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Take cyborgs in a post apoc or fantasy setting. There would be a huge amount of facilities required to keep them going, maintained and functioning. If tech and the technological world has collapsed, mecha, cyborgs, replicants, whatever, are not going to last long.In Post Apocalyptic games (like Gamma World for instance), one has to use the effects of entropy very fluidly. One of the editions of Gamma World spoke of this, where one could encounter a car with the rubber tires still intact, and then pass several others where the rubber tires have clearly rotted away long ago...
In this respect, the effects of entropy are like various elements in fantasy; one must be willing to suspend their disbelief for it to work...
Yep, this example also applies to fantasy settings whenever non-magical booby-traps in ancient ruins remain perfectly functional after untold ages.
Ha ha, yeah I've actually used that. "You set off the trap, you hear the grind of wedged gears, clicks, and nothing happens. It is too old to function. You are not sure how many other traps will not work in this ziggurat."
Course with age, there are new possible traps. So whereas before there was a floor that collapsed onto spikes and a sturdy sniper bridge above it. A millenia later, the tricky floor may have collapsed (revealing the spiked pit) but the sniper bridge above it, previously sturdy will now tumble straight down the minute a party uses it.
Age and wear can be great tools.
As for a cyborg, after hundreds of years, I want to know who gave it a fresh install of its OS. Complex technology is typically weak in my experience, the good news about fantasy magic is that persists and holds its charge/enchantment and old is usually powerful. Especially if there were high magic empires prior to the current setting era.
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As for a cyborg, after hundreds of years, I want to know who gave it a fresh install of its OS. Complex technology is typically weak in my experience
Well, as you said, in your experience (which in this case, is typically a shared experience)... But that is because the assumed level of technology reached in most sci-fi where cybogs with the complexity of the Borg from Star Trek for example appear, is considered to be light years ahead of what we know today with the added assumption that the problems we typically encounter now with tech-heavy items is a thing of the distant past...
It is not unlike my entropy example on the previous page, because when it comes to a lot of sci-fi, one has to be willing to suspend their disbelief in order for it to work...
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Cyborg? More like Borg. Self-replicating nano-bots, *whips hands* tech upkeep taken care of. You're welcome.
EDIT: Borg Ninjas! Damn you! ;)
I want whip hands, that shoot nanobots.
The Dwemer robots in skyrim, who is servicing them? Oiling them up and checking their functionality, because the dwemer are long dead.
Dwarves build s%!& to last, aye.
And I'm pretty sure they repair each other up in those tube thingies they always pop out of.
Also, a lot of them ARE broke down, you come across broken ones all over the place in Dwemer ruins.
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No dinosaurs in fantasy? Nah, not gonna happen. ;)
I'm more a Butterscotch man myself...
How dare you get butter in my scotch?
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Now dinosaurs, those I like to bring in. Generally stick them in the classic lost world deep jungle places.
I'm okay with both sci-fi and fantasy coexisting. Also dinosurs, pulp heroes and noir detectives, ninjas and cowboys. I blame the fact that I grew up in the late eighties and the nineties, with mutant ninjas facing against magic and aliens, space cat people with magic swords and tanks fighting mummies, and later magic gargoyles meeting faeries to fight off cyborgs. Keeping things separate for me is actually the weird thing.
Clearly big reptiles are only allowed when they can fly, breath energy types and have magical abilities.
Lizardmen?
I have to admit how much SciFi (read High Tech) I want in my game has more to do witht he setting and less to do with the rule set I am playing. Fantasy as a generic catagory does not mean no high tech to me. Rather it is the overall catch for all shades of different points of view.
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Scifi has always blended with fantasy...but like the comment: Any technology with a sufficient degree of advancement is capable of being considered magic, The capacity to blend scifi with fantasy and not be a 'starship down' adventure on a D&D world is determined by the sufficiently advanced nature of the technology to be comparable to magic.
I think my main objection to mixing science and magic is that it has rarely been done at all well.
Typically, one theme/force/discipline/whatever (magic or science) is the dominant one in a setting and the other is poorly-crunched fluff.
And the interaction between magic and science is rarely handled in a believable manner.
It breaks my immersion to keep bumping up against these design issues, so I tend to prefer an EITHER science fiction OR fantasy game.
YMMV, and if you have fun with fusion campaigns, go for it! If I'm given my druthers, I'druther not deal with admixture of these elements, that's all...
Alitan, I can't argue with preference, but IMO this has been done well many times.
H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos deals with extra-cosmic invaders from beyond space-time. Are they aliens (SF) or gods (fantasy)? Answer:"yes".
The Dying Earth stories mentioned above, which have technology and space travel, and magic and demons.
Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" also set in a far future earth, has forgotten technological wonders (and terrors) everywhere - but also has a strong theological theme as well.
The Recluce books feature a struggle between black (lawful) and white (chaotic) magic - but the "angels" that founded the civilzation there seemed to be space travelers.
So, I guess that its a matter of individual taste, but many of my favorite works blend fantasy and science fiction.
I'm one of those that do not care for Sci-fi mixed in with fantasy. It's one of the reasons I didn't care much for what I saw of Ebberon. Same thing with Spacejammer.
As a rule, i prefer true 'fantasy' over Sci-fi in my stories and movies too... Science fiction seems to be a much more intricate world. It's the kind of thing where people can debate exactly how the science works and what warp the engines can get to without breaking einstiens rules...
it's a kind of 'This COULD happen SOMEday...' kind of thing.
I prefer the mythological stories of ancien bygone days... King Arthur,Tolkien things like that.
i hadn't really considered till this post... but in shows like star trek and star wars and such... technolgy is SOOOO prevalant, that not only do the FANS know the intricate minutia of the ships... but so do the CHARACTERS...
In the more standard fantasy, most characters are farmboys knowing nothing and all these strange monsters and magic is NEW and EXCITING to them as well. You the player/reader/viewer don't NEED to know HOW things work anymore then the CHARACTER does.
I don't NEED to know HOW the physics of how a dragon flies... I just need to know to RUN... Now how a Space engine works?? THAT I may need to FIX ;)
These are of course gross exaggerations and stereotypes. There frankly aren't THAT many unique stories out there. There is ALWAYS overlap in ALL fiction.
But yeah... I prefer spaceships, cowboys, and anime out of my standard fantasy games.
The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffery and The Chronicles of Morgaine series by CJ Cherryh are essentially sci-fi stories with fantasy trappings. As such, they are enjoyable on either level.
I really don't mind blending the two if the story is strong and makes sense for the setting.
When I'm running a fantasy game, such as Pathfinder, I will sometimes use magical effects that have the look-and-feel of sci-fi technology. I don't tend to add actual high-tech stuff to my game. My party explored what was effectively a crashed spaceship in Magnimar harbor.
The "high tech" devices they recovered all looked like Art Deco sci-fi items, but they all radiated magic and had standard magic item write-ups. (They were essentially spell-in-a-can items dressed up to look like they belonged in a flying saucer.)
I'm currently writing an adventure where the PCs explore a lost magical research facility. It will also have a bunch of magical effects that have a sci-fi look and feel.
