/tg/ - Traditional Games

>>419433

Protip. You got your knickers in a twist over a file xref data says is 6 years old. The artist is already significantly better at drawing by now.

>>419438

>The artist is already significantly better at drawing by now.

I don't know, most tumblrtards only get worse with time.

>>419200

> How much handwavium magic in the guise of science do you find acceptable in your Science Fiction RPGs?

If you need much handwavium, you're doing something wrong.

> What setting agnostic systems out there do you recommend for far future science fiction?

IDK, new Alternity? SWN? Not too generic to be useful, not too obsessed with details, not too bound to their settings. Maybe even d100, though it has its derp.

> Why is the predominant Sci-fi settings all licensed works when medieval fantasy isn't?

You are comparing apples and berries.

>>419422

> The key to good science-fiction (and I'm assuming when you say science fiction you don't mean "space opera" which is an entirely different ballgame entirely) is "what if?".

Here lies the problem: it requires thinking.

> Since this is a primer for a game, presumably, you need to start answering questions that your players give a shit about next.

Also, for details there are random generators. SWN got cool tables, tweak as needed.

>>419200

>Why is the predominant Sci-fi settings all licensed works when medieval fantasy isn't?

I'm speaking largely about aesthetics here:

There's no way to say this without sounding like some kind of genre-elitist, but I think it comes down to the fact that creating sci-fi, even the very soft variety of sci-fi, tends to be a more work than fantasy. I think it's because sci-fi, broadly speaking, looks forward while fantasy generally looks back. Sci-fi requires speculation, while fantasy usually has some historical grounding.

If I'm designing a set of armor for a pseudo-medieval fantasy setting, I can look to real word historical examples of personal armor for inspiration. The materials are probably limited to cloths, metals, and hides, again things that can be heavily referenced from the real world and history. But a suit of space-future personal armor? There are no extant examples of what that really looks like. Does it have power-assist? If so, what kind of mechanism provides the power? Does it use soft, flexible armor? Rigid plates? Both? Does it project a force-field for extra protection? Does it contain computer systems to aid the wearer? If so, how much and in what ways?

Even soft sci-fi, speculating about technologies that perhaps can't exist generally still tries to ground those technologies is some kind of internally consistent framework. Broadly speaking, sci-fi just tends to require more work from the author.

Not really sure where I was going with this. I feel like I'm just rambling.

>>419433

>>419438

Yeah, I thought it would be easier to feign inexperience than to explain that I grabbed an old drawing that i did't take a close look at from my scifi folder when making the post. I also really didn't expect you to get so pissy about the art as to do a redraw.

>>419433

While your facial structure is better than what I can probably even do now, you should really working on your posing. There is no curve to your line of action. It's exceedingly stiff.

>>419444

>trips.

Must be true right.

>>419459

This bugs me a lot, personally, because my autism is a lot more sensitive for fantasy works than sci-fi. Sci-fi I can forgive all sorts of handwaving and design shortcomings as long as there's nothing glaring; it's a lot more open-ended. But fantasy is generally confined to one world or even just one region, so I expect more effort put into accurate worldbuilding. It's also easy to be more vague with things like industrial capability, fleet sizes, whatever, it a sci-fi setting, especially when dealing with vaguely sized interstellar empires. But in a fantasy setting, mistakes of scale or manpower or whatever are a lot easier to spot.

It's doubly aggravating because fantasy, despite being much more sensitive to the damage incurred by bad worldbuilding, often seems to have lazier worldbuilding than sci-fi.

>>419466

The audience science fiction attracts are also the same people who would not hesitate to voice their complaints about improbable math, usually because they get interested and actually study those subjects. Fantasy on the other hand encourages looking into myths, folklore, and history.

>>419484

Did you even read the post? Or are you going into "pretend I'm not me but I need to go into full damage control" mode?

>>419511

I get it. You're mad you wasted a few hours on an unnecessary redraw of a very old picture. You don't need to be coming back to the thread. You'll feel better in life if you let this mistake go.

Part of my issue is that anything I think of as "properly alien", probably wouldn't work well for gaming. My dislike for Earthlike aliens goes beyond rubber-foreheads. I don't like that they have eyes. I don't like that they tend towards verbal language. I don't like that a human can just learn to speak Jitarian or whatever. If you can justify their origin as somehow linked to life on Earth, then it's fine, but then at that point it is also no longer truly alien. We want something truly alien, right?

But we're talking about creatures that evolved on different planets. It took life on Earth billions of years to even become multicellular. At that point, we still hadn't developed our basic senses. So if we were to find life elsewhere, what's to say that it would see with eyes, smell with noses, communicate with sounds, etc? On a completely different evolutionary path, isn't it more likely their senses would be develop in completely different ways, and likewise their systems of communication as well?

That said, once your RP starts involving needing to decipher the languages of lifeforms who communicate with something like rapidly-shifting odors, or by strobing lights in colors outside of our visual spectrum, any manner of diplomacy or social navigation just becomes a headache.

Better question: What counts as handwavium?

Because I'd class something like 98% of the depictions of nanotechnology (both dry and biological) as pretty much on par with Jedia mind tricks and shit is everyhwere even in supposedly "hard" sci-fi.

>>419518

>what's to say that it would see with eyes

>On a completely different evolutionary path, isn't it more likely their senses would be develop in completely different ways

Unless they live in a lightless environment, no, it's not more likely. It's possible that they could develop without sight, if there is never a mutation that leads to photosensitivity, but it's much more likely that at some point a mutation will lead to photosensitivity, which is very useful and advantageous, which will lead to proliferation of specimens with more pronounced (and thus, effective) photosensitivity, which will continually refine and improve through the process of natural selection until you have something that can be reasonably described as an eye.

While it's true that rubber-forehead aliens are a pretty retarded idea, so is the notion that evolution will just go out the fucking window for aliens and they'll magically not evolve traits that are reactions to environmental factors which exist both on Earth and on most theoretical places life could evolve (like light), because HURRR ALIEN MUST HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN COMMON WITH OTHER FORMS OF LIFE HURPDEDURP WHATS CONVERGENT EVOLUTION?????

>>419520

I would think from the final paragraph, as well as the framing of senses "developing in different ways" as opposed to the range of senses themselves being entirely distinct, the implication was clearly less "aliens wouldn't have photosensitivity" and more "alien photosensitivity would work differently from ours". For example: if an alien perceives light via photons reflecting off of it's entire outer layer, rather than through a particular organ located on a stalk or in a socket, would you really say it's "covered in an eye, one big form-fitting eye that encompasses the surface of its body"? Or would you say that it's sense of photosensitivity is something ultimately different from what we regard as "sight"?

Applying this reasoning to other senses that may develop in accordance to environmental stimuli (tactile, temperature, auditory, etc.), as well as the varying importance of each according to the environment and how life evolves within it, you can wind up with not just different senses around the same stimuli we're familiar with but different degrees of importance each has to the survival of these lifeforms.

The degrees of importance each sense has is extremely relevant, as this would have a massive impact on how aliens interact and communicate, and create another layer of disconnect between those of other origins. We earthlings don't perceive light all around us, but we hear sound all around us. Both senses are much more prominent to us than smell. It stands to reason that we would mostly communicate vocally, but also incorporate some visual cues and gestures, while odor and flavor are not so quantified in language. For alien life, the case might be different.

>>419521

>Or would you say that it's sense of photosensitivity is something ultimately different from what we regard as "sight"?

Is it able to use the information to determine data other than the light itself? Then it's sight. Is it merely detecting the presence or absence of light? Not sight. And if it's using the information to determine data, this organ is going to be more complex, delicate, and sensitive than otherwise, meaning it probably won't cover its entire outer body but be constrained to one or more small and possibly more protected organs - aka, eyes.

>>419521

Sight is essentially processing light as a form of sensing your environment, light even has multiple specific ways you can perceive it which leads to significantly different abilities in the same category of general sensory organs. To be truly alien without light but somehow having the same capabilities would be going into the realm of the theoretical by treating non-physical phenomenon as if it were real like the usual alien made of living energy.

>>419520

>>419518

>>419521

There's a really easy explanation for aliens all being bipeds with certain characteristics being similar: spiral power, my guys.

>>419546

Spiral power is basically space magic. It's simpler to just make bipeds common because inferior forms that will still work decently enough if your intelligence is high breeds more sapient species. Such forms for land based organisms are very rigid since you're incapable of full 3D movement unlike being underwater.

>>419534

And you called out commends from at at least two different people in your shit flinging too. What's your point?

>>419558

take this to /loomis/ or something, you're being off topic

>>419559

I'm not the one who did a redraw on an old ass pick then got pissy when they were told it was a redraw of an old ass pic.

>>419539

>Currently using it to do a cyber punk/ eldrich horror space opera.

Polychrome + Codex of teh Black Sun?

FTL travel isn't possible. Dark Matter is a made up term, Magic Matter would be more accurate as it's completely made up. "Muh Alcubierre drive". Here's my FTL drive; 1 bananna, a picture of Jane Fonda and 32 gallons of Dark Matter 2; Dark Matter 2 has, when combined with the above mentioned ingredients, all the properties needed to make FTL travel possible. FTL travel isn't possible. Space is not an ocean, planets are not islands. I've literally met a couple of NASA interns who worked themselves up into a weird autistic crying fit when I tried to drive this simple concept through their skulls. FTL travel is not possible.

>>419734

FTL travel is not possible from our understanding. No amount of space bending will work because differences in time frames will cause paradoxes, which destroys the causality principle, which is a big no-no. That said, the Halo universe of all things has a verosimile excuse for these things (the universe does let you go FTL by entering hyperspace, but throws you out of hyperspace just before you do something causality-breaking dumb, because the universe seems to be somewhat intelligent)

I'm in a game that could be described as a space opera but the main characters are the villains and the villain is also the villain.

How about some cyberpunk?

>>421556

What about it? It's more of a subgenre of sci-fi, but thematically distinct enough to warrant being its own thing.

>>421556

This anon is correct >>421590. Cyberpunk doesn't even need to be much more scifi than the real world anymore. As long as it has the dirty street level feel of an urban sprawl while also having high tech aesthetics, it's close enough that all by the most ass-blasted of purists will call it cyberpunk.

>>421556

Cyberpunk? Too close to reality to be interpreted as having that fantastic feeling space opera gives. The exception to this is "post" cyberpunk since that usually ends warping into itself and becoming fantastic again.

>>419200

Do you have the semi-related image where Reuenthal goes 'I took her with my authority and by violence'?

The problem is that soft sci-fi just feels like shitty writing. This is actually why I could never get into star-trek "Oh thank God we used our therma-wave initiator to agitate the Altalon's cyber micro-biome, otherwise we would all have died!"

So that leaves hard fiction, which is hard haha to write well.

My basic rule of thumb is "If you invent a new tech or material, you damn well better explore all possible effects it will have on civilization"

If you create something that can exploratory an object faster than light, then guess what? You've just made all nukes obsolete and and can blow up any planet with an iron chunk the size of your desk. Also you still couldn't travel between stars because when your ship hits a single hydrogen atom at a billion miles per hour everyone is going to fucking explode.

Of course you could wave that away with "it's not FTL, it's wormholes." but THEN you have to think to place restrictions on wormholes because there's nothing to stop people from just teleporting a nuke into the planet's core and then everyone with enough money to buy a ship just became capable of killing trillions of people.

See the problem?

If you don't think you're capable of thinking of every scenario in which your murder hobos might want to turn your tech into a nuke, then I would suggest you veer away from sci-fi and stick with fantasy.

If you are DEAD SET on sci-fi however I would suggest you watch/listen to these guys' "rogue star" series.

Be warned, there is a healthy dose of autism

https://www.youtube (DOT) com/watch?v=-LOTyOCa9lM&list=PLxfMCMdaVAV2KvDeEeoqPydVbbCfNPeEl&index=2

>>421629

I'm not saying you're wrong, or even disagreeing with you, but what you're talking about is good, thorough worldbuilding, not necessarily just a matter of good, hard sci-fi. Fantasy gets away with far worse handwaving than sci-fi when every single magical thing introduced could potentially break the setting into dusty little pieces.

>>421629

>If you create something that can exploratory an object faster than light, then guess what?

I would guess that you failed out of high school English. What the fuck does "exploratory an object" mean?

>>421676

auto-correct of "accelerate an object" I was tired and didn't bother to double-check my shit.

>>421665

Yes, but fantasy has the benefit of being entrenched enough that people often don't second guess these things. People are much more willing to accept hand-waving when it comes to magic as apposed to sci-fi.

That being said, yes, I suppose you're right and that my major concern with a sci-fi settings is a lack of forethought into world building and the MacGuffins used.

>>421683

>people don't second guess these things

Video games and newer tabletop games do it that way. Otherwise I don't see how you can come to this conclusion when all the good literature does exactly as what you claim it doesn't. It's even expected in parody and satire.

>>421693

Except that it does? What DnD setting are you talking about exactly? There is even a setting, Eberron, that does exactly that specifically.

>>421694

Eberron is a pretty wild hodge podge of rule of cool shit and less concern for exploring what magic would do when taken to its logical conclusion. There's definitely a lot of stuff that uses magic more commonly, but it's more like magic as a power source and less exploring what magical resurrection and healing would do to a society, or how architecture, commerce, and civilization would change with even the most basic cantrips available. Faerun, Golarion, and all the rest of the cliche medieval settings are even worse.

>>421697

Greyhawk is the setting where you throw your garbage into a black pudding disguised as a trashcan, skeletons are washing machines, and actual cultures are explained and why. But ultimately I think you miss the point, the setting is merely to give you the groundwork for your own ideas. Filling in all those details takes away from the GM's agency and is the biggest sticking point of Forgotten Realms second only to the fetish insertions.

>>419200

>How much handwavium magic in the guise of science do you find acceptable in your Science Fiction RPGs?

I absolutely fucking hate Bioware/Blizzard style "the epic 100 hour coupon hunt for the 7 magic McGuffins, because you're the prophesised chosen one" non-writing and non-worldbuilding and how those companies specifically have helped wormed all that into science fiction, if that counts.

Now I remember why this board died.

You people are pathetic. Maybe we should call this the Special Needs Children Daycare Cage Fight general.

>>425879

Not because of Trekkie derp. There wasn't much of that.

>>419200

>How much handwavium magic in the guise of science do you find acceptable in your Science Fiction RPGs?

I prefer the Wh40k route where everything's handwavium. Space fantasy >>>>>> science fiction. Science is for nerds and extremely boring. What could be interesting would be a world that uses IRL magic systems like Enochian to attain sci-fi effects, not written as a parody, but a serious setting.

What's the difference? IRL magic systems start with a holistic explanation for everything, then get into details from there. Science starts with details of boring shit, then moves to just a slight bit more interesting stuff, then finally peters out as everyone shrugs their shoulders and goes "I dunno, maybe quantum particles or some shit"