Do you have a favorite TL?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Propjock

This thread is going to just mirror what people's favourite genre's are no? Anyway, I like to do modern-ish games so TL6-8.

I can live with that.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

here are settings with swords (and sorcery, by another name) that aren't low-tech, e.g. Star Wars.

And they aren't swords and sorcery. Science fantasy is a different genre. So, for that matter was planetary romance.

There's such a thing as Westerns set in higher TLs, in space, e.g. BraveStarr.

There is science fiction that imitates westerns. Imitating westerns isn't the same thing as being one. No western fan would look at a "science fiction western" and say "Well I don't usually have any use for science fiction, but in this one they're talking with drawls and the robot's head is shaped like a cowboy hat!"

I can't name a low-tech procedural example, but I'm inclined to believe one is mentioned in one of the books of GURPS (possibly Mysteries, possibly not).

Historical mystery is a different genre. You can of course have an historical mystery which has someone using anachronistically advanced crime detection techniques but that's still an historical mystery borrowing from police procedural, not vice versa. It's just too important that:

While Brother Cadfael may be doing autopsies at an improbably advanced level, he is not in fact a professional detective, that professional detectives don't exist.

He isn't working with a police force, that police forces don't exist.

Nobody is going to be read their rights, that their rights don't exist. Except for right of clergy which is weird enough in itself.

At the moment he's solving the case the realm is in the middle of a civil war over whether a woman can inherit the throne.

Wearing a leper's rags grants instant anonymity.

And all the other myriad things that are so very different.

A fantasy can be urban without being modern - e.g. Urbis.

Urbis is first of all not low tech. It's fantasy 19th century tech. It has trains, subways, flush toilets, newspapers, elevators and industrialized magic.

But it's still not urban fantasy just because it's in a city. The genre-defining Fafhrd and Grey Mouser took place in the city of Lankhmar but the genre it named was swords and sorcery, not urban fantasy. While there's a bit of flex as to what qualifies as "modern", the definition of "urban fantasy" includes "modern". Nothing that doesn't have the internal combustion engine is "urban fantasy". Or as close to nothing as you can get.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Police procedural goes from the 60s to the near future.

Some day some one will write a Caveman Police Procedural and your definitions will go all sideways.

Science fiction settings in general are future...

Except when they aren't. What part of 'A long, long time ago..." puts Star Wars in the future?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There is science fiction that imitates westerns. Imitating westerns isn't the same thing as being one. No western fan would look at a "science fiction western" and say "Well I don't usually have any use for science fiction, but in this one they're talking with drawls and the robot's head is shaped like a cowboy hat!"

So... Firefly wasn't a western? Funny, as a fan of westerns I immediately identified it as a western.

Nothing that doesn't have the internal combustion engine is "urban fantasy". Or as close to nothing as you can get.

Never read The Garrett Files have you?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Some day some one will write a Caveman Police Procedural and your definitions will go all sideways.

Well, no, they won't, because cavemen didn't have police or any set procedure for the systematic investigation of crime.

Except when they aren't. What part of 'A long, long time ago..." puts Star Wars in the future?

I used the words "in general" advisedly.

So... Firefly wasn't a western? Funny, as a fan of westerns I immediately identified it as a western.

No it was not a western. It was a heavily western inspired science fiction series. Ultimately the central story line about a mildly authoritarian central government chasing the girl who they had given both superpowers and mental disability through surgical enhancement experiments was absolutely nothing at all like anything a real western would use for a plot. And I have read the Garrett Files, and no they aren't urban fantasy.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There is science fiction that imitates westerns. Imitating westerns isn't the same thing as being one. No western fan would look at a "science fiction western" and say "Well I don't usually have any use for science fiction, but in this one they're talking with drawls and the robot's head is shaped like a cowboy hat!"

Firefly would be a stretch, but the cartoon mentioned above is a western series gussied up with sci-fi veneer.
Some other sci-fi that is more western than sci-fi includes "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." and "Wild Wild West" (the TV show; the movie is very much sci-fi with western veneer).

Edit: I am defining Sci-fi as the group of stories that examine societal implications of advances in science or technology. A historical fiction tale involving Leonardo Davinci's work would qualify.

[Þorkell]

TLs where my character can shoot or blow up his enemies rather than having to reply on muscle power to hurt'em.

[Phantasm]

Current favorites are: 10-11^, 4+magic, and 6 (from Billy the Kid to Indiana Jones). 8/early-9^ is also up there, depending on genre.

Really, some genres are tied to their TL tighter than others. Space Opera insists on 10+, fantasy on 1-4, and westerns and cliffhangers are in the 5-6 range. Supers and Monster Hunters run the gamut.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well, no, they won't, because cavemen didn't have police or any set procedure for the systematic investigation of crime.

And Arthurian stories didn't have Connecticut Yankees until a story was written with one.

No it was not a western. It was a heavily western inspired science fiction series. Ultimately the central story line about a mildly authoritarian central government chasing the girl who they had given both superpowers and mental disability through surgical enhancement experiments was absolutely nothing at all like anything a real western would use for a plot.

For most of the show that was not the theme. It was a background plot. For most of the show it was basically a less grim version of The Outlaw Josey Wales.

But if you want to classify the American space western science fiction series as 'scifi'...you go ahead.

And I have read the Garrett Files, and no they aren't urban fantasy.

/raised eyebrow

I'll grant that the internet agrees with you. However to me the only real difference between The Garrett Files and (the early) Dresden Files is this: Garrett doesn't use magic, and none of Dresden's primary sidekicks are elves. Other wise they are both classic examples of noir detective genre... however because Dresden is a mage it gets classified as 'urban fantasy'.

See also the oldest urban fantasy I could find (which has no cars as I can recall): Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Space Opera insists on 10+...

Kinda. Ish.

I'm not sure I'd call Poul Anderson's The High Crusade a 'TL 10+ game'. The protagonists (thus the PCs) are all TL4, they just happen to get lucky and capture a space ship.... and then suborn the remaining survivor of it's crew to pilot them into space and onto crusading and bringing Medieval Christianity to the stars. They do not gain in any true measure of TL as I recall.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

And Arthurian stories didn't have Connecticut Yankees until a story was written with one.

That's not about genre. Chivalric romance still doesn't have a Connecticut Yankee and never will. One could write a story about how some clan shaman figures out which of the tribes member killed the hunt leader's daughter. It just wouldn't be a police procedural because it would have neither police nor procedure. The defining feature of "police procedural" is "an attempt to portray something close to actual law enforcement procedures"

/raised eyebrow

I'll grant that the internet agrees with you. However to me the only real difference between The Garrett Files and (the early) Dresden Files is this: Garrett doesn't use magic, and none of Dresden's primary sidekicks are elves. Other wise they are both classic examples of noir detective genre... however because Dresden is a mage it gets classified as 'urban fantasy'.

No. It gets classified as urban fantasy because it adds magic to a modern mostly urban environment.