I like to write my own SF settings for RPGs, and to keep the tech plausible.

I'm trying to decide on a 'tech level" for a game and am stuck on what to use. I've generally limited tech in favor of gameplay, so often my tech levels are below, say, original trek. Often I keep it somewhere above the BSG reboot but try to avoid things like teleportation, instant replicators, personal forcefields, etc.

What I'm aiming for is a little higher tech than something like BSG but not to such a level it overwhelms gameplay and makes it too easy on players.
 
 I've noticed with ultra high tech basically 3 things happen:

1. The game play gets boring as every problems gets solved by a player cleverly using the tech I provide in a new way that's consistent with the terms I've laid out, making things boring.

2. I have to come up with a bullshit excuse to keep the tech from working almost all the time, thereby making players frustrated and annoyed at the cheap trick I use on them.

3. I have to come up with incredibly powerful challenges for them that are very very hard to balance between "challenging" and 'should be able to crush the PCs in a single blow"  levels.

Right now I'm thinking of doing something along the lines of "Battlestargate voyager", or "stargate universe" as it's called. I want to start the players off on a lost and highly advanced ancient starship that is in need of servicing, and has ungodly high tech, but start them out knowing little about it and making them focus on keeping the ship operational at first, then slowly allowing them to learn more about it and work the "indistinguishable from magic" level stuff later on as I gradually ramp up the CR of the antagonists.

Do other GMs here find that having extremely high tech creates problems for their games, and what do you do about it? Limit the tech a lot, like traveller does? Create artificial restrictions on the use of it? (Like the resonance field is blocking the teleporter, or the diplomatic core forbids using antimatter weapons in this situation?) or just buckle down and work hard on making consistent challenges equal to the tech you give the players?

Some ideas, not very creative on my behalf, though:
Bring conflicts into the game that cannot be solved by tech usage alone.
Every tech-related solution has to have a downside to it. play to that downside.

examples of things you could integrate in your game, maybe:

- first contacts with alien races
- social conflicts between PCs and NPCs and/or factions
- political conflicts (read: Diplomatical matters, not war-related stuff)

BTW: What do you mean by "artificial restrictions"? Every technology has a downside related to its use. Define that downside with each tech and play to it, should work out in the end.

I only run into the tech problem with Players who do not have a firm basic grounding in the sciences. A lot of this comes from those who are convinced that Science Fiction means Science Fantasy.

I'll use nanotech as an example. In many games, nanotech equals magic. Reading up on basic principles of how nanotech should operate means that there will be a lot of waste heat produced that you have to get rid of and this is rarely addressed. In a plausible setting with nanotech, and not some transhuman wankfest, nanotech will be primarily part of an industrial or medical process where the teeny-tiny machines will be closely monitored and methods of removing waste heat will be available.

A lot of conventions for the Science Fiction genre do come from the media, some of them frustrating and some convenient. Star Trek is the worst criminal of this frustration where routinely the problem of the week would be solved by the magical application of (tech) by the characters to make things right before the episode was over. Another shout out for frustration is the use of computers, where the BBEG's secret plans are on a file which can be easily accessed from the internet and the characters can just go to BBEG.org and download them (I have never seen computer security actually work like this).

I've just woken up and think I've been ranting instead of answering your questions....

Quote from: cylonophileDo other GMs here find that having extremely high tech creates problems for their games, and what do you do about it?

Yes. I make sure that the science/engineering for the tech is plausible and that the actions of the Players have just as many consequences as the tech does.

Quote from: cylonophileLimit the tech a lot, like traveller does?

Depends on the campaign. A setting where artificial gravity was never invented can have some great flavor to it.

Quote from: cylonophileCreate artificial restrictions on the use of it? (Like the resonance field is blocking the teleporter, or the diplomatic core forbids using antimatter weapons in this situation?) or just buckle down and work hard on making consistent challenges equal to the tech you give the players?

If there is enough understanding of the plausible scientific/engineering functioning of the technology is understood, there will be built-in downsides to the use of that technology (like Phantom Black said above).

If the tech is pure handwavium, try not to use it because it will allow too much fantastical (tech) bullshit to creep into the game.

Buckling down and working hard to create consistant challenges equal to the tech you give your Players is always a good idea in any game setting.

Look at today's world. It is by any definition 'high tech'. And yet things breakdown all the time. There are numerous problems that can not be solved by flicking a switch or booting up a computer. Technology has not solved all problems. It has arguably created new ones or at least just shifted the problem from one area to another. The future will be no different. Technology is not magic. It has limitations and constraints. Work within that concept.

I assume by 'Artificial restrictions' you mean having to create highly contrived plot setups as GM to prevent various stunts the players are likely to try - I'd recommend against it. Depending on your players you may be able to get away with it for awhile, but it'll wear thin after awhile. I can think of occasions in fiction where its been pulled off well - e.g. I quite liked the scene in Aliens where the marines realize they can't use their standard high-penetration rounds without destroying the cooling system for the fusion reactor (then do it anyway)- but usually it comes off as just bad plot. The best sort of exception to this may be where an intelligent adversary can predict what tech will be used against them, and plan accordingly.

It sounds like you may want characters to start with limited tech and move to more advanced devices later - in the context of the starship campaign, I suppose doing that works best in the plot if tech items are just distributed more of less like magical treasure and you assume the best remaining working stuff is in the hands of maniacs who guard it desperately. E.g. if you want to use the cloning chamber to regrow Fred's character, you'll need to either pay the organization that controls it or blow them away and take it (something you won't have the resources to do initially).

Quote from: jeff37923;372800I only run into the tech problem with Players who do not have a firm basic grounding in the sciences. A lot of this comes from those who are convinced that Science Fiction means Science Fantasy.

I endorse these views, and those of Phantom Black. I personally do my best to present my games this way, even those where the tech is very high.

-clash

Wow, if some of the repliers here were female I might be issuing marriage proposals!

Seriously, I was amazed that at least a couple folks here echoed my exact feelings on SFRPGs: The "S" stands for "Science", goddammit! I don't mind high tech, even stuff that might seem to in some ways operate contrary to what we currently believe to be physical laws because it's obvious our knowledge of the laws of physics is woefully incomplete. (Example: Why is the speed of light what is is? Answer: Physicists have no idea...)

I might allow things like advanced nanotech that can build things from the atoms up, in time, in the proper environment, with the proper resources, but am not going to allow "magic" nanotech to create stuff out of nothing or to transmute atoms. (as a rule I don't allow nanotech to assemble highly radioactive elements as I suspect the emissions from highly radioactive atoms would like frak up the nanomachines. So a vat of nanotech could build the body and casing of an A bomb or a RT generator, but you'd have to make, shape and install the radioactive matter a different way.)

As to atoms, I would allow a fusion reactor to convert hydrogen to higher elements, even if it ends up taking more energy than you get out of the fusion, because that's not only possible but happens in nature all the time.

As to stuff like "shrink rays", "mind exchanges" and explosives that release more energy than total conversion of mass into energy would, FORGET IT! Ditto for "Balonium" elements with impossible physical properties.

(Those communication stones in SGU will never be in any game I'm running. NEVER!!!)

As to the "artificial restrictions", yes it means stuff like a weird radiation field or whatever that just happens to jam the teleporter. Once in a while is OK, doing it all the time gets ridiculous and tiresome.

Now having an enemy with a teleport jammer is fair game.

I guess a good solution is to game with people who didn't learn all they know about science from star trek reruns and at least read something like "the science of star trek", which will at least acquaint them with the laws of physics to a degree. Likewise people who watch shows that talk about the science of stuff in star trek and star wars will likely be a better fit in my game.

I may go with the idea like SGU of having a super tech ship, but it might take a long time to fully understand it. I thought I'd hate that show but watched a little out of curiosity. Asides from the horribly ridiculous "communication stones" it's not as bad as I'd feared.

Quote from: Tetsubo;372801Look at today's world. It is by any definition 'high tech'. And yet things breakdown all the time. There are numerous problems that can not be solved by flicking a switch or booting up a computer. Technology has not solved all problems. It has arguably created new ones or at least just shifted the problem from one area to another. The future will be no different. Technology is not magic. It has limitations and constraints. Work within that concept.

I've said the same myself on many occasions. Remember when the stealth fighter was shot down over bosnia years back? It proved that stealth tech wasn't magic and wasn't a "cloaking device", it did not make the plan invisible, just damn hard to detect.

So I use the same rational in a lot of my games: Tech usually isn't perfect and even the best can fail under some conditions.

This looks like as good a place as any for this...

A real killer when introducing high tech into a game is lazy thinking. Technology affects everything in a setting, not just as a convenient way to achieve an end.

For example, Star Trek again. Roddenberry wanted an ideal future for his universe when the TNG came out so he solved the materialistic desires problem by coming up with Replicators (an offshoot of transporter technology). These made money obsolete, his characters then often said. However, it would not make commerce obsolete. The Replicators would still need energy (quite a lot of it if they worked on pure energy to mass conversion) or matter (pure elements as basic building blocks to be recombined to make products) or intellectual property (the technical designs and building instructions for what the Replicators make). Energy, matter, or intellectual property would still need to be moved from where it was in great supply to where it was in least supply.

Lazy thinking such as Roddenberry's does nothing but damage the suspension of disbelief in a setting, thus harming the immersion in a game by having the background not make sense.

EDIT: Come to think of it, the existence of Replicators suggests the existence of very powerful computers (to oversee the process) and very powerful sensors (to monitor that the object being Replicated is built correctly atom by atom and molecule by molecule).

I'm pretty much in agreement with everything said here so far. In Diaspora we deliberately made the technology cap the place where all the unlikely things start happening, and also the place where cultures tend to transcend and disappear (or self-destruct in some fashion). So in a sense we use the slow and capped tech of Traveller (though artificial gravity is up in the transcendence place) but we rationalize the cap a la Vernor Vinge.

One of the things that we need at our table (tastes differ) is enough points of contact between players, setting, and characters. In fantasy, the setting establishes context that makes a lot of weird shit work (starting with magic). In sf, though, we tend (again, at my table) to visualize things in more immediate terms -- as though this world is not so very much different from my real world -- and consequently we need the technology to maintain those touchstones. One of those is science (technology needs a grounding in real science until a paradigm-shattering new theory of everything is part of the technology). Another is human nature (need to treat humans as self-constrained animals, with animal interests). Another is scale (things need to happen to our guys, instigated by other guys or at least organizations as represented by a few guys).

One thing we try to do in Diaspora to limit the suspension-of-disbelief disconnect that failing to establish these touchstones can cause, is to avoid detailing gadgets. When we detail gadgets we impose a vision of the future on the table that might not meet the needs of everyone (or anyone, outside our own table) and that's not strictly necessary. Instead we provide a framework to make interestingly scaled stats (scaled by tech) for equipment and leave the description to you. If your future suits portable meson guns, you can create a T3 energy weapon and call it that. If mine doesn't, it might be called an induced-plasma maser. Then we screw it all up by providing a list of equipment.

Gear that needs function and not stats doesn't need to be described in the rules. Instead it's just whether or not you use the technology effectively, and consequently tools become subsumed in skills and we no longer get magical effects from ill-considered choices (cf. transporters). We describe in game, sure, but getting something hard done is still a skill check and not an automatic function of a tool. There's still room for an sf disaster here with a weakly chosen technological artifact that seems cool, but the damage can be contained.

In the end our imagined future is unlikely to be very much like the real future. That's cool. It's a gameable place, and I don't know if the real future is until I have more in common with it.

Quote from: jeff37923;372972This looks like as good a place as any for this...

A real killer when introducing high tech into a game is lazy thinking. Technology affects everything in a setting, not just as a convenient way to achieve an end.

For example, Star Trek again. Roddenberry wanted an ideal future for his universe when the TNG came out so he solved the materialistic desires problem by coming up with Replicators (an offshoot of transporter technology). These made money obsolete, his characters then often said. However, it would not make commerce obsolete. The Replicators would still need energy (quite a lot of it if they worked on pure energy to mass conversion) or matter (pure elements as basic building blocks to be recombined to make products) or intellectual property (the technical designs and building instructions for what the Replicators make). Energy, matter, or intellectual property would still need to be moved from where it was in great supply to where it was in least supply.

Lazy thinking such as Roddenberry's does nothing but damage the suspension of disbelief in a setting, thus harming the immersion in a game by having the background not make sense.

EDIT: Come to think of it, the existence of Replicators suggests the existence of very powerful computers (to oversee the process) and very powerful sensors (to monitor that the object being Replicated is built correctly atom by atom and molecule by molecule).

Well, I generally agree with the caveats that if fusion power, based on hydrogen, exists then you generally don't have a lot of power issues to worry about. Really, people today just don't understand how little energy we get from combustion power, which releases energy at the molecular level since most combustion produces heat by either binding atoms and molecules or by breaking molecular bond.

It takes roughly one million tons of TNT (american tons, not long tons) detonating to release the same amount of energy as is contained in one single ounce of mass. Since there are 32 billion ounces of mass in 1 million tons, it means that molecular level energy releases produce about 1/32 billionth of the energy that combining 1 half ounce of matter and a half ounce of anti matter would release since matter and anti matter conversion of mass to energy is 100% efficient.

Now, nuclear fusion "only" releases about 0.7% of the energy represented by a given amount of mass, but contrast that to the (lemme go grab my super calculator here) 0.00000000003125% of the energy in a mass of TNT you get by releasing energy at the molecular level. And remember that TNT s an extremely efficient producer of energy at the molecular level, unlike coal, wood, etc.

As one can easily see, if we can merely get to fusion power, we'll increase our energy supplies by a dozen or so orders of magnitude, so in all fairness I think we can excuse Gene Roddenberry for not taking the energy requirements or replicators into account given that he'd already had fusion power in the show.

It is another factor I try to drill into people I game with, who often get at least a basic introduction to "real" science one way or another with me around: The amounts of energy that fusion would give us will make things almost beyond comprehension possible even without any other advances in technology.

You spoke of computers, and in sum I'd say that the difference in energy that something like fusion would make to us compared to what we have now would be like the difference in computational power between my casio fx-9750GA plus graphing calculator and an abacus.

And on the subject of computers, yes it's obvious that to handle the information needed to create a solid object at the atomic, let along sub atomic, level would be enormous so they obviously have giga computers and better algorithm science than we do. Well, if processing power keeps jumping along like it has been there's no problem with that, and if they ever get room temp superconductors going  the leaps and bounds of processing power will just keep right on leaping and bounding. Add in more and better nanotech to make smaller and more efficient micro, or even nano, circuits and it might be easier to try imagining the limits of computer power instead of the abilities of it.

Even if we never develop true artificial intelligence or artificial sentience (So no skynet or project 25021) the power of computers combined with human intelligence will make a lot of things possible. Advanced physical simulation modeling will make it possible to construct and test machines in a virtual world with results so accurate you'll know how to maintain them before you build the first one. Things like rapid prototyping
technology will let one person and a computer lab do what teams used to do. It would make the human ability to innovate and create about the only thing the machines couldn't do, escalating it's value.

In RPG terms it means a hell of a lot is possible without any need for handwavium or magic science. The real possibilities and limitations make for better gaming, IMHO.

Problem is, if you are directly converting energy into matter, then fusion will not be enough. Matter-antimatter at 100% efficiency may not even be enough since for every unit mass of matter being created, you will need a unit mass of antimatter and a unit mass of matter to generate the energy. You will still need to expend the energy to create the antimatter.

Another way I'd heard the energy equivalence expressed was that fissioning 1 gram of uranium is equivalent to burning 3 tonnes of coal.
Of course energy and information aren't the only limitations on engineering, so 'unlimited' fusion energy can only do so much. Time required to build things, technical resources and rare element requirement (even mobile phones, ideally, need stuff like coltan ore, or there's gold in them thar newfangled computers). Plus, if you have devices with outlandish power requirements (e.g. laser cannons) you start having real problems with excess heat.

Of course, give a civilization 'unlimited' anything and they'll find a way to use it. A really high-tech civilization may start doing things that need completely insane amounts of energy. Building Dyson spheres; making your own black holes for convenient waste disposal/energy production; deflecting black holes you accidentally made away from your planet (by feeding moving things into it until its course changes, or feeding it charged particles until it gets an electric charge you can use to handle it); or running ministars above your outer planet moons for convenient terraforming.

Quote from: jeff37923;373042Problem is, if you are directly converting energy into matter, then fusion will not be enough. Matter-antimatter at 100% efficiency may not even be enough since for every unit mass of matter being created, you will need a unit mass of antimatter and a unit mass of matter to generate the energy. You will still need to expend the energy to create the antimatter.

You're absolutely right, of course. Anti matter as a power source for widespread use is unthinkable as, (barring some advance in technology that allows you to turn matter into antimatter for very little energy cost by, say, flipping the polarities of particles, which may be possible, I don't know.) it will take much more energy to produce, store and ship anti matter than you get out of it in the end.

HOWEVER, antimatter might make a great fuel for something that's going to have to be away from home for a long time and needs to store a lot of power in a small space. So, for a starship, say, it might work great. (Rodenberry was a genius, I tell you!)

So even it costs more "back home" to make the antimatter and load up a starship with it, it's still a good power source for the ship since it isn't paying the power bill.

Likewise antimatter might make a great bomb as you fit a whole lot of KABOOM into a very tiny space, which is perfect for weapons. (Point of fact: They spent more energy making the bomb that took out hiroshima than  it released upon detonation, but how much did that matter to the end result?)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;373043Another way I'd heard the energy equivalence expressed was that fissioning 1 gram of uranium is equivalent to burning 3 tonnes of coal.
Of course energy and information aren't the only limitations on engineering, so 'unlimited' fusion energy can only do so much. Time required to build things, technical resources and rare element requirement (even mobile phones, ideally, need stuff like coltan ore, or there's gold in them thar newfangled computers). Plus, if you have devices with outlandish power requirements (e.g. laser cannons) you start having real problems with excess heat.

Of course, give a civilization 'unlimited' anything and they'll find a way to use it. A really high-tech civilization may start doing things that need completely insane amounts of energy. Building Dyson spheres; making your own black holes for convenient waste disposal/energy production; deflecting black holes you accidentally made away from your planet (by feeding moving things into it until its course changes, or feeding it charged particles until it gets an electric charge you can use to handle it); or running ministars above your outer planet moons for convenient terraforming.

You know, you're actually helping lay the groundwork for a SF game setting here. If things like that ore they use in cell phones becomes rare someone will find a way to mine it from as asteroid in an economical fashion.

Some analysis I've seen, based on factual data, suggests a typical asteroid a few thousand feet across would contain nearly a trillion dollars worth of rare earth metals plus more conventional metals.

Let it (mining a near earth asteroid) become necessary, and by god someone will find a way to do it.