[ericthered]

I like both hard science fiction games and soft "scifi" games. To me its all about signaling. The problem comes when someone thinks we are doing one and it turns out we're doing the other.

My current discord group is playing some very soft science fiction, with psionics clearly front and center. Its a fun game. I don't know that I handled everything the way I should have, but we could not have played that game without psionics in a space setting.

Our next game is going to have a single piece of super-science, depicted as the inciting incident, and that's it. Its a much more down to earth game. I think we're going to have a lot of fun doing that too.

I think people mostly get into trouble when they're not clear about what "magic" is available and how much of it there will be. Or when they think that science fiction is mostly about predicting the future, when its mostly about entertainment, and perhaps exploring the implications of one or two possible future situations.