 'answering the question' catagory. Still valid.

Quote from: Spike;984996For the purposes of evaluating Sci Fi it doesn't matter if the author is asking the question or answering, both seem to be equally valid approaches to handling the effect of technology on humanity, or the interaction of humans and their tools.


So while a morality/sanity mechanic may take the question away, it only shifts the type of sci-fi into the 'answering the question' catagory. Still valid.

I think if the author answers the question they need to answer in interesting ways.  Intersting needs to be new if not novel.  So "interesting' is usually accompanied by "unexpected."

You would need to be very cleaver and increadibly fair and consistent to have a set of explicit rules that had interesting and unexpected emergent properties.  

And you would need stellar players in a long regular and fequent game to notice them.

Quote from: Headless;984999I think if the author answers the question they need to answer in interesting ways.  Intersting needs to be new if not novel.  So "interesting' is usually accompanied by "unexpected."

You would need to be very cleaver and increadibly fair and consistent to have a set of explicit rules that had interesting and unexpected emergent properties.  

You are conflating quality with validity.   I'd like more fiction of all sorts to be interesting and novel, but I'm not going to tell people to stop writing just because they start out rehashing ideas that were stale in 1970... like AI's going rogue and hating humanity.   Even bad, derivative fiction can have moments of insight or brilliance.  Without judging the quality of the writing (I didn't really watch the show enough to make a strong opinion) Person of Interest took the rather tired idea of emergent AI and did something clever with it. What we see is the slow accretion of good ideas until someone eventually puts enough of them together to make something truly interesting... most of the groundbreaking works of the past were simply the best takes on ideas that had been circulating for years.

QuoteAnd you would need stellar players in a long regular and fequent game to notice them.

I never advocate trying to force good stories out of RPG sessions, so I'm not concerned with this. I want to know if the Setting addresses the themes and questions of Science Fiction, not if the emergent play does.  I want the emergent play to be fun for the players.   I think many fans don't notice the way good Sci-Fi addresses the human questions, but they still tend to flock to the good sci fi. To steal from the internet: They may not notice, but their brain does.

I personally always admired the old Traveller 2300 adventure, Energy Curve--the one where the PCs get stuck on a cold planet only to discover that it's home to a race of sentient plants. It's not a great module, but it's a great set-up. You get to do first contact, and then, assuming the PCs arrange their rescue, you get to deal with the fallout: do the PCs have a duty to the aliens? or are they going to cash in on them?

The aliens are slow due to the weakness of their sun, so they're not *really* a physical threat. The game then becomes a story of discovery and diplomacy, with an open-ended structure.

Quote from: Headless;984985The Arrival is specificly not predestined.  The whole movie loses its point if she couldn't change things.  She gave her past self information from the future specificly so she could affect things.  The aliens only show up to change their past.  She could have chosen not to have a daughter doomed to die.  Thats why her husband left her.  Not predestination at all.  

Oh by the way spoilers.  

Well, the point of the story was to explore predestination, so looks like they had throw that in the trash and go the formulaic "noble sacrifice" route with it.

That's a great example, Vargold.

To take another one from my old Star Trek campaign, the PCs contacted a planet that had overcome aging - where the age of majority was 50. They were in conflict with the government, and from there became embroiled with a youth rebellion who took a hard-line stance against any age discrimination. It meant a tricky alliance with some difficult choices.

Quote from: estar;984917I don't think what mechanics one uses is the issue. It like Call of Cthulu in this regard, it heavily reliant on the referee creating a situation and evoking the right atmosphere during the session for it to work.

But then one of the players cracks a joke to dispel the tension.

Quote from: Spike;985001Even bad, derivative fiction can have moments of insight or brilliance.

This is the basis of my GMing.

Quote from: Vargold;985007I personally always admired the old Traveller 2300 adventure, Energy Curve--the one where the PCs get stuck on a cold planet only to discover that it's home to a race of sentient plants. It's not a great module, but it's a great set-up. You get to do first contact, and then, assuming the PCs arrange their rescue, you get to deal with the fallout: do the PCs have a duty to the aliens? or are they going to cash in on them?

The aliens are slow due to the weakness of their sun, so they're not *really* a physical threat. The game then becomes a story of discovery and diplomacy, with an open-ended structure.

Sounds like a good premise for a FASA Trek adventure too.

I don't like to think of RP games as simple "action resolution" tools. I think a good RP game offers a framework to organize ideas/stories/situations in ways that are interesting to explore/play with. For eg, what I find interesting in D&D is not it's resolution rules, but the premise of exploring dangerous places with characters through the use of cunning, logistics, tactics, etc. together with the overarching experience loop. Because of this, I disagree with those who think exploring an interesting premise in the medium is solely the responsability of the players (and not the game). If I really believed in that, I would find all RP games poorly designed overall, which I don't.

Going back to the topic, I think a more interesting sci-fi premise would be trying to explore the "changes" in humanity/society. A game about exploring those changes, their ramifications, problems, etc.

Quote from: Itachi;985057Going back to the topic, I think a more interesting sci-fi premise would be trying to explore the "changes" in humanity/society. A game about exploring those changes, their ramifications, problems, etc.

Use Traveller, but with slower than light travel. Traveller has rules and drives for that, especially Traveller5.

Want to see how humanity changes? The PCs take a voyage in their STL ship, explore a different world, and then return to see how their origin world has changed in the years while they were travelling.

Quote from: jeff37923;985059Use Traveller, but with slower than light travel. Traveller has rules and drives for that, especially Traveller5.

Want to see how humanity changes? The PCs take a voyage in their STL ship, explore a different world, and then return to see how their origin world has changed in the years while they were travelling.

Three demerits for failing to recommend Classic Traveller when presented with the opportunity.

Quote from: Itachi;985057I don't like to think of RP games as simple "action resolution" tools. I think a good RP game offers a framework to organize ideas/stories/situations in ways that are interesting to explore/play with. For eg, what I find interesting in D&D is not it's resolution rules, but the premise of exploring dangerous places with characters through the use of cunning, logistics, tactics, etc. together with the overarching experience loop. Because of this, I disagree with those who think exploring an interesting premise in the medium is solely the responsability of the players (and not the game). If I really believed in that, I would find all RP games poorly designed overall, which I don't.

Fundamentally, however, that is all RPGs are: Action Resolution Rules.  The Pundit, years ago, had a post about why social mechanics are a late, and ill conceived, addition to RPGs, since we can easily do 'social stuff' in person. The dice and rules are there to allow us to do things in game that we can't do sitting around a table, and often would be ill advised to try in real life anways (like... sword fights.  You go through a lot of friends trying to sword fight in real life, and that's if you are good at hiding the bodies/swinging teh steel yourself!).

Everything else, all that stuff you want from the game, isn't really part of the rules.  Exploring dungeons? You could do that without any rules, just a bunch of friends sitting around a table taking turns making up stuff about what's down there.  You can add rules to make the cunning and tactics and all that... and you can pick one participant to design the dungeon of the night... and then you might as well be playing D&D, but it wasn't the action rules that got you there.

QuoteGoing back to the topic, I think a more interesting sci-fi premise would be trying to explore the "changes" in humanity/society. A game about exploring those changes, their ramifications, problems, etc.

Eclipse Phase.  Only, I'm sure most groups play it to shoot monsters in the face while exploring alien worlds through the Gates, or looting treasure from an abandoned and deadly Earth... or they just do Shadowrun In Space.... again. Shooting things in the face.

You are talking about emergent play, and complaining about rules.  Catagory Error.

Quote from: jeff37923;985059Use Traveller, but with slower than light travel. Traveller has rules and drives for that, especially Traveller5.

Want to see how humanity changes? The PCs take a voyage in their STL ship, explore a different world, and then return to see how their origin world has changed in the years while they were travelling.

That's exactly the kind of premise I'm talking about. But how to create a game that natively goes for it by default? Aka each time the group sits down to play, the game rules/framework/instructions enforce exactly that?

Quote from: Itachi;985066That's exactly the kind of premise I'm talking about. But how to create a game that natively goes for it by default? Aka each time the group sits down to play, the game rules/framework/instructions enforce exactly that?

What's with the desire to force things?  Dafuq!


We can even say objectively that its bad game design because it artificially limits the people who want to play the game to people who agree with that one specific mode of play.


Fucking Force. Everyone always wants to force other people to do things there way. Its a motherfucking social game.  Try being sociable instead of forcing us dirty heathens to play your way!