TheRPGSite

I've experienced three very interesting sci-fi works in the last year. Black Mirror (tv series), Arrival (the movie) and SOMA (the videogame). And looking to the genre in the tabletop environment, it occurred to me there is no way this medium can translate in an effective manner the kind of experiences those works provide.

Then I tried to come up with an reasoning. Why is that? Well, I think a good sci-fi work is one that has the changing of humanity through technology in the center of the story. Black Mirror does it. Arrival does it. SOMA does it. And no RPG I've seen does it. What sci-fi RPGs they do is have sci-fi as a veneer, or coat of paint, for stories or situations mostly about action and combat. Perhaps the best shot the medium had at depicting the kind of (actual) sci-fi seen in the aforementioned works is the game Shock: Social Science Fiction. But honestly, it's a gaming style so far from usual RPGs that I dont know if have the interest to try it.  

So, thoughts? Are there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

I'd argue that what RPGs do is use a given genre as a veneer for stories about action and combat.  Luckily, that's mostly what I'm looking for.  Even in Call of Cthulhu.  In general, I think "deeper" endeavours require a degree of ability from both the gm and the players such that it just isn't a realistic expectation of the medium...it's the search for that (I feel) that brought on the efforts to increase the narrative aspects of RPGs (to their detriment, imho.)

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;984776I'd argue that what RPGs do is use a given genre as a veneer for stories about action and combat.  Luckily, that's mostly what I'm looking for.  Even in Call of Cthulhu.  In general, I think "deeper" endeavours require a degree of ability from both the gm and the players such that it just isn't a realistic expectation of the medium...it's the search for that (I feel) that brought on the efforts to increase the narrative aspects of RPGs (to their detriment, imho.)

 Beaten to the punch. Yeah, all RPGs do that. I wouldn't want them to try to convey a message. You'd have at best an unplayable game trying to emulate how good fiction works and at worst a preachy mess meant to illustrate a hypothesis. That's my view, anyway. Looking for a game to be like a movie or novel is a common mistake that inevitably results in dissatisfaction.

If sci-fi is about changing humanity through tech... (I would quibble with your defination and say its about how societies change when tech changes.  But people are always people, the tech doesn't change people, people react differently to different circumstances)

Any way

If sci-fi is about people either changing or reacting through tech, you could take the on an odyssey.  Introduce new tech and watch them change.  Or read to the a lot and describe different societies reacting to the same or different techs.

You would have to have people that wanted more than beer and pretzels.

Quote from: Headless;984783If sci-fi is about changing humanity through tech... (I would quibble with your defination and say its about how societies change when tech changes.  But people are always people, the tech doesn't change people, people react differently to different circumstances)

Any way

If sci-fi is about people either changing or reacting through tech, you could take the on an odyssey.  Introduce new tech and watch them change.  Or read to the a lot and describe different societies reacting to the same or different techs.

You would have to have people that wanted more than beer and pretzels.

You'd also need a heck  of a ref.

I looked at techno music and none of it was about "changing of humanity through technology in the center of the story" either!  A lot of it had a good beat and was fun to dance to, but is that all there is to music!?

/sarcasm

Really though - specific modules could touch on that, but you're wanting a story from a toolbox.

It sounds like you are into storygames, not roleplaying games.

http://story-games.com/forums/

If were are talking about sci-fi where there is an exploration of the changes caused by a new technology, it is just on the players and GM, not the system. What happens to the Traveller Imperium if FTL communications are invented? Play a game of Traveller where that happens and find out.

I am sorry, deeply sorry. I have written more SF roleplaying games than anyone else, so I have the largest part of the blame for your hurt. I am personally at fault! I admire you so much! Here you have tried every SF RPG ever written, and none of them are what you want. That takes dedication! And you have played each of them with a variety of GMs and groups so you can control for the other factors! You must have even tried different snacks! A tear is trickling down my cheek, so overwhelmed am I by your disappointment! I'll go and chop my own head off now in shame.

Quote from: Headless;984783If sci-fi is about changing humanity through tech... (I would quibble with your defination and say its about how societies change when tech changes.  But people are always people, the tech doesn't change people, people react differently to different circumstances)

Any way

If sci-fi is about people either changing or reacting through tech, you could take the on an odyssey.  Introduce new tech and watch them change.  Or read to the a lot and describe different societies reacting to the same or different techs.

You would have to have people that wanted more than beer and pretzels.

Quote from: Dumarest;984785You'd also need a heck  of a ref.

And serious players interested in that, but it can be done.

Quote from: flyingmice;984800I am sorry, deeply sorry. I have written more SF roleplaying games than anyone else, so I have the largest part of the blame for your hurt. I am personally at fault! I admire you so much! Here you have tried every SF RPG ever written, and none of them are what you want. That takes dedication! And you have played each of them with a variety of GMs and groups so you can control for the other factors! You must have even tried different snacks! A tear is trickling down my cheek, so overwhelmed am I by your disappointment! I'll go and chop my own head off now in shame.

Suicide is too good for you.

You must take all of your creations and translate them into the Cepheus Engine rules and then republish them. Only by this act of atonement shall you be forgiven.

So Say We All!

Quote from: flyingmice;984800I am sorry, deeply sorry. I have written more SF roleplaying games than anyone else, so I have the largest part of the blame for your hurt. I am personally at fault! I admire you so much! Here you have tried every SF RPG ever written, and none of them are what you want. That takes dedication! And you have played each of them with a variety of GMs and groups so you can control for the other factors! You must have even tried different snacks! A tear is trickling down my cheek, so overwhelmed am I by your disappointment! I'll go and chop my own head off now in shame.

Bad flyingmice, bad, BAD flyingmice!!!!

Quote from: jeff37923;984802And serious players interested in that, but it can be done.

Exactly. This is just about having a group interested in exploring science-fiction.

I don''t think all RPGs are only good for action/adventure. That is more a reflection of nerdculture's tastes than what you can and cannot do with any RPG system. And I disagree you need a 'storygame' to do it.

Quote from: Voros;984809I don''t think all RPGs are only good for action/adventure. That is more a reflection of nerdculture's tastes than what you can and cannot do with any RPG system. And I disagree you need a 'storygame' to do it.

You don't even need an rpg to do it.  You just need a group of people who want to tell a story.  Sadly, the vast majority of gamers are not actually very good writers and while they might like the idea of exploring deeper themes, they don't actually have the creative chops to pull it off in any non-lame manner.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;984813You don't even need an rpg to do it.  You just need a group of people who want to tell a story.  Sadly, the vast majority of gamers are not actually very good writers and while they might like the idea of exploring deeper themes, they don't actually have the creative chops to pull it off in any non-lame manner.

So you've read works by the vast majority of gamers,  have you?

Getting together to play a game sounds like fun. Getting together to "tell a story" and "explore deeper themes" sound like a bad assignment in Creative Writing 101 taught by Professor Failedwriter.

An RPG 'story' doesn't have to meet the same standards of a piece of prose anymore than a film script has to be a novel or song lyrics have to be equal to verse poetry. They're different (but related) forms.

And it is not some impossibility to integrate some thought into an RPG adventure, several CoC adventures touch successfully on race, class, colonialism, political oppression and other themes. There are D&D adventures that have elements of satire and even ideas about politics (eg. Vote the Goat!), racial conflict (Night's Dark Terror) and religion (Vault of the Drow, Ogres of the Blinding Light, Circle of Darkness).

Just because those themes are present doesn't mean the games need to be po-faced and grim, although there's nothing the matter with that upon occasion either.

Quote from: jeff37923;984803Suicide is too good for you.

You must take all of your creations and translate them into the Cepheus Engine rules and then republish them. Only by this act of atonement shall you be forgiven.

So Say We All!

Brute! You would have me compound my sin!

Quote from: flyingmice;984823Brute! You would have me compound my sin!

You say the sweetest things!

Quote from: Spike;984804Bad flyingmice, bad, BAD flyingmice!!!!

Don't try to convince me you weren't priming your sarcasm gland!

When all you know how to do is bang in nails, every tool is a hammer!

Quote from: jeff37923;984824You say the sweetest things!

I bet you say that to all the bats!

I'm a big believer in covering more than combat in an rpg and I think the topic is valid.  Cyberpunk 2020 has a humanity rating that is diminished as more cybernetics are installed.  Shadowrun has essence in essentially the same role but making magic weaker.  Fading Suns had measures for various issues relating to special powers.  The psychics developed a shadow that would eventually become a physical doppleganger / evil twin.  The priests hubris could eventually cause the death of worlds.  My own theory on the fading suns is that it's the hubris of the church as a whole.  I'm not real familiar with White Wolf's Trinity but I would bet just about anything there were personal stakes built into the system.  Traveller V even has a Sanity mechanic that ensures that all scouts are a little crazy.

So, conceptually the influence of change on humanity has been done in sfrpgs.  I haven't done much with it in mine.  Personality as it influences skills and attributes, though that never stayed in the core.  The apocrapha of Galaxies In Shadow would be a book on its own.

And Clash, you need to grow up and move away from science fiction.  The world needs a soccer rpg and a football rpg and a going camping with your friends and a case of beer the summer after high school rpg.

Quote from: David Johansen;984833So, conceptually the influence of change on humanity has been done in sfrpgs.  I haven't done much with it in mine.  Personality as it influences skills and attributes, though that never stayed in the core.  The apocrapha of Galaxies In Shadow would be a book on its own.

I saw it and thought that book was Hero 5! :O

QuoteAnd Clash, you need to grow up and move away from science fiction.  The world needs a soccer rpg and a football rpg and a going camping with your friends and a case of beer the summer after high school rpg.

Working on soccer RPG WITH MYTHOS and football RPG WITH MYTHOS and going camping with your friends and a case of beer the summer after high school RPG WITH MYTHOS as e speak, David! :D

Quote from: Itachi;984772...

So, thoughts? Are there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

I don't get it. You've made some HUGE assumptions here. You can play an RPG that explores the effects of technology on humanity. It can even include action and combat. You can play an RPG about anything. There's literally nothing preventing it. Well, except your inane assumptions. Crap. I'm sorry. Now you got me making assumptions!

So, you know that long conversation you had with yourself after you finished that bowl and the large pizza? Where in your drug-induced fever you laid some brilliance down on yourself? Perhaps you could fill in a couple of the missing details on how you went from "wow, sci is awesome" to "I like RPGs" to "Oh SHIT they can't do that!"? Cause there's like a couple thoughts missing in between there. I'm seriously interested in this topic. I think. I can't really decide yet since it's missing all the substance. Awww SHIT there I go again making assumptions again! Fuck this thread has me all spun around. *ahem* My Apologies.

Maybe you could elaborate on specifically how RPGs can't emulate sci-fi? In your mind? Be more specific...

Pro tip: consider turning on a digital recording device the next time you binge-toke. This way when you have your "Epiphany" and decide to "discuss" it here, you can include some pertinent details.

Quote from: flyingmice;984825Don't try to convince me you weren't priming your sarcasm gland!

I never need to prime my sarcasm gland, I'm an overproducer... however, my snark gland seems to have failed me in this thread somewhat.  I blame the OP: that was some weak sauce.

It's a people thing more than a game thing.

See, a lot of people like playing for escapist fantasies, from psycho murder hoboes all the way up to wandering heroes.  But the key element is that the 'individual' (and by that I mean the entire party) making a 'change' in the setting.  Whether it's killing a vampire overlord, it's a lasting change to a lot of player's minds.  And in a fantasy setting, one can do just that.

Science Fiction however, especially those that claim such things 'hard science fiction' as a thing, have a lot of stuff common with the real world.  There are laws, regulations, limitations, power structures in place that are visible and stifling.  And no matter how future you go, those things are still going to be 'there'.

Now, some players can get past that, either by bending or even overcoming that perception, but more commonly, people would rather play escapist fantasies, even if it means getting eaten by a cthuloid monstrocity half way through the game.




Count down until someone comes in and insults most of the people in here by indirectly calling them booger eating morons in 5...  4...  3...  2...  1...

Since it may be uniquely qualified to be the game the OP needs (as long as it doesn't suck), The Expanse is becoming a RPG produced by Green Ronin. (https://greenronin.com/blog/2017/08/17/press-release-green-ronin-to-publish-the-expanse-rpg/)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;984851It's a people thing more than a game thing.

See, a lot of people like playing for escapist fantasies, from psycho murder hoboes all the way up to wandering heroes.  But the key element is that the 'individual' (and by that I mean the entire party) making a 'change' in the setting.  Whether it's killing a vampire overlord, it's a lasting change to a lot of player's minds.  And in a fantasy setting, one can do just that.

Science Fiction however, especially those that claim such things 'hard science fiction' as a thing, have a lot of stuff common with the real world.  There are laws, regulations, limitations, power structures in place that are visible and stifling.  And no matter how future you go, those things are still going to be 'there'.

Now, some players can get past that, either by bending or even overcoming that perception, but more commonly, people would rather play escapist fantasies, even if it means getting eaten by a cthuloid monstrocity half way through the game.

The second to last Traveller campaign I ran had an adventure arc where the PCs ran into some Medusae in a gas giant's atmosphere. They then did research and some safari work only to find that the medusae were intelligent, and thus did some first contact play. The gang loved it, because not only did I steal a concept out of an Arthur C. Clarke novella, but they got to play in a RPG campaign that had little to no combat. In an oblique way, they got to see humans through the funhouse mirror of the Medusae.

It can be done, but you as GM have to do your homework on giving the players a puzzle or a mystery that is good enough for them to sink their teeth into. I really do hope to be able to run something like that again for an equally interested group of players.

Everyone here is a booger eating moron.





Actually I do find it fascinating how many Sci-Fi settings are built around the assumption that there is no frontier out there.   Find some new, unexplored planet in Traveller? Its got a sentient human population (or alien, but mostly human) that's been there for eons.  Fading Suns?  Good luck finding jumpkeys that lead outside of explored space. Star Wars? Man: The Republic/Empire IS the Galaxy.  Star Trek? See Traveller, except its Always Aliens... or really human aliens.


Man! Say it with me.

Space.
Is.
BIG.


And poltical instability, conflicts between states and all that jazz should be a regular feature of a good sci-fi setting, not the omnipresent 'Federation/Imperium/grand-poobahs' that we so constantly get.

Quote from: Spike;984854Everyone here is a booger eating moron.





Actually I do find it fascinating how many Sci-Fi settings are built around the assumption that there is no frontier out there.   Find some new, unexplored planet in Traveller? Its got a sentient human population (or alien, but mostly human) that's been there for eons.  Fading Suns?  Good luck finding jumpkeys that lead outside of explored space. Star Wars? Man: The Republic/Empire IS the Galaxy.  Star Trek? See Traveller, except its Always Aliens... or really human aliens.


Man! Say it with me.

Space.
Is.
BIG.


And poltical instability, conflicts between states and all that jazz should be a regular feature of a good sci-fi setting, not the omnipresent 'Federation/Imperium/grand-poobahs' that we so constantly get.

The thing is, a lot of space travel is relegated to 'Space Opera' or even 'Space Fantasy', and a LOT of people think of near future when they think Sci-Fi.  Simply because they don't want to 'What if...?' too hard to the point where it might seem like fantasy elements.  Like is there life out there?  What would they be like.

Also, this just hit me, very few of us have the scientific backgrounds to make it believable anyway, so a lot of the time, they don't even try.

Quote from: Dumarest;984816So you've read works by the vast majority of gamers,  have you?

Getting together to play a game sounds like fun. Getting together to "tell a story" and "explore deeper themes" sound like a bad assignment in Creative Writing 101 taught by Professor Failedwriter.

Well, I've read a lot of published rpg material.  some of it is quite good...as rpg material.  I haven't read a lot that I'd say got very close to a good novel.  But I don't mean to be critical of rpg writing.  I'm only suggesting that trying to "go deep" with the story-telling in RPGs requires a higher order of ability from a GM...and from the players too.  In my admittedly limited experience, the GMs who feel they want to do stuff that hits on more complex themes often seem to over-estimate their own abilities to accomplish the task.  I certainly agree though that you can do almost everything with any number of sci-if games that already exist if you are inclined to do so.  In fact I think it's a great idea to throw in the occasional adventure or challenge that doesn't revolve around action and combat.  Variety is good.  I just think an entire campaign based on say 2001 a Space Odyssey would get old pretty quick.

Quote from: Itachi;984772I've experienced three very interesting sci-fi works in the last year. Black Mirror (tv series), Arrival (the movie) and SOMA (the videogame). And looking to the genre in the tabletop environment, it occurred to me there is no way this medium can translate in an effective manner the kind of experiences those works provide.

Then I tried to come up with an reasoning. Why is that? Well, I think a good sci-fi work is one that has the changing of humanity through technology in the center of the story. Black Mirror does it. Arrival does it. SOMA does it. And no RPG I've seen does it. What sci-fi RPGs they do is have sci-fi as a veneer, or coat of paint, for stories or situations mostly about action and combat. Perhaps the best shot the medium had at depicting the kind of (actual) sci-fi seen in the aforementioned works is the game Shock: Social Science Fiction. But honestly, it's a gaming style so far from usual RPGs that I dont know if have the interest to try it.  

So, thoughts? Are there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

RPGs are not novels, movies or tv shows. They work in a different way.  That said, I think you are confusing the mechanics for the medium.  I don't need mechanics beyond classic Traveller to Black Mirror.  What I need is a GM and players who want to do Black Mirror.

In short it is not Sci Fi RPGs that suck, but rather Sci Fi RPG gamers.  The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in our selves.

Quote from: Voros;984809I don''t think all RPGs are only good for action/adventure. That is more a reflection of nerdculture's tastes than what you can and cannot do with any RPG system.

What games break this paradigm in your opinion?

Quote from: DavetheLost;984867RPGs are not novels, movies or tv shows. They work in a different way.  That said, I think you are confusing the mechanics for the medium.  I don't need mechanics beyond classic Traveller to Black Mirror.  What I need is a GM and players who want to do Black Mirror.

By this logic we could discard role-playing games altogether. In other words you agree with my original supposition that RPGs are only useful to facilitate stories involving action/adventure and nothing else. If that's the case, fine.

Is that really the case, though?

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;984813Sadly, the vast majority of gamers are not actually very good writers and while they might like the idea of exploring deeper themes, they don't actually have the creative chops to pull it off in any non-lame manner.

I ain't sure good writing skills is the answer. I think the ideal way to tackle the genre is to make a solution that speaks to the medium strengths, that is, something interactive, dynamic and that could be engaged as a group in an interesting manner. Don't really know if here is a viable wa to do it, though. :D

Quote from: Itachi;984882I ain't sure good writing skills is the answer. I think the ideal way to tackle the genre is to make a solution that speaks to the medium strengths, that is, something interactive, dynamic and that could be engaged as a group in an interesting manner. Don't really know if here is a viable wa to do it, though. :D

I am following an old school Classic Traveller pbp right now and I see very little "action" and a ton of roleplay and it comes across very much like a face to face game except a lot slower. I don't see the problem to be with the game at all, it is entirely what the ref and the players want to do.

I was skeptical of the skills when I first started following the game, but they are not in your face and the bad part about skills is mitigated by some of the players having the skill Jack of all Trades.

Quote from: Itachi;984879By this logic we could discard role-playing games altogether. In other words you agree with my original supposition that RPGs are only useful to facilitate stories involving action/adventure and nothing else. If that's the case, fine.

Is that really the case, though?

Yeah, that's largely the case.


But go ahead and describe for us just what sort of game mechanics it is that you are looking for to do whatever it is you want to do, that don't essentially come back to action/adventure.  What is it that you envision a group of players doing in your game for extended periods of time that doesn't come back to action/adventure?

Quote from: Itachi;984877What games break this paradigm in your opinion?

GURPS: Transhuman Space is a setting that allows for some action/adventure (you can be a military person in one of the conflict zones, or a cop anywhere, etc.), but the big issues/ political events/social changes/etc. going on are well outside of the scope of "can be solved with violence."

Quote from: Itachi;984882I ain't sure good writing skills is the answer.

This was deliberate, right?

I don't know if the Sci-Fi RPGs "suck" so much that the modules seem very target to specific interests.

I've recently been looking for modules to adapt for our science-fiction campaign using my homebrew rules. What I found is that most sci-fi modules are "empty" exploration modules.

The exploration is usually lots of "empty" rooms with little combat, often concentrated on one or two rooms. Some exploration adventures are mostly empty areas with generally unconnected animals found wandering about.

This works great if you have the time and desire to populate the empty modules. (I know the Classic Traveller modules are supposed to be done this way, so it isn't a fault of those modules. But a lot of later adventures seem to have been written the same way, as complete modules, without realizing the CT modules were frameworks to be fleshed out.)

My players like having intelligent dungeon denizens to deal with. B1 I populated with feuding orcs and goblins, with trolls and "death lizards" downstairs. My players are really interested in seeing if the goblin princess and the orc prince hook up and bring peace to their tribes.

I ended up switching the game to sci-fi/steampunk (without travel between planets) and simply adapt fantasy modules. Based on our fantasy game, this should end up working pretty well. We play Sundays, with the first Sunday of the month being the sci-fi game. The fantasy game has been running through B1 In Search of the Unknown for several months, and they've just now reached the second floor. So I expect to be set for quite some time with the B2 setup for fantasy and coincidentally enough the BFRPG JNI1 which I didn't realize at first is based on B2, but different enough that I think the players may not even notice.

I go through the PDFs on my tablet with Xodo and redo hitpoints and weapons and levels or HD into my homebrew system. I also come up with personalities for the members of the tribe/groups and for the group leaders, and add some notes for how the groups interact currently. I also throw in a couple groups with mecha and/or other vehicles, so we can exercise those rules and equipment.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;984864Well, I've read a lot of published rpg material.  some of it is quite good...as rpg material.  I haven't read a lot that I'd say got very close to a good novel.  But I don't mean to be critical of rpg writing.  I'm only suggesting that trying to "go deep" with the story-telling in RPGs requires a higher order of ability from a GM...and from the players too.  In my admittedly limited experience, the GMs who feel they want to do stuff that hits on more complex themes often seem to over-estimate their own abilities to accomplish the task.  I certainly agree though that you can do almost everything with any number of sci-if games that already exist if you are inclined to do so.  In fact I think it's a great idea to throw in the occasional adventure or challenge that doesn't revolve around action and combat.  Variety is good.  I just think an entire campaign based on say 2001 a Space Odyssey would get old pretty quick.

I see you've confused "gamers" with "RPG writers" in your earlier post then. But writing what is essentially a technical manual is nothing at all like writing speculative fiction,  so you can hardly judge their fiction  abilities based on a rulebook.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;984889Yeah, that's largely the case.


But go ahead and describe for us just what sort of game mechanics it is that you are looking for to do whatever it is you want to do, that don't essentially come back to action/adventure.  What is it that you envision a group of players doing in your game for extended periods of time that doesn't come back to action/adventure?

I don't  need rules to resolve a bunch of people sitting around talking...I need rules to resolve action-adventure...

Quote from: Dumarest;984904I don't  need rules to resolve a bunch of people sitting around talking...I need rules to resolve action-adventure...

Yeah, I agree.  Pretty much the point I've been trying to make...

Quote from: Dumarest;984903I see you've confused "gamers" with "RPG writers" in your earlier post then. But writing what is essentially a technical manual is nothing at all like writing speculative fiction,  so you can hardly judge their fiction  abilities based on a rulebook.

Well I'm talking more about setting material really since that's really where the problems would be.  Basically, I don't think a rule book is really needed to do what the op wants to do.

Quote from: DavetheLost;984867RPGs are not novels, movies or tv shows. They work in a different way.  That said, I think you are confusing the mechanics for the medium.  I don't need mechanics beyond classic Traveller to Black Mirror.  What I need is a GM and players who want to do Black Mirror.

In short it is not Sci Fi RPGs that suck, but rather Sci Fi RPG gamers.  The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in our selves.

The way I view is that RPGs are good at throwing the players into situation and seeing what happens. So if one wants to do a campaign based around the Arrival then the referee needs to create a situation similar where the Arrival starts out at. Then it has to be fun and interesting enough so that the players want to deal with what is happening. And that always been the trick. The episodes of the Black Mirror, the Arrival, etc all depict very specific situations so the odds are not good that an arbitrary group of hobbyist want to experience it to see how they do.

So you are right in a sense that it is the SF Gamers fault.

What I recommend is read and watch as much as you can, and use things like Arrival and Black Arrival as template for something more unique that more tailored to the group's interest. That would have a better chance of success.

The developers are obnoxious ideologues who can't run a forum like thinking adults, but what about Eclipse Phase?

Some of that stuff is going to work much better as one-off scenarios, rather than ongoing campaigns.
I'm a lot less picky buying in to something that's just for a session or two... knowing it has a set endpoint. In those cases I'm also fine with being given pre-gens with defined goals.

Quote from: Simlasa;984914Some of that stuff is going to work much better as one-off scenarios, rather than ongoing campaigns.
I'm a lot less picky buying in to something that's just for a session or two... knowing it has a set endpoint. In those cases I'm also fine with being given pre-gens with defined goals.

Sure however the fly in the ointment is that the sci-fi stories are about the process of discovery. Of course in the Black Mirror discovery is more on the on the line of "Oh shit what I gotten myself into" than the sense of wonder that Arrival evokes. So the referee has to be savvy enough to come up with something that the players don't know about.

Quote from: Vile Jester;984913The developers are obnoxious ideologues who can't run a forum like thinking adults, but what about Eclipse Phase?

I 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.

Quote from: estar;984915So the referee has to be savvy enough to come up with something that the players don't know about.

That's why I think it would go over better if it's declared to be finite. I think I'd be fine with a GM tossing a surprise setting/game... or pulling bait-n-switch on us if I knew it was finite.
If I trust the GM (and if I don't why would I be playing in his group?) then I'm willing to trust he has a cool idea to try out. I'm not going to throw a tantrum because I want a (yet another) dungeon crawl and he wants to try out 'advent of worldwide public teleportation' (flashcrowds!) for the next month or so.

Sci fi rpgs are great but to explore deeper things you have to have a group that is into having a massive curve ball thrown at them.  I remember a lot of this post Renraku Shutdown but before published books covering the crash.  The Expanse is a great example since that was originally an RPG before it was novelized -- big twists!

I haven't seen Arrival, but I have read the story it is based on, "Story of Your Life". Assuming the movie hasn't changed things, it might be one of the worse candidates for an RPG adaptation I can think of.

Spoiler

It's a story where the main character studies an alien language and gains a perspective outside time, seeing everything that will happen in her life and its inevitability. Given that RPGs are about the players being able to decide what to do, I can't see any way to make this work without it being terrible. It is a fantastic story, but not suitable for an RPG.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;984856The thing is, a lot of space travel is relegated to 'Space Opera' or even 'Space Fantasy', and a LOT of people think of near future when they think Sci-Fi.  Simply because they don't want to 'What if...?' too hard to the point where it might seem like fantasy elements.  Like is there life out there?  What would they be like.

Also, this just hit me, very few of us have the scientific backgrounds to make it believable anyway, so a lot of the time, they don't even try.

I've actually got a heretical take on this.  I don't think you need... in fact it may even hinder in some respects... a sound scientific background to do Sci-fi right, not beyond the basics.  One thing that the last few hundred years of scientific progress has revealed is just how little we actually know, and how very eager we are to believe we've got it all 'right'... until the next paradigm change, that is.  Heavier than Air flight was an impossible dream 150 years ago, now its so remarkably commonplace that hobbyists build flying motor-scooters in their garage to buzz the local park. Its not quite flying cars, but its up there.  One day some scientist will finally figure out Gravity (how does it work?!) and what happens to technology after that?  Trying to 'accurately' speculate is as futile as asking a 16th century Alchemist to explain Super-Criticality of Uranium.

The key to good science fiction, or rather the Two Keys (cue inevitable Spanish Inquisition gag....)

A: What does this technology say about the Human Condition?   Note that the sci-fi story Canticle for Leibowitz doesn't actually introduce any new technology at all, it's about how revealing forgotten knowledge of the past changes perceptions.

B: Does the technology of the setting follow the basic ground rules of science. This I have to unpack a little, since it seems to contradict my earlier point.  I'm tempted to go to a classic point of contention, the FTL drive, for Sci-fi nerds, but it would only imperfectly explain, so I'll try to stick to the abstract fundamentals.

We, the audience (and writers), don't have to know how a piece of technology works from a classic physics point of view, but the characters in the setting should... obviously.   We don't need to know if Warp Drive technology involves fourteenth dimensional super-string theory or what have you... if you've got the theoretical physics background to explain your loophole, great... go for it, but otherwise...

What we DO need to know is that its not space-magic, that it follows understandable rules and is replicable... three rules (SI gag... sigh...)

Does the technology follow understandable, consistent rules?

Is it replicable, or is it some sort of one of a kind macguffin?

Does the technology impact the setting in understandable ways?


Just last night I wrote how Killjoys is not really Science Fiction at all, its Space Fantasy, and I can explain that using those three (I'm sticking with three damnit!) rules very easily, though this post is already too long and I may be drifting off topic.

Quote from: Baulderstone;984925I haven't seen Arrival, but I have read the story it is based on, "Story of Your Life". Assuming the movie hasn't changed things, it might be one of the worse candidates for an RPG adaptation I can think of.

Spoiler

It's a story where the main character studies an alien language and gains a perspective outside time, seeing everything that will happen in her life and its inevitability. Given that RPGs are about the players being able to decide what to do, I can't see any way to make this work without it being terrible. It is a fantastic story, but not suitable for an RPG.

Predestination is a helluva drug.

So it sounds like you're interested in a game that involves various sci fi themes about the effects of future situations (tech, aliens, living away from earth, etc) on people and society etc., and bemoaning that most Sci Fi RPGs seems to be about how you can have combat-oriented adventures in sci fi settings.

I think many things can get in the way of that:

* The GM not being clear on how to run the type of game they think they're interested in.
* The players not expecting/knowing what the GM is interested in, and expecting action/adventure.
* The game system being based on other action/adventure games, and assuming everyone wants action/adventure.

I think others are right to say that mainly it's up to the GM having a strong vision and talent for providing what you're interested in, and also on the player to want and receive/appreciate that as well. (For example, in the case of _Arrival_, I'm pretty sure I know which characters most players would end up being: the rogue violent soldiers. And it might work best if the players were linguistics student/scholars... ;) but could happen.)

However I also think the game system _can_ get in the way of your intent since many games focus a lot of their attention and detail on... adventure and combat.

A GM can certainly present a game universe, NPCs and situations where the sorts of themes you are interested in are there in abundance, even if there is also adventure and combat. I'd say even the first campaign ever GM'd by my oldest RPG pal succeeded in being full of Speculative Fiction situations about strange societies and the effects of magic, religion, corruption, environmental catastrophies, war, etc. But it was still heavy on action and adventure, too - the other stuff was just the way the world was and was the context for the adventures. The same could easily be done for a sci fi game, and I assume is, but it's up to the GM to bring that.

The settings and scenario examples for an RPG game could suggest that sort of thing to a GM, which isn't really about the game but the suggested contexts for adventures. If it's always just "find a patron who assigns a mission" or "track down a rumor to find adventure and reward" or "create a place to go kill everyone and steal stuff" then you've got standard adventures in space. But it could be other types of situation, or based on different types of characters with different types of interests and skills,

A game system could have more or less support or impediment (or just distraction and suggestion - if you've got piles of combat equipment tables and rules, players are liable to expect and orient to that) for non-combat situations.

Quote from: Itachi;984772I've experienced three very interesting sci-fi works in the last year. Black Mirror (tv series), Arrival (the movie) and SOMA (the videogame). And looking to the genre in the tabletop environment, it occurred to me there is no way this medium can translate in an effective manner the kind of experiences those works provide.

Then I tried to come up with an reasoning. Why is that? Well, I think a good sci-fi work is one that has the changing of humanity through technology in the center of the story. Black Mirror does it. Arrival does it. SOMA does it. And no RPG I've seen does it. What sci-fi RPGs they do is have sci-fi as a veneer, or coat of paint, for stories or situations mostly about action and combat. Perhaps the best shot the medium had at depicting the kind of (actual) sci-fi seen in the aforementioned works is the game Shock: Social Science Fiction. But honestly, it's a gaming style so far from usual RPGs that I dont know if have the interest to try it.  

So, thoughts? Are there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

I am curious what you liked about Arrival? I found it to be one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen. It is a match IMO for some of the worst apocalyptic movies in having a completely pessimistic outlook.

Quote from: Crimhthan;984939I am curious what you liked about Arrival? I found it to be one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen. It is a match IMO for some of the worst apocalyptic movies in having a completely pessimistic outlook.

I'll say it again...


Predestination is a helluva drug.

What about something like Death Frost Doom... except that, instead of a vast horde of ravenous undead, your exploration into the alien ruins unleashes campaign changing information... a virus, nano-bot plague, AI... everything/everyone is altered in body/belief/understanding. Would most groups cry foul at that? Complain that they couldn't shoot it? Would they call it 'railroading' because the genii woudn't go back in the bottle?
'Cause no one I've played Death Frost Doom with complained about the bad stuff when it happened.

Of 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.

The 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.  

Also it would make a terrible game.

I love the part of every thread on this site where the OP posts a problem.  And for about 3 pages everyone gang piles and says how stupid they are.  

Even though we essentially agree with them.  Its hard to have the kind of story he was asling about in Role playing.  You need the right group of players, and a Hellava DM.  

Its like saying you can't drive a screw with a hammer.  Well actully ypu can.  You either hit it harder or get the claw into the slot or if you have a good giuld hole and soft wood and strong fingers you can do it by hand.   YOU FUCKERS ARE MISSING THE POINT!

I've seen two episodes of Black Mirror but am unfamiliar with either Arrival or SOMA.

However, in general, I think a science fiction RPG can be a "what if" without predefined story or metagame mechanics. I'd agree that it isn't well-covered in published RPGs, but I think there is precedent. I ran several Star Trek campaigns which often had open-ended scenarios where the PCs encountered some runaway technology and had to deal with it. Star Trek can be pretty hokey compared to classic science fiction, but a number of the episodes still deal with a central "what if" premise.

The problem with Black Mirror as a model is that it is different characters every time, which doesn't work well for campaign play. It is suited for Shock, where setting up the world is part of the game. But in a traditional RPG, setting up the world, characters, and adventure each time is a heavy load on both the GM and the players.

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 (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/419/2300-AD-Energy-Curve?cPath=21_27&it=1)--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 (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/419/2300-AD-Energy-Curve?cPath=21_27&it=1)--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!

Spike, swap enforce by facilitate there. How about that?

Quote from: SpikeFundamentally, 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!).

I don't subscribe to this line of thought. Runequest is one of the most interesting games for me not for it's resolution rules, but because it's resolution rules are part of a whole that shots at anthropological verossimilitude, an overarching theme that informs every molecule of the game. Same goes for Pendragon. And Apocalypse World. And Unknown Armies, etc. The better designed games, in my small opinion, are those with a strong central vision that informs every decision that goes into it. And "action-resolution" is just a small part of this. YMMV, of course.

Eg: Amber sets up it's direction of intra-party conflict through a very elegant char creation phase. That's an example of mechanic that's powerful, yet don't touch "action resolution". So, should we discard these kind of mechanics in RP games? Don't they have a place?

I have no problems with rules that, as you say, Facilitate play styles.
 
Maybe I'm a bit of a pedant, but I prefer a precision in language, so to me there is a very real difference between rules that enforce and rules that facilitate.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say about Runequest. I've used the Runequest rules to run long campaigns in my own setting, and I like them because they are both mathematically simple enough and match up, at least in part, with how observable reality works... at least better than, say, D&D's demi-god levelling and infinite Hit Point Inflation.  I could care less about anthropological versimilitude, unless you're trying to mean 'it tries to create a realistic model of stabbing people in the face', which... it does.

In Amber the rules do not force intra-party conflict in any way. The character creation model may serve to facilitate (as you say) that sort of play, but if the players chose to work together the game doesn't fall apart or run into an intractable wall of 'needs player conflict to work'.... in fact it can work just fine. And that's my point: You don't lose potential players for Amber just because they don't want to fight their own party all the time.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;985037But then one of the players cracks a joke to dispel the tension.

:D

This, exactly.

Quote from: Dumarest;985062Three demerits for failing to recommend Classic Traveller when presented with the opportunity.

Classic Traveller requires you to look into High Guard, external tanks, low berths, or some obscure White Dwarf articles to do it. Megatraveller would be slow with only low berths. TNE or T4 has got the equipment (including Bussard Ramjets and Daedelus) but requires a Fire, Fusion, and Steel approach. GURPS Traveller requires the use of GURPS Space or GURPS Vehicles for the required drives. Traveller 5 has NAFAL (Not As Fast As Light) drives. Traveller20 and Mongoose Traveller 1e can do it with just the Core Rulebook. Mongoose Traveller 2e is as fucked up as a soup sandwich.

"There are nine-and-twenty ways of making tribal lays, and every one of them is right!" - Rudyard Kipling

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?

I just told you how.

Quote from: jeff37923;985096Classic Traveller requires you to look into High Guard, external tanks, low berths, or some obscure White Dwarf articles to do it. Megatraveller would be slow with only low berths. TNE or T4 has got the equipment (including Bussard Ramjets and Daedelus) but requires a Fire, Fusion, and Steel approach. GURPS Traveller requires the use of GURPS Space or GURPS Vehicles for the required drives. Traveller 5 has NAFAL (Not As Fast As Light) drives. Traveller20 and Mongoose Traveller 1e can do it with just the Core Rulebook. Mongoose Traveller 2e is as fucked up as a soup sandwich.

"There are nine-and-twenty ways of making tribal lays, and every one of them is right!" - Rudyard Kipling

Bah, supplemental books are for the weak!

Quote from: Dumarest;985101Bah, supplemental books are for the weak!

Blasphemer!

Quote from: Spike;984854Actually I do find it fascinating how many Sci-Fi settings are built around the assumption that there is no frontier out there.   Find some new, unexplored planet in Traveller? Its got a sentient human population (or alien, but mostly human) that's been there for eons.  Fading Suns?  Good luck finding jumpkeys that lead outside of explored space. Star Wars? Man: The Republic/Empire IS the Galaxy.  Star Trek? See Traveller, except its Always Aliens... or really human aliens.


Man! Say it with me.

Space.
Is.
BIG.


And poltical instability, conflicts between states and all that jazz should be a regular feature of a good sci-fi setting, not the omnipresent 'Federation/Imperium/grand-poobahs' that we so constantly get.

I agree strongly with this. When I started my SF game (in sig) I tried to ensure there was a frontier, multiple factions, inter-state conflict etc. A lot of SF settings go out of their way to create situations lacking conflict, which seems unrealistic as well as bad for gaming.

Re exploration of deeper themes, I think this depends a lot on the GM. I'm not great at it in tabletop, though I touch on some deeper themes in some of my online games (text-chat or PBEM/PBP gives more time to think and lessens embarrassment factor), but I have played with at least one GM who could do it very well. IME players take their cue from the GM, they rarely try to undermine what the GM is going for. But IME in tabletop play myself and most GMs tend towards a lowest common denominator approach of light adventure.

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.

Yes, that's my feeling. Game mechanics tend to actively get in the way of deeper themes and create a sort of cargo-cult emulation of the fiction they're intended to replicate.

If I want a literary-type examination of deeper themes, a text-based medium and ultra-light system are generally best IME. Although my Midnight GM did a pretty good job with d20 - better than when she got hooked by The Forge and went all Narrativist.

Quote from: Itachi;984879By this logic we could discard role-playing games altogether. In other words you agree with my original supposition that RPGs are only useful to facilitate stories involving action/adventure and nothing else. If that's the case, fine.

Is that really the case, though?

No, I do not agree that RPGs are only useful to facilitate stories involving action/adventure and nothing else. Quite the contrary.

Most RPG mechanics focus on action because that is the part of the game that most requires game mechanics to resolve. I can, and have, run four hour plus game sessions in which not a single die was rolled. No dice were required because the players were role playing, talking to each other in character, talking to NPCs, etc. I don't need mechanics for social interaction. I have live humans sitting at my table for that.

You also seem to miss that movies, novels, and RPGs are different media and work in different ways. Take the "Council of Elrond" scene in Lord of the Rings. As written it is a long piece of exposition delivered mostly by a single character in an extended monologue. In his movie Peter Jackson instead chose to show us the events being described by Elrond. He also chose to put many of them in a prologue scene at the begining of the movie. In an RPG the scene would be a GM reading a wall of text to his players until their eyes glazed over.  Further RPGs do not have plots that must be followed by the characters. In RPGs all outcomes are uncertain until the GM decides or the dice are rolled.

Certain types of "stories" are better told in media other than RPGs. In fact RPGs are not a great medium for telling stories. They better at creating interactive, shared, freeform experiences. The stories are what happens after when the group talks about what happened.

Quote from: jeff37923;985096Classic Traveller requires you to look into High Guard, external tanks, low berths, or some obscure White Dwarf articles to do it. Megatraveller would be slow with only low berths. TNE or T4 has got the equipment (including Bussard Ramjets and Daedelus) but requires a Fire, Fusion, and Steel approach. GURPS Traveller requires the use of GURPS Space or GURPS Vehicles for the required drives. Traveller 5 has NAFAL (Not As Fast As Light) drives. Traveller20 and Mongoose Traveller 1e can do it with just the Core Rulebook. Mongoose Traveller 2e is as fucked up as a soup sandwich.

"There are nine-and-twenty ways of making tribal lays, and every one of them is right!" - Rudyard Kipling

Reality pretty much requires you to look into extrenal tanks, low berths, etc. Classic Traveller Book 2 Starships lets you do it. STL intersteller travel is not really a likely thing. Space is just too bi and human lives are too short.

Im sorry OP. It is not the SF RPGs that suck. It is you.

Quote from: DavetheLost;985181You also seem to miss that movies, novels, and RPGs are different media and work in different ways...

Certain types of "stories" are better told in media other than RPGs. In fact RPGs are not a great medium for telling stories. They better at creating interactive, shared, freeform experiences. The stories are what happens after when the group talks about what happened.

I'm not ignoring this fact, this was my question in the very first post:

Quote from: ItachiAre there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

See? ;)

Quote from: Spike;984854Everyone here is a booger eating moron.





Actually I do find it fascinating how many Sci-Fi settings are built around the assumption that there is no frontier out there.   Find some new, unexplored planet in Traveller? Its got a sentient human population (or alien, but mostly human) that's been there for eons.  Fading Suns?  Good luck finding jumpkeys that lead outside of explored space. Star Wars? Man: The Republic/Empire IS the Galaxy.  Star Trek? See Traveller, except its Always Aliens... or really human aliens.


Man! Say it with me.

Space.
Is.
BIG.


And poltical instability, conflicts between states and all that jazz should be a regular feature of a good sci-fi setting, not the omnipresent 'Federation/Imperium/grand-poobahs' that we so constantly get.

I'm sorry your Traveller ref lacks the imagination to do more than what you've described. Is this his original setting or is he using a published setting? Sounds like you aren't enjoying it either way.

Quote from: Dumarest;985252I'm sorry your Traveller ref lacks the imagination to do more than what you've described. Is this his original setting or is he using a published setting? Sounds like you aren't enjoying it either way.

To be fair, many people conflate the Traveller rules with GDW's official setting.

There's good reason people do this, of course. But people like Dumarest and myself see the value in the basic rules and leaving the setting material sitting by the doorstop.

I'll add that the implied setting details found in the 1977 edition of Traveller Books 1, 2, and 3 create a very rough and tumble setting full of instability. You really can't make The Third Imperium from the original Traveller rules.

I do like M-Space! That's a supplement for RQ Mythras. But they have also included barebones mechanics for combat and star ship combat (so you don't have to get bogged down in the crunch if you don't want to).

I found Mythras itself to be too crunchy for my liking. So, I tend to stick to OpenQuest - a very slick rendered down version of the RQ system.

When I started playing Traveller Third Imperium setting material was just begining to trickle out. We played some of the adventures, got a lot of use out of traders 7 Gunboats for deckplans, and made u an awful lot of shit on our own.

We used Traveller as the base to play the sort of Science-Fi games we were interested in playing, and we weren't afraid to tweak the rules here and there to do it.

Those early days have convinced me that lighter rules provide more freedom for choosing your own style of game play. Also, if gaming isn't providing you with teh sort of "story" you want either you suck at telling that sort of story or you and/or the group don't really want the sort of story you think you do.

I have a beef with the original post.

QuoteWell, I think a good sci-fi work is one that has the changing of humanity through technology in the center of the story. Black Mirror does it. Arrival does it. SOMA does it. And no RPG I've seen does it. What sci-fi RPGs they do is have sci-fi as a veneer, or coat of paint, for stories or situations mostly about action and combat.

You declare a personal, subjective area of interest, note that RPGs in general can't do it, and declare that Sci-fi RPGs suck (meaning ALL of them, OBJECTIVELY). But this is ill-considered at best.

Following the same logic, I could declare that my own, highly subjective interest in the spy novel genre focuses on the technically accurate details of information gathering; note that no espionage RPG does that well because they all concentrate on James Bond-style heroics; and declare that ALL espionage RPGs objectively suck.

Or I could say that my personal interest in fantasy is all about the slight biochemical and neurological differences that makes humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits and whatnot so similar yet different; but no fantasy RPG deals with this particular issue, therefore ALL fantasy RPGs suck.

You're making a highly subjective demand, measuring any and all sci-fi RPG by that metric, and damning the entire (RPG) genre for not meeting it. That's not very reasonable.

Quote from: Premier;985422I have a beef with the original post.

yeah I meant to make that point too but sort of forgot about it.  I'd argue that the whole idea that "good" sci-fi has the changing of humanity through technology in the center of it's story is certainly not a given by any means.  I mean there's whole reams of sci fi that is primarily about action and combat and has little at all to do with Black Mirror type explorations of the impact of technology on humanity.  One may not feel that that is good sci fi, but there's no denying it's popular sci fi and it's what a lot of rpg players are looking for.

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?

Why would you want to do that?

Seriously. If the group wants to do that they can and if they don't want to you can't force them to. This is turning into one of those posts where someone asks, "How can I get my group to play the game that I like and they hate?"

Quote from: Spike;985072I'm not sure what you're trying to say about Runequest. I've used the Runequest rules to run long campaigns in my own setting, and I like them because they are both mathematically simple enough and match up, at least in part, with how observable reality works... at least better than, say, D&D's demi-god levelling and infinite Hit Point Inflation.  I could care less about anthropological versimilitude, unless you're trying to mean 'it tries to create a realistic model of stabbing people in the face', which... it does.

I find myself in complete agreement with Spike. I used Runequest to run Mythic Greece with the players running actual Demi-gods. Not really an accurate anthropological anything. Well I did use oxen as the basic measure of value, which, I guess is a bit anthropologically versimilitudinous. But that had nothing to do with Runequest.

Maybe Itachi meant Cults of Prax especially the cultures and religions for the Glorantha setting for Runequest. If so Itachi is still wrong about Runequest since religion and culture are not the system, but the setting which to a large extent is system independent.

Quote from: Premier;985422I have a beef with the original post.
...
You declare a personal, subjective area of interest, note that RPGs in general can't do it, and declare that Sci-fi RPGs suck (meaning ALL of them, OBJECTIVELY). But this is ill-considered at best.
....highly subjective interest in the spy novel genre focuses on the technically accurate details of information gathering; note that no espionage RPG does that well because they all concentrate on James Bond-style heroics; and declare that ALL espionage RPGs objectively suck.

The OP never used the term objectively, which you've convienently inserted to strengthen your argument.

Quote from: Voros;985504The OP never used the term objectively, which you've convienently inserted to strengthen your argument.

He did title the thread "Sci Fi rpgs suck" though...

I am astonished that this thread managed 10 pages with the flimsy premise of the OP post.

You can emulate nearly anything (story, adventure, premise, theme) with any of the sci-fi rulesets out there. Sure, something more generic may be easier to focus on specific themes, while others are built for a specific sci-fi theme. You may have some work depending on what ruleset you go with. But saying all sci-fi RPGs suck because you can't imagine how you can play The Arrival in one is pure absurdity. Hence my original reply of absurdity.

I would love to have a meaningful discussion if perhaps the OP could draw up some actual points on HOW sci-fi RPGs fail to work IN THEIR OPINION. Like actual points of discussion vs. the wide-open statement the OP made with such a factual-assumed tone.

Quote from: trechriron;985696I would love to have a meaningful discussion if perhaps the OP could draw up some actual points on HOW sci-fi RPGs fail to work IN THEIR OPINION. Like actual points of discussion vs. the wide-open statement the OP made with such a factual-assumed tone.

Oh you dreamer. I'm bet you were distracted by the solar eclipse and forgot you were on an Internet forum, right?

How about some examples from actual play? Oh, wait, this is an internet gaming forum. People don't actually play games.

I'll repost Vargold and my's responses on this, which had some more concrete examples.

Quote from: Vargold;985007I personally always admired the old Traveller 2300 adventure, Energy Curve (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/419/2300-AD-Energy-Curve?cPath=21_27&it=1)--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: jhkim;985010That'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.

I think it would be a good basis to go from.

My experience of scifi RPGs over the years hasn not been good... but I think the main issue has been with the GM/Players.
Either it's been people getting obsessed with collecting the tech... to where I feel like I'm on some extended trip to Ikea to buy knivar... or it's guys trying to avoid any sort of tech/'sciency fictiony' stuff altogether and run it like it's WWII spy comedy.
Or... in the case of Star Wars... not being able to think of much to do but just re-enact the movies, "AT-ST? Check!... speeder bikes? Check!... Death Star? Check!"

If it's not the gun porn guy obsessing over minutia, it's the guy who works in IT wanting to lecture us on how Shadowrun got the details wrong.
There's just something about modern/high-tech/scifi games that seems to bring out the pedantic dork in people... at least the people I've played with. They seem able to relax into fantasy just fine... but not scifi.

I DID kinda enjoy the Eclipse Phase games I played in... in spite of a gun nut who just had to go on about 'clip' vs. 'magazine' and other non-issues... and fret over his PC's 'competency'.
I also kinda enjoyed the last Traveller campaign I played in, at first... but the GM had us on a really tight leash and just seemed unable to let go. At every turn we'd find ourselves drugged, imprisoned, lied to... anything to corral us and get us back on the railroad. Mind you, I've played a lot of fantasy with the same group and he's never been controlling like that (I kept trying to escape fate and eventually he just gave up and went back to D&D).

At the moment I'm in an online game of FASA Trek that feels a lot more like a gritty Cyberpunk game... but that might be OK, maybe.

And yet I STILL want to play these things...

Quote from: Itachi;984772... Are there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

Quote from: jhkim;985780... I think it would be a good basis to go from.

OK. Based on those posts you are clearly demonstrating how a sci-fi RPG could emulate diplomacy and social conflict outside action/adventure. So my answer to question #1 is; all genres? It would depend on how the GM applies consequences to choices, how the GM describes the situation, what challenges the GM introduces and the choices of the players make, but I'm inclined to say no. Sci-fi specifically? no (as clearly proven in this thread).

The 2nd question is absurd because a "fact" is assumed where no "fact" exists. The hypothesis in the first sentence was never proven. If Itachi believes there is some missing "thing" in emulating technology transforming humanity in current RPGs, then it would be great if Itachi could clarify the specifics of their "fact" and demonstrate how "there is no way this medium can translate in an effective manner the kind of experiences those works provide"...

Now, if Itachi could outline these details, we could further discuss the "find a way to do it" part with suggestions that might actually apply to "the problem".

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;985513He did title the thread "Sci Fi rpgs suck" though...

A strong opinion on aesthetic matters is not a claim of objectivity. A simple idea so often ignored on the net.

Quote from: Voros;985840A strong opinion on aesthetic matters is not a claim of objectivity. A simple idea so often ignored on the net.

Lol oh fine then.  Jeez...

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;984796It sounds like you are into storygames, not roleplaying games.

http://story-games.com/forums/

Umm, yeah, it's Itachi.

He's looking for narrative rules to enforce genre conventions to force gameplay down that path.  He's right in that there is no game out there doing this, which is a little surprising, actually.  But as he's basically saying sci-fi RPGs suck at not being RPGs, I wouldn't worry too much. :D

Quote from: Spike;985064You are talking about emergent play, and complaining about rules.  Catagory Error.

Oh, and this, of course.

Quote from: Itachi;984772So, thoughts? Are there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

Other than most sci-fi role-players suck? No.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;985935Other than most sci-fi role-players suck? No.

Speak for yourself.

Quote from: CRKrueger;985914as he's basically saying sci-fi RPGs suck at not being RPGs, I wouldn't worry too much. :D

Oh.

Well at the moment we're playing a Classic Traveller game. In terms of exploring themes, it seems to be mostly, "wow, it's really easy to die horribly in space." I rolled up a Navy guy who was really strong, low class, 16 years in the service and never promoted, his first skill and last mustering out benefit was a blade. Then we rolled his starting planet and got a low-tech agricultural planet with low law level.

So I'm playing Danny Trejo from planet Mexico. In space, no-one can hear you cliche.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1371[/ATTACH]

That is awesome.  Also Raciss, but in an awesome way.   I am not ashamed to admit that I have watched the Machete movies and enjoyed them.

Quote from: Itachi;984879By this logic we could discard role-playing games altogether. In other words you agree with my original supposition that RPGs are only useful to facilitate stories involving action/adventure and nothing else. If that's the case, fine.

Is that really the case, though?

Itachi - you're nuts.
...and misguided.

What you describe as 'true science fiction' I did in my games about every 4th or 5th game session in both my TRAVELLER and 'Star Trek' campaigns...

The others are right, you apparently want some kind of story games foolishness.

- Ed C.

Nothing like shitting on storygames. Never gets old.

Quote from: Voros;986341Nothing like shitting on storygames. Never gets old.

Yes!  :D

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;986261Oh.

Well at the moment we're playing a Classic Traveller game. In terms of exploring themes, it seems to be mostly, "wow, it's really easy to die horribly in space." I rolled up a Navy guy who was really strong, low class, 16 years in the service and never promoted, his first skill and last mustering out benefit was a blade. Then we rolled his starting planet and got a low-tech agricultural planet with low law level.

So I'm playing Danny Trejo from planet Mexico. In space, no-one can hear you cliche.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1371[/ATTACH]

Sounds cool, though.

The most important ingredient in both the snacks at the game table, and the game itself, is cheese.

Quote from: flyingmice;984800I am sorry, deeply sorry. I have written more SF roleplaying games than anyone else, so I have the largest part of the blame for your hurt. I am personally at fault! I admire you so much! Here you have tried every SF RPG ever written, and none of them are what you want. That takes dedication! And you have played each of them with a variety of GMs and groups so you can control for the other factors! You must have even tried different snacks! A tear is trickling down my cheek, so overwhelmed am I by your disappointment! I'll go and chop my own head off now in shame.

[Whitney Houston]

AAAAAAAND IIIIIIIIII, IIIIIIIIIIIIII, IIIIIIIIIIIIII, WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

[/Whitney Houston]

Quote from: Voros;984809I don''t think all RPGs are only good for action/adventure. That is more a reflection of nerdculture's tastes than what you can and cannot do with any RPG system.

Interestingly, I was talking with a friend about our dislike for superhero movies, and we came to the conclusion that's because all them feel like action-popcorn to us only with different coats of paint (drama, sci-fi, etc) applied over. In other words, a single genre in different camouflages. Do you think the "nerdculture" has to do with it?

Quote from: Zevious ZoquisI'd argue that what RPGs do is use a given genre as a veneer for stories about action and combat

I agree if we are talking about mainstream, aka D&D and similars. But I like to think games like Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Paranoia, Amber, Vampire, Sorcerer & siblings, etc. tried to deviate from this paradigm, with different degrees of success.

QuoteIn general, I think "deeper" endeavours require a degree of ability from both the gm and the players such that it just isn't a realistic expectation of the medium...it's the search for that (I feel) that brought on the efforts to increase the narrative aspects of RPGs (to their detriment, imho.)

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of "deeper" endeavours, so much as different "kind" of endeavours. I've played games like Pendragon, Hillfolk and Sagas of the Icelanders (I'm big fan of the later) and found them fascinating, and not "deeper" at all than any other kind of game, just different. So I'm not convinced the medium is limited to combat-centric adventures.

QuoteYou don't even need an rpg to do it. You just need a group of people who want to tell a story

But if you don't need a game, we are not talking about RP games, right? We are entering the territory of sheer improv storytelling (which I don't have anything against, mind you).

Quote from: jhkim;985780I'll repost Vargold and my's responses on this, which had some more concrete examples.

Quote from: VargoldI 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?

Quote from: JhkimTo 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.

I think it would be a good basis to go from.

This is what I'm talking about, thanks! So you think it's possible to explore this kind of (non-veneer) Sci-fi in RP games? How would you do it? Why those two games worked, in your opinions?

Quote from: trechriron;985696I am astonished that this thread managed 10 pages with the flimsy premise of the OP post.

You can emulate nearly anything (story, adventure, premise, theme) with any of the sci-fi rulesets out there. Sure, something more generic may be easier to focus on specific themes, while others are built for a specific sci-fi theme. You may have some work depending on what ruleset you go with. But saying all sci-fi RPGs suck because you can't imagine how you can play The Arrival in one is pure absurdity. Hence my original reply of absurdity.

I would love to have a meaningful discussion if perhaps the OP could draw up some actual points on HOW sci-fi RPGs fail to work IN THEIR OPINION. Like actual points of discussion vs. the wide-open statement the OP made with such a factual-assumed tone.

Sorry if I wasn't clear in the OP. The point is not that I (or somebody else) cannot play Black Mirror or Arrival, my point is: there are no games that I know of that promote the kind of situations seen in those works just like, say, Pendragon does for arthurian stories, Traveller does for space opera (in it's Third Imperium version) or Leverage does for heist movies.

Someone cited the Transhuman Space and Eclipse Phase settings. I agree these are so full of technological changes that they guarantee every place you step you will experience some culture shock. Still, I would consider they a good "canvas" for what I'm searching here, and not exactly what I'm looking for.

Quote from: Itachi;986602Interestingly, I was talking with a friend about our dislike for superhero movies, and we came to the conclusion that's because all them feel like action-popcorn to us only with different coats of paint (drama, sci-fi, etc) applied over. In other words, a single genre in different camouflages. Do you think the "nerdculture" has to do with it?

I know many here get their panties twisted if anyone deigns to say anything negative about the nerd subculture but I'd say the problem for much of the subculture is that it is so self-referencial and has so much reverence towards such a narrow range of cultural material (Star Wars, LotR, Marvel comics) that it chokes on its own tropes and constant fanservice.

Quote from: Voros;986711I know many here get their panties twisted if anyone deigns to say anything negative about the nerd subculture but I'd say the problem for much of the subculture is that it is so self-referencial and has so much reverence towards such a narrow range of cultural material (Star Wars, LotR, Marvel comics) that it chokes on its own tropes and constant fanservice.

Very true, particularly with an emphasis on new material and a glaring lack of knowledge of what came before, at least among people I've known. They know Star Wars, Star Trek, whatever the new hip sci fi show is, but haven't read any of their antecedents and for the most part just want to play out a sort of mimicry of what they liked in the TV show or movie...

That picture of Danny Trejo is awesome.  Is Machete Kills In Space out yet?

Quote from: Itachi;984772So, thoughts? Are there genres the tabletop medium can't really do? If so, should we accept this fact and move on, or is worth trying to find a way to do it?

I call BS on that. There's no genres that TTRPGs can't do.
There's genres that particular players can't do:). And that includes me, for the record - in my case, it's high fantasy and four-colour superheroes.

OTOH, I'm pretty positive that most SF RPGs I've played had these elements. Our Eclipse Phase campaign was chock-full of them...as well as of explosions.
How? The GM took the challenges of the setting's technology, and presented us with situations that would happen in the setting. Then we had to act on them.
In doing so, we had to take a stance.
Add to this that we had created rather different characters, and you'd see how it went. At one point, we remarked that Katya and Chand were basically opposites. He was an Indian psychochirurgist who felt most comfortable as an infomorph - he even had an advantage reflecting that - and his ideal solutions involved everything which didn't include him being there physically.

She was a gal who felt uneasy unless sleeved in a combat morph, and preferred physical pleasures, the kicking of butts - literally - and wanted to get an even stronger, even faster body...as long as it was organic. She didn't like the clanking masses, and would consider it a punishment not to have a body.

When we got to deal with the merged consciousnesses of several personalities, the differences in approach could not be ignored;).
The same can be told about the other SF RPG campaigns I've played. As a rule, RPGs are very good at following an important rule of storytelling: "Show, don't tell".
In fact, I wish more authors remembered it;).

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;985037But then one of the players cracks a joke to dispel the tension.

And the Referee nips the laughter into the mud;).

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?

You write a setting, not rules, that facilitates this experience. A game where all ships are STL and interstellar communication goes at the speed of ships would be one of those.

Quote from: DavetheLost;985181No, I do not agree that RPGs are only useful to facilitate stories involving action/adventure and nothing else. Quite the contrary.

Most RPG mechanics focus on action because that is the part of the game that most requires game mechanics to resolve. I can, and have, run four hour plus game sessions in which not a single die was rolled. No dice were required because the players were role playing, talking to each other in character, talking to NPCs, etc. I don't need mechanics for social interaction. I have live humans sitting at my table for that.

I agree.

QuoteYou also seem to miss that movies, novels, and RPGs are different media and work in different ways. Take the "Council of Elrond" scene in Lord of the Rings. As written it is a long piece of exposition delivered mostly by a single character in an extended monologue. In his movie Peter Jackson instead chose to show us the events being described by Elrond. He also chose to put many of them in a prologue scene at the begining of the movie. In an RPG the scene would be a GM reading a wall of text to his players until their eyes glazed over.

No, in an RPG it would be the GM spreading this information and luring the players to find it;). As you said, different mediums.

QuoteFurther RPGs do not have plots that must be followed by the characters. In RPGs all outcomes are uncertain until the GM decides or the dice are rolled.

Just like in life.
But RPGs can have plots, they're just unnecessary. (Depends on what you call "a plot", though).

QuoteCertain types of "stories" are better told in media other than RPGs. In fact RPGs are not a great medium for telling stories. They better at creating interactive, shared, freeform experiences. The stories are what happens after when the group talks about what happened.

I consider the re-telling of what happened to be part of the experience, so I'd disagree...but that would be too nit-picky even for me:D!

Quote from: AsenGAs a rule, RPGs are very good at following an important rule of storytelling: "Show, don't tell".

I agree so much that I invented my own for games: "Play, don't show". ;)

Quote from: Itachi;987727I agree so much that I invented my own for games: "Play, don't show". ;)

No need reinventing the wheel, you can use the storytelling variant without changes.

Nah, I think the distinction is important. "Show" as a label seems inapropriate for such an interactive media as games. In fact, I'm radical in this - when I play, whatever the game (be it videogames, RPGs, boardgames, sports, etc) I want to be actively playing and taking decisions as much as possible. Put me in a passive mode with your "showing" and I will feel like I'm wasting precious time.

YMMV, of course. ;)

Quote from: Itachi;987754Nah, I think the distinction is important. "Show" as a label seems inapropriate for such an interactive media as games. In fact, I'm radical in this - when I play, whatever the game (be it videogames, RPGs, boardgames, sports, etc) I want to be actively playing and taking decisions as much as possible. Put me in a passive mode with your "showing" and I will feel like I'm wasting precious time.

YMMV, of course. ;)

Playing and showing are the same thing in games, which is why the distinction is useless.

Well, this is just a pet theory of mine, so don't sweat over it (:p ). Anyway, my logic is this...

I think "showing" as a word is still related to exposition, and implies that someone (or more than one) is taking a passive stance, which may be appropriate for media as Literature and Theather which are essentially about storytelling. "Playing" on the other hand implies a more continuous interaction and active stances between the parts involved, thus more appropriate for games (tabletop, videogames, boardgames, cardgames, etc). Usually the later prompts a decision or action by the participants, which I think is the key here, while the others not necessarily. Example:

- In tabletop RPGs:

tell: The GM takes 15 min verbally explaining why the orcs are a horrible menace to your village.
show: The GM shows the horrible acts of orcs in your village through the entire session (a kidnapped boy here, a slayed old man there, etc.) so you have a more tactile idea of the "horribleness" of the orcs.
play: The Orc killed your father. WHAT DO YOU DO? ( --> this prompts an immediate action or decision by the player!)

- in videogames:

tell: A wall of text (narrated of not) explains you this is a dangerous cyberpunk world.
show: An interactible cutscene shows you this is a cyberpunk world - you walk through a dirty street with neon signs above and junkies around asking money. You look up and see the sky is the color of television tuned to a dead channel, and it will rain any moment now.
play: A women in black trenchcoat approaches. "Follow me. NOW. your life depends on it!". She has chrome in their temples and looks menacing. WHAT DO YOU DO? (--> this prompts an immediate action or decision by the player!)

So, I think games will contain parts of the 3 choices above. But usually the later one will be more fitting to the medium, because when someone is playing a game usually he wants to be actively taking decisions (or shooting a ball, if it's basketball or something Lol). As Sid Meier once said, "A good game is a series of interesting decisions" and I agree with this. At least my time as a gamer (be it videogames, RPGs or football) seems to corroborate with this and gimme more fun the more I am on an active stance while playing. God knows how many times I wanted to quit a match of football because there was an individualistic player wanting the ball for himself, or a GM who was more interested in telling (and showing) us his story. Now there are exceptions of course. People who prefer being "told stories" will prefer the first and second choices (a railroader in RPGs, a story-based videogame, etc).


Edit: a casual goodle search shows some sources also got to this conclusion (Tv Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShowDontTell), an interesting article (http://www.davidmidgley.net/2012/01/how-game-writing-is-the-same-as-but-totally-different-from-all-other-disciplines/), a Gamasutra article (https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/124172/Opinion_Play_Dont_Show.php)). So it's not so off base as I thought. I swear I never looked the concept before at google. :D

Hmm, I wonder if thematic mechanics like seen in Pendragon couldn't be considered a stance of "play don't show". After all, it's another way to explore stories, but different from the "tell/show" it directly taps on the "play" part and prompts some kind of interaction, in a way exclusive to this media.

Sorry, man, I think that the difference between "show" and "play" is largely hair-splitting:).
Show: "You reach the village, or what's left of it. The stench of unburied bodies is permeating the ruins, and there's enough bodies here - even the livestock has been murdered. Further left, you see the charred remains of those who were burned on slow fire, those that were flayed, and those who got honey smeared over them before being buried in an ants' nest - meaning there's orc infestation...As you can guess, the supplies you were hoping to find here, are nowhere in sight. What do you do?"
Play: "The orc kills your father, cutting his throat and laughing in delight while the old man starts drowning in his other blood. What do you do?"
What's the difference, other than the fact that one is an act you witness, and the other is you coming across the traces of pretty much the same act?
Yes, you might argue that one exists. To me, that's splitting hairs;).

The only distinction that isn't hair-splitting is if the GM "tells" by essentially making scenes in story-like fashion that are intended to give exposition but give the PCs no real opportunity to interact meaningfully in the sense of being able to change things. That is, exposition-by-railroad.

That's total shit.