Too much Science?
- Thread starter -Daniel-
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GamerDude
Cosmic Mongoose
Back on topic, I agree. Imagine being in a game with a computer software engineer, an astrophysicist, an MD, a member of any service's Special Forces, and a top fighter pilot.dafrca said:
The MD argues about how that type of weapon/damage couldn't possibly cause the amount of damage described in the system.
The pilot argues that the support air-raft would never have flown into rescue everyone driving INTO the sun (instead of out of it to hide its presence)
The Special Forces argues that with a K-Bar combat knife you would never attempt to do a flip up from prone to standing as the start of an upward cut aimed at the third intercostal space.
The astrophysicist argues that with the planet's size, distance from the sun and time of year that it is more realistic for it to have a gravity of 1.1 g instead of 1g, thus causing everyone to tire 5% faster than norm and the air raft to use 7% more power to stay aloft.
The software engineer argues how a truly self-aware AI installed into an air-raft wouldn't need the pilot and would accurately predict its best approach into the combat.
WHO CARES if the game is fun for everyone?
I have enjoyed
-Daniel-
Emperor Mongoose
rust said:dafrca said:
I would really be interested in this. Perhaps you could tell us ?
Well, most of it I have said in my other post, but I think it comes down to a few key things for me. I hope these make sense:
1) Complexity and playability. I do not want to have to “fight” a complex system to be able to have fun. The game is not my job, it is my entertainment. A system can be simple for me to use and still be based in reality (for the most part) and not violate known science (for the most part). But if the rules are too much of the focus then they mess up the game. This is where the comment about bad designed systems comes from. If the players and the GM can not get lost to a degree in the story because the system keeps stepping in, then it failed regardless of the basis of its science.
2) Cinematic vs. Realistic. I think I want a more realistic feeling game, but I do not want it so realistic that the character’s can not do the heroic once in a while. This part has little to do with science, but was being folded into my overall thinking. This thread helped me pull it back out of the Science part of my thoughts.
3) Although I like a real science basis of my games, or at least as far as real science can go, I do not want to have to deal with the science in a direct way. The example I gave about EDG’s system. I like that it is based in reality and real science. I just want to science to fade to the background and allow the game to come forward. I want science to be like the foundation, the rule system to be like the load bearing walls, and the game setting to be what I see when I walk into the house.
4) Science can take me most of the way, but some times I have to allow the “Fiction” to carry me the rest of the way. Science, extrapolated out, combined with some fictional elements, can offer me a wonderful game. Sometimes it is OK for me to say “I don’t know how it works, but it does.” Sometimes a SciFi setting needs its own version of “Magic”.
This is what I have gotten from this thread so far. (Well that and the fact that as gamers we are a passionate lot. :wink: )
Hope that answered your question.
Daniel
dafca wrote:
"4) Science can take me most of the way, but some times I have to allow the “Fiction” to carry me the rest of the way. Science, extrapolated out, combined with some fictional elements, can offer me a wonderful game. Sometimes it is OK for me to say “I don’t know how it works, but it does.” Sometimes a SciFi setting needs its own version of “Magic”. "
Hasn't it been stated that science to a low tech culture is "Magic" to them. Considering that we would be tech 7.5, then tech level C would truly be like to magic to us. We would probably not understand much of the technology.
Just a thought. MGT is Great!!!!
"4) Science can take me most of the way, but some times I have to allow the “Fiction” to carry me the rest of the way. Science, extrapolated out, combined with some fictional elements, can offer me a wonderful game. Sometimes it is OK for me to say “I don’t know how it works, but it does.” Sometimes a SciFi setting needs its own version of “Magic”. "
Hasn't it been stated that science to a low tech culture is "Magic" to them. Considering that we would be tech 7.5, then tech level C would truly be like to magic to us. We would probably not understand much of the technology.
Just a thought. MGT is Great!!!!
dafrca said:
There's a fine line between "Science Fiction" and "Science Fantasy" though. In the former the emphasis is still on the extrapolation of the science and the realism factor is still quite high. In the latter, realism tends to go out of the window and you have people waving around energy swords or killing people with their minds on jungle/lava/desert/ice planets or whatever. The difference really I think is that in Science Fiction things tend to be presented more realistically and rationally, but in Science Fantasy it's all just basically "magic" as you say.
The problem with Traveller is that it could never decide which one of those it was. It's a very schizophrenic game - in some areas it's mostly space fantasy, and in others it's a lot harder SF in its feel. Which is probably why this subject keeps coming up because some people were attracted by the Sci-fi elements and some were attracted by the Sci-fantasy elements.
dafrca said:
Yes, at least for me they make a lot of sense.
As for 4) and the "magic", as long as it is not in direct contradiction to
what one could call a "basic scientific common sense"" (e.g. a starship
landing "on the surface of the sun") and therefore is likely to ruin the
suspension of disbelief, it is quite welcome to me.
ParanoidGamer said:
I have been in games with a number of experts of various fields around
the table.
All of them have agreed to limit their "professional input" to the develop-
ment and improvement of the setting, and there it was invaluable and
most welcome, but to keep it out of the gaming sessions themselves.
This has always worked fine, since they wanted to have fun, not debates.
Besides, otherwise I would not have played with them.
-Daniel-
Emperor Mongoose
Let me clarify my #4 a little bit. Ok, I agree there are degrees of what I was calling the magic of SciFi. I was not talking about the Flash Gordon, walking on the outside of a space ship without a helmet kind of stuff. I do see EDG’s extreme of Science Fantasy and that is not what I was talking about.
Let me use an example, although it maybe a bad one. In the game, let's say, I want there to be some kind of Cybernetics. So I, the game designer, look at where things are today. I look at the work Dean L. Kamen is doing today for example. He and his company has developed an arm that is as light as a real arm, an arm that can pick up a grape without smashing it, an arm that has the strength of the original, and with some training is easy to control. That is today. Now I do the extrapolation and say that in the future the arm is no longer mounted on my shoulder in a brace, but attached in the same way a real arm is. Further I extrapolate it is covered in a material that simulates skin and provides some tactile feedback to the brain (starting to enter area I do not have specific science to base it on), and after enough years passing I extrapolate the arm is no longer identifiable by visual means as a replacement. Where am I? I am at the “Luke Skywalker’s hand” in Star Wars. It is mechanical, but it is not the odd Cyberpunk silver club like arm with blades either. The science told me where it might go, but in the end I added a small amount of fictional magic to finish the path.
As for walking on the sun, yes I should not be able to land and walk around, but might I suggest a fun book to read is Sundiver by David Brin where a SciFi story takes into the Sun for small amounts of time.
Anyway, bottom line is, I was not thinking the extreem edges of Fantasy when I used the word “Magic” so much as realizing there is a point where I can not explain, nor do I need to, 100% of where my extrapolation might take me. Thus sometimes, for the sake of the game/story/setting I just accept some things are possible.
Daniel
Let me use an example, although it maybe a bad one. In the game, let's say, I want there to be some kind of Cybernetics. So I, the game designer, look at where things are today. I look at the work Dean L. Kamen is doing today for example. He and his company has developed an arm that is as light as a real arm, an arm that can pick up a grape without smashing it, an arm that has the strength of the original, and with some training is easy to control. That is today. Now I do the extrapolation and say that in the future the arm is no longer mounted on my shoulder in a brace, but attached in the same way a real arm is. Further I extrapolate it is covered in a material that simulates skin and provides some tactile feedback to the brain (starting to enter area I do not have specific science to base it on), and after enough years passing I extrapolate the arm is no longer identifiable by visual means as a replacement. Where am I? I am at the “Luke Skywalker’s hand” in Star Wars. It is mechanical, but it is not the odd Cyberpunk silver club like arm with blades either. The science told me where it might go, but in the end I added a small amount of fictional magic to finish the path.
As for walking on the sun, yes I should not be able to land and walk around, but might I suggest a fun book to read is Sundiver by David Brin where a SciFi story takes into the Sun for small amounts of time.
Anyway, bottom line is, I was not thinking the extreem edges of Fantasy when I used the word “Magic” so much as realizing there is a point where I can not explain, nor do I need to, 100% of where my extrapolation might take me. Thus sometimes, for the sake of the game/story/setting I just accept some things are possible.
Daniel
-Daniel-
Emperor Mongoose
I think here you are touching on believability and that is needed regardless of the genre we are discussing. SciFi, Fantasy, modern cops, westerns, or what ever. If they allow things that seem to violate the parameters set-up in the setting, then we can not enjoy the story/game/movie. Even in a true fantasy setting “It’s Magic” as a reason starts to wear thin if it keeps violating the world I have been asked to accept. Think of the “Lord of the Rings” for example. Even though the story is filled with “magic” the consistency and therefore believability allow us to accept Orcs, Magic Rings, Wizards, and Hobbits.rust said:
To bring it back to Traveller, I can accept the idea of Vargr and their whole “Ancients created them” story in Traveller. But if every time I turned around the Ancients showed up and did something cool, I would no longer be interested. Why, because that would violate the believability of the setting. The Ancients have been presented as something that is almost never around and their stuff is almost never found etc.
Um, I feel like I am rambling so I will stop here for now.
But I will end by saying I agree, what ever I come up with has to at least make sense based on the overall setting and thus allow it to pass the “common sense” test.Daniel
dafrca said:
Yep, if this is what you mean by "magic", I am of course using it all the
time, with lightweight diving hardsuits for a depth of up to 900 m thanks
to futuristic ("magic") new materials, and all that.
By the way, I love David Brin's books, with "Startide Rising" being my
personal favourite one.
dafrca said:
Stuff that isn't reasonable given current physics:
• Lasers hitting for significant* damage at ranges of over a light-second.
• Man-portable fusion guns**
• gravity manipulation***
These three provide a huge lump of "fantasy" to traveller. The lasers were given ranges well before the move to science-based limits in SFRPG's. The Fusion Guns are a logical extrapolation for big guns, but I'm not trusting my testes to be under a meter from a fusion reaction with almost no shielding. Gravity Manipulation is essential to a shirt-sleeve environment for civilian traffic, and to cheapening travel to space sufficiently to make space commerce worthwhile.
Likewise, however, are the "The theories say it's possible, but we have no way of testing those particular theories now"...
• Alcubierre's Warp Drive theory.
• Hyperspace ties to string theory.
And then, there is the "Not thought through enough" issues...
• Like gravitic drives being able to violate thermodynamics and relativity, and the resultant ability to actually carry enough fuel to accelerate to 0.99C. (355 days at 1G, ignoring dilation.)
• MWM & DGP's jump grids, and them not being added to the damage tables.
• The lack of difference in medium between fighters and ships, which should render fighters roughly irrelevant, save for surface area.
And then, there is the stuff that makes science such a dirty word in running traveller:
• Heat loss. Or more correctly, the fact that by thermodynamic laws & theories, Ships should be mostly radiator given the energies involved in their operations.
• Surface Area. Which becomes a precious commodity given the issue of heat loss, because, when you account for radiators, you have to also add surface area as a design stage...
• playability. FF&S was, for most, beyond the line of playability. The resultant designs were beyond the line only for a small few, but getting the designs was a tedious and onerous task. GURPS Vehicles runs hard on the same line. So does CORPS VDS. Realism and Playability do butt heads in design sequences.**** And, as with T4, the frequent attempts to streamline a detailed system either reduce the realism or result in significantly substandard designs. †
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
*sufficient to result in cessation of some function
** more due to radiation issues
*** Gravity manipulation is also a standard trope of science fiction, despite there being no viable theoretical basis for it. Yet.
**** As a general rule, the problems with all the design systems is the levels of detail being high, and having used all the systems mentioned, the issue compounds as all three do motorcycles to SDF1 sized craft in one design system.
† Design a civilian TL9 J1, 1G, 3x Comp 1 freighter under SSDS, QSDS, and FF&S2, and you get three different sized holds. Mostly due to rounding issues.
GamerDude
Cosmic Mongoose
I applaud that kind of intelligent handling of "real world meets RPG system".rust said:
This past weekend I played in a session of Twilight 2000 with a great bunch of people... but two of them just go way over the top with the 'military speak'. Out of seven players only those two and myself had any military experiance, so I spent much of the game translating from military to English...
Example:
GM: So you want to fire a TOW at them...
PLAYER 1: "What's a 'TOE MISSILE'?"
PLAYER 2 (military background) "T-O-W Missile. It's a Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided" {{follow with lots fo milspeak technobabel}}
PLAYER 1: {{looks very confused}}
ME: {Interrupting PLAYER 2}} It's a missile with a camera in the tip allowing him to steer it by a really long wire running from it to the tank.
PLAYER 1: OH! ok, continue...
So, we had two very well meaning players with lots of real world knowledge who just didn't think to ratchet it down a notch....
Thankfully, they understood every time something was translated and didn't get upset.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
ParanoidGamer said:
It's an endemic problem in our games...about half of us come from serious gaming and military history backgrounds, so we do tend to go off kilter a bit. Our resident new younger RPG-only gamer is very tolerant, and asks things like - "big rocket shooty thing, right ? Make tank go boom ?"
I get the same from my players when I go into too much biological detail.
'Where on the 1-10 scale of ikky is this', or 'So after all that am I living dead or in between' and 'So - squishy, right?' and similar are the sort of responses. All that work and planning and detail wasted *sigh* The life of the GM
'Where on the 1-10 scale of ikky is this', or 'So after all that am I living dead or in between' and 'So - squishy, right?' and similar are the sort of responses. All that work and planning and detail wasted *sigh* The life of the GM
If you've got a bunch of 'expert' players then really the best thing to do is ask them what they're expecting before the game. If they can all suspend their disbelief and accept that the GM doesn't know as much as their subjects then things will probably work out.
However, if they're going to keep interjecting with corrections all the time during the game then it's probably not going to be a fun game for anyone because they'll be frustrated that the GM keeps 'getting it wrong' and the GM will be annoyed at being interrupted all the time. It's bad enough when that happens with ordinary rules lawyers after all...
Again though I think that is more to do with the 'social contract' around the table than anything in the games themselves.
However, if they're going to keep interjecting with corrections all the time during the game then it's probably not going to be a fun game for anyone because they'll be frustrated that the GM keeps 'getting it wrong' and the GM will be annoyed at being interrupted all the time. It's bad enough when that happens with ordinary rules lawyers after all...
Again though I think that is more to do with the 'social contract' around the table than anything in the games themselves.
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