Neongelion wrote:
Or, they already have their own setting in mind, or have no interest in Golarion, or both. I fall into that third category.
D20 space stuff + home brew is simply not going to work, because that all relies on 3.5 stuff, which is even WORSE than Pathfinder. I'm hoping that SF is an even more refined version of PF, which by itself is a refined version of 3.5.
But I'd like to hope that Paizo doesn't assume that we're going to use their default setting, in the same fashion that they made no such assumption with Pathfinder too. If I make the supernatural and fantastical elements of SF less obvious or widespread I'd like to think that that won't somehow destroy the ENTIRE game, in the same fashion that playing Dark Sun doesn't destroy D&D or Pathfinder the second you try to use it.
If neither of those things end up being not true then congratulations, the efforts to unsell me on buying Starfinder in here was successful.
You certainly don't need to use the default setting.
How well your setting works with the rules is likely to depend on how drastically you're reducing the fantastic/supernatural elements. Much like doing the same in PF requires quite a bit of work.
I'm not using the default setting either. I have no interest in the Golarion's gone missing setting, or the use of the Drift as hyperspace. Though the idea is cool and original, I'd rather Paizo keep that to themselves.
I fully support others using GURPS: Space or whatever Starfinder's Gamemastery is going to look like in setting up their own space campaigns. Similarly, I support what third party publishers are doing. Some are offering character options: like what Rogue Genius is going to do. Others are going to offer whole settings, and some are just going into setting expansions. Which is fine. We need these things to happen.
Some gamemasters will tone down the fantasy options, allowing for harder Science Fiction games (although it might be easier to run a GURPS: Space campaign if you want real "hard" SF). Others may want to turn them up to eleven (i.e. Eberron in Space, anyone?).
Starfinder isn't out yet, and already we are getting some support from third party publishers. Rogue Genius Games and Frog God Games are two fine examples. It looks like that Starfinder is here to stay with all the support it's getting and going to get.
Neongelion wrote: Fardragon wrote: Neongelion wrote: Fardragon wrote:
1) fewer spell levels does not mean the spells are less powerful. It may just mean they have sorted out scaling so you don't need higher level...
We'll just have to see. This is kind of semantics at this point since we simply know very little. I'd like to hope that 6th level means 6th level, i.e. if you want to use more powerful stuff, you gotta work for it, not simply level up. But again, it's all up in the air at this point.
Quote:
2, 3, 4) If you aren't going to use the setting, why are you so keen to give Paizo your money?
The same reason why people buy Pathfinder products but never use Golarion as a setting. I won't claim to speak for them but I never got the impression that most of Paizo's stuff mandate you using their setting, otherwise it's a waste of your money. The only things I can think of are the Technology Guide, and even then it's not impossible to tweak that for your own stuff. But the only USPs for Starfinder are it's setting and it's connection to the Pathfinder universe. Otherwise you could use any of a large quantity of D20 Space stuff already available (much free) plus some home-brew rules.
There are a couple of reasons people use Pathfinder without the setting, but the main ones are: a) 4th edition D&D was awful, and b) there is a huge quantity of free resources available via the open source licence. Neither of these apply to Starfinder. Or, they already have their own setting in mind, or have no interest in Golarion, or both. I fall into that third category.
D20 space stuff + home brew is simply not going to work, because that all relies on 3.5 stuff, which is even WORSE than Pathfinder. I'm hoping that SF is an even more refined version of PF, which by itself is a refined version of 3.5.
But I'd like to hope that Paizo doesn't assume that we're going to use their default setting, in the same fashion that they made no such assumption with Pathfinder too. If I... There is nothing wrong with 3.5, or any other ruleset. They are what you make of them. It's the quality of the GM, not the ruleset, that makes for a good game. If you think Starfinder is going to be some kind of magically superior, perfect PnP RPG system, then you are setting yourself up for disapointment. Not even the developers have claimed to be doing that (probably because they don't have overinflated egos). It's Pathfinder in space. Changes to the rules are just tweeks to support the setting.
Even if you create a hard SF plot in your own setting players are going to try and kill it with spells, because that is part of the core rules; and if you create a high fantasy plot the players are still going to try to kill the dragon with thier starship's laser cannons, because that is part of the core rules.
Fardragon wrote: ... I think there's some sort of miscommunication here, because I never claimed I'm expecting SF to be a be all end all system or perfect. I'm simply hoping its not just, as you claim, "Pathfinder in space", because that would be a very uninteresting way of selling your game. Plus, I recall them saying that they DON'T want to market it as "same rules but some minor tweaks and it's sci-fi now but only half of it". It's supposed to be its own ruleset that happens to be compatible with PF.
I never said I wanted to run a hard sci-fi game. I simply want to do a setting where the fantasy elements are more muted, but still very much exists. Sort of like the Clone Wars-era of Star Wars. Sure there's Jedi around, quite a few in fact, but the vast majority of people don't use the Force in any capacity, and technology is by and far the dominant force. I don't want there to just be elves, dwarves, dragons and goblins IN SPACE, I want non-human races and creatures to be their own thing.
I'm not asking for Golarionverse in SF to be more like that, I'm simply hoping that the system is rules agnostic enough to support other kinds of settings. Is that really too much?
Neongelion wrote: Fardragon wrote: ... I think there's some sort of miscommunication here, because I never claimed I'm expecting SF to be a be all end all system or perfect. I'm simply hoping its not just, as you claim, "Pathfinder in space", because that would be a very uninteresting way of selling your game. Plus, I recall them saying that they DON'T want to market it as "same rules but some minor tweaks and it's sci-fi now but only half of it". It's supposed to be its own ruleset that happens to be compatible with PF.
I never said I wanted to run a hard sci-fi game. I simply want to do a setting where the fantasy elements are more muted, but still very much exists. Sort of like the Clone Wars-era of Star Wars. Sure there's Jedi around, quite a few in fact, but the vast majority of people don't use the Force in any capacity, and technology is by and far the dominant force. I don't want there to just be elves, dwarves, dragons and goblins IN SPACE, I want non-human races and creatures to be their own thing.
I'm not asking for Golarionverse in SF to be more like that, I'm simply hoping that the system is rules agnostic enough to support other kinds of settings. Is that really too much? I actually kind of expect the default to be kind of like that, but with more of the Jedi & Dark Jedi & Witches and random other Force using types.
The problems in even that kind of setting come in when you let the PCs have free access to playing Jedi and then enforce them being rare everywhere else. With few exceptions magic needs magic for decent opposition - without overwhelming force or some other special situation Jedi pretty much trampled opposition throughout Clone Wars.
I'd expect you to be able to make it work if it's pretty much the common populace who don't have access to magic, but the PCs are mostly dealing with opposition that does.
You can always play a Star Wars RPG in an Old Repubic setting. You are familiar with KotOR?
Pathfinder is about as Generic Fantasy as it's possible to be. Starfinder is much less generic by nature. It presupposes these things: aliens, magic, advanced technology and intersteller travel are all commonplace. This very much narrows down the type of universe it can work with, even if you discard all the "Pact Worlds" background stuff.
Magic = Advanced technology in most science fiction settings.
Fardragon wrote: You can always play a Star Wars RPG in an Old Repubic setting. You are familiar with KotOR?
Pathfinder is about as Generic Fantasy as it's possible to be. Starfinder is much less generic by nature. It presupposes these things: aliens, magic, advanced technology and intersteller travel are all commonplace. This very much narrows down the type of universe it can work with, even if you discard all the "Pact Worlds" background stuff.
Doesn't narrow it very much. Generic sci-fi almost always use 3 of those 4, and most versions of popular sci-fi (which includes many things that are just Fantasy in Space!) have plenty of room for magic (assuming that a quirky variant isn't already present)
If anything the easiest thing to drop is aliens, and someone adapting starfinder could easily do that- they aren't required to function even if some would find it boring to be humans only.
Voss wrote: Fardragon wrote: You can always play a Star Wars RPG in an Old Repubic setting. You are familiar with KotOR?
Pathfinder is about as Generic Fantasy as it's possible to be. Starfinder is much less generic by nature. It presupposes these things: aliens, magic, advanced technology and intersteller travel are all commonplace. This very much narrows down the type of universe it can work with, even if you discard all the "Pact Worlds" background stuff.
Doesn't narrow it very much. Generic sci-fi almost always use 3 of those 4, and most versions of popular sci-fi (which includes many things that are just Fantasy in Space!) have plenty of room for magic (assuming that a quirky variant isn't already present)
If anything the easiest thing to drop is aliens, and someone adapting starfinder could easily do that- they aren't required to function even if some would find it boring to be humans only. True in some technical sense, but while many SF settings have something that could be classified as "magic" if you wanted - from simple psi-powers to aliens evolved past physical form - There's still a long reach from Vulcans to Jedi and another from Jedi to Pathfinder casters. From everything we've heard and seen, SF looks to fit somewhere in that second jump.
What are these "many things that are just Fantasy in Space!"? Because most of what I've seen suggested is far less Fantasy than I expect Starfinder to be.
Off the top of my head:
Warhammer 40,000 (literally so)
Marvel Universe / Guardians of the Galaxy
Wa... Starcraft
Star Wars
Star Trek (yes really. There isn't a drop of hard science to be found)
Farscape ('Delvian Pa'u of the ninth level' for instance is a perfect mystic)
Mass Effect
Some might choke on the casters, but theme them just a little and restrict spell choices to the universe and it isn't a problem. The magic weapon attachments certainly aren't. Just <technobabble the magictech> and its fine.
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Voss wrote: Off the top of my head:
Warhammer 40,000 (literally so)
Marvel Universe / Guardians of the Galaxy
Wa... Starcraft
Star Wars
Star Trek (yes really. There isn't a drop of hard science to be found)
Farscape ('Delvian Pa'u of the ninth level' for instance is a perfect mystic)
Mass Effect
Some might choke on the casters, but theme them just a little and restrict spell choices to the universe and it isn't a problem. The magic weapon attachments certainly aren't. Just <technobabble the magictech> and its fine.
There was the time that the fans pointed out that the force of inertia would liquify the crew of a starship moving as fast as the Enterprise and Gene Roddenberry was like, "Good point, the starships all have inertial dampeners." I'm not saying we'll ever invent inertial dampeners, but I think admitting inertia exists qualifies as a drop. ;P
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If the Universe is simply a Matrix like simulation, then simulating magic is really no problem, the hard part is creating creatures within the simulation that think they are real. The class of Technomancer is more real than you know, if by hacking into the universe, you actual mean hacking into the computer that simulates the universe, that could be the basis of all magic, and when its explained that way, that makes it all potentially hard science, since the only technology we really need to do this is the computer, and computers are real, they can simulate things that aren't real, but they themselves are real.
Hitdice wrote: Voss wrote: Off the top of my head:
Warhammer 40,000 (literally so)
Marvel Universe / Guardians of the Galaxy
Wa... Starcraft
Star Wars
Star Trek (yes really. There isn't a drop of hard science to be found)
Farscape ('Delvian Pa'u of the ninth level' for instance is a perfect mystic)
Mass Effect
Some might choke on the casters, but theme them just a little and restrict spell choices to the universe and it isn't a problem. The magic weapon attachments certainly aren't. Just <technobabble the magictech> and its fine.
There was the time that the fans pointed out that the force of inertia would liquify the crew of a starship moving as fast as the Enterprise and Gene Roddenberry was like, "Good point, the starships all have inertial dampeners." I'm not saying we'll ever invent inertial dampeners, but I think admitting inertia exists qualifies as a drop. ;P If you had a miniature black hole the size of an atom in front of you, if you could accelerate that black hole and vary your distance from that black hole, that would be your inertial dampener, the force of gravity can counteract the g-forces experienced during acceleration. If you can accelerate that back hole in front of you at 100 gs, and you are the right distance from it, the black hole would pull you forward at 100-gs as it accelerates away from you at 100-gs and thereby maintains the same distance as both you and the black hole accelerate forward. Yeah there is a scientific basis one can posit an inertial dampner, didn't say it would be easy though!
Voss wrote: Off the top of my head:
Warhammer 40,000 (literally so)
Marvel Universe / Guardians of the Galaxy
Wa... Starcraft
Star Wars
Star Trek (yes really. There isn't a drop of hard science to be found)
Farscape ('Delvian Pa'u of the ninth level' for instance is a perfect mystic)
Mass Effect
Some might choke on the casters, but theme them just a little and restrict spell choices to the universe and it isn't a problem. The magic weapon attachments certainly aren't. Just <technobabble the magictech> and its fine.
Yes, there are plenty of SF stories which aren't based in hard science. Pretty much anything with interstellar travel, for example.
That's not the same as actual Fantasy. However much you want to classify bad science tropes as fantasy, it doesn't actually read or play the same. Star Trek doesn't play at all like Star Wars and I think Starfinder is going to be even more fantasy than Star Wars.
Warhammer40K, maybe. I'm not that familiar with it.
Superhero universes are their own weird even more cross genre thing.
Okay, but if the casters in Starfinder use wrist computers instead of spell books, will you still consider it "actual" Fantasy?
Edit: I don't mean to be dickish when I ask that, I'm just curious about how wide your definition of actual fantasy is. Would you include urban fantasy like Charles De Lint's Newford novels and short stories, or is a preindustrial setting a requirement?
Hitdice wrote: Okay, but if the casters in Starfinder use wrist computers instead of spell books, will you still consider it "actual" Fantasy? Sure. Why not?
It's high fantasy + space opera.
Voss wrote: Off the top of my head:
Warhammer 40,000 (literally so)
Marvel Universe / Guardians of the Galaxy
Wa... Starcraft
Star Wars
Star Trek (yes really. There isn't a drop of hard science to be found)
Farscape ('Delvian Pa'u of the ninth level' for instance is a perfect mystic)
Mass Effect
The Stargate franchise
Hell, the expanse can even have some magic thanks to the alien stuff.
thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: Okay, but if the casters in Starfinder use wrist computers instead of spell books, will you still consider it "actual" Fantasy? Sure. Why not?
It's high fantasy + space opera. Like I said in my edit above, I'm not sure what you mean when you say actual fantasy. Is it as simple as calling the special power magic instead of something more sci-fi? Hell, I don't know, I guess I'm curious about what you consider the point of differentiation between actual fantasy and SF stories which aren't based in hard science.
Warhammer 40k and Starcraft are both, like Starfinder, directly based on fantasy games (and WH40K shares a universe with it's fantasy parent) so they should give a good idea of how Starfinder will play.
Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, the Humanx Commonwealth (A D Foster), and the Lensman series (Doc Smith) are more that work fine with Starfinder.
But when it comes to telling "hard" SF stories you hit problems.
Edit: I wouldn't consider Star Trek "hard" SF....
Imbicatus wrote: Hell, the expanse can even have some magic thanks to the alien stuff. The Expanse might be able to have magic, but in the hands of the protagonists?
And it has other problems: no alien player characters, no ftl, "realistic" hardware rather than ray guns and energy swords...
Sure, you could convert Starfinder to play an Expanse type game, but it would be less work, less money, and less discarded content if you converted Traveller instead.
Fardragon wrote: Warhammer 40k and Starcraft are both, like Starfinder, directly based on fantasy games (and WH40K shares a universe with it's fantasy parent) so they should give a good idea of how Starfinder will play.
Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, the Humanx Commonwealth (A D Foster), and the Lensman series (Doc Smith) are more that work fine with Starfinder.
But when it comes to telling "hard" SF stories you hit problems.
Worth pointing out that "magic" is NOT common everyday things for most of the Starcraft universe. Terrans almost ubiquitously use technology; psionics is rare and usually tightly controlled. The Zerg use their own form of biotechnology, but it's not supernatural or mystical in any way. Only the Protoss have more common "magic" in their society than anyone else.
I think Starfinder would be a great fit for Starcraft, in fact.
Also, it's worth pointing out to EVERYONE in this thread: hard and soft science fiction are not mutually exclusive. Most sci fi stories nowadays use a healthy dosage of both, with a slight bias towards one or the other.
Hitdice wrote: thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: Okay, but if the casters in Starfinder use wrist computers instead of spell books, will you still consider it "actual" Fantasy? Sure. Why not?
It's high fantasy + space opera. Like I said in my edit above, I'm not sure what you mean when you say actual fantasy. Is it as simple as calling the special power magic instead of something more sci-fi? Hell, I don't know, I guess I'm curious about what you consider the point of differentiation between actual fantasy and SF stories which aren't based in hard science. If you want a hard fast line, with every thing "fantasy" on one side and everything "not hard SF" on the other, I can't give it to you.
It's a continuum. As I said above, Star Wars is a lot more towards fantasy then Star Trek is and I expect Starfinder to be even more on the fantasy end. This despite there being some characters in Star Trek with psi-powers and a whole gamut of weird powerful alien entities.
Or by another analogy: Cyberpunk is also not based in hard science. Shadowrun takes that and adds Fantasy to it. Makes something that's very different from normal cyberpunk. I expect Starfinder to have the same kind of relationship to space opera science fiction as Shadowrun does to cyberpunk.
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Fardragon wrote: Imbicatus wrote: Hell, the expanse can even have some magic thanks to the alien stuff. The Expanse might be able to have magic, but in the hands of the protagonists?
And it has other problems: no alien player characters, no ftl, "realistic" hardware rather than ray guns and energy swords... The Expanse is an example of a low-magic setting, but it is still there. Naomi does some magic with computers, as far as I'm concerned, even though she might not see it that way. Holden and Miller both have mystical connections to the proto-molecule.
I will be happy if StarFinder plays well a Cyberpunk game with little to no space travel; it will work perfectly for a homemade campaign setting that started with PF but went that way quickly.
I think some of the creators have said somewhere that the setting will be more integrated on the rules that Golarion in PF, but still will be easy to make homemade settings.
thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: Okay, but if the casters in Starfinder use wrist computers instead of spell books, will you still consider it "actual" Fantasy? Sure. Why not?
It's high fantasy + space opera. Like I said in my edit above, I'm not sure what you mean when you say actual fantasy. Is it as simple as calling the special power magic instead of something more sci-fi? Hell, I don't know, I guess I'm curious about what you consider the point of differentiation between actual fantasy and SF stories which aren't based in hard science. If you want a hard fast line, with every thing "fantasy" on one side and everything "not hard SF" on the other, I can't give it to you.
It's a continuum. As I said above, Star Wars is a lot more towards fantasy then Star Trek is and I expect Starfinder to be even more on the fantasy end. This despite there being some characters in Star Trek with psi-powers and a whole gamut of weird powerful alien entities.
Or by another analogy: Cyberpunk is also not based in hard science. Shadowrun takes that and adds Fantasy to it. Makes something that's very different from normal cyberpunk. I expect Starfinder to have the same kind of relationship to space opera science fiction as Shadowrun does to cyberpunk. Would you consider Robocop to be Cyberpunk? In those movies, Robocop got into fights with a lot of Cyberpunks, some of whom nearly got the best of him in some cases.
thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: Okay, but if the casters in Starfinder use wrist computers instead of spell books, will you still consider it "actual" Fantasy? Sure. Why not?
It's high fantasy + space opera. Like I said in my edit above, I'm not sure what you mean when you say actual fantasy. Is it as simple as calling the special power magic instead of something more sci-fi? Hell, I don't know, I guess I'm curious about what you consider the point of differentiation between actual fantasy and SF stories which aren't based in hard science. If you want a hard fast line, with every thing "fantasy" on one side and everything "not hard SF" on the other, I can't give it to you.
It's a continuum. As I said above, Star Wars is a lot more towards fantasy then Star Trek is and I expect Starfinder to be even more on the fantasy end. This despite there being some characters in Star Trek with psi-powers and a whole gamut of weird powerful alien entities.
Or by another analogy: Cyberpunk is also not based in hard science. Shadowrun takes that and adds Fantasy to it. Makes something that's very different from normal cyberpunk. I expect Starfinder to have the same kind of relationship to space opera science fiction as Shadowrun does to cyberpunk. I was just curious about what you meant when you said actual Fantasy. When you use Shadowrun as an example, I assume you mean elves, dwarves, orcs etc and magic, but feel free to clarify If I've got that wrong. Not to harp on the point, but Star Wars seems a lot closer to fantasy (to me) because of the genre conventions than because lightsabers are any less realistic than Vulcan mind melds, but that's true of just about all space opera vs all whatever you want call Star Trek.
It's not that I think hard and soft science fiction are mutually exclusive, it's that I think hard science fiction is an extremely specific subgenre of SF, whereas soft science fiction is less an actual subgenre of SF than a big pile of everything else. You might as well say that, given the existence of romances, every novel out there that isn't a romance is a hate-ance, y'know?.
EltonJ wrote: Voss wrote: Off the top of my head:
Warhammer 40,000 (literally so)
Marvel Universe / Guardians of the Galaxy
Wa... Starcraft
Star Wars
Star Trek (yes really. There isn't a drop of hard science to be found)
Farscape ('Delvian Pa'u of the ninth level' for instance is a perfect mystic)
Mass Effect
The Stargate franchise
Stargate is also a great example of a setting that has magic but the GM is super heavily restrictive about it, to the point that when a PC tries to use magic GM fiat undoes all of it. (Poor, poor Daniel Jackson.)
To add another magical Sci-Fi:
Robotech
Transformers maybe? the setting is super friggin crazy and i would rather think they use magic past a certain point than buy into the techno babble they use for it.
Babylon 5
Hitdice wrote: thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: Okay, but if the casters in Starfinder use wrist computers instead of spell books, will you still consider it "actual" Fantasy? Sure. Why not?
It's high fantasy + space opera. Like I said in my edit above, I'm not sure what you mean when you say actual fantasy. Is it as simple as calling the special power magic instead of something more sci-fi? Hell, I don't know, I guess I'm curious about what you consider the point of differentiation between actual fantasy and SF stories which aren't based in hard science. If you want a hard fast line, with every thing "fantasy" on one side and everything "not hard SF" on the other, I can't give it to you.
It's a continuum. As I said above, Star Wars is a lot more towards fantasy then Star Trek is and I expect Starfinder to be even more on the fantasy end. This despite there being some characters in Star Trek with psi-powers and a whole gamut of weird powerful alien entities.
Or by another analogy: Cyberpunk is also not based in hard science. Shadowrun takes that and adds Fantasy to it. Makes something that's very different from normal cyberpunk. I expect Starfinder to have the same kind of relationship to space opera science fiction as Shadowrun does to cyberpunk. I was just curious about what you meant when you said actual Fantasy. When you use Shadowrun as an example, I assume you mean elves, dwarves, orcs etc and magic, but feel free to clarify If I've got that wrong. Not to harp on the point, but Star Wars seems a lot closer to fantasy (to me) because of the genre conventions than because lightsabers are any less realistic than Vulcan mind melds, but that's true of just about all space opera vs all whatever you want call Star Trek.
It's not that I think hard and soft science fiction are mutually exclusive, it's that I think hard science fiction is an extremely specific subgenre of SF, whereas soft science fiction is less an actual subgenre of SF than a big pile of everything else. You might as well say that, given the existence of romances, every novel out there that isn't a romance is a hate-ance, y'know?. Not necessarily elves, dwarves and orcs, though using such recognizable fantasy tropes does help. Mostly magic.
But not just magic, cause psi-powers are basically magic and there's plenty of psi-powers to various degrees scattered throughout science fiction. Lightsabers by themselves may be no less realistic, but the full suite of Jedi/Force powers goes far beyond lightsabers and much more towards fantasy caster territory - mind control, telekinesis, lightning bolts, precognition, etc, etc. And, as I said, I expect Starfinder to be even heavier on magic than Star Wars is on the Force.
Mostly you're right, though. It's genre conventions more than specific setting details, but those conventions do tie into the role of magic and how tech is used.
Neongelion wrote: Fardragon wrote: Warhammer 40k and Starcraft are both, like Starfinder, directly based on fantasy games (and WH40K shares a universe with it's fantasy parent) so they should give a good idea of how Starfinder will play.
Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, the Humanx Commonwealth (A D Foster), and the Lensman series (Doc Smith) are more that work fine with Starfinder.
But when it comes to telling "hard" SF stories you hit problems.
Worth pointing out that "magic" is NOT common everyday things for most of the Starcraft universe. Terrans almost ubiquitously use technology; psionics is rare and usually tightly controlled. The Zerg use their own form of biotechnology, but it's not supernatural or mystical in any way. Only the Protoss have more common "magic" in their society than anyone else.
I think Starfinder would be a great fit for Starcraft, in fact.
Also, it's worth pointing out to EVERYONE in this thread: hard and soft science fiction are not mutually exclusive. Most sci fi stories nowadays use a healthy dosage of both, with a slight bias towards one or the other.
The Zerg are psionically controlled, and pretty much every Starcraft story will include a ghost or otherwise psionic character (remember, player characters in RPGs are not your avarage citizens). So yes, the Starcraft universe is very similar to the Starfinder universe - no surprise, since both are based on generic fantasy games.
Many "hard" SF stories depend on the unfamiliarity of the protagonists with aliens, advanced technology, intersteller travel, or alternative dimensions. These are all things that wil seem commonplace to both the players and thier characters in Starfinder. "Hard" SF also at least plays lip service to real world science. So as soon as the spaceships move like WWII fighters, or someone pulls out a ray gun or laser sword your "hardness" is blasted apart. "Hard" SF also tends to focus on ideas, with little action and combat. Player Characters in Starfinder are defined by their combat abilities. Players are going to want to use them. An RPG system that focuses on non-combat skills is more useful for telling a "hard" SF story.
Thing about Babylon 5 is there is already a Babylon 5 RPG published.
thejeff wrote: Yes, there are plenty of SF stories which aren't based in hard science. Pretty much anything with interstellar travel, for example. That's not the same as actual Fantasy. However much you want to classify bad science tropes as fantasy, it doesn't actually read or play the same. That isn't what I mean at all. It isn't about bad science tropes. Star Trek has pretty much a one-size fits all solution to any problem: make up a form of energy, spontaneously generate it, and apply it to the problem. Thats magic, not science. The holosuites actively generate extradimensional spaces where people can and do walk past the actual physical walls of the suites.
And then you get to the several dozen forms of advanced beings that don't even need any technological props to do that. They just Wish whatever they want into existence.
Quote: Star Trek doesn't play at all like Star Wars and I think Starfinder is going to be even more fantasy than Star Wars. No they don't play alike. But that wasn't the premise, you can easily make different shapes to a campaign with the same toolbox. I can see why someone would argue against Star Trek, but the rest are really straight forward. Solarions ARE not!jedi. Mystics are easily any tradition of force adept.
The big difference between either and Starfinder is the emphasis on equipment, which generally get handwaved to a degree that a D&D descendent won't.
Quote: Warhammer40K, maybe. I'm not that familiar with it. Its elves, dwarfs and orks in Space. Well, they killed off the dwarfs, but still, the psionic list started as copypasta from the fantasy spell list.
Quote: Superhero universes are their own weird even more cross genre thing. Marvel and DC superhero universes explicitly have magic and spellcasters as parts of their settings. Even in space. Swashbuckling crews of adventurers of different species and ability types are prevalent and wander around the fringes of big empires getting up to shenanigans.
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Voss wrote: The holosuites actively generate extradimensional spaces where people can and do walk past the actual physical walls of the suites. Holodecks aren't extradimensional. They keep you in the center of the room and move the scenery around you. Sometimes science is indistinguishable from magic. That doesn't make it fantasy.
They still move their legs to walk around, though, don't they?! :P
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
They do move their legs, they just don't go anywhere!
Hitdice wrote: They still move their legs to walk around, though, don't they?! :P Exactly, it's virtual reality made to look even more real to us than it does to them. Because the TV crews don't bother simulating it as VR.
Unless there's some episode I missed/don't remember where they explicitly describe it as extradimensional or use to walk through real walls or some such.
Even if so, extradimensional spaces aren't unique to fantasy either.
Voss wrote:
Quote: Superhero universes are their own weird even more cross genre thing. Marvel and DC superhero universes explicitly have magic and spellcasters as parts of their settings. Even in space. Swashbuckling crews of adventurers of different species and ability types are prevalent and wander around the fringes of big empires getting up to shenanigans. They do have both, but they also have superpowers - often neither magical or technological. In terms of mechanics, that's what defines the genre. Beyond that, the tropes and conventions used are very different.
Look, we're pretty much just repeating ourselves here. The game's being sold as high fantasy with spaceships and lasers or conversely, science fiction with orcs and dragons and magic. If people think everything less hard science than Star Trek falls into that, more power to you. Seems weird to me and I don't expect the game to work well for anything close to that end, but if you want to take it and play a straight up space opera Traveller style game with it, have fun with it.
thejeff wrote: Voss wrote:
Quote: Superhero universes are their own weird even more cross genre thing. Marvel and DC superhero universes explicitly have magic and spellcasters as parts of their settings. Even in space. Swashbuckling crews of adventurers of different species and ability types are prevalent and wander around the fringes of big empires getting up to shenanigans. They do have both, but they also have superpowers - often neither magical or technological. In terms of mechanics, that's what defines the genre. Beyond that, the tropes and conventions used are very different.
Look, we're pretty much just repeating ourselves here. The game's being sold as high fantasy with spaceships and lasers or conversely, science fiction with orcs and dragons and magic. If people think everything less hard science than Star Trek falls into that, more power to you. Seems weird to me and I don't expect the game to work well for anything close to that end, but if you want to take it and play a straight up space opera Traveller style game with it, have fun with it. How hard would it be? If I wanted to use my own setting only using the core Starfinder races, all I'd need to do:
-Remove any races that directly come from a fantasy setting. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, haflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, dragons, etc. Most likely, just use their stats for original nonhuman races that aren't just "Dwarves IN SPAACE". Leave all the core races in Starfinder there.
-Gods as presented in Golarionverse simply don't exist. This affects none of the classes, even the Mystic. And if it does, simply add more reflavoring.
-There are other dimensions, but they're not going to be fantasy-flavored at all. No Heaven/Hell/Abyss/etc.
-Magic is reflavored as psionics. "Psitech shops" are super rare; even in major settlements you're not guaranteed to find one, and they're usually not in the open.
The rules for the game haven't even come out yet. What makes you think doing any of that is weird or somehow not going to fit for the game? Most of it is just reflavoring stuff, removing races, and other tweaks that don't really sound particularly destabilizing.
This is all subjective, but to me "fantasy" largely lies in what type of stories are told, and certain aesthetic qualities too. I would never call Star Trek fantasy, or The Expanse, or any sci-fi setting that uses paranormal tropes in their settings. Mass Effect, which is a setting that presents itself as space opera, actually has a surprising amount of adherence to real world science, and even the "magic" in the setting is a quantifiable, scientifically understood phenomenon (well, mostly).
Long story short, it boils down to how you present the setting. I'm sure there will be some rules to adjust or remove (in my case, removing spells that allow interdimensional travel), but I still fail to see how that's game breaking or "weird", when we don't even know how the rules for Starfinder work yet.
It's still a "wait and see" basis for me. Maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't. I hope it gives enough incentive to do my own thing, and not rely on using a universe that I have zero interest in, except as a source of plot ideas.
Neongelion wrote: thejeff wrote: Voss wrote:
Quote: Superhero universes are their own weird even more cross genre thing. Marvel and DC superhero universes explicitly have magic and spellcasters as parts of their settings. Even in space. Swashbuckling crews of adventurers of different species and ability types are prevalent and wander around the fringes of big empires getting up to shenanigans. They do have both, but they also have superpowers - often neither magical or technological. In terms of mechanics, that's what defines the genre. Beyond that, the tropes and conventions used are very different.
Look, we're pretty much just repeating ourselves here. The game's being sold as high fantasy with spaceships and lasers or conversely, science fiction with orcs and dragons and magic. If people think everything less hard science than Star Trek falls into that, more power to you. Seems weird to me and I don't expect the game to work well for anything close to that end, but if you want to take it and play a straight up space opera Traveller style game with it, have fun with it. How hard would it be? If I wanted to use my own setting only using the core Starfinder races, all I'd need to do:
-Remove any races that directly come from a fantasy setting. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, haflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, dragons, etc. Most likely, just use their stats for original nonhuman races that aren't just "Dwarves IN SPAACE". Leave all the core races in Starfinder there.
-Gods as presented in Golarionverse simply don't exist. This affects none of the classes, even the Mystic. And if it does, simply add more reflavoring.
-There are other dimensions, but they're not going to be fantasy-flavored at all. No Heaven/Hell/Abyss/etc.
-Magic is reflavored as psionics. "Psitech shops" are super rare; even in major settlements you're not guaranteed to find one, and they're usually not in the open.
The rules for the game haven't even come out yet. What makes you think doing any of that is... The first stuff you can probably do with little effort, sure. You can easily reflavor magic as psionics.
It's the "super-rare" part that strikes me as more of problem. Unless you're just making it super-rare for commoners and leaving it as accessible as both the PCs and for their enemies. That would probably work well.
As I said earlier, I thought you were trying to go farther.
Depending on whether I can use Pathfinder Unchained's Automatic Bonus Progression for SF or not will depend on the rarity of "magic" item shops. If it's doable, they'd still be super rare; to me, magic items (or their sci fi equivalent) should be rare and wondrous, I don't like the idea of just giving out rings of protection or +1 swords, I.e. magic items that players NEED to face level appropriate challenges.
Mechanically, the PCs will be on par with their foes. Flavor wise, if they have "magic" items (I.e. Psitech or super advanced "pretech" artifacts), they should be special items and highly prized. Finding an NPC who bargains for these wondrous items should be an adventure unto itself.
That's just all me, YMMV, of course.
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thejeff wrote: Hitdice wrote: They still move their legs to walk around, though, don't they?! :P Exactly, it's virtual reality made to look even more real to us than it does to them. Because the TV crews don't bother simulating it as VR.
Unless there's some episode I missed/don't remember where they explicitly describe it as extradimensional or use to walk through real walls or some such.
Even if so, extradimensional spaces aren't unique to fantasy either. In the pilot episode for TNG when they introduce Data he is trying to whistle in a holodeck and he explains to the Captain that there are still walls but the captain cant see them because of the environment being projected... and then proves the point by throwing a holographic rock into the wall which causes a distortion rather than the computer making it look like it continues out into the background for some reason. This is promptly ignored by the rest of the series for the rest of time as they have entire episodes set in cities inside of the holodecks where characters travel far away from each other, far and away further than the dimensions of the space.
Neongelion wrote: Depending on whether I can use Pathfinder Unchained's Automatic Bonus Progression for SF or not will depend on the rarity of "magic" item shops. If it's doable, they'd still be super rare; to me, magic items (or their sci fi equivalent) should be rare and wondrous, I don't like the idea of just giving out rings of protection or +1 swords, I.e. magic items that players NEED to face level appropriate challenges.
Mechanically, the PCs will be on par with their foes. Flavor wise, if they have "magic" items (I.e. Psitech or super advanced "pretech" artifacts), they should be special items and highly prized. Finding an NPC who bargains for these wondrous items should be an adventure unto itself.
That's just all me, YMMV, of course.
Not just items, but psi/magic in general. Even without special gear, a party of casters in a world where most of their opposition isn't will have trouble finding a good challenge.
Like Star Wars - Jedi & other Force users are rare, but our heroic Jedi have to keep running into evil Force users to keep things interesting (or others with specific counters to Force powers).
Still, hopefully it'll work better than low magic PF games tend to.
thejeff wrote: Neongelion wrote: Depending on whether I can use Pathfinder Unchained's Automatic Bonus Progression for SF or not will depend on the rarity of "magic" item shops. If it's doable, they'd still be super rare; to me, magic items (or their sci fi equivalent) should be rare and wondrous, I don't like the idea of just giving out rings of protection or +1 swords, I.e. magic items that players NEED to face level appropriate challenges.
Mechanically, the PCs will be on par with their foes. Flavor wise, if they have "magic" items (I.e. Psitech or super advanced "pretech" artifacts), they should be special items and highly prized. Finding an NPC who bargains for these wondrous items should be an adventure unto itself.
That's just all me, YMMV, of course.
Not just items, but psi/magic in general. Even without special gear, a party of casters in a world where most of their opposition isn't will have trouble finding a good challenge.
Like Star Wars - Jedi & other Force users are rare, but our heroic Jedi have to keep running into evil Force users to keep things interesting (or others with specific counters to Force powers).
Still, hopefully it'll work better than low magic PF games tend to. Technically possible, the holodeck projects a separate image around each character, it can move the floor under each person's feet as they walk, and with artificial gravity control, each person can experience the inertia as if they really were outside walking in the real world.
There are spells which duplicate the effects of a Holodeck in Pathfinder, Programmed Illusion comes to mind.
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EltonJ wrote:
The Stargate franchise
I forgot about another. Tenchi Muyo. That's space fantasy too.
EltonJ wrote: I forgot about another. Tenchi Muyo. That's space fantasy too. Tenchi Muyo (especially the original) is the best example of space fantasy I've seen in this thread so far.
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Neongelion wrote: thejeff wrote: Voss wrote:
Quote: Superhero universes are their own weird even more cross genre thing. Marvel and DC superhero universes explicitly have magic and spellcasters as parts of their settings. Even in space. Swashbuckling crews of adventurers of different species and ability types are prevalent and wander around the fringes of big empires getting up to shenanigans. They do have both, but they also have superpowers - often neither magical or technological. In terms of mechanics, that's what defines the genre. Beyond that, the tropes and conventions used are very different.
Look, we're pretty much just repeating ourselves here. The game's being sold as high fantasy with spaceships and lasers or conversely, science fiction with orcs and dragons and magic. If people think everything less hard science than Star Trek falls into that, more power to you. Seems weird to me and I don't expect the game to work well for anything close to that end, but if you want to take it and play a straight up space opera Traveller style game with it, have fun with it. How hard would it be? If I wanted to use my own setting only using the core Starfinder races, all I'd need to do:
-Remove any races that directly come from a fantasy setting. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, haflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, dragons, etc. Most likely, just use their stats for original nonhuman races that aren't just "Dwarves IN SPAACE". Leave all the core races in Starfinder there.
-Gods as presented in Golarionverse simply don't exist. This affects none of the classes, even the Mystic. And if it does, simply add more reflavoring.
-There are other dimensions, but they're not going to be fantasy-flavored at all. No Heaven/Hell/Abyss/etc.
-Magic is reflavored as psionics. "Psitech shops" are super rare; even in major settlements you're not guaranteed to find one, and they're usually not in the open.
The rules for the game haven't even come out yet. What makes you think doing any of that is... Only weird in that it seems a waste of money that is unlikely to produce the best outcome.
You can knock in a nail with a wrench, but it's easier with a hammer.
[As an aside, why delete dwarves (who could be adapted human colonists from a high G mining world) whist simply trying to explain away a holy flamethrower of swarmslaying as "psionics"?]
No more of a waste of money than it is to use a Pathfinder's system for a non Golarion setting. We've been over this already.
And as for dwarves: because I don't like jamming in Tolkenien races into settings just because I feel obligated to. And a holy swarmbane psitech flamethrower is easy: I used Unchaned's variant on removing alignment entirely, so holy would only be effective against certain creatures, who most certainly wouldn't be "evil demons".
We have been over it before. But you don't seem to understand that there is a greater difference between science fantasy and space opera than there is between generic fantasy A and generic fantasy B, or are unwilling to accept that Starfinder isn't going to be better* than the space opera rpg systems that are already available (or you have unlimited funds, which I guess is also a possiblity).
*I've been playng PnP rpgs for 35 years. They don't get better, they don't get worse. Fashions come and go. Gamma World was something very similar to Starfinder back in the 80s, a conversion of (1st edition) D&D to a post-apocalyptic SF setting. It was D&D with mutants and ray guns.
Fardragon wrote: We have been over it before. But you don't seem to understand that there is a greater difference between science fantasy and space opera than there is between generic fantasy A and generic fantasy B, or are unwilling to accept that Starfinder isn't going to be better* than the space opera rpg systems that are already available (or you have unlimited funds, which I guess is also a possiblity).
*I've been playng PnP rpgs for 35 years. They don't get better, they don't get worse. Fashions come and go. Gamma World was something very similar to Starfinder back in the 80s, a conversion of (1st edition) D&D to a post-apocalyptic SF setting. It was D&D with mutants and ray guns.
Please don't presume to tell me what I understand and don't understand. For me, the difference between science fantasy and space opera is entirely dependent on the dressing you put on it, and little more. If it's different for you that's fine, but not for me. And, don't presume that I'm not already aware of the existence of other sci-fi systems out there.
There are things about Pathfinder's rules I like, and things about it that I don't like. I'm hoping Starfinder embraces more of the former while having more of a sci-fi bent while still maintaining a fantasy core. If it doesn't, oh well, but if it does, then it's worth it. Is that not a sufficient answer?
Fardragon wrote: We have been over it before. But you don't seem to understand that there is a greater difference between science fantasy and space opera than there is between generic fantasy A and generic fantasy B, or are unwilling to accept that Starfinder isn't going to be better* than the space opera rpg systems that are already available (or you have unlimited funds, which I guess is also a possiblity).
*I've been playng PnP rpgs for 35 years. They don't get better, they don't get worse. Fashions come and go. Gamma World was something very similar to Starfinder back in the 80s, a conversion of (1st edition) D&D to a post-apocalyptic SF setting. It was D&D with mutants and ray guns.
Not really. Space opera is generally defined by it's melodramatic tendencies, space warfare, romance (the classical term), and interstellar travel/communication. Science fantasy is simply science fiction with fantasy tropes in it. Supernatural, archaic governments, swords... It's really not hard to combine the two or eschew one for the other. Hell, Star Wars is a good example of a space opera/science fantasy mash up. So given that the main difference is in tone and not really rules, I think it should be easy to convert science fantasy to space opera.
Now, trying to turn Starfinder into a hard science fiction is probably a lot more hard and probably not worth the effort. Especially with games like Traveller/Cepheus Engine and Eclipse Phase that already does it.
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