ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
Just say all fiction is fantasy.
What are the elements of a SF story?
- Thread starter Lemnoc
- Start date
Scifi literally is fantasy, but it can be planetary romance, speculative fiction and creative fiction literarily, in which, depending on the writer, will stand side by side with fantasy genres such as sword and sorcery or heroic fantasy; confused yet?
Try the definition from wiki:
Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a wide range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it", a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography: you don't know what it is, but you know it when you see it. Vladimir Nabokov argued that if we were rigorous with our definitions, Shakespeare's play The Tempest would have to be termed science fiction.
According to science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method." Rod Serling's definition is "fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible." Lester del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado—or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is", and that the reason for there not being a "full satisfactory definition" is that "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction."
Take your pick. :wink:
Try the definition from wiki:
Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a wide range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it", a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography: you don't know what it is, but you know it when you see it. Vladimir Nabokov argued that if we were rigorous with our definitions, Shakespeare's play The Tempest would have to be termed science fiction.
According to science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, "a handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method." Rod Serling's definition is "fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible." Lester del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado—or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is", and that the reason for there not being a "full satisfactory definition" is that "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction."
Take your pick. :wink:
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
I don't trust Wiki since stuff I make up gets copied/pasted on there as fact.
In the old days, science fiction stories had to have real science in them to be considered hard sci-fi. But the George Lucas generation has muddied what sci-fi is. Most nerds don't actually like or even understand science.
In the old days, science fiction stories had to have real science in them to be considered hard sci-fi. But the George Lucas generation has muddied what sci-fi is. Most nerds don't actually like or even understand science.
There has never been a solid definition of scifi, one reason writers were reclassified as speculative fiction was to legitimize them as scifi is often not considered legitimate literature. The term hard scifi was coined by Asimov to say the point of the story was science, which Asimov's stories are often not very scientific...
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
True. Not every character's step was a sci-fi one. Mostly a lot of mundane steps with an occasional sprinkling of sci-fi world background. Most writers/readers today try to avoid describing world backgrounds. It's all about the anime boobs and nostrilless noses now.
Lord High Munchkin
Mongoose
I think everyone would agree that all fiction is technically fantasy... using lower case "f".
The question is whether there has to be any actual science in a story in order to make it "sci-fi"? Or is setting enough?
I imagine opinions will differ wildly (it always has).
The question is whether there has to be any actual science in a story in order to make it "sci-fi"? Or is setting enough?
I imagine opinions will differ wildly (it always has).
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
-Mark Twain
In other words, fiction has to be believable, reality doesn't; science fiction really defies the whole paradigm. I like what PKD said about writing his short stories: "The idea is the hero".
That said, I love scifi, I found an old bookstore with and entire basement of mouldering old scifi books, great place to pick up something like Ellison's All the Sounds of Fear and kill a summer afternoon at a nearby cafe.
-Mark Twain
In other words, fiction has to be believable, reality doesn't; science fiction really defies the whole paradigm. I like what PKD said about writing his short stories: "The idea is the hero".
That said, I love scifi, I found an old bookstore with and entire basement of mouldering old scifi books, great place to pick up something like Ellison's All the Sounds of Fear and kill a summer afternoon at a nearby cafe.
Lemnoc said:
In gaming Science Fiction is not normally a genre, it's a setting. Genre is war stories, romances, police procedurals, heist capers, magical fantasies etc and you can do all of those in science fiction settings.
To be science fiction as a genre, rather than a setting, you really need to pose questions that just wouldn't happen outside science fiction. E.g. an AI has forked itself five times to go off and do five jobs, and now one shard them doesn't want to merge back into the original, but if it doesn't thousands will perish, are you going to help its bid for self determination?
I'm generally up for a spy/heist adventure in any setting. It doesn't really matter if you (or I) call it "science fiction", whatever that means. But if you really want to engage my brain, rather than create a fun few hours, you need to present me with some problem that people don't face today.
[Of the actual products on the market, I think "Shock: Social Science Fiction" is the only thing specifically designed to do sci-fi as a genre rather than setting.]
Lemnoc said:
Sci-fi in a RPG is more about attitude of the GM and players than any specific thing. In this case I'm using sci-fi in the most broad sense imaginable; including things space opera things and so on. As for attributes, I think it's a grab-bag of things. If you put two "sci-fi" campaigns side by side they can literally have no genre points in common, but still could be both sci-fi.
And I disagree that magic is a no-no. You can have things that are magic or essentially magic, but it's how it is presented that makes the difference.
I think the central tenet (for me) of what sci-fi is that it has to have a scientific and technological bent that underlies it, probably a society of it. Technology-wise society should be more advanced than ours today. This society does not need to still be extant in the time of the game: perhaps there was once a society or nation like that which once existed, but it fell for whatever reason. The reason doesn't need to be known to the players.
Science I think should be a large part of game as well. I don't mean that the players need to be scientists or that dragons can't exist because the body mass to wingspan ratio could not possibly allow them to fly. Instead I mean that rational, scientific approaches are a major factor as opposed to mysticism or supersition. Asking "why" does not lead to brick walls of arbitrary declarations by supernatural beings. Strange and inexplicable things may occur in a sci-fi game, things that the players will never be able to explain, but as a background "feel" to the game, the players should feel that someone, somewhere could explain it given time and the tools. For instance, in a fantasy game, things that occur might be attributed to the whim of gods, and that's that. In a sci-fi game, something similar might happen but the explanation would have a more rational gloss on it, like "we think it's the work of intelligence of some sort that doesn't interact with reality in the same way we do. We're in the process of trying to communicate them and find out more." A very interesting game could be made of a players who live in "fantasy" world but instead of just accepting things as they are (which is a very fantasy mindset), a sci-fi game would be about trying to figure why things the way they are.
I think he means not directly. A lot of books don't use it per se, but most use 'real mythology' (yes, I know that's a stupid phrase!) as a toolbox to plagiarise.
Granted they change the names and put in far too many syllables and apostrophes because they think it makes them somehow 'more fantasy'. It's one of the things I like about the Game of Thrones - at least until the random dragons come into it, it's just as grounded as...say... the Arthur or Alfred series by Bernard Cornwell.
Seconded. You can be set in the future and be just as fantastic, see previous post.
A friend of mine has a way to sift out generic fantasy stories. Be they 40k or Allansia, the plot usually boils down to the unsupported "a wizard did it. Stop asking."
The key thing with fantastic settings on the 'sci-fi' front is that you're putting individuals (real - PCs - or imagined) into a setting and going...."right....so...what happens?".
Fantasy novels tend to be 'look at me, I'm awsome'.
A good comparison - both in a 40k setting - are the two RPG settings Dark Heresy and Deathwatch.
I accept Dark Heresy as more sci-fi ish, because you're dealing with normal people. A big part of it is attempting to lay out a universe with worlds, cultures and peoples who exist outside that 6' by 4' rectangle that GW makes its money from, and to consider how crime, punishment and investigation would work in a reality with posession and telepaths, aliens and teleporters and more omnipotent factions than you can shake a pointy stick at, all of whom are conspiring against at least one of the others at any given time.
Deathwatch, by comparison, is killing things with big numbers because space marines are awesome.
Very helpful thread. In particular, I found this comment helpful:
All of it; and I don't just mean the parts I flagged.
I'm running a 2300AD campaign, and as many of you know it is pretty gritty, lo-tech, and laden with quirky (but fun) 19th Century geopolitix. In addition, I'm running a campaign around the Republic of Texas, and that calls for ten gallons and six shooters, etc. And the scenario I'm thinking of involves a colony border dispute with Mexico. And this—fun as it is—all gets a little too too too too retro, and needs to be pumped up, back into playable, enjoyable SF.
So I've decided, based on thoughts here, some of the drugs the Mexican cartel is running can turn the DNAMs into free radicals, so to speak. And that unturned all kinds of interesting SF tropes.
So, thanks all, for jumpstarting my brain cells. And, thanks, particularly Epicenter for reminding me that science and science mystery play a big role.
Epicenter said:
All of it; and I don't just mean the parts I flagged.
I'm running a 2300AD campaign, and as many of you know it is pretty gritty, lo-tech, and laden with quirky (but fun) 19th Century geopolitix. In addition, I'm running a campaign around the Republic of Texas, and that calls for ten gallons and six shooters, etc. And the scenario I'm thinking of involves a colony border dispute with Mexico. And this—fun as it is—all gets a little too too too too retro, and needs to be pumped up, back into playable, enjoyable SF.
So I've decided, based on thoughts here, some of the drugs the Mexican cartel is running can turn the DNAMs into free radicals, so to speak. And that unturned all kinds of interesting SF tropes.
So, thanks all, for jumpstarting my brain cells. And, thanks, particularly Epicenter for reminding me that science and science mystery play a big role.
Well My local public library has all Science Fiction and Fantasy in a section called Science Fiction.... If that helps... 
And it is all classed under Fiction in either the Dewey Decimal system or the Library of Congress...
Science fiction has Guns and Fantasy has metal penises.... Or that is how I have described at least once (it was a discussion in a Folklore and Mythology class). But in the end specific labels of Genre fiction are just that.
But the question is what makes it Science Fiction, well Consistent Rules about how things work, from a plausible root in known science fact. The best SF knows where it breaks from what is known to be plausible and postulates beyond that. And pretty much the rest of y'all are right and wrong to varying degrees, and that is my opinion which is my right as a fan...
The best Science Fiction explains the divergence point once and then respects the reader enough to remember that while the characters do their thing. The best stories are consistent to themselves with good characterization, a good SF or Fantasy Story should be a good story even if you remove the fantastic elements.
And it is all classed under Fiction in either the Dewey Decimal system or the Library of Congress...
Science fiction has Guns and Fantasy has metal penises.... Or that is how I have described at least once (it was a discussion in a Folklore and Mythology class). But in the end specific labels of Genre fiction are just that.
But the question is what makes it Science Fiction, well Consistent Rules about how things work, from a plausible root in known science fact. The best SF knows where it breaks from what is known to be plausible and postulates beyond that. And pretty much the rest of y'all are right and wrong to varying degrees, and that is my opinion which is my right as a fan...
The best Science Fiction explains the divergence point once and then respects the reader enough to remember that while the characters do their thing. The best stories are consistent to themselves with good characterization, a good SF or Fantasy Story should be a good story even if you remove the fantastic elements.
I guess if you want to get really broad:
Then sci-fi is about a future. This future doesn't have to be our future, the present that future is based on doesn't have to be our present (but usually is).
Fantasy is about a past. Same rules as above.
As for themes of sci-fi and fantasy universes, my own rule of thumb is that sci-fi is about "hope for the future" while fantasy is "a desire to go back to the past." What this is means is that sci-fi sees the future as the way to go. It might be really dark now, and things might not get better for generations to come, but we're still going towards the future and eventually that future will be brighter than our present. Fantasy pretty much is usually "things are pretty bad now, but we all remember the times of the old empire/kingdom/clans/whatever and if we find the kill the enemy/find the lost son or daughter/make the prophecy come true then we'll all go back to the ancient days when things were so great" so it's about trying to recreate a bright past.
Then sci-fi is about a future. This future doesn't have to be our future, the present that future is based on doesn't have to be our present (but usually is).
Fantasy is about a past. Same rules as above.
As for themes of sci-fi and fantasy universes, my own rule of thumb is that sci-fi is about "hope for the future" while fantasy is "a desire to go back to the past." What this is means is that sci-fi sees the future as the way to go. It might be really dark now, and things might not get better for generations to come, but we're still going towards the future and eventually that future will be brighter than our present. Fantasy pretty much is usually "things are pretty bad now, but we all remember the times of the old empire/kingdom/clans/whatever and if we find the kill the enemy/find the lost son or daughter/make the prophecy come true then we'll all go back to the ancient days when things were so great" so it's about trying to recreate a bright past.
