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I stumbled with this in a rpgnet review of an old RQ 2 supplement..

Quote from: Lars DanglyI think the Gloranthan Runequest material generally does not translate into non-Gloranthan settings very well because the cults, magic, monsters, items, geography, etc. are so intimately tied together. Perhaps there is some principle here: The better your setting, the less well it translates. I've noticed a related problem with great fictional settings that are tough to translate into 'typical' RPG campaigns (e.g., middle earth).

What do you guys think ? Does it make sense ?

Also, I wonder if this relates somehow to the “classic vs generic” discussion we had – would a “classic” setting be more difficult to translate to other systems, or to gaming in general, than “generic” settings ?

Quote from: silva;652692What do you guys think ? Does it make sense ?

That'll depend what one wants out of an RPG world.

Basically, what the guy is saying here is predicated on something left implicit: that Glorantha is a great setting for him personally because of all its detail, unique flavor, and specificity as a world.

Now that's a fine reason to like a setting, but not everybody's like that. Some people like very loose settings that lets them breathe, and doesn't get in the way of their imagining. For some people, the more stuff you have to learn for the setting to make sense internally, the more "work" that becomes, a bit like those people who find comprehensive rules system to be a bore and "work". Some of these people might prefer something very light and non-specific, like say, the Greyhawk Folio of the 70s, as opposed to a huge world with hundreds of pages of background and cults and factions they'll never truly use. For these people, the statement you quoted isn't true. Whereas for those who just love stuff like Glorantha and Empire of the Petal Throne out there, that same statement will ring very true. To them.

Hence, not objectively true. It depends.

Yeah he seems to be saying that a tightly interwoven and more importantly interdependent setting doesn't work well in other settings, because if you take one part out, bits start falling off the rest, and if you just bring the whole setting over then you basically have the original setting.

Implicit in this is the idea that the more interwoven and complex a setting is, the better it is. As Ben elaborated, it's a matter of taste. For myself a well envisioned and illustrated setting is more important than deep complexity, a good example would be the original three Star Wars movies versus the last three. The first ones were clear, straightforward, and very enjoyable, the last were... less so.

Of course the perfect setting is both deep and well envisioned, I guess the LotR would fall under that category, but that's a very rare type of work indeed.

I agree. The more tightly woven together a setting may be, the more challenging it will be to integrate stuff from another setting.  Unless you are running a crazy multi-dimensional kitchen sink like Rifts.

I love Planescape, but the Factions would be challenging to take to my non-planar OD&D game "as is", but I could be inspired by a particular Faction to create a secret society and maybe take pieces and ideas. But that involves me doing some legwork to make the translation work in the new setting.

Agreeing with Ben and Traveller here. I was going to post the same thing, but why bother? They said what I wanted to say. :D

-clash

Quote from: Spinachcat;652698I love Planescape, but the Factions would be challenging to take to my non-planar OD&D game "as is", but I could be inspired by a particular Faction to create a secret society and maybe take pieces and ideas. But that involves me doing some legwork to make the translation work in the new setting.

Interesting that you cite Planescape, as I think it doesn't work even with its original game system (AD&D 2e). In fact, I find it one of the worst matches of system-setting ever. (a setting whose high points are its incredible conceptual freedom and abstraction, matched with a system that shoehorn characters within restricted classes and don't cares for abstraction at all).

Better is a very subjective word, one I don't think works very well in this context. Sure elements of a well developed setting may not translate well to other settings or systems, but I don't think that makes that setting a better setting some how.

I do agree with the idea that a very well developed setting is likely not going to translate its elements as well as a more generic setting. I personally prefer my settings to be well "sketched" out with lots of interesting ideas and hooks left undeveloped. Otherwise I feel like I have to sit down and rewrite whole chunks to make minor changes. I think for gaming in general a setting that has interesting elements but that is not to throughly developed is ideal.

I also whole heartedly think some settings don't translate well to certain systems or even to gaming in general. I have yet to see a system do middle earth in a fashion I am content with, though admitedly I have not read my copy of The One Ring. I actually think literary settings as a whole are a pain in the ass to game in.

The actual factor is that the more DIFFERENT your campaign is from mine, the less stuff is going to fit in as if made for it -- because it wasn't made for it!

You can make a rule for yourself that this makes our campaigns 'better' than those of folks who easily exchange characters and whatnot. You can make any arbitrary rule about what's 'better' and have a chance that someone else on the InterWeb will agree!

Quote from: Benoist;652695That'll depend what one wants out of an RPG world.

Basically, what the guy is saying here is predicated on something left implicit: that Glorantha is a great setting for him personally because of all its detail, unique flavor, and specificity as a world.

Now that's a fine reason to like a setting, but not everybody's like that. Some people like very loose settings that lets them breathe, and doesn't get in the way of their imagining. For some people, the more stuff you have to learn for the setting to make sense internally, the more "work" that becomes, a bit like those people who find comprehensive rules system to be a bore and "work". Some of these people might prefer something very light and non-specific, like say, the Greyhawk Folio of the 70s, as opposed to a huge world with hundreds of pages of background and cults and factions they'll never truly use. For these people, the statement you quoted isn't true. Whereas for those who just love stuff like Glorantha and Empire of the Petal Throne out there, that same statement will ring very true. To them.

Hence, not objectively true. It depends.

Yup, that makes sense. I wonder though, if we´re not talking 2 different subjects here:

1. translating settings between game systems, and

2. translating settings from a literary source to gaming systems.

I think for the first case your response is spot on, in that its really a subjective thing. But for the second case Im not so sure. It seems to me the great/"classic" literary settings tend to have such a richness or internal consistency or strong vision or originality (or all of it) that the more generic ones lack, and that makes ´em really harder to translate to a gaming format. I think Middle Earth is a obvious example here.

The problem with Middle Earth is that it's an epic, not a game world. Everything of importance is DONE. If you take an "alternate history" approach, then obviously it's not the same as The Story; the deviation may not satisfy those who love The Story (while maintaining the fatalism of predestination may not satisfy those who love a good game).

A case in point, not even involving gaming, is Jackson's movie supposedly of The Hobbit. By spending -- some would say wasting -- so much footage on stuff that's either irrelevant to the story in the book or directly contradicts it, he disappoints those of us who hoped for a movie version of the classic tale.

One friend of mine who had no acquaintance with the book found it simply a bore, while another watched it several times.

Different strokes for different folks, then; but generally, what's wanted in a game campaign is quite different from what's wanted in a novel.

Quote from: silva;652715Yup, that makes sense. I wonder though, if we´re not talking 2 different subjects here:

1. translating settings between game systems, and

2. translating settings from a literary source to gaming systems.

I think for the first case your response is spot on, in that its really a subjective thing. But for the second case Im not so sure. It seems to me the great/"classic" literary settings tend to have such a richness or internal consistency or strong vision or originality (or all of it) that the more generic ones lack, and that makes ´em really harder to translate to a gaming format. I think Middle Earth is a obvious example here.

I was talking about the former, to be clear.

Quote from: Benoist;652695Hence, not objectively true. It depends.

Ah yes, the fear of judgment. Nothing is objectively true, and the only thing objectively false is those that would claim otherwise.

Quote from: silva;6527152. translating settings from a literary source to gaming systems.

I was going to say that it's no problem, and that I've done Middle Earth for decades.

But then I remember I had to write my own system to do that. And then from that I remembered that all the mainstream game systems are rather horrid at recreating literary sources.

So in the end I must agree that it is difficult, and for most impossible.

Bad Settings meanwhile... well no cares if a game system screws those up. Can they really be made worse? Likely not.

I don't really agree with that at all.

If anything, I think the more detail a setting requires players to learn, and the more of that detail is set in stone, the worse it is for actual play.

Quote from: gleichman;652718Ah yes, the fear of judgment. Nothing is objectively true, and the only thing objectively false is those that would claim otherwise.

I'm going to indulge once, just to tell you this: you don't know me at all. You just make up stuff and go about fighting an image of me that just exists in your head. You might think this guy is a relativist or something, but this is not me.

Now I'd appreciate if you'd stop trolling and baiting and stalking me in every thread I post in. Thank you.

Quote from: Benoist;652724I'm going to indulge once, just to tell you this: you don't know me at all.

Everything I know about you, *you* wrote.

Quote from: Benoist;652724Now I'd appreciate if you'd stop trolling and baiting and stalking me in every thread I post in. Thank you.

I think if you look at all your posts, you'd find very few that I've replied to or commented on over the last few months. In this case for example I replied to you because you were the first reply and you called 'moral relativism' on the question. The second or third poster would have worked as well for they did the same thing, and if they had beaten you in replying- it would have been them.

You're not worth stalking, or even taking much notice of to be honest.

If we are so unworthy of your presence gleichman, why don't you just leave?

You hold nothing but spite for us, and vice versa.


As for the original topic - first of all, I'd not call this better. The more the mechanic is intertwined with the setting, of course  the less universally it will translate. However, the more complicated/vast setting does not equal "better". Gonzo settings are usually pretty vast in content, but I dislike them and I find the whole love of "gonzo madness" that's so common here something that's not for me.

I think a good setting brings its own tone and conflicts which are hard to translate into other settings.

The design of a setting is important for those reasons and I would suggest that it's incredibly difficult to mish-mash settings together. Even in kitchen sink settings, you have neat little boxes where "gothic" adventure is and where "nautical" adventure is.

It was worth a try.

Quote from: silva;652692What do you guys think ? Does it make sense ?

No.

About 80% of D&D is material developed for specific, coherent fantasy worlds that were then ruthlessly genericized into the goulash of D&D's "generic" fantasy.

It's a game of hobbits, palantirs, balrogs, and ents with the trademarks stripped off. Incredibly specific characters like Conan and Aragorn are genericized into character classes which are then used to populate entire worlds.

Quote from: silva;652692I stumbled with this in a rpgnet review of an old RQ 2 supplement..

Quote from: Lars DanglyI think the Gloranthan Runequest material generally does not translate into non-Gloranthan settings very well because the cults, magic, monsters, items, geography, etc. are so intimately tied together. Perhaps there is some principle here: The better your setting, the less well it translates. I've noticed a related problem with great fictional settings that are tough to translate into 'typical' RPG campaigns (e.g., middle earth).

What do you guys think ? Does it make sense ?

Also, I wonder if this relates somehow to the “classic vs generic” discussion we had – would a “classic” setting be more difficult to translate to other systems, or to gaming in general, than “generic” settings ?

As a setting hacker, no. You could take the cults books and use them to replace the Greyhawk deities. You can use the D&D system with the maps. You can pull UZ and put them in Forgotten Realms. You could easily use RQ to play in Harn. Any of the bits can be cut out and pasted into a different setting. I like Glorantha and Harn and Talislanta and Jorune, but what I like from each is different, and eminently hackable. Harn's maps with early Glorantha's cults and (N)PC races from Tal and Jorune (+ Uz and Gargun, cause I loves them both) would work out just fine for me.

Now doing so won't result in as coherent a whole, but that's only a drawback if you're committed to the whole in the first place, and I'm not.

Translating great fictional settings into an RPG is a different matter entirely. A lot, if not most, of what makes a great fictional setting great is the fiction, and that's much harder to capture the feel of in an RPG. Using Tolkein's maps, history, and languages is easy; capturing the feel of the books at a table isn't.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;652795It's a game of hobbits, palantirs, balrogs, and ents with the trademarks stripped off. Incredibly specific characters like Conan and Aragorn are genericized into character classes which are then used to populate entire worlds.

Don't forget Holger Carlsen, and I'm pretty sure the level-attacks-per-round-against-less-than-1HD-creatures rule is from Corwin and Bleys' ascent of Kolvir.

I'm going to dispute the "all you need is internal consistency" argument, though, because if nothing else, virtually all fantasy RPG settings have humans in them, and there are certain laws of biology and human nature that have ripple effects throughout the rest of the setting as a result of that.  Most supposedly internally consistent settings fall apart in a heartbeat as soon as you ask the simple question "what do these people eat?"

The Sub-Creator school of fantasy setting design is both nigh universal and also sharply limited; I'd personally like to see a school of thought based on setting-as-metaphor.

Quote from: daniel_ream;652838Don't forget Holger Carlsen, and I'm pretty sure the level-attacks-per-round-against-less-than-1HD-creatures rule is from Corwin and Bleys' ascent of Kolvir.

I'm going to dispute the "all you need is internal consistency" argument, though, because if nothing else, virtually all fantasy RPG settings have humans in them, and there are certain laws of biology and human nature that have ripple effects throughout the rest of the setting as a result of that.  Most supposedly internally consistent settings fall apart in a heartbeat as soon as you ask the simple question "what do these people eat?"

The Sub-Creator school of fantasy setting design is both nigh universal and also sharply limited; I'd personally like to see a school of thought based on setting-as-metaphor.

Actually living habitants are part of consistency of the setting. That's what was great in Fallout - the first village you entered, you had the mutated growth right in the middle of the village. Admittedly though, yes, we usually will have some conceptions of our physiology and our physics into the setting. Then again, there's something interesting to be done, for example, in a setting where all the food literally comes from the gods.

What do you mean by setting as metaphor?

Quote from: silva;652692What do you guys think ? Does it make sense ?

Makes sense to me.

Many campaign settings came with their own sub-classes/prestige classes/whatever templates, domains, religion specific cleric spells, to improve immersion, without really replacing mechanics. Its the compromise we make to keep using a familiar set of rules.

Quote from: silva;652692I stumbled with this in a rpgnet review of an old RQ 2 supplement..



What do you guys think ? Does it make sense ?

Also, I wonder if this relates somehow to the "classic vs generic" discussion we had – would a "classic" setting be more difficult to translate to other systems, or to gaming in general, than "generic" settings ?

I don't see how; 'better' isn't an objective quality.

Roleplaying games with a strong implied setting can be more challenging to adapt to other settings. D&D has a strong implied setting, and therefore the most useful game-worlds for D&D, in my experience, are designed with that implied setting in mind.

Quote from: Kanye Westeros;652736I would suggest that it's incredibly difficult to mish-mash settings together. Even in kitchen sink settings, you have neat little boxes where "gothic" adventure is and where "nautical" adventure is.

That sounds great to be honest - across the Sea of Fallen Clouds forever sail the clans of the sea gypsies on baroque ships covered in once-colourful murals, now faded and peeling in the everpresent mists to reveal the deep mahogany beneath. Stir in cloistered elders, a terrible secret at the heart of the families, a doomed love and you're good.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;652847I don't see how; 'better' isn't an objective quality.

Well it can be, a bulldozer is objectively better measured by tons of earth moved per hour versus a shovel or spoon. In artistic terms though, yeah almost everything is subjective.

The more a thing requires players to modify their current expectations, the more difficult those things are to translate, and it applies to both rules and setting.

Quote from: Benoist;652745It was worth a try.

What was worth a try? Telling me to go away? Or were you trying for something more worthwhile?

I'm willing to bury the hatchet if you are, same deal I made with BedrockBrendan. A new clean slate between us although it will not alter my opinion of D&D and the wider OSR.

Interested?

Quote from: gleichman;652900I'm willing to bury the hatchet if you are, same deal I made with BedrockBrendan. A new clean slate between us although it will not alter my opinion of D&D and the wider OSR.

Interested?

(http://fivepoints.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/7b9c34e8075ab942bce59a5d641f716b1472009974.png)

Quote from: gleichman;652900What was worth a try? Telling me to go away? Or were you trying for something more worthwhile?

I'm willing to bury the hatchet if you are, same deal I made with BedrockBrendan. A new clean slate between us although it will not alter my opinion of D&D and the wider OSR.

Interested?

I am.

You can believe whatever you want to believe about the OSR. I'm not a card carrying member. If you can keep it from getting personal in the future, and we can have normal disagreements you and I, I will welcome it.

Quote from: Benoist;652903I am.

Do I have your apology for the OCD, asper's and similar comments?

Quote from: gleichman;652905Do I have your apology for the OCD, asper's and similar comments?

You do. It was unwarranted, and grossly over the line.

Quote from: Benoist;652906You do. It was unwarranted, and grossly over the line.

Very well then, you have mine for the overheated responses I made.

Let's see what the future holds.

Quote from: gleichman;652909Very well then, you have mine for the overheated responses I made.

Let's see what the future holds.

Thank you. I'm glad. :)

Quote from: Rincewind1;652839What do you mean by setting as metaphor?

"Metaphor" isn't really a good word, but I can't think of a better one.  "allegory" implies a plotline, which isn't appropriate for a setting.

Perhaps an example would be helpful.  Let's take the Star Wars movies, Episodes IV-VI.

The setting as depicted in those movies isn't internally consistent or logical.  It is, however, constructed out of familiar concepts taken from other media.  We can understand and draw inferences from parts of the setting because we know what those parts are.

For instance, the Jedi are taken from Kurosawa films and samurai geddai soap opera.  The Force is taken from Jungian psychology and Frank Herbert's Dune series.  The large scale battles are taken from specific WWII films.  The planetary settings are taken from frontier Western films.  The physical action sequences are taken from the 1936 Flash Gordon serials.

This is why there's radio but no video commlinks, and droids but no computers - because the highest level of technology in the source material is WWII, and droids are characters, not technology.  It's why the Jedi are so overpowered in Episodes I-III by comparison - Lucas is stealing from Hong Kong wu xia films instead of Japanese chambara.  It's why the X-Wings on the trench run aren't dodging, have no rear firing weapons, and don't have air cover - they're Avro Lancasters, not fighters.

Similarly, a lot of fantasy fiction written before Tolkien and D&D swallowed the genre whole in the 1980s sets up its cultures, races, and events as allegory or metaphor for something else.  Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn and Michael Ende's The Neverending Story are obvious examples, but there's certainly a lot of it in Tolkien's work as well (the hobbits being rural English countryfolk most obviously).  Right now, George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series and Naomi Novik's Temeraire series are metaphors for the English War of the Roses and Horatio Hornblower, respectively.

Setting-designer-as-Subcreator has been done, arguably to death; I'd like to see some work on setting-as-metaphor, like how to conceal your sources, how to integrate different sources, how to integrate the fantastic, etc., etc.

Quote from: daniel_ream;652917Setting-designer-as-Subcreator has been done, arguably to death; I'd like to see some work on setting-as-metaphor, like how to conceal your sources, how to integrate different sources, how to integrate the fantastic, etc., etc.

I'd like to see that as well. Nice post in general btw.

You have me thinking of how to group various types of settings...

• Setting-as-metaphor (as you describe)
• Historical
• Wish fullfillment (more from a PC PoV, i.e. the setting serves the PCs)
• Exploration of concept

Must be others...

Quote from: daniel_ream;652917The planetary settings are taken from frontier Western films.

I don't recall too many glacier battles and rainforests in frontier westerns of the period. Also the good side of the force struck me as being somewhat Buddhist in nature, and where are you getting no computers? I always figured the somewhat primitive flipswitches and greenscreens used in movies like Aliens were chosen because you need reliability in the unyielding environment of space. Simple with redundancies are what you want fifty light years from the nearest repair base.

Quote from: The Traveller;652923I don't recall too many glacier battles and rainforests in frontier westerns of the period.

Hoth and Endor are large battle sequences; as I said, they're taken from WWII movies.  The Tatooine scenes from Episode IV are heavily inspired by The Searchers and Cheyenne Autumn.

QuoteAlso the good side of the force struck me as being somewhat Buddhist in nature

It is.  You might want to read up on some Jungian psychology.

The various sources Lucas plundered for the Star Wars movies have been exhaustively documented over the last thirty years; I'm not going to argue this point with you.

Quote from: daniel_ream;652934Hoth and Endor are large battle sequences; as I said, they're taken from WWII movies.  

So they aren't planetary settings in which battles take place?

Quote from: daniel_ream;652934The Tatooine scenes from Episode IV are heavily inspired by The Searchers and Cheyenne Autumn.

Never said otherwise, the desert scenes do have some elements in common with westerns.

Quote from: daniel_ream;652934It is.  You might want to read up on some Jungian psychology.

George Lucas considers himself a Buddhist Methodist, readily admitting the religious overtones in Star Wars were borrowed freely from multiple religions, so maybe it might be more accurate to say that Jung and Lucas were both influenced by Buddhism. I can see the Dune connection to a certain extent though.

Quote from: daniel_ream;652934The various sources Lucas plundered for the Star Wars movies have been exhaustively documented over the last thirty years; I'm not going to argue this point with you.

Fair enough. Although Avro Lancasters had rear guns.

So I see that when one becomes far, far too ostracised, the way to escape the hole is to start sucking up to the big guys. Let's have a group hug everybody! (http://somethingsensitive.com/Smileys/default/reagan.png)

Quote from: daniel_ream;652917"Metaphor" isn't really a good word, but I can't think of a better one.  "allegory" implies a plotline, which isn't appropriate for a setting.

Perhaps an example would be helpful.  Let's take the Star Wars movies, Episodes IV-VI.

The setting as depicted in those movies isn't internally consistent or logical.  It is, however, constructed out of familiar concepts taken from other media.  We can understand and draw inferences from parts of the setting because we know what those parts are.

For instance, the Jedi are taken from Kurosawa films and samurai geddai soap opera.  The Force is taken from Jungian psychology and Frank Herbert's Dune series.  The large scale battles are taken from specific WWII films.  The planetary settings are taken from frontier Western films.  The physical action sequences are taken from the 1936 Flash Gordon serials.

This is why there's radio but no video commlinks, and droids but no computers - because the highest level of technology in the source material is WWII, and droids are characters, not technology.  It's why the Jedi are so overpowered in Episodes I-III by comparison - Lucas is stealing from Hong Kong wu xia films instead of Japanese chambara.  It's why the X-Wings on the trench run aren't dodging, have no rear firing weapons, and don't have air cover - they're Avro Lancasters, not fighters.

Similarly, a lot of fantasy fiction written before Tolkien and D&D swallowed the genre whole in the 1980s sets up its cultures, races, and events as allegory or metaphor for something else.  Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn and Michael Ende's The Neverending Story are obvious examples, but there's certainly a lot of it in Tolkien's work as well (the hobbits being rural English countryfolk most obviously).  Right now, George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series and Naomi Novik's Temeraire series are metaphors for the English War of the Roses and Horatio Hornblower, respectively.

Setting-designer-as-Subcreator has been done, arguably to death; I'd like to see some work on setting-as-metaphor, like how to conceal your sources, how to integrate different sources, how to integrate the fantastic, etc., etc.

I see. I actually heartily agree, and  that's my most common way of creating a setting ;). I personally took a much less glorious moniker for it - "X with serial numbers filed off". My current "main" setting is the Mediterranesque Sea around the times of First Punic wars, except I've been trying to imagine how including races that live longer than humans, magic and real mythology alongside physical, meddling gods would change the history, so to speak. Though I admit I went for the most part with "Race as Culture" - so elves are Romans, Greeks and (formerly) Troyans, dwarves are the barbaric Celts and Germanics, Hobgoblins and Humans  are Persians, Palestinians and Egyptians etc. etc.

I know it's not entirely what you mean, but I do get where you're coming from.

Quote from: daniel_ream;652917For instance, the Jedi are taken from ...

You're fishing way, way further afield than is necessary.

It's a space opera. The archetypal work in that field, E.E. 'Doc' Smith's The History of Civilization (a.k.a. the Lensmen series) is one-stop shopping for more elements even than you mentioned.

EDIT: as trivia...

Quotethere's radio but no video commlinks

There certainly is video communication in The Empire Strikes Back:
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TFBFHx0gM8k/S_8v3sze01I/AAAAAAAAEpM/OywGPxMigFM/s320/ozzel2.jpg)

So much for that, but is there any PAPER in the the movies?

Quote from: Phillip;653254You're fishing way, way further afield than is necessary.

Again, the sources that Lucas cribbed from when writing the Star Wars movies have been exhaustively documented and confirmed by Lucas himself over the last thirty-five years.  I'm not going to argue this point with you, The Traveller, or anyone else.  It'd be like explaining quantum mechanics to a mollusc.

Quote from: daniel_ream;653284Again, the sources that Lucas cribbed from when writing the Star Wars movies have been exhaustively documented and confirmed by Lucas himself over the last thirty-five years.  I'm not going to argue this point with you, The Traveller, or anyone else.  It'd be like explaining quantum mechanics to a mollusc.

Rather than be a pretentious twat, you could just throw a few links at people. If you want to appear high and mighty rather than discuss, start a blog.

My opinion in this thread is so well documented, than rather to give proof to my position, I merely think of yourselves as spineless animals. After all, forums are not a place for discussion, but to listen.

Quote from: daniel_ream;653284Again, the sources that Lucas cribbed from when writing the Star Wars movies have been exhaustively documented and confirmed by Lucas himself over the last thirty-five years.  I'm not going to argue this point with you, The Traveller, or anyone else.  It'd be like explaining quantum mechanics to a mollusc.

It'd be like what it is: ignoring the plausible implications of thorough coincidence with a seminal work and patching together a Rube Goldberg pattern of plagiarism.

I'm not saying Lucas didn't borrow bits from lots of movies; I would not be surprised if he took inspiration for some things from, for instance, Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.

I'm saying that the claim that the resemblance of Star Wars to the (admittedly much grander) "Lensmen" epic is purely coincidental is mighty hard to believe!

Quote from: daniel_ream;653284It'd be like explaining quantum mechanics to a mollusc.

Don't bother, anyone that compares the inspirations for Star Wars to quantum mechanics is way too fond of hyberbole to have any useful opinions.

Quote from: Phillip;653300I'm saying that the claim that the resemblance of Star Wars to the (admittedly much grander) "Lensmen" epic is purely coincidental is mighty hard to believe!

Good thing I said no such thing then, but then this is theRPGsite, where every entry on the wandering monster table says "Straw men, 10-100 appearing".

Once more and then I'm out of the thread: the sources Lucas cribbed from when writing the Star Wars scripts have been documented and confirmed by Lucas himself repeatedly over the last thirty-five years.  Your inability to Google for Star Wars sources inspiration Lucas (https://www.google.com/search?q=star+wars+sources+inspiration+lucas) does not change that.  I am not going to re-type thirty-five years of pop culture navel-gazing because you're too lazy to open another tab in your browser.

QuoteI would not be surprised if he took inspiration for some things from, for instance, Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.

Neither would anyone else, since Lucas has been saying that publicly since 1977.

Quote from: daniel_ream;653314Good thing I said no such thing then...

You simply responded to the observation that it's not necessary to look any further than the classic space opera for archetypes of the Jedi, etc., by hurling sophomoric insults.

That makes all the difference, indeed, but not in the way you suggest!

Quote from: The Traveller;652923I always figured the somewhat primitive flipswitches and greenscreens used in movies like Aliens were chosen because you need reliability in the unyielding environment of space. Simple with redundancies are what you want fifty light years from the nearest repair base.

I think the more obvious answer is, because they were based on the computers/machines of the age when the films were produced originally, with slight modifications to imagine how those machines'd look in the future.

Quote from: Rincewind1;653332I think the more obvious answer is, because they were based on the computers/machines of the age when the films were produced originally, with slight modifications to imagine how those machines'd look in the future.

Sure, but it makes sense anyway. Those movies, that technology doesn't feel dated even today in a world of touchscreens and other iTems. Maybe younger people would feel differently but it comforts me to think there are very good reasons for the clunk and simplicity. :D I still can't explain why it's raining inside all the ships in the Aliens franchise though.

Quote from: Rincewind1;653332I think the more obvious answer is, because they were based on the computers/machines of the age when the films were produced originally, with slight modifications to imagine how those machines'd look in the future.

The answer to virtually every "why is X like Y" question when it comes to TV or film SF is "because it was the cheapest/easiest".

I know several people who do or have worked on the Stargate franchise, and the "Wormhole X-treme!" episodes were a direct response to the constant fanwank.

Quote from: Rincewind1;653332I think the more obvious answer is, because they were based on the computers/machines of the age when the films were produced originally, with slight modifications to imagine how those machines'd look in the future.

I believe in one of the videos in the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set, Ridley Scott said something about how he wanted the ship to look heavily used, industrial, rather than Star Trek clean. I think they were hauling some kind of ore, weren't they? Of course that doesn't explain the silly blinky white computer room for talking with "Mother".

I can understand why bridges and computers have to be somewhat retro because they need to maintain recognizable character roles and interesting interplay when the action starts.

I've never had any problem borrowing stuff from all over the place for my campaigns.

In Arrows of Indra's case, for example, the setting is very rich and the system is very tied to the setting, but I have no doubt that any OSR-gamer would be able to borrow shitloads of stuff (random tables, magic items, changes to the D&D combat rules, small setting details, etc) for whatever game they plan to run.

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