Editor in Chief Bill | 04 Oct 2011 7:51 p.m. PST |
From the Designers Notes in Tomorrow's War: In a market flooded with science fantasy and space opera, we've opted to focus on a hard science fiction approach with Tomorrow's War. Which type of game do you prefer? * hard science fiction * science fantasy * space opera |
doug redshirt | 04 Oct 2011 8:04 p.m. PST |
Hard science. Heck I have trouble doing a zombie game if I can't explain the zombies scientifically. Currently have 3 or 4 types of valid zombies. |
SheriffLee | 04 Oct 2011 8:06 p.m. PST |
It does not Depends for me. It has got to be hard science fiction. From a hard core Sci fi nut from the '60s. |
The Beast Rampant | 04 Oct 2011 8:17 p.m. PST |
generally, space opera, then science-fantasy, then hard SF. I have been put off HSF somewhat by some dry as hell writing. |
nvdoyle | 04 Oct 2011 8:26 p.m. PST |
Depends – is 40K science fantasy, or space opera? I'd say it's a mix of the two. I tend towards the extremes. Give me wild, galaxy-spanning empires, or give me spun hulls and radiators. |
chuck05 | 04 Oct 2011 8:32 p.m. PST |
I like both depending on my mood and what figures are available. |
Garand | 04 Oct 2011 8:36 p.m. PST |
I mostly play Science Fantasy or Space opera in my main chosen games (40K and Battletech
though the latter has some hard SF elements in it), but I prefer to read hard SF. Damon. |
Pictors Studio | 04 Oct 2011 8:42 p.m. PST |
I play and enjoy both. Infinity is more hard sci-fi, at least the way I play it, it is, we don't use McGruff the crime dog or whatever. But I also enjoy Sci-fantasy like Dune, 40K and Star Wars. I guess if you put the big boys next to each other I prefer Star Wars to Star Trek. |
infojunky | 04 Oct 2011 10:35 p.m. PST |
Ok, define Hard Science fiction. What are the lines of demarcation? I equate Space Opera = Space fantasy kinda. The major difference between the two is the number of trop fantasy tropes included
Well to be honest Trek and Wars are both space opera
.. |
Mako11 | 04 Oct 2011 10:52 p.m. PST |
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tnjrp | 04 Oct 2011 11:01 p.m. PST |
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Splod89 | 04 Oct 2011 11:10 p.m. PST |
Hard Sci-Fi pure and simple. I like physics and combat situations I understand. I get a bit of a kick out of applying the tactics I've learned from the army to the Tabletop. |
Little Big Wars | 04 Oct 2011 11:20 p.m. PST |
Space Opera with liberal doses of Science Fantasy. I'm not particularly interested in Psi or the like (just another layer of rules to clutter things up), but I'm perfectly happy to have giant space lizards with swords mixing it up with the hard sci-fi humans. |
Uesugi Kenshin | 04 Oct 2011 11:21 p.m. PST |
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Calico Bill | 04 Oct 2011 11:49 p.m. PST |
I enjoy and play all three. |
streetline | 05 Oct 2011 2:01 a.m. PST |
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John D Salt | 05 Oct 2011 2:05 a.m. PST |
Whichever category covers "Awful Green Things from Outer Space" and the "Illuminati!" card game. All the best, John. |
Mooseworks8 | 05 Oct 2011 2:28 a.m. PST |
Assuming Sci-Fi Opera is 40K then I enjoy that and the "hard" sci-fi. I do not like fantasy elements in sci-fi, like dragons and magic. |
Henrix | 05 Oct 2011 2:32 a.m. PST |
Hard SF. Sometimes a little space opera is fine, á la the various incarnations of Traveller, or perhaps even the old Space Opera RPG. I do like walkers. And some cyberpunk. And some anime like Ghost In the Shell (or Infinity). Science Fantasy, like 40K or Star Wars, isn't really my cup of tea. Though on the other hand Necromunda was fun. But when I get to choose – hard sf. Outland. The Alien movies. |
Old Bear | 05 Oct 2011 2:42 a.m. PST |
Is Alien/Aliens hard SF? I hadn't thought of it in those terms before now and I would have come down firmly against hard SF except for the fact that Aliens for me i the best piece of war-bsaed SF ever produced, so if it turns out to be 'hard' then I'd better re-evaluate my opinions! |
AndrewGPaul | 05 Oct 2011 3:19 a.m. PST |
Is it that time again? Why should I choose one? I enjoy playing Infinity, 40K and others besides. Old Bear, Aliens isn't hard SF – the biology of the alien is too wonky. Apart from anything else, the massive grwoth rate seems to disagree with the conservation of mass
The sort of thing that annoys me isn't Space Opera or "Science Fantasy" – it's when something is clearly ridiculous and yet tries to justify the ridiculousness. 40K, for instance, is nonsense. However, it's well aware it's nonsense and runs with it. Star Trek, on the other hand, has somewhat less nonsense, but tries – and usually fails – to convince me that the nonsense is actually sensible. |
Wolfprophet | 05 Oct 2011 3:34 a.m. PST |
I don't see the line. Just mix it all. :) "Assuming Sci-Fi Opera is 40K then I enjoy that and the "hard" sci-fi. I do not like fantasy elements in sci-fi, like dragons and magic." Magic and technology might as well be the same thing. And you just contradicted yourself a little (Alot actually)
as 40K is more Sci-fantasy, less Sci-fi Opera. As I recall, certain fellows like Ahriman of the Thousand Sons is a bonafide wizard, not a psyker. If I'm not mistaken, the Tyranids also have a sub-species which looks suspiciously like a Wyrm or a Wyrvern? Oh. Not to mention the good elves, the evil bondage elves, the hyper-evolved technical skills of the orcs('scuse me. "Orks"), the feudalist society that the Imperium of Man runs on most planets, which lends most of their populace, especially farmers, to be dressed as if they came from the middle ages, where most fantasy elements seem to stem from. Oh, and chimeras(Not the APC, the Dark Eldar things which have a different spelling) that dark eldar snakeman thing, psykers are really just mages given a different names with Librarians as the most bad-ass of them
then you have the various mythos which Marine chapters pay homage to, like Space Wolves and the Krakens on their homeworld, their belief in the Emporer as an Odin-like figure with Russ as his great son. The name Fenris itself being taken from Fenrisulfr, the great wolf which causes Ragnarok. Lukas the Trickster being
more or less
Loki in spehss Marheen form. (I always found him to be useless
hence, he has no place in my Space Wolves force.) Plus their nasty tendency to turn into werewolves if their genetics go a little wonky
I could go on, but that would make the post way toooooo long. Oh, and Blood Angels are just vampires who can go out in the sun. And thankfully do not sparkle. Forgot to throw that one in there. *Edit. Did I mention the Space Hobbits, Space Dwarves(now long lost and retconned into "Demiurg") and Space Orges? 2/3 of those being in Imperial Guard service. Though. Must say. The Imperial Guard army book states in the fluff that the IG units are so varied that some worlds provide warriors dressed in chainmail, plate armour and have only swords, bows, pikes etc while others vary so wildly, they might be using Napoleonic era muskets while the next planet over is using WWI era tech. So, when it comes to 40K, I feel that there's an extremely loose sense of what you can actually do with it once one decides "I LOVE the universe, but hate Games Workshop as a business." "Is Alien/Aliens hard SF? I hadn't thought of it in those terms before now and I would have come down firmly against hard SF except for the fact that Aliens for me i the best piece of war-bsaed SF ever produced, so if it turns out to be 'hard' then I'd better re-evaluate my opinions!" Aliens is Hard sci-fi
but why change opinion now? :P It's sci-fi! take the torch, run with it and set the room full of priceless Persian rugs on fire while laughing maniacally! |
FredNoris | 05 Oct 2011 4:07 a.m. PST |
Hard-opera-fantasy-scifi, with space zombies! |
Lion in the Stars | 05 Oct 2011 4:17 a.m. PST |
I played myself out of Space Fantasy (ie, 40k and Dune). I think Space Opera is more playable than really hard SciFi, but I like the minimum amount of times that I the reader/player have to press the 'suspend disbelief' button. |
Lentulus | 05 Oct 2011 5:17 a.m. PST |
Different games on different days – but I have ordered tomorrow's war and will paint up armies for it. |
Stronty Girl | 05 Oct 2011 5:24 a.m. PST |
Reading – definitely Hard SF. RPGs – any will do, but if I had to put them in order, than Hard SF first, space opera second, science fantasy third. |
John Leahy | 05 Oct 2011 5:43 a.m. PST |
I like em all. Thanks, John |
abdul666lw | 05 Oct 2011 5:53 a.m. PST |
"Lacepunk": SF set in the mid-18th C., the time of the 'Lace Wars".
'Hard SF' or 'Science Fantasy'? In this case, given that the 18th C. saw the first machine-gun, steam-powered road hauler and boat, submarine, balloons
to have them fully functional at the time of Fontenoy (1745) -with maybe clumsy, unreliable prototypes of steamtank and dirigible- would be anticipation scientifique as written by Jules Verne (who set in the late 19th C. a multi-rotor VTOL and a submarine cruising 20,000 without refueling). 'Science Fantasy'
so far I was associating it mainly with Barsoom (and its *excellent* pastiche / homage, the series of Dray Prescott on Kregen under the suns of Scorpio link ). Was it mistaking it for 'Sword and Planet'? How difficult to find a common vocabulary (re. the debates on the VSF forum about what is 'true' VSF and what is 'Steampunk').
As for 40K, I don't play it but know and appreciate the background (*NOT* the cartoonesque minis), and I enjoy 'rationalizing' it and making almost 'hard SF'. Quite easy, actually: we are 'archeologists of the future' / 'futurologues' progressively discovering new evidence as GW keeps publishing. Then we have to remember that these documents come from a scientifically regressed, extremely superstitious culture, a kind of intellectual under-Middle Ages. Thus we have to 'translate' them. For instance, that affirmation that Orks are *fungi*: all imperial sciences are under the authority of the Machine Cult, and given its contempt for 'soft machines' (biological organisms), biology is for sure the most regressed of all disciplines. Thus once some Technopriest, musing about the fact that Orks (bioengineered constructs from the Golden Age, imo) harbor a symbiotic alga, remembered that a lichen is a symbiosis of a fungus and an alga, and triumphantly, in a stroke of genius, concluded "Eureka! Ork = fungus!". Not so hard a 'rational translation', actually. Remember that 'any science advanced enough cannot be distinguished from magic', and given the abysmal level of scientific references in the 40K Imperium.. Besides, superstitious cultures are extremely graphical in their descriptions, which as such (as well as the figurines sculpted according to these descriptions) have to be taken with a *huge* grain of salt.
Zombies can well be 'SF' -the 'New Model' ones (victim of a disease carried by the Sumatran rat-monkey or whatever) *are* SF, as are vampires of the 'Matheson' model. Even 'old school' (voodoo) zombies can be 'rationalized' to SF as *living people* brainwhashed by drugs and mesmerized. . As for so-called 'Hard SF'
I know very few novels worthy of the name (Clarke's 'Rendezvous with Rama'
) and certainly not a single movie, TV series or *game*, at least when it comes to the 'visual' aspect. Why? Because all technologies evolve, if not at equal speed, at least together. And in a civilization mastering anti-grav and/or FTL travel, flying vehicles, tanks, soldier's uniform, wargear and weapon
looking like mere extrapolation of *current* ones would be totally obsolete, out-fashioned, irrelevant. So any game using (to look 'serious' / 'hard SF') models and miniatures that are simple extrapolation of current armies' most recent equipments are logically *silly*. I argued (partly for the fun of it) that in a culture of 'galactic' level, soldiers, if any, would be protected by shielding fields, so could go to battle naked (at most with a penis shaft for males, if local taboos require it) with better than a whole radar / lidar nanoarray C" multilink / tactical computer inside their head and in their earrings, and the equivalent of a planetary defense laser in that gem on their ring. In a word, that 'Barsoomian' minis would be less inappropriate to 'interstellar hard SF gaming' than any 'Colonial Marine' type! And anyway by then soldiers would also benefit of invisibility fields, so logically one cannot use miniatures, at most chips of clear plastic
:)
link To-Morrow War simply cannot claim to be 'Hard SF' if set more than 30 years (at most!) in the future. Remember how Robida, in the late 19th C., 'visualized' everyday life, and war, in the 20th C.! Anyone trying to *visually* extrapolate from modern equipment on more than a few decades will for sure be equally off the mark.
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alien BLOODY HELL surfer | 05 Oct 2011 5:54 a.m. PST |
Not much between them, will play any. Love it when people say they prefer 'hard sci-fi- as it's more realistic. I get confused how something sci-fi can be classed as realistic – if you want realism, play a moderns or historical game where it's not made up from someone's imagination. LOL. |
(I make fun of others) | 05 Oct 2011 6:08 a.m. PST |
TW is no more "hard sci-fi" than Warhammer 40k, it just has what passes for a hard-sci fi veneer because the men don't wear skull-encrusted bell-bottom armour and run around beating each other over the head with sticks. Any game that posits future warfare as "present warfare with more gizmos" is not hard sci-fi. The warfare of today would be unimaginable to men from 1710AD. With the accelerating technology that we are currently experiencing (and that is likely to only accelerate more as time goes on), warfare in 2311 will likely be even stranger and more unfamiliar to us than a predator drone strike would have been to the Duke of Marlborough. A real hard sci fi game would be infinitely more imaginative than platoons of infantry running around with tank support. |
clkeagle | 05 Oct 2011 6:26 a.m. PST |
Space Opera for me
there are more interesting characters, and you can get away with larger-than-life heroes, a very wide spread of technology, and rubber-suit aliens. For reference, my favorite sci-fi universes are the Interstellar Patrol and Dune books, along with Babylon 5, Farscape, Invid Invasion/MOSPEADA, and the classic Battlestar Galactica series. 40K from the Rogue Trader era might slip into this category, but has long crossed into sci-fantasy and is now extremely close to a pure fantasy setting. Chris K. |
skippy0001 | 05 Oct 2011 6:38 a.m. PST |
I would like to see a space race/space colonisation as envisioned in the '50's/'60's. Doesn't 'Hard Sf' always turn into 'Space Opera' anyway?It's really perspective-compare Jovian Chronicles/heavy gear and Traveller to WH40K and Fading Suns. Both empires, both baseline technologies having to 'enable' expansion, wether steeped in mysticism or science. abdul666lw is on the money here. |
Fabe Mrk 2 | 05 Oct 2011 6:57 a.m. PST |
From Wikipedia: "Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both" link How do the rest of you define "hard-Sci"? |
Jerrod | 05 Oct 2011 7:33 a.m. PST |
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ordinarybass | 05 Oct 2011 7:36 a.m. PST |
It depends for me. I see Space Opera as more of a subset of Sci-Fantasy. My initial go-to would be Sci-Fantasy. Maybe it's my 40k background, but I like to have Close combat be an important part of my sci-fi-fantasy combat. Hence I really like Warengine. Still, I see the virtue in rulesests that try to be a bit hard sci-fi such as 5150 and TW in terms of making combat a bit more realistic and emphasizing ranged combat. They aren't truely hard sci-fi, but they are as far in that direction as I want to go. |
Patrick Sexton | 05 Oct 2011 7:48 a.m. PST |
Play all three but I don't read the 40K novels. |
Broadsword | 05 Oct 2011 8:16 a.m. PST |
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John Treadaway | 05 Oct 2011 11:24 a.m. PST |
This needs a matrix rather than an 'either/or' for me to answer properly, I think. If it's a 1 to 10 list (say) with: 40k at 2 Trek at 5 Hammer's Slammers at 8 or 9 etc etc Problem is where do you put Steam Punk/1889? 0 ? -2 ? So – as I play all of that lot (except 40k) – it's hard to say. A mixture then John T |
Grand Duke Natokina | 05 Oct 2011 11:36 a.m. PST |
I prefer reality based games. I understand the technology and have experience with it. |
abdul666lw | 05 Oct 2011 12:41 p.m. PST |
'Hard SF' is an oxymoron. Because if 'hard science' there is no room for fiction. The old French name for SF was 'Anticipation Scientifique', implying departure from 'hard science'. Best approximation I know: Rendezvous with Rama: no 'what-if?' on the human side, and nothing really weird on the alien one. |
Delthos | 05 Oct 2011 1:00 p.m. PST |
All three, although Sciece Fantasy/Space Opera is what I tend to play the most. |
Space Aardvark | 05 Oct 2011 1:40 p.m. PST |
I like a mix of Space Opera and science Fantasy, but I'm against silly things like one tiny Magical figure killing an entire army, so even some of the Doctor Who things are out for me, like Rose using the time vortex to kill a Dalek fleet. I want laser swords and plasma pistols, hulking robots running amok, and steampunk skyships vs flying saucers. |
Fabe Mrk 2 | 05 Oct 2011 2:34 p.m. PST |
I disagree abdul66lw in fact what you're saying makes no sense to me. your saying just because the Science is real you can't tell a fictitious story? how does that work? |
Wellspring | 05 Oct 2011 3:04 p.m. PST |
This is a spectrum, based on how much you're comfortable departing from real science. This debate comes up once in a while on the GZG list
and I'll hear guys who insist on forces that conform to very near-modern weapons, equipment and force orgs in the name of "hard sci fi".. but then accept grav, FTL and other out-there techs. So it's really multidimensional, too. My own taste is VERY hard sci fi. I don't like grav, my game worlds don't include FTL, and if they did, they wouldn't find human-habitable worlds out there anyway. So my soldiers all have to wear space suits of some kind if they're not fighting on earth. (and, if NBCM weapons are in play, even there). No tractor beams/pressor beams. No weirdo mystery rays at all. No psi. I'm not afraid of robots doing a lot of the fighting-- even if they turn out to do most of the heavy lifting in a battle, and I'm comfortable with using non-humanoid chassis. Humans have their place
and frankly there aren't a lot of good hard sci fi military robots out there, so my forces are mostly human until someone comes out with something more interesting. Someone on TMP recommended GURPS Transhuman Space, and while that's not the ONLY future I'm happy with, it's one of the few that satisfies me. Especially since it gets the social and political part mostly right, and recognizes that warfare is both motivated and constrained by the political/economic/social considerations. I don't see the difference between Science fantasy and space opera. BOTH sacrifice realism to recast a familiar world in science fiction trappings; the only difference is in which worldview they're recreating. |
abdul666lw | 05 Oct 2011 10:13 p.m. PST |
Fabe Mrk 2: if there is any 'extrapolation', any 'what-if?' *at the scientific / technological level* it's no longer 'hard science'. In 'SF' 'Fiction' is a qualifier applying to 'Science', thus excludes 'hard science'. I'm not a medical expert, but 'House M.D.' seems to respect 'hard science'; I have at time some doubts about 'CSI' (when they seem to 'add' information when enlarging video surveillance images), but let pass: anyway neither would qualify as 'SF'. A detail often defying 'hard science' is E.T. biochemistry: as far as we know there is no reason to believe that it would be based on the same amino-acids (including their stereochemistry), nuclear acids, sugars (d-glucose
) than ours. Now, non-proteic amino-acids are poisonous, analogues of nucleic acids are powerful carcinogenic / mutagenic agents
Meaning that, not only ET 'food' would be poisonous, but (even if the atmosphere is breathable) biological micro-particles in the ET air would be highly allergenic and humans would have to wear a sealed scaphandre.. |
Angel Barracks | 06 Oct 2011 3:00 a.m. PST |
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evilleMonkeigh | 06 Oct 2011 4:53 a.m. PST |
Both. I agree with Andrew G - "The sort of thing that annoys me isn't Space Opera or "Science Fantasy" – it's when something is clearly ridiculous and yet tries to justify the ridiculousness. 40K, for instance, is nonsense. However, it's well aware it's nonsense and runs with it. Star Trek, on the other hand, has somewhat less nonsense, but tries – and usually fails – to convince me that the nonsense is actually sensible." |
Gennorm | 06 Oct 2011 4:54 a.m. PST |
When I've observed sci-fi games I've often been struck by how primitive the technology is, e.g. 28mm guys from 2500 AD firing and missing at ranges that would be considered point blank in my 1/300 Cold War games. |
Alex Reed | 06 Oct 2011 4:55 a.m. PST |
I have to say this is pretty strange conversation. My roommate told me to avoid it with some criticism about Hovercraft and Grav technologies (i.s. "Hovercraft are a proven fantasy as a Ground Combat Armored Fighting Vehicle, yet theoretically, Anti-Gravitic technologies could be possible"). Which I tend to agree with (after spending three hours doing some research, and producing some Mathematica Models). A "hovercraft" has all sorts of problems (The Roommate seems to be better at elucidating these). The only one I have investigated is that they couldn't deal with firing weapons or being hit with a weapon without losing control unless they were GIGANTIC, or, like the few Ships that use Air Cushions, they happened to be stabilized by being in contact with the ground (or water)
Which tends to negate all of those things that are supposed to be "Special" about them. Even those Caspian and Ural Sea Giants were only capable of firing weapons longitudinally to their direction of travel. If they tried to fire to the side, they would fall over, or spin out of control (Think Air-Hockey Table. An Air-Hockey Table has a puck that is a hovercraft. Notice how easily it spins all over the place when it is tapped gently). Even if the Hovercraft was pretty massive, it would still have a tendency to be bounced all over the place by its own weapon or that of a round impacting it, even if the round didn't penetrate it. BUT Anti-Grav could be produced should we both discover the force-carrier for Gravity and develop a method to control it (just like we have the ability to manipulate and control the force carrier for electro-magnetic radiation). As for FTL
Same thing. One of the Physics professors at UCLA has even calculated what it would take to warp space enough to move an object faster-than-light (relative to its origin and destination). It would still be moving slower-than-light through the space it was in, but the space itself would be moving. Now
It's a bucket-load of energy that is required (several stars worth), but it is still theoretically possible. And.. Alien biologies
I seem to recall an article in the School's Life Sciences Journal about an alternative biology being developed recently. I mean aside from the Mono Lake Arsenic Bacterium: link Again, theoretically, there are millions of different biologies that could work with various salts and sugars, producing things that are not exactly protiens as we understand them. Craig Venter, for instance, has been able to produce bacteria that themselves produce plastic, diesel fuel, and even metal lattices. This means that it would be possible for a multi-cellular life-form that had a metallic skeleton, and plastic circulatory system. |
(I make fun of others) | 06 Oct 2011 6:30 a.m. PST |
My roommate told me to avoid it with some criticism about Hovercraft and Grav technologies Oh is that what your "room mate" told you to do, cog comp aka Judas Iscariot aka Matthew Bailey? |