Distance, Imagination and Problem Solving

[Onix]

[NoobHealer]

I'll second that notion that the closer things are to reality, the more we demand them to be real.

My argument lies with the progression video games. In an age long past, we used funny little icons to represent our character and the actions which he performs. It didn't matter that it was a little yellow circle eating pills and dodging ghosts. Yet, we never questioned the logic by which his world worked.

But now that we have fancy realistic graphics we start applying real world logic to it. You now find yourself questioning why am I trying to find these presents? Why is my character jumping that high... why are things not dying when I shoot them. We are now confused unless things follow the logic that exists in the real world.

Science fiction is like the first one... we can't understand it. After the first few lines of technobable and fictional theorems of quantum fusionisious space travel our brain realizes that it is not the real world. We stop judging things based on real world logic. Without these firm logics, we can easily suspend our disbelief.

[Onix]

Wow, that's a really good example! Totally true, I wonder if there would be a way of using that in a RPG? Use undefined objects in your game and then have them do things that they classically wouldn't be able to do and see if the players logically object. I may try that soon.

[NoobHealer]

Yep, it works in RPGs too. If you can break the player's habit of linking reality with the game... they'll be more open to believing anything.

In the "Best Thing You've Read in an RPG", I posted the Ghost Busters example about how to eat a telephone. I learned in that game that everything they say influences the way a game will be played. The rulebook made a specific effort to break any illusion of reality that I could muster. By the time I was 3 pages into that book, I was no longer considering real world physics.

By the time we played, I never questioned that the ghost of an ancient samurai spirit had possessed a toilet for execute his plan for world domination.

[tygertyger]

[Onix]

Aye that be true matey, *cough* sorry, yes, I agree. The reason I focused on undefined objects was because Sci-Fi already does "far future" and "Tatooine" very well. Distance is common chronologically, spatially and culturally. Hitchhikers does a little bit of the undefined object occasionally but it's more of a side note in the story most times. Like the "Ravinous bug bladder beast of Trall." Although there are words there, why those words? They don't define the important aspects of the creature, only that it must have a problem wetting it's bed and that it can't seem to get enough to eat.

[SheikhJahbooty]

Wait, London doesn't have a wizards council?

Has anybody ever tried species distance? removing humanity from a sci-fi setting altogether?

You see it sometimes in cartoons, Gandahar (English title: Light Years), but not often in novels or RPGs.

I suppose you could make an argument that some fantasy does remove "human" as a thing, like in Talislanta, or that E. R. Eddison novel... The Worm Ouroboros (thank you internet).

But it doesn't seem to be a thing people try in Sci-Fi.

Shame too, because it could be used to illustrate some interesting aspects of what it means to be human, like for example, if the main protagonist race lacks sexual dimorphism, how would their genders interact? Probably they would have no "men are dogs. men are cheaters." kind of thing. Humans have sexual dimorphism because we are naturally polygynous. A species that lacked that might be more naturally inclined to pair bonding, but then they might form pair bonds so strong that they cannot function if separated for even short times.