Quote from: ColonelHardissonTraveller seemed to hint at some really big scale stuff, or really out-there concepts.

Oh, there were plenty of hints of such, but I would have preferred something a little more in my face.  Of course, it does all depend on how you run it...

Quote from: ColonelHardissonWhich is fine, and not that hard to do, especially if the truly fantastic stuff is from an earlier age. But I imagine it could be done even if the campaign was set during that golden age of magic.

Yeah, Exalted does a pretty good job of creating a truly fantastic setting.  But it's not the easiest setting to get into, especially for the REALLY fantastic parts, like the Sidereals.

One setting that had a fair amount of the fantastic was the Known World.  Again, it wasn't in your face most of the time, though.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonThis is more of a thread about discussing the concept of enormousness in a fantasy setting than about answering a question. Any thoughts, ideas, concepts?

To continue blathering.

In a truely epic fantasy world your "wizards" wouldn't be people with magic.  They would be the people able to create/invent new ways of doing things or getting magic to do new things.  

You would need to lock down spell research.  Researching a truely new spell would take significant work like inventing a truely new technology would.  A variant spell would be very simple though.  

Using D&D for examples.  Energy manipulation would be kids stuff.  Everyone can do it and anyone with significant resources can also counter it.  Nothing new there.  Your true "wizards" would have to do something else.  A true "magic" item would be one that let you accesss the space inside the walls between the Ethereal plane and material plane so you could avoid all the default defenses that protect against interplanar travel.  Then you could "magically" appear in places no one else could.

The other big difference I see between fantasy and sci-fi is the scale the actual people can play on.

If dragon = space ship
In fantasy 5 player characters can attack and kill dragon.
In sci-fi 5 player characters usually cannot attack and kill the spaceship.  
The space ships armour and weapons are usually on a different scale and you have to use something designed for that scale to fight it.  Its possible to win in a frontal assualt against a dragon in D&D.  You can't frontal assualt a Star Destroyer in Star Wars as people.

Fantasy
The characters can become personally powerful on any scale. (You can ascend.)
The characters personally have power that raises them above others.
Power comes from within and without, but the best stuff from within.  (Gear is important but super powers, level, etc... is more so.)

Sci-Fi
The characters are not personally powerful on every scale.
The characters do not have power that others cannot have/duplicate/steal
Power comes from knowledge, luck, influence, etc... not raw power within.

Those are the big differences I see between Sci-Fi and Fantasy.  Do people agree/disagree?  Have suggestions?

Is there a difference (besides definiton )  between fantastic and wondrous. I'll give you an example. Purely subjective, but here goes. I think that Eberron is a "fantastic" setting, where as Jorune is a wondrous setting.

Regards,
David R

Well, to be honest, it's possible to have some things in a fantasy setting that are...well, fantastic...

My gaming group thought up an inter-planar flying tower, where each level on the tower is it's own demi-plane, etc.

But, I think part of the thing with fantasy is that it is the quests, the epic sort of feeling of one man, with a sword, against an army to save the world...

Whereas SF is more of a bigger feeling, but less epic, sort of environ.

Says I, anyway.

Quote from: pandiculatorBut, I think part of the thing with fantasy is that it is the quests, the epic sort of feeling of one man, with a sword, against an army to save the world...
 
Whereas SF is more of a bigger feeling, but less epic, sort of environ.

I tend to agree, largely.  I really like the larger-than-life feel that fantasy characters have.  That feeling of "destiny" and uniqueness, where one man can bring down a god.
 
On the other hand, I tend to view the mundane classes (fighter, rogue, and [kinda] ranger) in D&D as being more heroic than the spell-slingers.  It's Arthur, not Merlin who is the focus of the story.  Bizarre dichotomy, but there it is.

My homeworld has many epic aspects.

On the center of the continent, lies an inner sea infinitely deep. It eventually folds into the Elemental Plane of Water.

Surrounding that inner sea are very, very tall mountains, in a roughly circular ring, they are huge and practically vertical. Many cities are excavated within, each having several plazas carved out, each atop the other.

Somewhere is a long tunnel descending on a straight slope, so long that no records of anyone ever going to its end exists.

But the really outlandish concepts are not there, but on the ethereal planes, where things are easily exacerbated.

I've noticed the planes being mentioned in passing in a few posts, and it made something click. The descriptions of the planes in both 1e and 3e D&D, especially some of the more obscure ones, have elements along the lines of what I'm talking about.

For example, for the life of me I can't remember which plane it is, but it's one with two layers, one of which hangs above the other. So an inhabitant of one will have a sky which would resemble the view an astronaut in fairly close orbit has of Earth. Another example is that there is a city in one of the evil planes that has a multitude of legs and actually moves around on a continual basis. And yet another plane - Mechanus? - which consists of gears, each of which is inhabited like an island. Acheron, as I recall, is essentially a huge battlefield that is composed of rusted and ruined war equipment.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonAcheron, as I recall, is essentially a huge battlefield that is composed of rusted and ruined war equipment.

That is neato.
I believe I will steal it at some point.
thanks for bringin it up.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonFor example, for the life of me I can't remember which plane it is, but it's one with two layers, one of which hangs above the other.

IIRC, it's "The Twin Paradises of the Beastlands" or "The Beastlands".  I forget what its 1E name was.  "Elysium", maybe?

Quote from: SobekIIRC, it's "The Twin Paradises of the Beastlands" or "The Beastlands".  I forget what its 1E name was.  "Elysium", maybe?

Sounds right to me.

Quote from: SobekIIRC, it's "The Twin Paradises of the Beastlands" or "The Beastlands".  I forget what its 1E name was.  "Elysium", maybe?

No, the Beastlands used to be the Happy Hunting grounds, and it was the N/CG plane.

I think the plane you're thinking of was called Bitopia or some shit like that.  I think it was the L/NG plane; I know it's infested with gnomes.  In the latest version, one side was "civilized" and the other was "wild" and filled with animals and monsters.

All in all, the evil planes get all the press, but they have added some damn cool shit to some of the good planes.  The plane may not be out to kill you, and neither are the people in charge, but there are more than enough things around that would happily put a cap in your ass.  

Dead Gods was a proper fantasy epic.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonI've noticed the planes being mentioned in passing in a few posts, and it made something click. The descriptions of the planes in both 1e and 3e D&D, especially some of the more obscure ones, have elements along the lines of what I'm talking about.

For example, for the life of me I can't remember which plane it is, but it's one with two layers, one of which hangs above the other. So an inhabitant of one will have a sky which would resemble the view an astronaut in fairly close orbit has of Earth. Another example is that there is a city in one of the evil planes that has a multitude of legs and actually moves around on a continual basis. And yet another plane - Mechanus? - which consists of gears, each of which is inhabited like an island. Acheron, as I recall, is essentially a huge battlefield that is composed of rusted and ruined war equipment.

Bytopia. To get from one side to another you have to find two mountains that meet at their points and climb up one and down the other.

The Crawling City is a stronghold of the Yugoloths. It makes it's way through the three mountains of Gehenna.

Acheron is actually made up of metal cubes floating through a void. On each lower layer the cubes get progressively more worn down until on the final layer their just razors floating around in space. Armies of every race and nation battle continuously on the first layer. The second layer, Thuldanin, is covered in the refuse of wars. Old warships, siege towers and even more fanatical armaments are preserved on this layer for eternity. Anyone who spends too much time scavenging risks being 'preserved' along with anything they might find.

I love Planescape.

Quote from: AcinonyxI love Planescape.

I don't. A lot of that stuff first appeared in the 1e Manual of the Planes.

Could it be that one of the reasons that there are not too many truly fantastic settings, is because such settings are difficult to play in? I like Planescape and Spelljammer, but some of the complaints are that these settings are unplayable. There are of course a variety of reasons for this, but sometimes I get the impression, that there is a feeling that there is an over the top quality of these settings that does not appeal to some people.

I think (as mentioned before) Sci-fi settings have the safety net of science to explain away the seemingly improbable aspects of the setting....fantasy settings unfairly(in my opinion) do not have that luxury. I mean even Eberron disguises some of it's more fantastic elements in the guise of magitech (I could be wrong, since my knowledge of the setting is pretty limited)

Looking back at the Forgotten Realms setting with it's uber powerfull mages, one would think that the world would be a fantastic place full of bizarre wonderments, esp, with the existence of all those powerfull mages around, but thats' not the case. The setting is pretty mundane, compared to a setting like say Planescape.

I think truly fantastic settings demand a flight of fancy, that not many gamers are willing to indulge in. Magic, is just that. Unexplainable, mysterious and enigmatic. I think a large part of the problem is, that when you have a fantastic setting, there is an urge to justify the fantastic elements in the setting - probably because sci-fi does this - and probably because, these justifications bring order to the chaos that the fantastic is capable of creating.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: ColonelHardissonI don't. A lot of that stuff first appeared in the 1e Manual of the Planes.

I don't see how that detracts from the setting. It's not like Planescape ever claimed to have thought up the whole D&D cosmology whole cloth. It built on what came before. Nothing wrong with that.