Sci-Fi Doesn't Need World Writeups

[soltakss]

OK, that should get some people's attention.

What I mean by this is that Sci Fi settings which rely on space travel generally don't have detailed world writeups.

Look at a Fantasy World like Glorantha or Alternate Earth. Each country is written up, each culture is written up, each major town and many small villages are written up. People travel between towns and villages, between countries and cultures. So, you need detailed writeups.

Now, look at a world-hopping Sci Fi campaign.

All you really need is to know where the Spaceports are, what race/species is in charge of the planet, what species is native to the planet and what the planet is famous/useful for.

Look at some Sci Fi films/series. Star Wars describes part of Tatooine, briefly sketches the other worlds and never really stays in one place long enough to warrant a description. Star Trek treats planets as settlements with empires/federations/dominians made of many planets, none of which are ever really described. Babylon 5 has descriptions of each world but never cities on each world. The same can be said for series such as Blakes Seven, Farscape and Space 1999.

Even Sci Fi Novels very rarely describe individual worlds. Dune is perhaps an exception, but that only concentrated on a few worlds. Asimov's books rarely described a single city in any detail. I can't think of a series of space-hopping books that describes a city or a number of cities in detail.

Part of the problem is that a planet such as Earth has 6 billion people, hundrd of thousands of towns and cities and many cultures. Other Sci fi worlds would be as complex, perhaps more so. Even describing a single city is too much - imagine bringing out a supplement describing London, Los Angeles or Mexico City in any detail. It just isn't worth it.

So, Sci Fi Settings don't need detailed world descriptions. What they need is something like Cthulhu Rising that has sketches of each planet and uses the planets themselves as settlements with travel between them. In any setting with thousands of planets, you will have lists of planets and what the are useful for and that's about it.

After all, Sci fi Settings are not really about individual cities but how the PCs interact with different planets and empires.

[rust]

Well, for the past five months I have been working on a detailed description
of a single planet with a colony of (now) just about 60,000 humans, and now
I have about 50 pages of "canonical" material, some maps and many notes -
and there is still a surprising lot to do before I would call this science fiction
setting "complete".

And no, this is not unusual for science fiction. Just take a look at the Blue
Planet RPG, an entire RPG with lots of supplements, and all about one single
planet. Many Travellers GMs also have developed their planets to the point
where they are just as well described as any fantasy world, and one guy on
a world builder forum recently remarked that he will consider his world "fini-
shed" when he has written its capital's phonebook ...

As for science fiction novels about single planets, I could literally name do-
zens of them. Jack Vance alone probably wrote more than a dozen of such
novels, and there are lots of quite famous "one-world-SF-novels" by authors
like Heinlein or Niven. There are even at least several science fiction novels
about single cities.

[Puck]

Sci-Fi Doesn't Need World Writeups

???

I cannot figure this out, unless the thread was just created to play devils advocate it doesn't make sense to me. On the other hand I do believe what you said before that the fantasy and science fiction worlds should be divided into different catagories. In the Geography thread I can never quite figure out if people are really dicussing a fantasy world or a Nivenesque sci-fi world. Once the rules come out things could really get confusing.

[Atgxtg]

I'll disagree. Star Wars and Star Trek both put quite a bit into worlds like Tatooine and Vulcan.

THe key thing to consider here is that on TV and espeically in a Movie they can have a "touch & go", where the ship stops for a bit, and never comes back.

In a RPG, there is always the possiblity that the characters might want to go to planet C and hang around awhile.

Basically a Planet is the same as a city, kingdom or region in a fantasy setting, and needs to be detailed just as much. It is just the scale is bigger. Rather than a bunch of island countries you have a bunch of planets.

[PK Games]

The 40K-iverse has many planets they focus on. From those of the Sabbat world, to Cadia, Tanith, Mordia, Tallarn and so forth. For the Dark Heresy Role Playing Game the creator a new Sector to play around with and dedicated 40 pages of the core rules to it as well as a lengthy portion of its web site. Heck they even opened up and let some fans design some of the multitude of worlds for them.

And I recall the Star Wars WEG D6 RPG having many sourcebooks based on the movies that delved into things like Dagobah, Hoth and Tattoine.

In the end there is no true difference between sci-fi and fantasy settings other then how you get around. Planets like Tattoine and Cadia are just variations of "climate or terrain" for encounter tables and serve much the same role as cities like Freeport or Waterdeep do.

"Hey we have to track that rogue sorcerer down who stole the magic sword. He was here in Freeport but we need to charter a boat to Waterdeep to stop him!"

becomes

"Hey we have to track that rogue psykerdown who stole the cursed eye. He was here on Cadia but we need to charter a transport to Scintila to stop him!"

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Puck

In the Geography thread I can never quite figure out if people are really dicussing a fantasy world or a Nivenesque sci-fi world.

Well, we are discussing a fantasy world over there, but I see no reason why it can't be Nivenesque. That's part of what we're trying to thrash out. I suspect this thread is related.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Well, we are discussing a fantasy world over there, but I see no reason why it can't be Nivenesque. That's part of what we're trying to thrash out. I suspect this thread is related.

That is a good part of it. Different people have different goals and different expectations. I suspect there is also a difference in level of detail desired. But it can all be turned around.

For instance, Fantasy doesn't need multiple gods, magic or non-human races either. or does it need detailed cult write-ups in the RQ2 mold. But all those things have benefits in play so players end up deciding what trade offs to make for the detail.

Same with Sci-Fi. A lot of the detail adds color to the setting, and other bits are actually useful for adventure design and for building a setting. Much the way georgrpahy makes a difference in a fantasy or historical setting.

Things like how far you can travel and how fast make a big difference to any campaign setting. For instance in Star Wars a ship can fly across the Galaxy in a few days. Sort of like Early-mid 20th Centruy Earth. Star Trek, on the other hand has much slower ships, and it takes days or weeks just to make the next star system. More like Earth's Age of Sail. Just that one difference alone makes for a big difference between the settings.

[AikiGhost]

I agree whole heartedly. The whole Tolkien style world building thing just holds no interest for me at all. What I need from a sci fi game is political and military factions, aliens and their philosophy and possible points of conflict for PCs.

IMHO each system needs no more than a line or two saying something about its main population centre, its government and maybe something interesting like "Its a binary star system with one red and one blue sun" or "This systems only population centre is a gas mining facility in high orbit around the gas giant planet Xymox"

[Ars Mysteriorum]

I think it's possible that such settings like Star Trek, and yes Star Wars, would require the most minimal of fleshing out.

However, for sci-fi like Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor, the flavor, details, and politics of a planet are highly important to communicating the feel of the setting. Warhammer is a very detailed game fluff-wise.

I think it depends on the feel of game you're going for.

[Atgxtg]

Yes, it does depend on the type of campaign. If you are doing a lot of Star hopping, with adventures taking place somewhere new each week, as in TOS and TNG Star Trek, then you don't need as much detail. You still need some, both for the adventure proper, and to give ti enough favlor to make it feel real.

That's why on TV there are always signs, strange lettering an other bits fo strangeness about. To make it feel like the players are on an alien planet. Like the time early in TOS when Roddenbery went and ripped up the plants and put them upside down so the alien planet didn't look like someone
s garden.


If the GM is setting a campaign in a specific location, like on a Space station , as whas the case with DS9, then you need to flesh out the local cultures even more, since you will be using them more.


Series, film, TV, or book, also tend to revisit certain places and people and add more details later.


I say there is really no difference by genre, but by style of the campaign. The more locations available to play in the less detail each location will need. At least initially. Once play begins, if the PCs spend a lot of time on Planet X, and not so much on Planet Y, then Planet X will need more detail.


The same thing is true in a fantasy or historical RPG. If the PCs are wandering mercenaries, merchants, or pirates at sea, then it would be the same sort of situation.