Jan 30
Five Reasons Sci-Fi Pwns Fantasy
So here’s the deal: I’m a godless, soulless, technocratic transhumanist. Comments I’ve made in previous posts may have hinted at my love for technology. I like fantasy fine, yeah. It’d double coded, magic is all wonderful; I love World of Warcraft. All these things are fine.
Ultimately, though, my love has been for science fiction since I was a wee tot. Heinlein, Aasimov, Clarke, Stephenson, Gibson … these are the folks that I think of when I go to my happy reading place. As has been noted many times by NPD sales, developers, and money-men, I’m in the minority. Apparently the idea of surgically implanting a stainless steel port into your skull, in order more easily connect with a computer, is something not everyone enjoys. In space no one can hear you scream, and it’s hard to love a robot.
I’m tired of it. The Sci-fi ‘niche’ is a fantastic venue for creative thinking, and it’s an incredibly evocative milieu for gaming. Here are my five reasons why science fiction makes for a better setting than fantasy …
Update: Welcome io9 readers! Make sure to check out Grimwell’s fantasy-oriented response to this post, and my podcast followup to get the full discussion.
- Down With Poncy Elves – I’m so freaking tired of immortal long-eared humanoids, I could spit. Elfy welfies are boring. Everybody plays elves instead of humans because when faced with the choice of immortality or blotchy skin, immortality and flawless pores win every time. What’s the point of even offering elves and humans in the same game: they’re the same freaking thing. Beyond elves specifically, I see the lack of magic or the purely fantastical as a strength to sci-fi stories. No one is saying you have to stick purely to boring old reality (ie: Star Trek), but you at least have to try to come up with an explination for the out-of-the-ordinary. Trek’s technobabble is one of the worst examples, and hedges incredibly close to Clarke’s third law. Most sci-fi, though, extrapolates existing trends into their fantasy world. AI, for example, is presently unfeasible, but not because of any sort of conceptual limitation; we just don’t have the technology yet. I find that much more gratifying than the meaningless pablum of “it’s magic!”
- Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight -Swords and axes are cool. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a guy – hitting something over the head with a big metal object is something I’m pre-programmed to enjoy. That said, the variety afforded by modern items and weapons is hard to match in a fantasy setting. Tabula Rasa’s healing widgets are a great example, and the sf/x that represent them are fantastic. Blizzard has certainly shown the variety you can get out of axes, hammers, and plate mail, but projectile weapons are a nice change of pace. Dinking around with TR’s weapons has been a highlight of the experience.
- Actually Cogent Storytelling – That ‘no magic’ thing (should) extend to better storytelling. Look at the lore of most fantasy titles: blah blah elves blah blah elder gods blah blah chosen race blah blah great conflict. Most of these games have little more than the serial numbers filed off to distinguish between their backstories. Is Norrath really all that more compelling than Dereth or Vana’diel? Sci-fi storylines tend to be based (more or less) in the real world, meaning players have a lot of built-in context on which to base their understanding of the game world. This not only means players might find the lore more approachable, for those who care about such things it should lead to better roleplaying. What’s an easier point of view to adopt: a crazy lizard-guy who can throw fireballs or a human soldier?
- A Hopeful Outlook – This may be something hard to grasp, but I fundamentally think sci-fi settings are more hopeful than your average fantasy world. In fantasy, so much of the time, the efforts of the players are just chessboard moves. Ageless NPCs, demi-gods, demons, these are the ‘real’ players in the lore. We just show up as incidental actors on a much bigger stage. In science fiction, people are people. The protagonists of the story are set against much more understandable foes; even ravenous space aliens are fundamentally mortal. They may be unstoppable, inscrutable killing machines, but they can still be killed by a well-place bullet. Beyond that, I find the idea of humanity expanding into outer space (even if it’s in self-defense) incredibly uplifting. Our current attitude towards space exploration is so blase that even the flight from Earth seen in the Firefly/Serenity series (”Earth-that-was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many.”) seems hopeful by comparison. How can anyone look up at the night sky and not wish to go visiting some day?
- The XKCD Factor – Have you ever read the webcomic XKCD? Go check out a few comics if you haven’t. You’ll be able to quickly tell if it’s the kind of humor you get. A Venn Diagram outlining the number of people who can fully appreciate blogofractals, Katamari jokes, and an unnatural fear of velociraptors does not encompass all of humanity. That can also be said for folks who truly appreciate science fiction. Lots of people can debate Kirk vs. Picard, but mulling the finer points of bespoke nanotechnology design after reading Diamond Age is a more rarefied experience. Sci-fi is demanding in a way that fantasy isn’t, and as a result sci-fi gamers tend to have instant connections with their fellows.
12 Comments so far
Do you hear that? That’s the sound of me clapping and cheering ‘Bravo!’
Great post! I too love the sci-fi and although I must admit I probably only ‘get’ 2 in 3 of xkcd I love it for not only those times I get it, but also those times I don’t but want to so go in search of an answer. Great sci-fi is like that too, it makes you think, it makes you wonder, it makes you yearn for what could be.
Too much of today’s common (mis)understanding of sci-fi is that its shooting at aliens or robots with lasers. To me that’s nothing but fantasy with different stage dressing. I originally had high hopes for Seed and was upset when it launched before it was ready and Runestone was forced to shut it down. Here was a game that didn’t revolve around combat as the only way to solve a problem.
[...] Zenke wrote a fantastic article on the merits of Sci-Fi as a genre for exploitation into other avenues such as games. Read that first, because it’s [...]
Bravo!
I agree with most of your points, although I must object somewhat to #5. While I do think that the XKCD comics can be quite funny (thanks for reminding me about that web site).
SciFi is such a wide genre that you can certainly have a more refined experience as well as the more basic space opera like and can operate on multiple levels.
Contrary to what Grimwell may think, SciFi is not all Star Trek technobabble. If Star Trek type SciFi would have been the only variation in existance or the utterly dominating, I would not have bothered much that much with reading it or watching it.
Or if fantasy would have been dominated by Tolkien-type stories…
Aside from this specific comparision; most MMOG genre debates only talk about SciFi vs Fantasy, why not bring in other genres in the mix? There is so much to explore beyond elves and orcs type of material and does not have to be strictly SciFi as an alternative.
Sci-fi is interesting, certainly, but I find fantasy to be more humanizing. Fantasy, when you look at it from an analytical point of view, is various aspects of the human psyche examplified. I also find that it tends to be more insiteful and philisophical. Look at Warhammer Battle Fantasy, they made a BOOK on the forces of Chaos longer than any sci-fi novel I’ve ever seen. This book (Liber Chaotica) involves Chaos philosophy, magical insite, how mortals preceive Chaos, and many other subjects. Sci-fi just seems mindless to me, although it can be semi-interesting.
Oh, and I’d rule out the “No Elves” thing. Ever heard of Warhammer 40,000? Look up “Eldar” and “Dark Eldar”. There’s almost always the wisened, immortal, exotic race in every sci-fi setting. StarCraft for instance has Protoss. Mass Effect has the Asari, which are inherently hot and resemble female humans. Not to mention they live up to a thousand years- sound familiar? Sci-fi may not have Elves in that exact context all of the time, but there’s almost always a substitute of some kind.
Once again, this isn’t to say I dislike sci-fi. Some of my favorite game series have actually been a mesh of both sci-fi and fantasy. The Precursor Legacy and Rachet and Clank namely.
Over all, I think this subject has been beaten to death. Instead of pitting ourselves against each other in Sci-fi and Fantasy Inernet cliques, I think game designers and writers need to find more ways to mesh the two and get the best of both worlds.
-Sam
Great post. When i look at the worlds of Steampunk, Golden Age, or even gritty Cyberpunk I am instantly drawn to a world of high imagination. As for the aliens, frankly they are getting a little tiresome, though a lot can be done to make even aliens exciting. What blows me away is that developers aren’t looking at society in general. I remember hearing that either nine or ten of the top grossing films ever are SF. If I was a dev and looking to make some instant cash this fact alone would shove me in the right direction.
As for 40k no offence but thats Warhammer with guns not SF.
It’s a fictional universe in which extremely advanced science and extraterrestrials exist. It’s sci-fi by definition. It also shares a lot of aspects with Star Wars in the sense of formality, something which a lot of sci-fi (most of which is based in future settings of our own universe) lacks now adays.
[...] post: Five Reasons Sci-Fi Pwns Fantasy His response: One Reason Fantasy Pwns [...]
Two years ago I was looking for an MMO to try. I was actually really interested in joining either Eve Online or Anarchy Online – until I realized something. Except for Warcraft most MMO’s only run on Windows and I have a Mac (I understand Eve now runs on Mac, but I haven’t tried it yet).
IF game developers really a killer Sci-Fi MMO that appeals to a broad audience, they should consider more cross platform options.
Cordially: pull your head in, junior, and take a breather. You’re being very, very careful with your five points in how you define SF versus fantasy, and in so doing you’re alienating a long list of authors whom I suspect I could find on your shelves: LeGuin, Vance, Zelazny, Moorcock, Brunner, Spinrad, Sturgeon… I’m just drawing from memory here. If I checked my own shelves, no doubt I’d be here all night.
It’s very easy to piss all over bad fantasy – and indeed, there’s every reason that you should. But I would remind you of one thing: Sturgeon’s Law. And no, I ain’t gonna reiterate it. If you don’t know it already, then you really don’t have the kind of moral authority in this field to justify any serious consideration of your criticism. And if you do know Sturgeon’s Law already, then you have obviously forgotten the circumstances in which it was coined – because, of course, it was science fiction that was coming under fire at the moment Sturgeon spoke up.
Admittedly, I’m not a hardcore vidgamer. But I’ve enjoyed old-school dice gaming in a wide array of settings, and it always comes down to the same things: interesting characters, good storylines, and imagination. I see precious little of that last in most game-titles on either side of the genre divide these days.
I’ll take this up in more detail in my own space. In the meantime… shooting at fish in a barrel gets kind of dull, doesn’t it? Go read China Mieville, Neil Gaiman and Phillip Pullman. Who knows? Your happy reading place might be up for a bit of redecoration.
This wil be why theres so many scifi mmos around beating the fantasy worlds into a pulp?
To compare something as dull and repetetive as Tabula Rasa to the likes of Ultima Online,Everquest and even World of Warcraft, is laughable. Tabula Rasa is pretty boring and stade once youve hit 1th lvl due to skill system. Shooting everything with a shotgun for 50 levels is boring. Give me variety any day.
Not a big WoW fan but at least there ,you will find some variety and colour.Hell even Hellgates more fun.Ah now theres a quandry, fantasy AND scifi!
ANyway im a big scifi fan and the only mmo to come close to my idea of scifi is Anarchy Online. When playing an MMO i do NOT want to connect with reality in anyway lol. I dont want things that are based on real life or plausible ideas, i want Arthur C. Clarke ‘oh my head hurts” thinking.
I agree 100% with Dirk Flinthart.
Once you move away from the fantasy that exists only in Tolkien’s shadow you get some truly amazing stuff (”A Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula LeGuin is probably my favorite fantasy book of all time, and Mieville’s work comes a close second).
In that sense, I couldn’t agree more with elves being boring, and “hero’s quest” story lines being overdone, and McGuffins being pointless… but I’d say that “traditional” gritty cyberpunk, re-tellings of Frankenstein in the guise of AI stories and space opera that focuses more on the technology than it does on the humans all suffer from the same flaws.
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