How Hard is your Science Fiction?

[Pmandrekar]

As an offshoot discussion of the Difficulties of SF vs. Fantasy, I thought that it might be interesting to have this discussion.

I like running Science Fiction. And I am alternately hot and cool towards running gritty, "Hard" SF with a lot of hard science, as opposed to running Buck Rogers type campaigns with "ray guns" and 'flying cars'

How hard do your SF campaigns run? Do you have a strong preference for one extreme or another?

For the purposes of this discussion, anything that you consider Science Fiction is fair game, I don't want people pushing out examples like "Star Wars" which certainly has elements of Science Fiction but borders on other genre titles.

Also, as has been pointed out, some people exclude "rubber science" Science Fiction as not being Science Fiction. For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that there is a continuum from the downright silly but entertaining end (I'm thinking that Star Wars, or Buck Rogers is closer to this extreme) to the extremely hard SF campaigns where it's not at all unreasonable to think that science can get to that point.

GATTACA, for example, is something that one could technically accomplish *now*, with enough information about which genotypes in the human genome are advantageous or disadvantageous, and with high density genetic testing, one could easily do enough testing to put people into different genetic categories based upon their over all genetic health, as predicted in their genes.

Instead of arguing with other people's preferences, what I'm hoping to do is let you discuss your own preferences, what it is about your own choices as a GM that energize you about Science Fiction.

-P.