forum Anyone else like science fantasy as a genre?

Started September 02, 2021 by @Oakiin

tune

I love it, and I've been getting more and more into it. I'm currently designing and writing a sci-fantasy ttrpg.
Anyone want to talk about it? I feel like it's a fairly underrated genre

I can't name a media property other than the original Star Wars trilogy (maybe Dune which I haven't read, or His Dark Materials that I have read but the author was awfully snobbish about it not being fantasy,) but I'd say that I like both science fantasy and ttrpgs so please do tell us all about your system!

Science fantasy is probably my favorite genre just because of all of the weird bullshit you can put in there. Power Armor? Yes. Technomancy? Hell yeah! Mechanical dragons raining down hellish Warp Fire on a contingent of fungoid creatures with the personality of football hooligans? Now you're speaking my language!

I feel like science fantasy isn't the easiest genre to write for (what is, really?), but I think it gives you enough material to draw from to where you could write a story about almost anything within a science fantasy lense. I think a great example of that is Warhammer 40k. Not all of the writing is good (believe me, there are some SHITTY ASS BOOKS under the Black Library), but the lore is so vast to where you can write anything from pulpy Band of Brothers stories to noir novels to a story about two robot skeletons trying to fuck with each other over the course of literal millenia.

Sorry to get back to this thread so late, I got so exited by Elly asking about my system that I had to go do something else for like,,, 4 days (is that a thing for anyone else??)

Okay, so brief on Gunners.
Its a d10 sytem to minimize math, with an emphasis on minimized math, because it's a fast-paced combat game. Combat revolves around the idea that you're going up against many, many more monsters than you have players to fight those monsters, so because of that, players have a much higher dpr, and also have fluid turns throughout combat. Almost every class ability links with another class ability, and therefore encourages teamwork. It's made for 4-8 players, less is bad, more than four is ok, but four is what it's primed for!
It's a tactics game, where each combo of enemies creates a new puzzle to solve, therefore each encounter is something unlike the last.

Oh, and the monsters are bio-cyber resurrected dinosaurs designed like hot rods and monster trucks with guns. They're called Dieselsaurs. Some of them have turn-signals, and they all have headlights for eyes and classic race car/hotrod paint jobs. I would LOVE to elaborate on them if anyone is interested haha I have some specific ones I just love

Science fantasy is probably my favorite genre just because of all of the weird bullshit you can put in there. Power Armor? Yes. Technomancy? Hell yeah! Mechanical dragons raining down hellish Warp Fire on a contingent of fungoid creatures with the personality of football hooligans? Now you're speaking my language!

I feel like science fantasy isn't the easiest genre to write for (what is, really?), but I think it gives you enough material to draw from to where you could write a story about almost anything within a science fantasy lense. I think a great example of that is Warhammer 40k. Not all of the writing is good (believe me, there are some SHITTY ASS BOOKS under the Black Library), but the lore is so vast to where you can write anything from pulpy Band of Brothers stories to noir novels to a story about two robot skeletons trying to fuck with each other over the course of literal millenia.

Yesss that's EXACTLY what I'm talking about :D I got introduced to the genre by the doom games. They do a really great job of it, and I've started looking into other games and stuff (like Warhammer 40k) that are on the same vein. It's just such a rare genre, and so easily gets misidentified as just straight sci-fi.

Okay, I just looked up science fantasy and realized that I was one of those folks that confused science fantasy with sci-fi. How about that.

And, as it turns out, I’m a big fan of both, leaning heavily toward science fantasy! ‘Big grin and thumbs-up’. You learn something new everyday!

Okay, now I’m going to go obsess over my actually ‘science fantasy’ stories for the next three days. ‘Big goofy grin and a lot snickering’.

A lot of people don't even know it exists, it's crazy to me! I hope you have fun with your stories :D

‘Big grin and two thumbs-up’

So, so much.

So, so much.

Right?? I don't know how I'd never heard of it until I was 20