Tiffany and the Game Writer/GM/Player

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by DeadParrot

What the books stores do seems reasonable. A lot of stories are crossovers anyway. Both the Darkover and Dragonriders of Pern books have elements of fantasy and sci-fi. I find the hard vs soft debate as something done by folks who just need a reason to debate. If you like the book, read it and don't worry if it is hard, soft, or squishy.

The point of the distinctions is to enable one to find more books one will enjoy.

In many cases, the subgenre distinctions are more valuable than the author. I've found this true of Anne McCaffrey, Lois Bujold, Orson Scott Card... Even John Ringo.

For example, Anne McCaffrey... I've read most of her series... I Loved Pern, up until Todd was "helping"... I also enjoyed the Shell People series, Pegasus/Damia/FT&T novels, the DInosaur Planet Series, and the Crystal Singer series. But I HATED Acorna. Unlike the ones I liked, I've felt no desire to reread the Cateni series, either.

Bujold: I love the Vorkosiverse; I did not find Curse of Chalion all that enjoyable.

I found (and still find) reading Either Tolkien a chore; I've never actually finished the Silmarillion, and skip about 1/7th of LotR every time. I've read the hobbit a lot, due to the Rankin Bass version of the book (illustrated with stills from the movie).

I enjoyed the John Carter novels... but not the Tarzan ones.

For some, Genre matters a lot.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

There are lots of efforts to reduce all stories to be small handful of categories. If you are willing to go abstract enough it's easy (a few thousand motifs, 36 dramatic situations, 7 plots, 3 story structures...). I'm skeptical of a lot of these, simply because universal categorizations of anything always seem to leave you with a handful of cases you need to really twist to fit into your structure, but I could easily believe a slightly less sweeping claim, say 90% of stories fit into a few dozen categories.

There are fairy tales that can't be converted that way but Sleeping Beauty was super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

A spunky princess is captured by a knight in black armor who's working under an evil emperor. The emperor plans an attack on the princess' kingdom. But the princess is later helped by a young man who's an orphan farm boy. The farm boy is taught by a older man who has mystical powers. And the farm boy has two non-human companions, one of whom is sometimes comical and the other of whom knows a mystical secret. And then there's a thief with a heart of gold--and his companion who looks like a bear that walks on two legs. And....

Is this medieval fantasy...or is it Star Wars?

I think I have to say that what you're doing here doesn't count for full points. The essential content is that of a generic adventure story, which could be adapted to any setting. The bits about nonhuman companions are a little outside that, but they don't have to be nonhuman; it seems to be recognized that the original Star Wars owed a lot to Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, which was straight historical action/adventure (with a touch of comedy) and need not be classed as either SF or fantasy.

You start getting strictly SFnal elements when you include attempts to examine the scientific implications of your fantastic content. Swift discussing the proportions of Lilliputians to Englishment, or Wells looking at the impact of Darwinian selection on human beings belonging to the upper and lower classes, or Stapledon talking about how the senses of an uplifted dog differ from those of an equally intelligent human, are early examples. Those are elements you wouldn't get in mundane fiction and probably wouldn't examine in a fantasy story with comparable fantastic content.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

There are no hard and fast divisions, it's a general sort of 'I know it when I see it' classification that different people disagree about....

I agree that a person's individual perspective has a whole lot to do with it. Very little in our universe is truly black or white. Fiction, including RPGs, are often a lot more black and white than Reality.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That's low hanging fruit considering that Lucas was cribbing from a samurai movie in the first place....

I started picking the low-hanging fruit when I was a kid (literally). :-D

Seriously, when I first saw the first-released Star Wars film, I knew virtually nothing about it. But I very quickly thought, "This looks like a medieval fantasy in space." And by the end of the movie I thought, "This seems something like an early 20th century movie serial." And the second released film The Empire Strikes Back definitely felt like part of a movie serial.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think I have to say that what you're doing here doesn't count for full points....

How about 3/4ths? lol

Originally Posted by whswhs

You start getting strictly SFnal elements when you include attempts to examine the scientific implications of your fantastic content....Those are elements you wouldn't get in mundane fiction and probably wouldn't examine in a fantasy story with comparable fantastic content.

Agreed. There are some works that are pretty close to one end or the other of the fantasy-science fiction scale. The Hobbit and 2001: A Space Odyssey come to mind.

Then there are things like Star Wars and many classic superheros franchises that are largely fantasy using science fictional hardware.

[Alden Loveshade]

As I may have come close to derailing this thread....back to the beginning.

Originally Posted by L.J.Steele

I was listening to a podcast about screen writing which mentioned the Tiffany Problem....Presumably this extends to games -- when the GM or player has researched a thing that is appropriate for the setting, but it just kills the other players suspension of disbelief in the setting.

I agree it can apply to screenwriting, games...and fiction writing. I'm currently working on a fiction project that re-examines historical and social events. And it deals with actual laws of a certain country from the late 20th to the early 21st century. But I suspect a high percentage of that country's population would react with something like, "That's ridiculous! There'd never be things like that in real life!" Well....

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

Seriously, when I first saw the first-released Star Wars film, I knew virtually nothing about it. But I very quickly thought, "This looks like a medieval fantasy in space." And by the end of the movie I thought, "This seems something like an early 20th century movie serial." And the second released film The Empire Strikes Back definitely felt like part of a movie serial.

Then you got precisely what Lucas was aiming for - a loving tribute to the Saturday movie serials he watched as a kid. Pity more "fans" didn't understand that.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think I have to say that what you're doing here doesn't count for full points. The essential content is that of a generic adventure story, which could be adapted to any setting. The bits about nonhuman companions are a little outside that, but they don't have to be nonhuman; it seems to be recognized that the original Star Wars owed a lot to Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, which was straight historical action/adventure (with a touch of comedy) and need not be classed as either SF or fantasy.

I can easily, in my mind, switch Chewbacca and Kikuchiyo from Seven Samurai. Especially Chewbacca's skittishness after escaping the trash compactor.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I can easily, in my mind, switch Chewbacca and Kikuchiyo from Seven Samurai. Especially Chewbacca's skittishness after escaping the trash compactor.

Surely. And that's because Chewie's essential role is that of a companion in adventure.

I have to say it would be amusing to see Mifune playing that part!

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Surely. And that's because Chewie's essential role is that of a companion in adventure.

I have to say it would be amusing to see Mifune playing that part!

You'll have to convince people that's a legitimate use of AI and compensate who knows who.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You'll have to convince people that's a legitimate use of AI and compensate who knows who.

That will be something to look into when I have a fortune equal to the U.S. national debt.