It's a majority - minority switch. WW2 is always the number 3 era/setting, even in the younger age groups.

Quote from: paulr on 05 August 2016, 06:32:43 AM
...I...dabbled in Sc Fi (encouraged by my son) at 42, have never wargamed fantasy.

Some day somebody must explain a meaningful difference to me between fantasy and sci-fi gaming. Damned if I can see any beside the different spelling.

Wizards vs spaceships? 

So Obiwan differs from Gandalf in that...?

He flies around in a spaceship and Gandalf rides a horse?

I think you're reinforcing my point. 

I like a lot of Sci Fi films. I like a lot of fantasy films. Still can't see the point of gaming them.

I agree the difference is at least somewhat artificial. I suppose it's a difference of degree in emphasis. For Sci-Fi, it's 'future tech' possibly combined with space travel, for fantasy it's magic and anthropomorphic / -ised races on a single planet, usually medieval-esque in some way. Sort of?

I don't see the difference between fantasy, Sf and historical except that with historical there's usually some more consistent backgorund information.

What's the difference between Gandalf casting a firebolt spell, a German stormtrooper helfting a man-portable flame thrower and a Dark Chaper Death-Hawk with a blazer gauntlet? How do you differentiate between an elm with a mighty greenwood bow and a doughty English Yeoman archer at Crecy? Between an Apache attack helicopter and a light grav assault craft? The model.

I don't play fantasy. But take away the magic and an elves vs man is a bit similar to a medieval scrap. A struggle for possession of a star-destroyer is very similar to street fighting in Stalingrad.

Ah! But what about the dwarves and the Klingons! +1 strength -1 attractiveness.

When I game ancient Greek warfare, I sometimes add in a rule that certain heroes can call upon certain gods. Have I transgressed into fantasy? If someone plays 1946 with E25 tanks, is that SF?

I think sometimes we can get a little purist about our hobby, and find reasons to look ascance at other facets of it, for no good reason.

As one of out more illustrious members says "give me another pint for the love of the Dark Lord's calloused thumbs! I'm starting to see reality."
 

Quote from: Leman on 05 August 2016, 07:01:06 AM
I like a lot of Sci Fi films. I like a lot of fantasy films. Still can't see the point of gaming them.

Fun.

None of what we do is realistic.

Some of our models mimic things in the Real World (tm) a little more closely than others.

The difference between sci-fi and fantasy. Often seems to me it's aspiration vs nostalgia.

I'd possibly take some sci-fi more seriously if its afficionadi took science more seriously. Ever heard a real physicist's reaction to a description of a wargames rail gun?

I wish the minutes to show, however, that I wasn't sneering at the non-realistic part of the hobby, merely questioning a difference that I think exists only in nomenclature.

Quote from: fsn on 05 August 2016, 07:28:47 AM
How do you differentiate between an elm with a mighty greenwood bow and a doughty English Yeoman archer at Crecy?

Oh! Oh! That ones easy!
One's a 50' tall tree...

... and the other's a typo. 

That should, of course, have been an elf with a mighty greenwood bow.

Quote from: FierceKitty on 05 August 2016, 07:47:03 AM
I'd possibly take some sci-fi more seriously if its afficionadi took science more seriously. Ever heard a real physicist's reaction to a description of a wargames rail gun?

I wish the minutes to show, however, that I wasn't sneering at the non-realistic part of the hobby, merely questioning a difference that I think exists only in nomenclature.

Sci-fi isn't about science, it's about things in the real world that the author would like to promote or change dealt with by way of futuristic analogies to make the thing more palatable to a general audience.

Whereas, IMHO, fantasy is about things in the real world that the author thinks were so much better in the past. That mythical time when people were nicer, when you could tell the "baddies" by the way they looked, when virtue was rewarded and wickedness punished.

Forum threads, by way of contrast, are about sweeping generalisations made on very little evidence

If "Game of Thrones" is about a better time, we're REALLY in trouble (apart from the naked lassies).