Quote from: Koltar;377096TRAVELLER and STAR WARS came out within two months of each other.

Yes, but Star Frontiers was out five years before WEG's Star Wars.

I don't know what you are all squirrely about lately, Ed, or if there is just something going around where people want to gainsay all my posts, but you need to read stuff before posting.

Quote from: StormBringer;377102but you need to read stuff before posting.

No he doesn't.

Quote from: StormBringer;377102Yes, but Star Frontiers was out five years before WEG's Star Wars.

STAR WARS - The MOVIE is what I was referring to. Which was already referenced earlier in the thread.

Third week of MAY 1977 - STAR WARS is in movie theaters.

Second or third week of July 1977 - TRAVELLER is released.

For the next three to four years it was VERY obvious to anyone looking at issues of the JTAS or the Adventures and Supplements that came out that the GDW guys were very much inspired by the look of the first two STAR WARS movies and the related artwork connected to it.

Also both STAR WARS and TRAVELLER were very much inspired by Science Fiction artwork and illustrations that was appearing the late '70s and early '80s.

As to the "hard Science Fiction" label and that TRAVELLER wasn't swashbuckler/Space Opera enough - Bullshit!
Thats why effing SWORD skills are featured prominently in character creation.

TRAVELLER was inspired pretty much by the more Adventure/swashbucker type books of Harry Harrison, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov. STAR WARS pretty much borrowed or stole concepts and images books by those same authors.

- Ed C.

Quote from: One Horse Town;377103No he doesn't.

Touché.  

Quote from: StormBringer;377094The manner I already mentioned, the move from hard sci-fi to something more casual or cinematic.  I think Aftermath was out around then, as well as the early versions of Metamorphosis Alpha, but I don't know the exact time line.  Star Wars came out five years later, so it would be a continuation rather than a catalyst, and we have already established Traveller as the vanguard of heavy math, hard sci-fi gaming.

The problem here is that you are using a popular fallacy that Traveller was too heavy math and too hard science fiction to be accessible or enjoyable to a broad audience, even though it was the standard at the time of science fiction role-playing.

The link between Star Wars and Star Frontiers is tenuous at best. The only commonality between the two is that they are Science Fantasy genre RPGs.

Quote from: flyingmice;377097Let's see - here's all the SF games I know about, up to StarFrontiers:

1976 - Metamorphosis Alpha (TSR) - not your typical spaceships and lasers game, but technically SF!

1977 - Star Patrol by Michael Scott
        - Starfaring by Ken St. Andre
        - Traveller (GDW)

1978 - Starships & Spacemen (FGU)
        - Star Trek - Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier by Michael Scott

1980 - Space Opera by Ed Zimbalist

1981 - Universe (SPI)

1982 - StarFleet Voyages by Michael Scott
        - Star Frontiers (TSR)

Anyone have comments on these? My buddy Michael Scott wrote three of them. His Star Patrol was real light and Space Opera-ish, and his Trek games were appropriately Treky. If StarFaring was anything like T&T it wasn't exactly hard & crunchy either. Space Opera was nothing like the name implied. Universe was pretty hard & crunchy. I don't know about S&S.

-clash

Added - looked up Starfaring in John Kim's Encyclopedia. It's humorous and space-opera-ish. Each player plays a starship and crew.

Added - apparently I haven't written anything since Cold Space in 2005 according to the RPG Encycopedia! :O

FASA Star Trek came out in 1982.

Gamma World was out for awhile by then and it is considered post-apocalyptic science fantasy. Even though it could be just considered an extension of Metamorphosis Alpha.

Quote from: Koltar;377105TRAVELLER was inspired pretty much by the more Adventure/swashbucker type books of Harry Harrison, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov.
- Ed C.

But it was also heavily influenced by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, especially their shared CoDominion universe. IIRC, Jerry Pournelle attempted to sue GDW over copyright infringement on that one.

Quote from: jeff37923;377111The problem here is that you are using a popular fallacy that Traveller was too heavy math and too hard science fiction to be accessible or enjoyable to a broad audience, even though it was the standard at the time of science fiction role-playing.

The link between Star Wars and Star Frontiers is tenuous at best. The only commonality between the two is that they are Science Fantasy genre RPGs.

And that's what SB actually means. We're hitting shifting vocabulary - this happens all the time with SF. Hard used to mean something different than it does now, more like "firm, pays attention to science". Niven was considered "Hard" SF, even with PSI and FTL, because science was important in his stories. Space Opera used to mean what we call Science Fantasy now. So if someone calls Trav "Hard", they are using the old meaning. If someone calls Star Frontiers "Space Opera", they mean "Science Fantasy". I grew up reading SF that stretched back into the thirties and forties from my father, and directly experienced Sixties and up from my own collection. I saw the shifts in vocabulary happen.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;377120And that's what SB actually means. We're hitting shifting vocabulary - this happens all the time with SF. Hard used to mean something different than it does now, more like "firm, pays attention to science". Niven was considered "Hard" SF, even with PSI and FTL, because science was important in his stories. Space Opera used to mean what we call Science Fantasy now. So if someone calls Trav "Hard", they are using the old meaning. If someone calls Star Frontiers "Space Opera", they mean "Science Fantasy". I grew up reading SF that stretched back into the thirties and forties from my father, and directly experienced Sixties and up from my own collection. I saw the shifts in vocabulary happen.

-clash

Exactly.  A game where you are calculating the gravity at certain radii out from the surface isn't what I would call 'space opera'.  

Quote from: jeff37923;377115FASA Star Trek came out in 1982.

Did it? Didn't remember that one. I thought that was a bit later. Cool, though. So there were two Trek games out in 82 - SFV and ST? I wonder if Scotty was writing under the Amarillo Design license... Must have been! He was limited to  TOS and the cartoon.

QuoteGamma World was out for awhile by then and it is considered post-apocalyptic science fantasy. Even though it could be just considered an extension of Metamorphosis Alpha.

Yeah - I still have a first edition set, though the box has long since bit the dust. I was considering it as Post-apoc, which is a separate genre.

-clash

Quote from: StormBringer;377121Exactly.  A game where you are calculating the gravity at certain radii out from the surface isn't what I would call 'space opera'.  

Yep! Space Opera is no longer the same either!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;377124Yep! Space Opera is no longer the same either!

-clash

Very true.  I think Doc Smith was closer to 'space opera' back in the day, right?  He was certainly no slave to science.  

Quote from: flyingmice;377120We're hitting shifting vocabulary - this happens all the time with SF. Hard used to mean something different than it does now, more like "firm, pays attention to science". Niven was considered "Hard" SF, even with PSI and FTL, because science was important in his stories. Space Opera used to mean what we call Science Fantasy now. So if someone calls Trav "Hard", they are using the old meaning. If someone calls Star Frontiers "Space Opera", they mean "Science Fantasy". I grew up reading SF that stretched back into the thirties and forties from my father, and directly experienced Sixties and up from my own collection. I saw the shifts in vocabulary happen.

-clash

To me hard scifi is what you described "firm, pays attention to science".
I don't understand what is the alternative understanding of hard scifi. Or the shift in meaning that happened since.

Quote from: jeff37923;377116But it was also heavily influenced by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, especially their shared CoDominion universe. IIRC, Jerry Pournelle attempted to sue GDW over copyright infringement on that one.

Actually the co-dominion universe is all Pournelle's. The Mote in God's Eye and the Gripping Hand were set in his existing universe.

-clash

Quote from: boulet;377127To me hard scifi is what you described "firm, pays attention to science".
I don't understand what is the alternative understanding of hard scifi. Or the shift in meaning that happened since.

Hard currently means "violates no physical laws as currently understood." No FTL, no PSI, etc.

Space Opera currently means "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, or on planets in faraway space. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues and very large-scale action, with large stakes." (from wikipedia) Meaning it can be either hard, soft, firm, or whatever.

-clash