Quote from: BedrockBrendan;883635But that kind of thing can even happen in a fantasy campaign. I think most groups go through a period where they establish the 'physics' and the 'reality level' of their campaign. I notice this a lot the first few sessions of a new campaign (particularly if you have new players in the group), where everyone kind of comes to the table with different assumptions about the kinds of characters that are expected, the kinds of schemes and tactics that should yield fruit (can the players blow up a whole fleet of ships with some well placed barrels of oil and a flaming arrow, or is that more likely to just illuminate their presence and maybe set fire to a single ship). You have that spectrum in fantasy just like you do in science fiction (big different between a game based more on Game of Thrones versus Dragonlance).

But with sci-fi you're talking about orders of magnitude when it comes to differences in technology. To do a crossover between Trek, Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, etc you either have to level the field by weakening or strengthening the technologies OR you'll need to explain why the Galactic Empire hasn't already conquered the Alpha Quadrant, let alone Earth in 2017. You have something similar in comic book crossovers like Superman vs Spider-Man, where Spidey's powers had to be turned up to 11 by red or yellow sunlight in order to put him on Superman's level, otherwise it's like Bambi vs Godzilla.

The only area in fantasy where you run into similar issues is magic and guess what -it also becomes a serious hurdle, hence all the wrangling about Gandalf being "only" 5th level. Everything else is more or less compatible in most fantasy settings.

Quote from: Elfdart;883954But with sci-fi you're talking about orders of magnitude when it comes to differences in technology. To do a crossover between Trek, Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, etc you either have to level the field by weakening or strengthening the technologies OR you'll need to explain why the Galactic Empire hasn't already conquered the Alpha Quadrant, let alone Earth in 2017. You have something similar in comic book crossovers like Superman vs Spider-Man, where Spidey's powers had to be turned up to 11 by red or yellow sunlight in order to put him on Superman's level, otherwise it's like Bambi vs Godzilla.

The only area in fantasy where you run into similar issues is magic and guess what -it also becomes a serious hurdle, hence all the wrangling about Gandalf being "only" 5th level. Everything else is more or less compatible in most fantasy settings.

This is only true if you hugely restrict your fantasy to stuff close to Lord of the Rings.

Fantasy as a whole is not remotely compatible. I cited before The Wizard of Oz, Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, Pan's Labyrinth, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Narnia, Beauty and the Beast, and Sandman. If you think that Star Wars vs. Star Trek is bad - try mixing Redwall with Percy Jackson, where one character is an Olympian and one is... a mouse.

The SW vs. ST stuff I always thought was stupid.  Jackass one who doesn't know what a Gigawatt is puts 5.7GW because he thinks it's big, some other jackass puts 4000GW because he thinks it's big and you end up with Jackass #3 claiming that objectively Slave one can shoot a hole through 18 Borg Cubes.  It's just Idiocy.

Obviously SW methods of FTL are superior (but this is variable.  A New Hope isn't the same scale as the prequels and the entire ST series up to that point doesn't match Khan v.2.0 when you can get from Earth to the Klingon Homeworld in like 12 minutes.)

Also ST has no capability to one-shot a planet. (Unless of course you count a Q or Organian snapping their fingers, in any case the Federation or Klingons don't, who knows if the Romulans ever made a Plasma Superweapon).

Movable Death Star you can't catch seems like Game Over.  Then again, not sure what good a Death Star or Star Destroyer is when you can beam live photon torpedoes onto the bridge of one. (I know ST shields stop beaming, I have no knowledge of SW shields doing the same, since why would they develop that capability without transporters).

However, what does the Federation's ability to harness anti-matter really mean, who the fuck knows, no one who ever penned anything Star Wars or Star Trek does.

In the end, neither group of writers actually intended to create canon, so...they didn't, and the fact that Lucas decided to get free marketing and money from the EU rather than squash it doesn't create "canon" either.

It's a circle jerk.

It amounts to Hulk vs. Superman, Superman vs. Galactus, Doomsday vs. Galactus, whatever.

Quote from: jhkim;883974This is only true if you hugely restrict your fantasy to stuff close to Lord of the Rings.

Fantasy as a whole is not remotely compatible. I cited before The Wizard of Oz, Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, Pan's Labyrinth, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Narnia, Beauty and the Beast, and Sandman. If you think that Star Wars vs. Star Trek is bad - try mixing Redwall with Percy Jackson, where one character is an Olympian and one is... a mouse.

Originally fantasy really was all speculative fiction, period.  Then it got broken down into "speculative stuff that's never going to happen, but we like to think we could do" vs. "Speculative stuff we think is never going to happen", ie. Science Fiction vs. Fantasy.  Then Fantasy became even more constricted again, and again, driven not by writers, but by marketers and so did Sci-Fi,  so now we have "Military Sci-fi" and "Female masturbatory fantasy using Vampires and Werewolves as analogues for the different kinds of guys they want to fuck" and if you want to write something different, you'd better have to put the years in as an acceptable genre writer who sticks to the rules before they let you play outside the lines.

Fantasy, which should be the most widely varied and...fantastical genre, is really 879 separate straightjackets at this point.  Pick one.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884060...and "Female masturbatory fantasy using Vampires and Werewolves as analogues for the different kinds of guys they want to fuck"...

AKA 'Urban Fantasy'.

Wish I was joking...

I've seen a lot of people have a lot of warring definitions of just what constitutes "true" Science Fiction.

Quote from: RPGPundit;884465I've seen a lot of people have a lot of warring definitions of just what constitutes "true" Science Fiction.

Defining SF is fine. Throwing in the word "true" is usually a serious warning sign, in my experience. When someone starts blithering about "true SF" it generally means I'm about to get an earful of "My SF is better than your SF" bullshit.

Edited to add: this applies to most other topics as well. Self-appointed experts defining "true" RPGs, "true" , or "true" are seldom worth listening to.

Quote from: Elfdart;883950That's not really saying much since the marines would have been able to wipe out the xenomorphs in short order were it not for the bungling of the officer in charge.

That's highly arguable.

Were it an open field and Xenomorphs would run in the direction of Marines, they could've perhaps survive this encounter. Unfortunately for Marines, Xenomorphs are "smart" enough to use the surroundings to their advantage, rely on stealth, from some sort of hive-like tactics and so on, and so forth.

Also, the rule of a single ninja vs a hoard seems to apply.

Yes, the Law of Conservation of Ninja.  You aren't the first to point out how the Aliens appear to work under a similar principle. Of course, they do 'wear' black and like to sneak a lot...

Quote from: Spike;884494Yes, the Law of Conservation of Ninja.

So that's how it's called. Thanks. Details are my Achilles heel.

Quote from: Spike;884494You aren't the first to point out how the Aliens appear to work under a similar principle. Of course, they do 'wear' black and like to sneak a lot...

Exactly.

Let's not forget that ALiens Universe is already very vast, consisting of numerous works of fiction, some contradicting each other, or at least presenting a bit different vision. Cameron's idea of hive-like society, one that's not above launching bullrush berserk attack (and casualties be damned) wasn't featured in Scott's (the original) works.

Ultimately it's up to people to choose what version of Aliens they are talking about.

The Alien's Marines not only had a moron for a commander, they were morons themselves.  I mean, seriously, did they not load up the specs of the ship they were going to raid?

Then again, if they were smart, then the movie would have been over in about 15 minutes from the start...

Quote from: Christopher Brady;884503The Alien's Marines not only had a moron for a commander, they were morons themselves.  I mean, seriously, did they not load up the specs of the ship they were going to raid?

I'm sorry, what ship would that be? :hmm:

Quote from: Christopher Brady;884503Then again, if they were smart, then the movie would have been over in about 15 minutes from the start...

Could you expand it a bit?

Quote from: JesterRaiin;884505I'm sorry, what ship would that be? :hmm:

Sorry, it's been decades since I saw it, the colony, not ship.  I think I was mixing Aliens and 3 together.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;884505Could you expand it a bit?

A crack team of marines would have gone in with flame throwers and high explosives, because they would have read the debriefing and saw that if this was the place where Ripley encountered the eggs, it wouldn't matter if the Corporation didn't believe her, the military would take NO chances.  If there's one flaw most militaries have is that they tend to over prepare.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;884566Sorry, it's been decades since I saw it, the colony, not ship.  I think I was mixing Aliens and 3 together.

No harm done. I simply doubted my own memory.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;884566A crack team of marines would have gone in with flame throwers and high explosives, because they would have read the debriefing and saw that if this was the place where Ripley encountered the eggs, it wouldn't matter if the Corporation didn't believe her, the military would take NO chances.  If there's one flaw most militaries have is that they tend to over prepare.

Hmmm... :hmm:

Observe that:

• While this is military operation, it happens on Corporate ground. It means that military got only as much info as the Corporation decided to share. Burke, Corporate delegate says it out loud: "You're mere grunts". It means that to his employees, Marines are merely... assets. Pawns, accessories. In fact, think about it: the Corporation had a dossier on everyone. Why didn't they insist on a leader more experienced than Lt. Gorman? It's entirely possible that this whole disaster was orchestrated on a higher level, and everyone (including Burke) was expendable, sent there only to test how soldiers would fare against possible bio-weapon.
  
• Marines fell victims of their own legend. Strongest, toughest mofos on this side of the galaxy and all that testosterone. Vasquez dismisses Ripley's fears as "just bugs". Everyone laughs. In addition, in Director's Cut edition of Aliens, there's a scene where Hudson brags about all equipment they have at their disposal. They are clearly overconfident. Screw Gorman - their leader. There's Sgt. Apone and Col. "reasonable cool guy" Hicks. Neither thought it's very important to invest more time into additional research.
  
• Nobody trusts Ripley until it's too late, and from the point of view of everyone onboard of "Sullaco" she has no authority. After all, she's just a woman with unclear past and mental issues, neither a marine, nor an important Company delegate.

All this (and more) led to the disaster, so I don't think Lt. Gorman is the sole responsible for Marines' defeat.

Fantasy dominates because you can grab a bunch of dudes, sit them down, and run a fantasy came cold and stupid with reliable success. All that might be asked are race/class (or equivalent) options, so long as you go with a ruleset that everyone knows.

Science Fiction requires preparation because that shit stems from contextual elements in order to achieve its genre-defining potential. This is why SF RPGs either devolve into fantasy-in-SF-drag, or are reduced to the only playable elements that stand out (because the rest of it is unplayable wanking), and as such reliably fail. Star Wars fits the former, much of the time, and we all know of mecha SF games that devolve to wargame campaigns because mech action is the only fucking game part in the entire set-up that stands out as being remotely fun SF stuff.

In short, the problem with SF gaming is that the core element of the genre doesn't work well (if at all) with medium of tabletop role-playing games due to said element being inherently external to the table action- much like why horror gaming routinely sucks harder than Cthulhu having a bad day.

Tabletop RPGs are at their best when they focus on what is external to the characters--action, adventure, combat, etc.--because that's playable and enjoyable for people in general. If it involves internal stuff, or otherwise limits who at the table is in the action, that's when TRPGs go off the rails.

"Exploring the implications of a posited technological or scientific development." is internal. It works best in drama (written or performed). It's terrible as gameplay, even in videogames, and falls into the stuff that gets skipped until it's directly and immediately relevant to the action at hand.

Fantasy? None of that shit. "There's treasure in them thar hills, and we aim to get it." works, and as that is entirely within the wargame-derivative scope and scale of TRPGs it's inherently and easily playable effectively even by utter noobs. No need for anything that, in a videogame, gets routinely skipped or ignored. Just get on with the action; specific contest is irrelevant.