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Are you a Fantasy-fag or a Sci-Fi-fag?

Are you a fantasy-fag or a sci-fi-fag?


  • Total voters
    147

Klarion

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2014
Messages
1,864,550
Location
Stonekeep
Really wanna hear what you people prefer...
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Used to be fantasy all the way. Some scifi tv and games (and Glen Cook) made me more tolerant to scifi, but in general fantasy is way more preferable, in novels in particular.
 

sqeecoo

Arcane
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
2,615
I want to be a fantasy fan, but good fantasy novels are few and far between, and there's plenty of good SF out there. Recommendations, mondblut?
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,182
Location
Bjørgvin
CRPGs: fantasy, because magic.

Books: used to be a fantasy fan, but realized most fantasy is basically the same: set in an alternate ancient/medieval word where magic works, and there is a war.
A SF story can happen anywhere and any time, and deal with much more diverse things. So now I'm currently reading my way through the classic SF magazines and novels.
 

cvv

Arcane
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Joined
Mar 30, 2013
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Kingdom of Bohemia
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Unfortunately most of modern fantasy is tired, braindead trash and it feels like a tea bag used so many times it's not even brown anymore. If I hear one more time I have to find a magic sword and kill an evil wizard I swear imma shave my head, climb a church tower and start shooting randomly at the street down below.

Not that all SF is brilliant but there's so much more variety and novelty and inventiveness. Too bad most RPGs are and always have been fantasy.
 

undecaf

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 4, 2010
Messages
3,517
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Sci-fi because fuck fantasy. I'm burned out on magic and elves and shit. It's just not very interesting anymore.
 

SausageInYourFace

Angelic Reinforcement
Patron
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
3,858
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In your face
Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
Fantasy-fag, in RPGs as well as in books. :obviously:

Read a lot of scifi when I was younger, in more recent years I came to read much more fantasy. Don't know why really, maybe I got more conservative over the years or something. More likely it has something to do with a love for history, myths and the like, to which fantasy naturally has a much closer connection.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Joined
Aug 4, 2007
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19,182
Location
Bjørgvin
If I hear one more time I have to find a magic sword and kill an evil wizard I swear imma shave my head, climb a church tower and start shooting randomly at the street down below.

16481.jpg
 

Scroo

Female Quota Staff
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Staff Member
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Mar 17, 2010
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Too far away from the sea
Codex 2014 Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Both honestly. I would love to see more good sci-fi rpgs tho, especially turn- and partybased games. Sci-fi offers a lot of potential, something like Whales Voyage in good or smth (never played WV but Bee said it sucks and I trust her on this).

In books unfortunately both genres are like 90 % shit.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
I want to be a fantasy fan, but good fantasy novels are few and far between, and there's plenty of good SF out there.
Not limited to novels, and including some science-fantasy:

The Well at the World's End by William Morris
The House on the Borderland and The Night Land by W. H. Hodgson
King Solomon's Mines and She by H. Rider Haggard
Various short story collections by Lord Dunsany
The Moon Pool and The Ship of Ishtar by Abraham Merrit
Collections of the Conan and Solomon Kane stories by Robert E. Howard
Collections of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith
H.P. Lovecraft I consider a horror and SF writer, but some would classify his work as fantasy
Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson
Collections of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
The Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance
The Elric stories by Michael Moorcock
Lord of Light and the original Amber series by Roger Zelazny
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
 

cvv

Arcane
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Mar 30, 2013
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Kingdom of Bohemia
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^These are all fantasy masterpieces but you're talking about the Best of Last 100 years and not a single game (this is a gaming thread after all). Too bad gaming devs are so unwavering in their belief a fantasy game means the plot, writing and characters have to be geared for 10 year olds. With the exception of Witcher and Torment I can't come up with a single fantasy game that's not outright embarrassing as far as the non-gameplay elements are concerned.

Such a shame. Fantasy can be so evocative, so powerful. Hodgson or Wolfe are completely mindblowing. Before I read Night Land I thought Lovecraft is the pinnacle of scary and eerie and uncanny. Lol, what a fool I was. Alas it seems we're stuck with magical artefacts and dragons and wizards in dark towers.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
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3,084
Location
デゼニランド
Gaymes: I like both, but still prefer sci-fi/cyberpunk stuff. Same for books and movies.

If they're mixed together -- eeh, well, it could work. But I'm yet to see a good example of that.
 

MilesBeyond

Cipher
Joined
May 15, 2015
Messages
716
If I hear one more time I have to find a magic sword and kill an evil wizard I swear imma shave my head, climb a church tower and start shooting randomly at the street down below.

Is that really much of a thing, though, in fantasy RPGs? I mean I feel like that sort of thing hasn't really been popular since the 80s. Dark fantasy is cool now, and it's all just crap about the real enemy being human nature and saying the word fuck and things like that. Ultra-cliche high-fantasy pulp would actually feel like a breath of fresh air right now.
 
Unwanted

Bustamonte

Unwanted
Shitposter
Joined
May 12, 2016
Messages
691
Fantasy but only if it is high fantasy with no modern horribleness as is typical today. Otherwise may as well go to debauched nihilistic scifi.
 

warpig

Incel Resistance Leader
Manlet
Joined
Mar 24, 2013
Messages
7,364
Location
lmaoing @ your life
Sci-fi. I like "old-timey" military stuff though. Games when you can kill people with swords, spears, axes etc. I prefer it in a historical setting or a fantasy world with not too much "supernatural" stuff.
 

Jigawatt

Arcane
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
3,409
Location
in a desert, walking along in the sand
On the one hand there's Arcanum and Dark Souls, but then, Fallout and SMAC. Voted sci-fi because as others have pointed out fantasy writers seem to confine themselves to a much narrower 'idea space' - all else being equal I would be more interested in an upcoming project if it was announced as sci-fi rather than fantasy.
 

Melan

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
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6,602
Location
Civitas Quinque Ecclesiae, Hungary
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I am a simple man who likes his fantasy with laser guns and cheerleaders on rocket sleds.

Although lately, I have been thinking about "classic fantasy, done right". A lot of high fantasy is disappointing because it is only 3d10 entries from TvTropes glued together. It lacks imagination, whimsy, and a sense of wonder. It is lazy because all it does is remix and dilute older recipes. But if you look at the classics, there is something there the modern efforts don't capture, and I'd like to see that something getting more screen time. No post-modernist irony, no SJW perversion, no pop culture nonsense - just something that goes deep into high fantasy's original themes, and believes in its message.
 

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