Years ago, mid 80's early 90s, I bought a bag of those plastic prehistoric dinosaurs in a toy department and thinking these look just like D&D creatures. I thought someone had copied D&D evidently it was the other way around!!!
Tale of the Comet was a 2nd-edition era attempt to inject scifi into D&D. It was very interesting module that relied very heavily on the DM to come up with the invasion element. It's a pretty rare item to find these days but it is a pretty cool attempt to inject a galactic-scaled, high-tech war into D&D.
That sounds really interesting! Outside of the core books and the brown "Complete" books and a few of the green "Historical" books, I don't really have much knowledge of 2E. By the time that edition came out, my new group was playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so while I had some 2E books and spent a lot of time developing a potential campaign for that edition, I never actually played it. Thank you for watching and commenting! And thanks for your support of the channel!
Vance took the "any sufficiently advanced science" bit and ran with it in his Dying Earth series, it underpins all the magic in ways that are only hinted at, you have to pretty much read it all to really begin to notice it, but when you do begin to catch on you begin to realise that his whole world is like a bigger version of what Terry Pratchett did later with Strata, you begin to realise as you go through the series that he's hinting fairly blatantly here and there that all the magic is really being achieved by extremely advanced computers and tech hidden away in extra dimensional space listening for their trigger phrases and 'rituals' ("spells") to produce their effects that everyone has forgotten are actually there .. his mages are like kids home alone / after their parents died, in a high tech house with clappers that do a whole lot more than just turn the lights on and off, they don't know how any of it works but they know how to make it go. It's basically Gamma World but set millions of years later and if Gamma World had even more advanced science than it did, but no one in the world knows that. I'm struggling here ☝ to find similes I think people will get to say what I mean 😁
Yep. I've actually seen it debated before whether Vance, taken at face value, should be considered Science Fiction or Science Fantasy under the current paradigm of genre taxonomy.
@@chiblast100x He wrote it mostly as a swords and sorcery fantasy, but with a hinted at running in-joke of sorts for readers (who know things his characters don't) that only occasionally rears its head. Me I'd leave it in the fantasy section because it will fit the expectations of more who don't know it already who find it there, and that's basically what it is in style and content ("look and feel" if we were talking about a GUI) anyway, probably best not to worry about it too much. 🤔 It's like a translucent round peg with a square peg inside that can only just be seen occasionally from the right angle in the right light, it's not going to fit in the square hole if you try and jam it in 😁
@@danielgoldberg5357 It's been a good while since I read up on the setting, but IIRC Numenara is a lot more obvious that's whats going on like Tékumel/Empire of the Pettel Throne. That said, I'd be unsurprised if there is some acknowledged influence since Vance has been a major influence on a lot of designers and world builders in the gaming space (Richard Garfield for example).
The mention of Howard's Conan stories is also a good point to highlight how the line between fantasy and sci-fi is pretty blurry. Yeah, Conan's fantasy... but it's set in the same universe as Lovecraft's stories, which At the Mountains of Madness reveal to be solidly sci-fi.
I as well like mixing what today are seen as distance genres... Although, I have always been drawn to "What if [insert genre] mixed with [insert genre]." But something I have wanted to do recently is a sort of alien abduction mystery set in a medieval fantasy world. Likely from a mix of factors, but I watched the Taken miniseries and then Pathfinder 1st edition (my current preferred system) has a lot of sci-fi elements included since it is very much what I call "Kitchen Sink Fantasy", but also because they were simultaneously working on their Sci-Fi TTRPG Starfinder during the later years of 1e and they took the content they already made and ported it to Pathfinder since they are relatively rather similar systems. And the point was, they have Grays which are your stereotypical gray-skinned, black-eyed, abducting aliens... Some times depicted with green skin, they can be found in X-Com, sometimes in the X-Files, Taken, and many other sources.
The 1e DMG also has the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O, which is a mech, along with the Machine of Lum the Mad, which is noted to be of similar construction.
For anyone who has not read Dying Earth I urge you to grab a copy. At least seek out the Cugel the Clever stories; they are short, gritty and darkly humorous. You’ll also find the origin of the Eyes of True-seeing.
I love science fantasy. Planetary romance is probably my favorite genre, but no one uses it at all anymore. I'm planning on doing an old Venus style game where the morning star is a hot, wet world exploding with life. I wish d&d was more willing to mix scifi and fantasy. I remember as a kid going to the library and the fantasy section was actually the romance section! What we think of fantasy was in scifi.
@nicklarocco4178 Thank you so much! Not sure if you saw this, but I did a whole post on my blog about "Sword & Planet" type characters for a D&D game. There might be some fun stuff in there you can use in the campaign you are planning to run: daddyrolleda1.blogspot.com/2020/06/open-game-content-d12-sword-planet.html
I'm one of those gamers that resisted mixing genres, and I've played since AD&D 1.5. I never even considered using that host of real world dinosaurs detailed in Monster Manual, despite having been a 'dinosaur kid'. My only reasoning was the _vibe_ of the thing. You can explain away anything in outlandish fiction, but verisimilitude varies from person to person. Later, Spelljammer inspired me to turn Mind Flayers and Beholders into invading aliens of a medieval fantasy world, but I felt they still fit the vibe because those ships are powered by magic, and those monsters come from nightmares rather than exo-biological speculation (which is why I would call Lovecraft cosmic horror rather than true science fiction). I think the vibe is what matters and some crossovers do it better than others. One thing I think that can help bring them together is an element of cheesiness - Thundaar The Barbarian and Krull both work for me because they are more than a little silly. Barrier Peaks sounds awesome just for the shock that would come from walking fantasy characters right into a science fiction setting. :)
My friend from High School was our Dungeon Master in the 80s for about a year or two, and he took us through the Giants series and also Barrier Peaks, but he didn't want to bother with all the Vegepygmies, so he said they were all wiped out in some plague or something. I don't remember the specifics. We had a blast though : )
Funny thing about the Warriors of Mars game. To my understanding (well, Gygax says basically as much in the foreword), it was produced at the request of a miniatures company that had produced a set of Mars miniatures recently. I suspect they might have been under a misconception that they were being given a license along with the request. Or maybe they just were not even used to the idea that these things required something like that, since it was all so very amateur hobby level at that point. I wonder at which point they were contacted about the idea. If it was before D&D was out, part of the reason there is so much Mars stuff in the original booklets might have been the hope that they could tie the other upcoming game into it all, and maybe even make some sales in the process. Or if it's the other way around, part of the reason they were contacted was likely that they'd shown interest in the topic already, with D&D. (In either case part of the reason for the game and the elements of it in another game is likely also that they were simply genuinely fond of the topic as well, since it was all personal passion projects, essentially, back then.)
Something I've heard from an acquaintance, who was involved with the company during the era right before Gygax's exit and through Williams's tenure, suggests that the leadership at TSR didn't really ever understand licensing or intellectual property.
2:33 Yeah, Gary gets a *Foreword for that one! Elric is straight high fantasy, tho. All magic, often on the epic level. Later stories cross over with other types of worlds, like WW2 Europe or the "End of Time" but it's all still magic-oriented. Other Moorcock is definitely sf/sci fantasy, particularly some of the other Eternal Champions, like Hawkmoon, Erekose, or Cornelius.
One of the monsters from the plastic "Prehistoric" range was the one that became the Rust Monster. I had one when I was a kid before it ever apppeared in D&D. It had a yellowish underside and a rusty brown upper shell.
@@originaluddite I just assumed it was a Mythological thing, like a chimera or a cockatrice, or hydra and so on, just one I'd never heard of. I was much older when I read the story of Gary taking generic kids toys and making up names and abilities for them. And then thinking to myself, "Damn, I bet that penny piece of plastic would be worth a bit if I'd kept it!"
I had some of those toys as a kid, and the one that became the Rust Monster might have been my favourite. It had lost its antenae before it eventually went out of my llife (lost or thrown out by parents?). Recently saw a _proper_ D&D brand pewter miniature of one and considered getting it, but it would just not be the same. :)
Eberron, which mixes sci-fi/magitek/etc. is one of my favorite settings for D&D. I steal a lot of it for the gnomes in my own setting for Basic Fantasy RPG.
Yes, exactly - I mention it very briefly here: ua-cam.com/video/2bx4WL2ZO-4/v-deo.htmlsi=SKw9bXBm37YqLOwh&t=2111 I remember when WotC held the contest for the new setting that eventually ended up being Eberron. I even entered the contest!
Another great video. Gift idea: I purchased a Dice Schematic mug and a T-shirt for the guys who DM our games..just to say "Thanks for being our DM". I bet they are going to love them!
Oh wow! Thank you so much! You are clearly a gamer of sophistication and taste, and your DM is very lucky to have you as a player. Seriously... buying your DM a gift at the holidays is a class act. Thank you so much for your support both of my channel and of my shop. I truly appreciate it!
Loved that some of the D&D monsters are based on some of those plastic figures! lol! that's hilarious, Martin! I have all of those DA modules, and as I mentioned on Twitter, S3 EXPEDITION TO THE BARRIER PEAKS is my favorite module that TSR ever produced, so I am very much aware of how often Dungeons and Dragons incorporated science fiction into the game. BARRIER PEAKS was rather epic back in the day, as it seemed to turned the game on its ear a bit. I have about 95% of their D&D and AD&D modules output, and it has always been my favorite module because of the adventure itself. The concept of adventurers finding a crashed space ship filled with sci-fi gear, robots, and strange monsters is just brilliant! The vegepygmies made the module for me! LOL. I enjoyed the power armor, needle pistols, etc! Fun stuff! I also have an original copy of METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA, as well as that big, hardback reprint version. This video is probably my favorite one that you've done so far! Nice job on pointing out how fantasy and sci-fi used to be considered (pretty much) the same thing back in the day. That's absolutely true. No distinction was made in many libraries and bookstores, and even in magazines like STARLOG, for that matter. I remember Sid & Marty Kroft's LAND OF THE LOST blurring the lines between fantasy and science fiction every Saturday morning in the '70s! Even in modern AD&D, the neogi (from SPELLJAMMER) are present in the MONSTROUS MANUAL, and I've used them in campaign games a few times. Keep giving us great videos like this one! I love learning about the origins of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS! PS: I got THE MANUAL OF THE PLANES when it first came out from B. DALTON BOOKSELLER. At the time, I was the ONLY person that I knew that had a copy, and that remained true into the 1990s. It wasn't until the early 2000s that I actually talked to someone else who owned a copy
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for this great detailed reply! I love learning about other people's history with the game and how they played, especially someone that I've been chatting with for a while! I go between S3 and S4 (Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth) as being my favorite modules, for different reasons, but they're both great! Thank you for much for the compliment! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. That means a lot!
Funny you metioned Mind Flayers quite early on. If you look into their background they appear to be non magical creatures, indeed another race like Elves or Wookies. So my last Traveller game featured a mind flayer elder brain and it's pool; this was controlling events around the starship the players were on. A case of bringing d&d to hard sci/fi. I so wanted one of the players to become a mind flayer, but they managed to destroy the brain and escape... (for the time being). The whole idea was easy to fit together as long as I remembered the overarching goals of both parties... Quite a few early Traveller adventures were inspired by d&d and can be run as AD&D modules, in particular 'Shadows'. However beware of low level characters getting hold of S/F wonder weapons or worse a "magic item" engine for the space craft.
So interesting how videos games like Final Fantasy 1, which has such obvious inspiration from DnD, has VERY clear Sci Fi stuff, flying ships and Space stations etc, are more accurate to DnD than the strictly medieval fantasy games. Even Zelda 1 with them considering the "Dark world" to be a futuristic sci fi Hyrule, and now with Tears of the Kingdom we finally really got that
Yes, so many people forget about the science-fiction inspirations (or choose to ignore them) of D&D. I really feel like it was a combination of Tolkien and its derivative works (like Sword of Shannara, etc., even though those are technically post-apocalyptic) that began to create the line between "fantasy" and "science-fiction." Before that, it was a much looser definition. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I have always used the line that “I don’t like chocolate in my peanut butter” when talking about sci-fi and fantasy blends, so I laughed when you quoted your friend near the end of the video. I now amend it with “but sometimes I like peanut butter in my chocolate” because I’ve always wanted to play Barrier Peaks and it seems to be making a resurgence now. Another good video and great bonus content.
Wow! As ever an excellent review of early DnD ideas. I have a lot of commentary: I played a quite a bit of cross-over in the late 1980s (using 1E). We had a lot of psionics in these games. One of the mysteries we had to figure out was why all the animals on a world we had traveled to had bat-like sonar; of course there was a really good evolutionary reason for it. My Druid got some fun wild shapes from his time there. I played an early version of the Artificer in another game, and enjoyed my lightsabre wielding Kensai very much indeed. The John Carter stories are not really SF; they belong to a class of Imaginary World Fiction in which the reader's interlocutor is a person from our world who travels by some means to the imaginary. Lin Carter wrote an excellent essay that covers this concept well. Similarly Dying Earth is not really SF; that's another subgenre where the imaginary world is simply articulated as the far furture. Of course the Conan stories do something similar, but call their world the distant past. Yes, we used the plastic play figures too, back in the 3-books years and occasionally afterwards. I still have a “Giant sabre-toothed tiger” in my miniatures box. I didn't know that was the origin of the owl-bear! In the 1970s there was a miniature line (produced by Hinchliffe in the UK) based on the John Carter stories. Contemporary with the official pre-ADnD material there's a throwaway in Judges Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord about a god who crashed to Earth. His name was Emig-21. After crashing and dying he gave birth to a mortal named “Defect”. I don't think the Elric with which Gygax was familiar is SF at all; the Young Kingdoms are a pure fantasy setting. However, Cthulhu definitely is. The nihilist Lovecraft attempts to explain the prototypical “gods” postulated by The Golden Bough as incomprehensible aliens. On Jack Vance. There was an article somewhere on the reptiles from The Dragon Masters for DnD. In one of my games I repurposed the word “Termagant” to mean a goblin. You didn't dicuss the Spelljammer setting, which does bring SF elements into DnD. There is absolutely no reason not to include SF elements in 5E games. What we have today is almost a superhero game anyway, so its mechanics can be ported to any place or era.
In the campaign world I'm developing, which is taking my childhood AD&D campaign world and adding an Eberron-flavored element to it, a Great Old One that I created crash landed on the planet ages ago, chased by advanced humans in a space ship that also crashed in another spot, and the resulting technology that was found significantly influenced the development of what was a magical medieval world to that point. There will be psi-knights wielding the handful of energy blades found in the wreckage, as well as a new sub-class of artificers that deal with using the technology.
In the camp to not mix SF and fantasy, I did use the owlbear in Chutulu as a bio-engineered monster from the Migo. I also don't like the Deities in D&D as direct playing monsters, but use them as SF ones! So its more about theme for me, my fantasy is low fantasy with rare magic, my SF is advanced alien tech that rings like magic or divine. But in the end its all fantastic!
Much of the difference in genre is how you tell it. It's more important that it weaves together seemlessly than whether it's all from the same animal or plant. PS: I used to have that Christmas album on cassette. You give the wookie a brush.
Played in several campaigns where there was technology. In one we found "a" mighty servant. Not the Mighty Servant of Leuko but a robot that was similar in aspect. It was great for transportation. In another I acquired 2 phasers but only one spare power cell, so usage was limited. In my Judges Guild Campaign there are several items of technology that are just lying around to be found. Those that require power would require that the PC's figure out how to power them before they were of any use. But they could be sold to the right person for a boatload of Gold!
I'm glad I was never a huge sci-fi fanatic, because I love psionics, and I never associated it with sci-fi given my general lack of sci-fi background. I never really read any sci fi books, mostly it takes the form of having watched some sci fi here and there, the original Star Wars movies, Doctor Who (well, really just Tom Baker), a little bit of Star Trek TOS, a little bit of Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, but not enough to pick up on psionics being a big thing in any of them, or really a thing at all. I especially love what they did with Psionics in 2nd edition with the Complete Psionics Handbook - one of my most favorite supplements ever printed! Not going to try to argue the merits or demerits of psionics or that supplement for use in D&D, it's all just personal preference, but wow do I love it, and not having grown up associating it with sci fi might be a big part of that. The only sci fi I've come across where it does play a big role is Babylon 5, which I absolutely love that series, but I didn't come into that until a few years after the series had already finished up, so long after I had been playing D&D in its various forms for many, many years.
Seems to me you've sampled a lot of science fiction in your time. But I'm surprised you never got much exposure to the concept of psionics. Beyond it being a feature of fiction, there was also popular fascination with the paranormal in the post-war era. Apparently the super-powers even researched ESP during the cold war.
It's only in the last two or three years that I've seen Dying Earth get more than a passing mention in youtube D&D circles. I hope that's just due to my failure to notice it before then. On the other hand, if it's genuinely getting more attention recently, that's great. Warts and all, it's one of my absolute favorite fictional series and settings; and a D&D game without at least some of its whimsical and bizarre flavor just isn't the same.
While Moorcock has some definite sci fi elements in different Eternal Champion stories, it’s pretty fantasy overall, especially Elric. MM was a big Edgar Rice Boroughs fan. The genres can get pretty blurry, though, and Moorcock’s Hawkmoon stories, as an example, mix magic and weird science pretty freely.
Just recently broke my personal embargo against anything that has even the smallest iota of WotC in it to branch into pf1, and joined a crimson throne game online, but another AP I'd like to try is iron gods.
I've drawn a distinction between SF and fantasy for a long time, and I have always thought of the Elric saga as being fantasy, although as you mention it does come from the era when many authors were not drawing a distinct line between the two. What made that world feel like SF to you?
I wonder if anyone did “Space Hulk” or Aliens on Barrier Peaks? Like going on an infested derelict ship with high chance of mortality that included vent related fatality from Vege people hiding there. Heavily armored warriors or wizards with burning hands are optional but recommended.
I fucking love Psionics and always use em in my games and even allow players to start with psionics as long as one mental stat is 16 and the other two are 10.
I'm always delighted to see you upload another video Martin! I'm so pleased to have stumbled upon your channel, especially as a big gaming history buff myself! Personally, I've always appreciated science fictional elements in my fantasy, and the homebrew setting that I run my games in is very much a science fantasy one, with magic and steampunk-ish (with some a more advanced than that even) living and working side by side in it.
Thank you so much! I'm really glad you found my channel, too, and I thank you very much for your support! Nice to meet another gaming history fan as well as someone who appreciates the mixture of science-fiction and fantasy. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I'm an autistic, with gaming as a Special Interest, and it helps that, having started playing in '83 with the BECMI Red Box, I was there for a fair amount of it. I survived the Satanic Panic as a teenage gamer, and I'll cling tightly to my dice until my dying breath! Side note: I really dig the designs in your shop! I grabbed a mug & point glass for a gamer grab bag part I went to, and both were a hit! 😁
Just saw this note, and I truly appreciate that you bought some items from my shop. THANK YOU! Hearing that they were a hit with your gamer friends is just icing on the cake. Cheers to you, and Happy New Year!
My setting, for better and wore, have always Cosmic Horror and SyFy themes. All of those were just "Pulp" or "Fantasy". besides, Psionics have always been a part of all my settings... I'ma Palladium RPG fan, by the way.
Little inclusions of sci fi made their way into my early RPG tastes, sometimes still do. Also, thr bullette and many classic monsters for dnd are 100% influenced from those little plastic critters from Manga and kaiju media. Ed greenwood and a few other old tsr grognards have more or less confirmed that.
Fascinating choice of topic. Thanks for posting this. Just this past week I gifted that same edition of Vance to an old friend and fellow D&D fanatic. I only just got around to reading Vance, Clark Ashton-Smith, HPL, and DeCamp/Pratt these past two years despite knowing about appendix N for 40 years now. No one is a greater JRRT fan than me and I confess that GG irked me when he downplayed JRRT's influence on D&D. I now apologize to GG. I had no idea how much Vance and the others contributed to his ideas surrounding and comprising D&D. If one thinks they like and therefor know D&D and haven't read Vance, one is deluding themselves. Read Vance and when you're finished it all begins again for the first time. Kudos.
Oh hey I'm early. First of all, gonna listen this during commute. But as I'm early, I wanna ask, do you happen to know where the term demi-human comes from? Did it come from DnD or was it taken from the Appendix N inspirations?
I've never really liked science fantasy but lately I'm reading Dying Earth and god it's amazing, I'm loving it more than Tritonian Ring (also a great read) and the first Fafhrd+Grey Mouser book. However, thus far (I'm only in book 1 still) nothing feels "science", it all feels like fantasy. Other than them mentioning earth and sometimes like mathematics/physics, everything is at a medieval tech level. Which don't get me wrong is great, but it confuses me as to what actually constitutes "science fantasy". Something like Blackmoor/Barrier Peaks certainly is because it has robots and ray guns.
D&D is a rules set... a game engine... an operating system. To say "no sci-fi" in D&D is to say "Windows is only for spreadsheets and word processing... no music or movies is Windows". As for mixing genres... I'm a fan of Briscoe County, of Firefly, and of Star Wars, and while not exactly middle ages Europe, they are very sci-fi western.
Briscoe County was such a fun show! I think maybe ahead of its time. I suspect it would've done well on a streaming service. Thank you very much for watching and commenting, and Happy New Year!
I find the folks who throw a fit about mixing genre kind of amusing. Their complete lack of knowledge and understanding of genre fiction and its history shows bright. Taste is one thing. If you want your Fantasy to be as mystical and (of course) Medieval European as possible, that's fine. You do you. But when you freak out over the whole idea, as though it's some kind of moral outrage that anyone would possibly mix the genre? That's just silly. And that goes double...or triple even, for D&D, which has genre blending and bending in its very DNA. As you pointed out, its magic, alignment, and very cosmology owe as much to what we'd now call Science Fiction as it does to what we'd now call Fantasy. But folks love to categorize and quantize, and then lord over others with their "perfect" interpretation of...whatever. I've run into it with folks talking about Film Noir, who are convinced that X movie can't be considered Film Noir because it came out in 1954, and "everyone knows" Film Noir was only made 1941 to 1953. Followed immediately by an, "only a true fan..." kind of statement. I used to see it with Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. There's so much of it in the Science Fiction community, with so many people poo-pooing a book series as being Science Fantasy, or soft Science Fiction, while propping up their favorite book as "true" Science Fiction, even though it features faster than light travel and other fantastical ideas. Anyway. Cool video. I'm hoping to run a DCC game in the near-ish future that will eventually take the PCs to the Barrier Peaks. It'll start with the DCC funnel Danger in the Air and go weirder from there.
Keep up the information distribution about the different genres used in the making of D&D, AD&D and others. Star Frontiers is a good example of the others, alongside Boot Hill and Gamma World. Semper Fi.......
Anyone who thinks this is an interesting aesthetic owes it to themselves to also check out the Book of the New Sun. That series is directly inspired by Dying Earth (among other things) and can only be described as a novel in which half of the plot and 80% of the world building is hidden between the lines. If you've ever seen a sword called Terminus Est floating around, or a creature that steals the voice of it's victims, BotNS reference.
I'm a big fan of Science-Fantasy! Star Wars is a classic example, but there are many more. Thank you for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
Years ago, mid 80's early 90s, I bought a bag of those plastic prehistoric dinosaurs in a toy department and thinking these look just like D&D creatures.
I thought someone had copied D&D evidently it was the other way around!!!
Tale of the Comet was a 2nd-edition era attempt to inject scifi into D&D. It was very interesting module that relied very heavily on the DM to come up with the invasion element. It's a pretty rare item to find these days but it is a pretty cool attempt to inject a galactic-scaled, high-tech war into D&D.
That sounds really interesting! Outside of the core books and the brown "Complete" books and a few of the green "Historical" books, I don't really have much knowledge of 2E. By the time that edition came out, my new group was playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so while I had some 2E books and spent a lot of time developing a potential campaign for that edition, I never actually played it.
Thank you for watching and commenting! And thanks for your support of the channel!
Vance took the "any sufficiently advanced science" bit and ran with it in his Dying Earth series, it underpins all the magic in ways that are only hinted at, you have to pretty much read it all to really begin to notice it, but when you do begin to catch on you begin to realise that his whole world is like a bigger version of what Terry Pratchett did later with Strata, you begin to realise as you go through the series that he's hinting fairly blatantly here and there that all the magic is really being achieved by extremely advanced computers and tech hidden away in extra dimensional space listening for their trigger phrases and 'rituals' ("spells") to produce their effects that everyone has forgotten are actually there .. his mages are like kids home alone / after their parents died, in a high tech house with clappers that do a whole lot more than just turn the lights on and off, they don't know how any of it works but they know how to make it go.
It's basically Gamma World but set millions of years later and if Gamma World had even more advanced science than it did, but no one in the world knows that.
I'm struggling here ☝ to find similes I think people will get to say what I mean 😁
Yep. I've actually seen it debated before whether Vance, taken at face value, should be considered Science Fiction or Science Fantasy under the current paradigm of genre taxonomy.
@@chiblast100x He wrote it mostly as a swords and sorcery fantasy, but with a hinted at running in-joke of sorts for readers (who know things his characters don't) that only occasionally rears its head.
Me I'd leave it in the fantasy section because it will fit the expectations of more who don't know it already who find it there, and that's basically what it is in style and content ("look and feel" if we were talking about a GUI) anyway, probably best not to worry about it too much.
🤔 It's like a translucent round peg with a square peg inside that can only just be seen occasionally from the right angle in the right light, it's not going to fit in the square hole if you try and jam it in 😁
Sounds a LOT like Numenera!!! I wonder if Monte Cook was inspired by that series of books to create that game/world.
@@danielgoldberg5357 It's been a good while since I read up on the setting, but IIRC Numenara is a lot more obvious that's whats going on like Tékumel/Empire of the Pettel Throne. That said, I'd be unsurprised if there is some acknowledged influence since Vance has been a major influence on a lot of designers and world builders in the gaming space (Richard Garfield for example).
@@chiblast100x Who is Richard Garfield?
I totally had those toys (c. 1980) and years later I found the rust monster in a drawer and realized the connection.
That is so cool! I had some plastic dinosaurs but nothing that looked like these!
The mention of Howard's Conan stories is also a good point to highlight how the line between fantasy and sci-fi is pretty blurry. Yeah, Conan's fantasy... but it's set in the same universe as Lovecraft's stories, which At the Mountains of Madness reveal to be solidly sci-fi.
Tekumel definitely included legacy technological items, such as the "eyes", that filled the role of Magic artifacts on that planet.
I love mixing science fiction and fantasy elements. That's the entire reason I love Shadowrun's setting so much.
I as well like mixing what today are seen as distance genres... Although, I have always been drawn to "What if [insert genre] mixed with [insert genre]."
But something I have wanted to do recently is a sort of alien abduction mystery set in a medieval fantasy world. Likely from a mix of factors, but I watched the Taken miniseries and then Pathfinder 1st edition (my current preferred system) has a lot of sci-fi elements included since it is very much what I call "Kitchen Sink Fantasy", but also because they were simultaneously working on their Sci-Fi TTRPG Starfinder during the later years of 1e and they took the content they already made and ported it to Pathfinder since they are relatively rather similar systems.
And the point was, they have Grays which are your stereotypical gray-skinned, black-eyed, abducting aliens... Some times depicted with green skin, they can be found in X-Com, sometimes in the X-Files, Taken, and many other sources.
The 1e DMG also has the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O, which is a mech, along with the Machine of Lum the Mad, which is noted to be of similar construction.
I saw the machine of lummthe mad as a version of a dying tardis
For anyone who has not read Dying Earth I urge you to grab a copy. At least seek out the Cugel the Clever stories; they are short, gritty and darkly humorous. You’ll also find the origin of the Eyes of True-seeing.
And IOUN Stones (in Rialto the Marvelous). One of the spells in Dying Earth is The Excellent Prismatic Spray.
I love science fantasy. Planetary romance is probably my favorite genre, but no one uses it at all anymore. I'm planning on doing an old Venus style game where the morning star is a hot, wet world exploding with life. I wish d&d was more willing to mix scifi and fantasy. I remember as a kid going to the library and the fantasy section was actually the romance section! What we think of fantasy was in scifi.
Reminds me of the tsr Buck Roger's game. I'm a fan of that stuff too!
@nicklarocco4178 Thank you so much! Not sure if you saw this, but I did a whole post on my blog about "Sword & Planet" type characters for a D&D game. There might be some fun stuff in there you can use in the campaign you are planning to run:
daddyrolleda1.blogspot.com/2020/06/open-game-content-d12-sword-planet.html
I'm one of those gamers that resisted mixing genres, and I've played since AD&D 1.5. I never even considered using that host of real world dinosaurs detailed in Monster Manual, despite having been a 'dinosaur kid'. My only reasoning was the _vibe_ of the thing. You can explain away anything in outlandish fiction, but verisimilitude varies from person to person.
Later, Spelljammer inspired me to turn Mind Flayers and Beholders into invading aliens of a medieval fantasy world, but I felt they still fit the vibe because those ships are powered by magic, and those monsters come from nightmares rather than exo-biological speculation (which is why I would call Lovecraft cosmic horror rather than true science fiction).
I think the vibe is what matters and some crossovers do it better than others. One thing I think that can help bring them together is an element of cheesiness - Thundaar The Barbarian and Krull both work for me because they are more than a little silly. Barrier Peaks sounds awesome just for the shock that would come from walking fantasy characters right into a science fiction setting. :)
My friend from High School was our Dungeon Master in the 80s for about a year or two, and he took us through the Giants series and also Barrier Peaks, but he didn't want to bother with all the Vegepygmies, so he said they were all wiped out in some plague or something. I don't remember the specifics. We had a blast though : )
Funny thing about the Warriors of Mars game. To my understanding (well, Gygax says basically as much in the foreword), it was produced at the request of a miniatures company that had produced a set of Mars miniatures recently. I suspect they might have been under a misconception that they were being given a license along with the request. Or maybe they just were not even used to the idea that these things required something like that, since it was all so very amateur hobby level at that point.
I wonder at which point they were contacted about the idea. If it was before D&D was out, part of the reason there is so much Mars stuff in the original booklets might have been the hope that they could tie the other upcoming game into it all, and maybe even make some sales in the process. Or if it's the other way around, part of the reason they were contacted was likely that they'd shown interest in the topic already, with D&D.
(In either case part of the reason for the game and the elements of it in another game is likely also that they were simply genuinely fond of the topic as well, since it was all personal passion projects, essentially, back then.)
Something I've heard from an acquaintance, who was involved with the company during the era right before Gygax's exit and through Williams's tenure, suggests that the leadership at TSR didn't really ever understand licensing or intellectual property.
Highly likely. The UK company Hinchliffe had a range of Barsoom figures in the 1970s.
2:33 Yeah, Gary gets a *Foreword for that one!
Elric is straight high fantasy, tho. All magic, often on the epic level. Later stories cross over with other types of worlds, like WW2 Europe or the "End of Time" but it's all still magic-oriented. Other Moorcock is definitely sf/sci fantasy, particularly some of the other Eternal Champions, like Hawkmoon, Erekose, or Cornelius.
One of the monsters from the plastic "Prehistoric" range was the one that became the Rust Monster. I had one when I was a kid before it ever apppeared in D&D. It had a yellowish underside and a rusty brown upper shell.
And then, later on, did you see illustrations of the Rust Monster in whichever edition you came to, and wonder what they heck is happening here?
@@originaluddite I just assumed it was a Mythological thing, like a chimera or a cockatrice, or hydra and so on, just one I'd never heard of. I was much older when I read the story of Gary taking generic kids toys and making up names and abilities for them. And then thinking to myself, "Damn, I bet that penny piece of plastic would be worth a bit if I'd kept it!"
I had some of those toys as a kid, and the one that became the Rust Monster might have been my favourite. It had lost its antenae before it eventually went out of my llife (lost or thrown out by parents?). Recently saw a _proper_ D&D brand pewter miniature of one and considered getting it, but it would just not be the same. :)
Eberron, which mixes sci-fi/magitek/etc. is one of my favorite settings for D&D. I steal a lot of it for the gnomes in my own setting for Basic Fantasy RPG.
Yes, exactly - I mention it very briefly here: ua-cam.com/video/2bx4WL2ZO-4/v-deo.htmlsi=SKw9bXBm37YqLOwh&t=2111
I remember when WotC held the contest for the new setting that eventually ended up being Eberron. I even entered the contest!
Another great video.
Gift idea: I purchased a Dice Schematic mug and a T-shirt for the guys who DM our games..just to say "Thanks for being our DM". I bet they are going to love them!
Oh wow! Thank you so much! You are clearly a gamer of sophistication and taste, and your DM is very lucky to have you as a player.
Seriously... buying your DM a gift at the holidays is a class act.
Thank you so much for your support both of my channel and of my shop. I truly appreciate it!
Loved that some of the D&D monsters are based on some of those plastic figures! lol! that's hilarious, Martin! I have all of those DA modules, and as I mentioned on Twitter, S3 EXPEDITION TO THE BARRIER PEAKS is my favorite module that TSR ever produced, so I am very much aware of how often Dungeons and Dragons incorporated science fiction into the game. BARRIER PEAKS was rather epic back in the day, as it seemed to turned the game on its ear a bit. I have about 95% of their D&D and AD&D modules output, and it has always been my favorite module because of the adventure itself. The concept of adventurers finding a crashed space ship filled with sci-fi gear, robots, and strange monsters is just brilliant! The vegepygmies made the module for me! LOL. I enjoyed the power armor, needle pistols, etc! Fun stuff! I also have an original copy of METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA, as well as that big, hardback reprint version.
This video is probably my favorite one that you've done so far! Nice job on pointing out how fantasy and sci-fi used to be considered (pretty much) the same thing back in the day. That's absolutely true. No distinction was made in many libraries and bookstores, and even in magazines like STARLOG, for that matter. I remember Sid & Marty Kroft's LAND OF THE LOST blurring the lines between fantasy and science fiction every Saturday morning in the '70s! Even in modern AD&D, the neogi (from SPELLJAMMER) are present in the MONSTROUS MANUAL, and I've used them in campaign games a few times.
Keep giving us great videos like this one! I love learning about the origins of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS!
PS: I got THE MANUAL OF THE PLANES when it first came out from B. DALTON BOOKSELLER. At the time, I was the ONLY person that I knew that had a copy, and that remained true into the 1990s. It wasn't until the early 2000s that I actually talked to someone else who owned a copy
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for this great detailed reply! I love learning about other people's history with the game and how they played, especially someone that I've been chatting with for a while!
I go between S3 and S4 (Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth) as being my favorite modules, for different reasons, but they're both great!
Thank you for much for the compliment! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. That means a lot!
Funny you metioned Mind Flayers quite early on. If you look into their background they appear to be non magical creatures, indeed another race like Elves or Wookies. So my last Traveller game featured a mind flayer elder brain and it's pool; this was controlling events around the starship the players were on. A case of bringing d&d to hard sci/fi. I so wanted one of the players to become a mind flayer, but they managed to destroy the brain and escape... (for the time being). The whole idea was easy to fit together as long as I remembered the overarching goals of both parties...
Quite a few early Traveller adventures were inspired by d&d and can be run as AD&D modules, in particular 'Shadows'. However beware of low level characters getting hold of S/F wonder weapons or worse a "magic item" engine for the space craft.
So interesting how videos games like Final Fantasy 1, which has such obvious inspiration from DnD, has VERY clear Sci Fi stuff, flying ships and Space stations etc, are more accurate to DnD than the strictly medieval fantasy games. Even Zelda 1 with them considering the "Dark world" to be a futuristic sci fi Hyrule, and now with Tears of the Kingdom we finally really got that
Yes, so many people forget about the science-fiction inspirations (or choose to ignore them) of D&D. I really feel like it was a combination of Tolkien and its derivative works (like Sword of Shannara, etc., even though those are technically post-apocalyptic) that began to create the line between "fantasy" and "science-fiction." Before that, it was a much looser definition.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I have always used the line that “I don’t like chocolate in my peanut butter” when talking about sci-fi and fantasy blends, so I laughed when you quoted your friend near the end of the video. I now amend it with “but sometimes I like peanut butter in my chocolate” because I’ve always wanted to play Barrier Peaks and it seems to be making a resurgence now. Another good video and great bonus content.
Wow! As ever an excellent review of early DnD ideas. I have a lot of commentary:
I played a quite a bit of cross-over in the late 1980s (using 1E). We had a lot of psionics in these games. One of the mysteries we had to figure out was why all the animals on a world we had traveled to had bat-like sonar; of course there was a really good evolutionary reason for it. My Druid got some fun wild shapes from his time there. I played an early version of the Artificer in another game, and enjoyed my lightsabre wielding Kensai very much indeed.
The John Carter stories are not really SF; they belong to a class of Imaginary World Fiction in which the reader's interlocutor is a person from our world who travels by some means to the imaginary. Lin Carter wrote an excellent essay that covers this concept well. Similarly Dying Earth is not really SF; that's another subgenre where the imaginary world is simply articulated as the far furture. Of course the Conan stories do something similar, but call their world the distant past.
Yes, we used the plastic play figures too, back in the 3-books years and occasionally afterwards. I still have a “Giant sabre-toothed tiger” in my miniatures box. I didn't know that was the origin of the owl-bear!
In the 1970s there was a miniature line (produced by Hinchliffe in the UK) based on the John Carter stories.
Contemporary with the official pre-ADnD material there's a throwaway in Judges Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord about a god who crashed to Earth. His name was Emig-21. After crashing and dying he gave birth to a mortal named “Defect”.
I don't think the Elric with which Gygax was familiar is SF at all; the Young Kingdoms are a pure fantasy setting. However, Cthulhu definitely is. The nihilist Lovecraft attempts to explain the prototypical “gods” postulated by The Golden Bough as incomprehensible aliens.
On Jack Vance. There was an article somewhere on the reptiles from The Dragon Masters for DnD. In one of my games I repurposed the word “Termagant” to mean a goblin.
You didn't dicuss the Spelljammer setting, which does bring SF elements into DnD.
There is absolutely no reason not to include SF elements in 5E games. What we have today is almost a superhero game anyway, so its mechanics can be ported to any place or era.
The Dragon Masters article was in White Dwarf #6, published in 1978.
Definitely a video ive been waiting for. I love scifi in dnd.
In the campaign world I'm developing, which is taking my childhood AD&D campaign world and adding an Eberron-flavored element to it, a Great Old One that I created crash landed on the planet ages ago, chased by advanced humans in a space ship that also crashed in another spot, and the resulting technology that was found significantly influenced the development of what was a magical medieval world to that point. There will be psi-knights wielding the handful of energy blades found in the wreckage, as well as a new sub-class of artificers that deal with using the technology.
In the camp to not mix SF and fantasy, I did use the owlbear in Chutulu as a bio-engineered monster from the Migo. I also don't like the Deities in D&D as direct playing monsters, but use them as SF ones! So its more about theme for me, my fantasy is low fantasy with rare magic, my SF is advanced alien tech that rings like magic or divine. But in the end its all fantastic!
This is exactly why I love rocking Hyperborea 3e, love a touch of sci fi in my fantasy.
Much of the difference in genre is how you tell it. It's more important that it weaves together seemlessly than whether it's all from the same animal or plant.
PS: I used to have that Christmas album on cassette. You give the wookie a brush.
Played in several campaigns where there was technology. In one we found "a" mighty servant. Not the Mighty Servant of Leuko but a robot that was similar in aspect. It was great for transportation.
In another I acquired 2 phasers but only one spare power cell, so usage was limited.
In my Judges Guild Campaign there are several items of technology that are just lying around to be found. Those that require power would require that the PC's figure out how to power them before they were of any use. But they could be sold to the right person for a boatload of Gold!
I'm glad I was never a huge sci-fi fanatic, because I love psionics, and I never associated it with sci-fi given my general lack of sci-fi background. I never really read any sci fi books, mostly it takes the form of having watched some sci fi here and there, the original Star Wars movies, Doctor Who (well, really just Tom Baker), a little bit of Star Trek TOS, a little bit of Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, but not enough to pick up on psionics being a big thing in any of them, or really a thing at all. I especially love what they did with Psionics in 2nd edition with the Complete Psionics Handbook - one of my most favorite supplements ever printed! Not going to try to argue the merits or demerits of psionics or that supplement for use in D&D, it's all just personal preference, but wow do I love it, and not having grown up associating it with sci fi might be a big part of that. The only sci fi I've come across where it does play a big role is Babylon 5, which I absolutely love that series, but I didn't come into that until a few years after the series had already finished up, so long after I had been playing D&D in its various forms for many, many years.
Seems to me you've sampled a lot of science fiction in your time. But I'm surprised you never got much exposure to the concept of psionics. Beyond it being a feature of fiction, there was also popular fascination with the paranormal in the post-war era. Apparently the super-powers even researched ESP during the cold war.
It's only in the last two or three years that I've seen Dying Earth get more than a passing mention in youtube D&D circles. I hope that's just due to my failure to notice it before then. On the other hand, if it's genuinely getting more attention recently, that's great. Warts and all, it's one of my absolute favorite fictional series and settings; and a D&D game without at least some of its whimsical and bizarre flavor just isn't the same.
I love to see metamorphosis alpha get some love!
I love the drink/music notes at the end of every video (even though I don't drink myself) - you really know how to enjoy life, sir!
God. I am always so excited to see your uploads.
I am so happy to hear that! Thank you for letting me know, and I hope you enjoyed this video!
While Moorcock has some definite sci fi elements in different Eternal Champion stories, it’s pretty fantasy overall, especially Elric. MM was a big Edgar Rice Boroughs fan.
The genres can get pretty blurry, though, and Moorcock’s Hawkmoon stories, as an example, mix magic and weird science pretty freely.
Just recently broke my personal embargo against anything that has even the smallest iota of WotC in it to branch into pf1, and joined a crimson throne game online, but another AP I'd like to try is iron gods.
Manual of the Planes is one of my favorite AD&D hardback books!
I've drawn a distinction between SF and fantasy for a long time, and I have always thought of the Elric saga as being fantasy, although as you mention it does come from the era when many authors were not drawing a distinct line between the two. What made that world feel like SF to you?
Excited for this one! Between EttBP and the catch-all role that early D&D played I'm sure there's a lot of material!
I wonder if anyone did “Space Hulk” or Aliens on Barrier Peaks?
Like going on an infested derelict ship with high chance of mortality that included vent related fatality from Vege people hiding there.
Heavily armored warriors or wizards with burning hands are optional but recommended.
I fucking love Psionics and always use em in my games and even allow players to start with psionics as long as one mental stat is 16 and the other two are 10.
Steampunk is a great way to mix scifi and fantasy. Also he man /eternia style settings.
That's a great point. Thanks for the reminder! And thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Vince Garcia took the information on the Savant and released it in Dragon 140 pg 16.
I'm always delighted to see you upload another video Martin! I'm so pleased to have stumbled upon your channel, especially as a big gaming history buff myself! Personally, I've always appreciated science fictional elements in my fantasy, and the homebrew setting that I run my games in is very much a science fantasy one, with magic and steampunk-ish (with some a more advanced than that even) living and working side by side in it.
Thank you so much! I'm really glad you found my channel, too, and I thank you very much for your support!
Nice to meet another gaming history fan as well as someone who appreciates the mixture of science-fiction and fantasy.
Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I'm an autistic, with gaming as a Special Interest, and it helps that, having started playing in '83 with the BECMI Red Box, I was there for a fair amount of it. I survived the Satanic Panic as a teenage gamer, and I'll cling tightly to my dice until my dying breath! Side note: I really dig the designs in your shop! I grabbed a mug & point glass for a gamer grab bag part I went to, and both were a hit! 😁
Just saw this note, and I truly appreciate that you bought some items from my shop. THANK YOU! Hearing that they were a hit with your gamer friends is just icing on the cake.
Cheers to you, and Happy New Year!
@@daddyrolleda1 Returns to you and your family! I like doing what I can to support folks who's work I believe in.
My setting, for better and wore, have always Cosmic Horror and SyFy themes. All of those were just "Pulp" or "Fantasy". besides, Psionics have always been a part of all my settings... I'ma Palladium RPG fan, by the way.
That was very informative, thanks!
I'm so glad you thought so. Thank you for watching, and for taking the time to leave a comment to let me know. I really appreciate it. Cheers!
Tim Kask, what did you do? Kaaaaaaaaasssk!
Thanks for the share!!
I always wanted to crossover D&D with Gamma World way back in the day. Never did sadly. :(
Tolkien had Sci-Fi elements. It was those who after him recast JTT as Fantasy.
Yeah, Middle Earth is supposed to be our Antediluvian world.
Little inclusions of sci fi made their way into my early RPG tastes, sometimes still do. Also, thr bullette and many classic monsters for dnd are 100% influenced from those little plastic critters from Manga and kaiju media. Ed greenwood and a few other old tsr grognards have more or less confirmed that.
Fascinating choice of topic. Thanks for posting this. Just this past week I gifted that same edition of Vance to an old friend and fellow D&D fanatic. I only just got around to reading Vance, Clark Ashton-Smith, HPL, and DeCamp/Pratt these past two years despite knowing about appendix N for 40 years now. No one is a greater JRRT fan than me and I confess that GG irked me when he downplayed JRRT's influence on D&D. I now apologize to GG. I had no idea how much Vance and the others contributed to his ideas surrounding and comprising D&D. If one thinks they like and therefor know D&D and haven't read Vance, one is deluding themselves. Read Vance and when you're finished it all begins again for the first time. Kudos.
Oh hey I'm early. First of all, gonna listen this during commute.
But as I'm early, I wanna ask, do you happen to know where the term demi-human comes from? Did it come from DnD or was it taken from the Appendix N inspirations?
I've never really liked science fantasy but lately I'm reading Dying Earth and god it's amazing, I'm loving it more than Tritonian Ring (also a great read) and the first Fafhrd+Grey Mouser book. However, thus far (I'm only in book 1 still) nothing feels "science", it all feels like fantasy. Other than them mentioning earth and sometimes like mathematics/physics, everything is at a medieval tech level. Which don't get me wrong is great, but it confuses me as to what actually constitutes "science fantasy". Something like Blackmoor/Barrier Peaks certainly is because it has robots and ray guns.
Ray gun = a wand of scorching heat ray, with a handle.
Totally! That's how I've always approached science-fantasy. Cheers!
D&D is a rules set... a game engine... an operating system. To say "no sci-fi" in D&D is to say "Windows is only for spreadsheets and word processing... no music or movies is Windows".
As for mixing genres... I'm a fan of Briscoe County, of Firefly, and of Star Wars, and while not exactly middle ages Europe, they are very sci-fi western.
Briscoe County was such a fun show! I think maybe ahead of its time. I suspect it would've done well on a streaming service.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting, and Happy New Year!
I find the folks who throw a fit about mixing genre kind of amusing. Their complete lack of knowledge and understanding of genre fiction and its history shows bright. Taste is one thing. If you want your Fantasy to be as mystical and (of course) Medieval European as possible, that's fine. You do you. But when you freak out over the whole idea, as though it's some kind of moral outrage that anyone would possibly mix the genre? That's just silly. And that goes double...or triple even, for D&D, which has genre blending and bending in its very DNA. As you pointed out, its magic, alignment, and very cosmology owe as much to what we'd now call Science Fiction as it does to what we'd now call Fantasy.
But folks love to categorize and quantize, and then lord over others with their "perfect" interpretation of...whatever. I've run into it with folks talking about Film Noir, who are convinced that X movie can't be considered Film Noir because it came out in 1954, and "everyone knows" Film Noir was only made 1941 to 1953. Followed immediately by an, "only a true fan..." kind of statement. I used to see it with Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. There's so much of it in the Science Fiction community, with so many people poo-pooing a book series as being Science Fantasy, or soft Science Fiction, while propping up their favorite book as "true" Science Fiction, even though it features faster than light travel and other fantastical ideas.
Anyway. Cool video. I'm hoping to run a DCC game in the near-ish future that will eventually take the PCs to the Barrier Peaks. It'll start with the DCC funnel Danger in the Air and go weirder from there.
Keep up the information distribution about the different genres used in the making of D&D, AD&D and others. Star Frontiers is a good example of the others, alongside Boot Hill and Gamma World. Semper Fi.......
Anyone who thinks this is an interesting aesthetic owes it to themselves to also check out the Book of the New Sun. That series is directly inspired by Dying Earth (among other things) and can only be described as a novel in which half of the plot and 80% of the world building is hidden between the lines. If you've ever seen a sword called Terminus Est floating around, or a creature that steals the voice of it's victims, BotNS reference.
Gandalf isn't casting ANYTHING, cos deity has forbidden the archangel-wizards from using their😮powers. Advise only.
How about “Science fantasy?”
I'm a big fan of Science-Fantasy! Star Wars is a classic example, but there are many more.
Thank you for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
I think part of the banshing scifi was that Traveller was there to focus on scifi, you to want to play star wars DnD? Traveller.
I prefer science fantasy to the overdone, cliched Tolkinesque quasi-medieval pap.