Nexus: Lavan Chitwold

You could, for example, write a fully integrated system background which touches upon themes of Orwellian  dystopias and similar concepts. You could then have a bunch of players who think it would be really cool to run around shooting things with laser guns without really engaging in that background. 'The state is a facist technocrat dictatorship, is it? Fair enough. How much does it cost to buy a rocket launcher?' On the other hand, your background could be written on the back of a crisp packet and basically say 'its a space game, wiv lasers 'n spaceships 'n stuff' and you could get players who turn that into a complex multilayered allegorical treatise into the ethics of stem cell research. I've seen this happen both ways. Players can take a background you have written and twist it into something they want so easily and it usually turns into something richer as a result. Issues of ethics, sociology, political theory and so on have all come up simply because the players have put it there. I've also, unfortunately, seen players run roughshod over some carefully constructed plot simply because they wanted to 'just shoot it and go home'. 

Now the argument against that is possibly 'get better players', but I think that is possibly the wrong attitude. Alienating players by over intellectualising the game is not a good business practise nor does it really achieve what  you want to achieve. Instead, you have to try to engage even the ones who just want to shoot things. And even if they don't get engaged by it, make sure that they still have a good time. Basically - have the complex metaphysics, technological paradigms, political essays and so on there for the players to engage with if they want but also make sure that there is plenty to shoot

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The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God...

Ruins of Empire

1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester

I don’t totally agree with this… here’s why.

I think this is a useful point- I think a lot of fantasy is fundamentally about skipping the 'how' question. Frodo saved the world because he was able to resist the lure of the ring right up until the last minute- it doesn't matter how an inanimate object was able to magically tempt him into keeping it. In 'Narnia', Lucy was able to use her magic elixir to save many wounded heroes- it doesn't matter how the elixir works, whether it contains nanotech or some sort of artificial regenerating agent or what- the point is that she healed them.

I think this helps clarify the spectrum from fantasy to soft sci-fi to hard sci-fi. In fantasy, the author is under very little compulsion to get involved in the ‘how’ question. The broomstick works because of magic- that’s it. You can go into a bit of detail about what magic is and where it comes from, but it isn’t compulsory.

With soft sci-fi, the ‘how’ question needs an answer which is at least superficially related to what the average reader/viewer is likely to understand as the real laws of physics. So the spaceship works because of ‘wormholes’ and ‘nuclear fusion’, not ‘spiritual energy’ or ‘the power of hate’- but it isn’t compulsory for the author to go into detail about exactly how the wormholes are created or the fusion is sustained safely.

By contrast, anything aiming at the standards of hard sci-fi ought to be able to withstand a certain amount of scientific nitpicking. It won’t be perfect- there will always be some gaps in the explanation, because if we had a perfect understanding of how to make this work, then we’d already have the technology. But the gaps should be a lot fewer and less obvious than in soft sci-fi (this isn’t to say that hard sci-fi is ‘better’ than fantasy or soft sci-fi, just that it carries a different set of expectations).

You’re right to say that good sci-fi looks at the interaction of different societies, sociology and politics, but I don’t think any of those things make a story sci-fi. I could write a story about the cultural and political conflict caused by the colonisation of India, but it wouldn’t be sci-fi (it also wouldn't be good, because I know virtually nothing about the period, but I think that's beside the point .)

I think (and this might be just my opinion) that in order for something to be sci-fi, then it has to involve thinking about the consequences of fictional technology.  ‘Fictional’ being a key word here- a story written about the introduction of gunpowder to Japan would also look at the consequences of new technology, but I wouldn’t call it sci-fi. I think that in order for something to count as ‘technology’, it needs to theoretically work in a way reasonably congruent with our current understanding of physics- so a weapon that does extra damage because it has been blessed by the lightning god is fantasy, whereas a weapon built to deliver electromagnetic pulses to something is sci-fi (hard sci-fi if a lot of effort has gone into explaining how this works, soft sci-fi if the explanation is just ‘well, it’s magnets and electricity, innit?’) In larp, then I’d say the distinction is in the mechanics, not the characters’ perception of events- if it’s based on electromagnetic pulses, and more or less follows realistic physics, then it’s sci-fi even if the characters believe that it only works by the power of the lightning god.

By this definition, Maelstrom is not sci-fi, because there’s no attempt to make things like ‘soul symbols’ or ‘sorcery’ tally with real-world physics. So, in my book it’s fantasy- albeit fantasy with an attempt to make magic into a tool which can be developed, used precisely, and will interact meaningfully with the economy. Sort of like bits of Discworld, or the promising first half of ‘Wicked’ by Gregory Maguire, even if this disappointingly isn’t sustained throughout the book. This means that it has some things in common with well-written sci-fi, but- IMO- it isn’t sci-fi.

I'm curious as to which works of Shakespeare you consider to be Science Fiction. I don't know a massive amount about the plays other than what was covered in English A-level, but I can't remember anything that I would consider to be fulfil most of the characteristics on your list. What sort of things were you thinking of?

I'm not convinced that this is a characteristic of science fiction- it seems to me like any book can contain a brief musing on the unknowable nature of the universe, whether or not it includes any of the other themes on the list.

Also, it seems like contemplating the unknowable nature of the universe is antithetical to the aims of science- science is based entirely on the *knowable* bits of the nature of the universe (which is not to say that real scientists or characters in sci-fi *can't* contemplate the unknowable bits too- but they're not doing science when they do that).

I like the idea of this- I think I would find it a challenge to try to focus on issues which are more important to your character’s overall life than to the small part of their life which they technically spend at larp events, but it sounds like something which would make the larp feel more real.

I agree that messing around with some bits of the magic system in Maelstrom is in some ways quite similar to doing real science IRL- especially insofar as you can sometimes use something which is *almost* the scientific method. At the last event, a character who’s interested in finding out more about their world asked me a question about my character’s physical capabilities (I play a facet). It wasn’t a question I’d ever considered, but it was an interesting one, so I found something I could test it on and then went to get a ref. The answer turned out to be ‘no, you can’t do that’, for a reason which made a certain amount of scientific sense, but I still enjoyed having the chance to test the issue empirically.

On the other hand, there are other bits of the system which aren’t so open to testing- for example, I’m not convinced that it would be a good idea to do a series of almost identical supplications to a god, changing just one thing each time, in order to see which one seems to work best.

On the whole, though, I think I’d still consider Maelstrom to be ‘complex fantasy’ rather than sci-fi.

I agree entirely that the distinction between fantasy and sci-fi is artificial, but it is a distinction that most people understand. The confusion arises when other literature crosses into sci-fi - Margaret Atwood's classic work 'The Handmaids Tale' demonstrates this well. Its a brilliant piece, and it is blatantly sci-fi. She claims otherwise.

Another example is alternative history. I like it. So do a lot of people. I consider it to be sci-fi. Some sci-fin fans consider it to be an insult to the genre.

This whole concept of 'genre' of literature is relatively new. When some of the classic works were written the concept didnt exist, works like 'The TIme Machine' or 'Frankenstein' or 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' were just works of literature. There is no particular need or value in pigeon holing literature, or anything else, so strictly.

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It is not a competition. It is a web forum.

I don't disagree with the 'how' aspect and this argument fails to counter my point. As I said, several LRPs do consider the 'how' aspects. The numerous discussions about metaphysics which cropped up on Pagga and other places (not least several discussions with others when I have been designing games and settings) have shown that LRPers do indeed consider the 'How'. Most systems I know of have a fully fleshed out set of rules about 'how the universe works' with plausible rules to dictate 'what exactly happens when a player tries this...'. I have seen pages and pages of information written about this. However, and here is the thing, they are usually written in secret ref documents and so again we come to the requirement for the players to get involved. In order for there to be an interest in how things work, it is up to the players to make the moves to research it. LRP is a co-operative effort - players, crew and refs need to work together. A ref can set up the rules of the universe (warp engines work on this principle, gene therapy works like this to heal wounds, psionics is based on this principle and so on) and even encourage to a certain extent the examination of the rules (by making elements of the plot or character's personal goals dependent upon understanding of them) but it is ultimately the players who need to prod the universe with big stick in order to work out if it is going to explode or not.

In a novel or film, the universe is entirely under the control of one or two individuals - it is up to them how deeply they probe the universe and how much they show the reader/viewer. In LRP the universe is not entirely yours to control and how deep the players probe is up to them.

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The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God...

Ruins of Empire

1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester