Sci fi Rpgs classes

[Stormtrooper666]

Hey everyone.

So I'm used to playing fantasy rpgs. I can usually find whatever info I need on classes on forums or sites.

When it comes to sci fi rpgs I can't seem to find much info on classes besides soldiers or a tech class. What classes are usually found in sci fi rpgs or if anyone can direct to a website is appreciate it

[Koo Rehtorb]

There aren't all that many sci-fi RPGs in general. Warrior, psychic, expert.

Edit - Analyst, Mercenary, Pilot, Shifter, Wrecker. https://uncharted-worlds.com/

[Lord Raziere]

Hey everyone.

So I'm used to playing fantasy rpgs. I can usually find whatever info I need on classes on forums or sites.

When it comes to sci fi rpgs I can't seem to find much info on classes besides soldiers or a tech class. What classes are usually found in sci fi rpgs or if anyone can direct to a website is appreciate it

There probably isn't one?

this is largely because despite fantasy having more possibilities, fantasy has more set in stone tropes as far as heroes and plots go. while sci-fi can have more varied settings from logically deducing how this or that technology affects everyone, thus more varied roles depending on the setting while also looking at heroes not as archetypical people with specific styles and more as people with well-rounded skills and brains to think outside the box.

like, fantasy archetypes and heroes have things like, swordsman with various semi-mystical tropes and cliches like a Legendary Sword, the Sword Master you learn cool sword techniques from and such and so on, with a wizards and their power artifacts and this and that. its all about a growth of a legend and the conflicts they take place in.

but science fiction, it isn't concerned about that sort of thing. its concerned about how X would have an effect on Y in a logical manner and what does that mean for society. there is no personal legend involved. anyone can pick up a gun of any kind and kill people with it. given the right technology, anyone can be implanted with a chip to become a master hacker, or any other skill-set you'd care to name. at a certain point, the concept of a "class" becomes outdated when the entire world and people within becomes something modular and replaceable with easy enough cybernetics. at a certain point, doing anything YOURSELF becomes an outdated concept when you can make a robot to do it for you.

so ironically, sci-fi is less set in stone and more open to strange possibilities because while fantasy has tons of things it can do that sci-fi can't, fantasy has to somehow fit those things into a medieval world that humans can relate to where the protagonist can sword his way through everything, therefore the effects are limited. and therefore you can't really list any classes for sci-fi, because there is no real standard sci-fi setting like there is in fantasy, because sci-fi can be more weird and still be something understandable for most people, because it having an effect and changing, the asking of the "what if?" question is the entire point.

[Particle_Man]

Star Wars games often have classes iirc. Traveller tends to have backgrounds in chargen that can act like classes in the creation minigame. But some sci-fi rpgs just are classless.

How much magic/force/psychic stuff do you want in your science fiction?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Sci-fi games generally don't have classes, unless you're talking about something like Starfinder that's built around "D&D in space" as an idea. Personally, I think it has to do with all the options that technology opens up to the players. There are so many toys available to anyone who goes looking for them that you don't really need magic to interact with the world in interesting ways. Related to that is conservation of complexity-- once you get done writing rules for spaceships and hacking and building robots and biotechnology and all the rest, you've got a lot less room for the kind of character-based complexity a game like D&D or Exalted digs into.

[JellyPooga]

Sci-fi games tend not to have such a focus on hack'n'slash as fantasy (IME), so "classes" in those systems also tend more toward professions; soldier or law-enforcer (as opposed to a more generic "Fighter"), journalist or socialite (rather than "Bard"), sports-star or acrobat, mechanic or scientist, etc. etc. Even in games like Dark Heresy, which has quite a strong combat emphasis, of the "class" roles, only a fraction are outright combat focused, unlike D&D in which practically every class is some kind of warrior (whether martial, magical, divine or arcane).

[Steel Mirror]

While I agree with most of the others posting here that scifi class systems are rarer than they are in fantasy, I still think there are enough of them to make some class generalizations. Common classes include:

Soldier: durable, can use lots of kinds of weapons, probably midranged

Tech/engineer: skill monkey, versatile, possibly includes upgrading or other party buff abilities

Psychic/Jedi Counselor: basically does magic, often an emphasis on mind-influencing, force shields, or telekinetics, may be "sufficiently advanced technology"

Scout/Sniper: stealthy, hits hard but is fragile, mobility, probably has versatile skills but specializes in a single kind of combat

Melee: uses a scifi sword because swords are cool, probably can deflect lasers/be really mobile or otherwise has some gimmick so that they can survive to reach melee combat. more likely the closer the setting is to fantasy (in SPAAACE)

The Face/Nobility/Scoundrel/Captain: adept at dealing with people, may have some party buffing through inspiration or command skills

Mech Pilot: hopefully your system has these, because they are the best. robots, come on

[Lord Raziere]

Eeeeh.

Star Wars/Jedi/Psychic stuff can't really be counted as "sci-fi" to me, thats just Space Fantasy. if your using fantasy tropes of cool swords and heroes like that, your not sci-fi your just a fantasy world with tech trappings rather than wilderness ones. I would not count any setting that does that as "science fiction.".

fantasy is when the hero is able to read minds because of weird alien genetics and use that ability to save the day. science fiction is when everyone has the ability to read minds because of cybernetic implants, privacy as a concept is dead and the internet and your thoughts no longer have any difference and this sucks on so many levels that bad things happen because of it and the only way to change that is by figuring out what the real problem is and how society can be persuaded to revise itself to solve that.

[ngilop]

The RPGs I have played that were sci-fi and had classes and were NOT based on already existing media ( such as video games) fall into the following

Soldier: your typical weapon expert

Scientist: So you medic/tech guy

Diplomat: The social encounter guy

Pilot: the guy who flies the ships and vehicles

trader/smuggler: The skill based guy

and if they go with some form of supernatural

the Mentalist: the one with the psychic powers.

[Max_Killjoy]

The RPGs I have played that were sci-fi and had classes and were NOT based on already existing media ( such as video games) fall into the following

Soldier: your typical weapon expert

Scientist: So you medic/tech guy

Diplomat: The social encounter guy

Pilot: the guy who flies the ships and vehicles

trader/smuggler: The skill based guy

and if they go with some form of supernatural

the Mentalist: the one with the psychic powers.

The trader or smuggler is the "skill based guy"? In a game with techs, scientists, pilots, and soldiers wielding tech-based weapons?

[Pauly]

I”ll echo what other people have said in that most sci-fi systems use professions rather than classes. Basically you get to choose what particular skills and abilities your character has, rather than choosing a pre-determined suite of skills that someone else defined.

Generally people tend to choose abilities that have synergies and be an expert at something, rather than be a jack of all trades and master of none. Although being the jack of all trades can be quite useful at times.

[Particle_Man]

Eeeeh.

Star Wars/Jedi/Psychic stuff can't really be counted as "sci-fi" to me, thats just Space Fantasy. if your using fantasy tropes of cool swords and heroes like that, your not sci-fi your just a fantasy world with tech trappings rather than wilderness ones. I would not count any setting that does that as "science fiction.".

fantasy is when the hero is able to read minds because of weird alien genetics and use that ability to save the day. science fiction is when everyone has the ability to read minds because of cybernetic implants, privacy as a concept is dead and the internet and your thoughts no longer have any difference and this sucks on so many levels that bad things happen because of it and the only way to change that is by figuring out what the real problem is and how society can be persuaded to revise itself to solve that.

Ok but you are throwing out Star Trek as well as Star Wars with your mind reading example, from the Vulcan mind-meld to the Betazoids. Also Babylon 5.

[LordEntrails]

Let's see, not classes, but called "primary skill areas" in Star Frontiers;
- Military
- Technician
- Computers
- Engineering
- Biologist
- Social Scientist
- Robotics
- Psionics
Spaceship PSAs'
- Pilot
- Navigation
- Engineering
- various weapon systems (Rocket, Beam...)

Probably off on some of those, don't have my materials handy.

[Kaptin Keen]

Eeeeh.

Star Wars/Jedi/Psychic stuff can't really be counted as "sci-fi" to me, thats just Space Fantasy. if your using fantasy tropes of cool swords and heroes like that, your not sci-fi your just a fantasy world with tech trappings rather than wilderness ones. I would not count any setting that does that as "science fiction.".

fantasy is when the hero is able to read minds because of weird alien genetics and use that ability to save the day. science fiction is when everyone has the ability to read minds because of cybernetic implants, privacy as a concept is dead and the internet and your thoughts no longer have any difference and this sucks on so many levels that bad things happen because of it and the only way to change that is by figuring out what the real problem is and how society can be persuaded to revise itself to solve that.

Frankly, almost all sci-fi relies on magic. No, seriously. I cannot easily think of even a single work of sci-fi fiction that doesn't either overtly include psychic powers, or technology that is quite frankly impossible - from hyper drives over genetic ressurection to stasis sleep, and so on, and so on. Some of the most iconic sci-fi in human history is very, very fantasy, as well. Dune, for instance. Enders Game. Ringworld. And if we include handwaving the impossible as 'tech' you can include most of the rest - everything by Asimov, Neuromancer (well - whether actual cyberspace is impossible may be open to interpretation), and so on.

Oh - I came up with one sci-fi story that doesn't include any obvious fantasy elements: The Martian.

[Lord Raziere]

Ok but you are throwing out Star Trek as well as Star Wars with your mind reading example, from the Vulcan mind-meld to the Betazoids. Also Babylon 5.

Star Trek:
I mean.....thats not losing much. calling Star Trek something like "Idealistic Space Navy/Explorer Fantasy" wouldn't be inaccurate to me, because the entire idea is that future Earth will somehow after a Eugenics War and WWIII, decide to go exploring into space as peaceful explorers and scientists who are only armed to defend themselves and nothing else, sounds pretty fantastical to me in terms of human behavior. its as unrealistic as WH40k, and has fantastical archetypes that while not mapping to medieval fantasies are pretty tropelike and larger than life:
-The Starfleet captain, the Ego to the balancing force and make this and that decision, the intrepid head of the exploration, the Kirk that always who beds the alien girl, the serious forceful Picard, that sort of thing
-accompanied by The Spock, the Data, the super-logical superego alien speaking in complete cold clarity without intonation ever trying to arrive at the best most logical conclusion no matter what and having no regards for the feelings of others
-The McCoy that is emotional and compassionate, the doctor who cares a lot, who cares TOO MUCH, who has arguments with The Spock, and so on and so forth

see what I mean? These aren't really people, they're larger than life heroes embodying a certain force of human thought present throughout all the world channeled to the most moral versions of them as they can to tell a story about this or that. they're as mythical as Robin Hood or Sir Arthur or Thor. the entire Starfleet set up really reminds me of kind of a knight or wandering cowboy kind of thing, and the rules Starfleet has to be follow being their knightly code. I wouldn't call Star Trek science fiction, I'd call it space knight-errant romance folklore for nerds. not all fantasy is epic good vs. evil clashes of the entire galaxy/universe at stake (which y'know is the kind of Space version of fantasy that Star Wars is).

Babylon 5:
while Babylon 5.....I haven't seen any of that. but from what I can look up, its kind of telling when a space station of peace and negotiation takes its name from the mythical tower of Babylon which when shattered also fractured one languages into many so that people can't speak the same one anymore. and apparently has aliens and technology verging on magic, humans with psychic powers, an ancient evil arising to threaten all intelligent life that was foretold by an alien religion, chosen ones, fortune telling, incredibly advanced races that are still jerks to everyone else for no reason.....
.....sorry thats a lot of destiny and larger than life flags there. it may be another form of Space Negotiation Fantasy, but its still a fantasy. the creator Straczynski saying they wrote it like an epic fantasy just clinches it (sorry but if you write it "LIKE" something your writing it AS that thing, no buts about it.) sorry I cannot call Babylon 5 science fiction, all things considered.

Kaptin:
Well yes. but thats not relevant. its how they are handled and portrayed that makes one fantasy and other science fiction. they are different genres for a reason. they are examinations of different things, and thus do different things with them. and unfortunately most uses of psychic power out there are fantastical, they use the usual tropes to make it something fantastic, rare, special, things to make it a protagonist power and blah blah blah.
you completely miss the point of the difference and how important it is, its not the fact that it exists, its how how one uses them that matters. to use an inverse example:

fantasy is when the protagonist has a legendary sword made of cool indestructible steel to kill people with, and also is a master swordsman and go kills some evil with it.

science fiction is when a group of medieval blacksmiths find a metal thats indestructible and cut through anything and have to figure out how to forge it so that it can function for any purpose at all, if they find a method, find a source of it to mine, then convince the king that its worth using to outfit their lords and troops with it so that the blacksmiths can get rich from it, then details how the kingdoms warfare changes with having access to this new great metal and how it stomps everyone else, making an empire that expands and grows prosperous but over time the metal weapons get stolen and fall into the hands of other people until nations begin to match them/one of the blacksmiths regret what they done and betrays the kingdom to share the metal to even the conflicts out, and how warfare changes with the introduction of indestructible armor from the same metal, then details how a musket fares against said armor and how that changes the existence of guns if there is armor that can't ever be pierced by normal bullets and so on and so forth.

[Mechalich]

Frankly, almost all sci-fi relies on magic. No, seriously. I cannot easily think of even a single work of sci-fi fiction that doesn't either overtly include psychic powers, or technology that is quite frankly impossible - from hyper drives over genetic ressurection to stasis sleep, and so on, and so on. Some of the most iconic sci-fi in human history is very, very fantasy, as well. Dune, for instance. Enders Game. Ringworld. And if we include handwaving the impossible as 'tech' you can include most of the rest - everything by Asimov, Neuromancer (well - whether actual cyberspace is impossible may be open to interpretation), and so on.

Oh - I came up with one sci-fi story that doesn't include any obvious fantasy elements: The Martian.

Science fiction works vary considerably in hardness. There are some surprisingly hard sf tales out there that include only elements that, while somewhat speculative in terms of possibility, don't include anything that is concretely impossible. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels include space elevators and human biological immortality, which are certainly things we don't know how to do yet, but we conceivably could figure out how to do in the future. The biggest issue with science fiction hardness is that people usually want to get out of the solar system, and doing that on any sort of timeframe that allows for dynamic conflict (ie. space warfare) requires FTL travel, which is either flatly impossible, or if possible does horrible things to causality that render storytelling itself impossible.

That doesn't mean you can't have a fairly hard-sf tabletop game, in fact, at least one actually exists: Eclipse Phase. If you remove the Pandora Gates, minor psionics, and the alien Factors from the setting (and this is actually a very modest set of changes) the remaining elements are all pretty plausible, if futuristic, technologies. We may discover in the future that some of them, like uploading a human brain, aren't possible, but from where science stands right now there's no reason that sufficiently potent computers couldn't do that.

In general hard sf is less common, and to a degree less popular than softer sf for a couple of reasons. One is that it's simply harder to write. A lot of the big names in hard sf: Benford, Brin, Egan, Reynolds, etc. have PhDs in some sort of advanced physics and considerable work experience in the field, which is indicate of the research necessary to write this kind of stuff. Second, for the most part hardening your sf means stripping out 'cool stuff' from the universe by saying 'nope, that's impossible' to options, and there are simply a lot of things that you cannot do in a story if you take those options - FTL being the most obvious and most substantial - off the table.

To swing this back to roles and classes in science fiction games, a lot of science fiction universes simply present a universe that's been shaped by advanced technology (and often some massive calamity, as many post-apocalyptic settings are also heavily science fiction oriented) and ask the players to build characters who are simply living in that universe. There's no expectation that they'll be heroes or even military personnel. Classes are poorly suited to settings which are highly open ended and the players could take in any direction. By contrast, in a highly focused science fiction scenario - for instance if all the PCs are personnel on a ship of some kind with defined on-board responsibilities - then classes are a much more viable option.

[Kaptin Keen]

Kaptin:
Well yes. but thats not relevant. its how they are handled and portrayed that makes one fantasy and other science fiction. they are different genres for a reason. they are examinations of different things, and thus do different things with them. and unfortunately most uses of psychic power out there are fantastical, they use the usual tropes to make it something fantastic, rare, special, things to make it a protagonist power and blah blah blah.
you completely miss the point of the difference and how important it is, its not the fact that it exists, its how how one uses them that matters. to use an inverse example:

fantasy is when the protagonist has a legendary sword made of cool indestructible steel to kill people with, and also is a master swordsman and go kills some evil with it.

science fiction is when a group of medieval blacksmiths find a metal thats indestructible and cut through anything and have to figure out how to forge it so that it can function for any purpose at all, if they find a method, find a source of it to mine, then convince the king that its worth using to outfit their lords and troops with it so that the blacksmiths can get rich from it, then details how the kingdoms warfare changes with having access to this new great metal and how it stomps everyone else, making an empire that expands and grows prosperous but over time the metal weapons get stolen and fall into the hands of other people until nations begin to match them/one of the blacksmiths regret what they done and betrays the kingdom to share the metal to even the conflicts out, and how warfare changes with the introduction of indestructible armor from the same metal, then details how a musket fares against said armor and how that changes the existence of guns if there is armor that can't ever be pierced by normal bullets and so on and so forth.

Huh. I completely disagree.

The main gulf is that fantasy is past (or sometimes post-future), and sci-fi is future (or, occasionally, long long ago in a galaxy far, far away).

Fantasy deals with a glorification of the past, of knights and kings and chivalry and legendary monsters and magic and quests and .... so on.

Sci-fi deals with the glorification of the future, of technology and space travel and aliens and ... legendary monsters and psychic powers and important missions ... and so on.

It's propably the name - science fiction - that is the root of most of the confusion. In the vast majority of sci-fi, be it literature, movies, or games, there is very, very close to zero actual science. Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40k, Shadowrun, Mass Effect, pretty much all of the titans of sci-fi have nothing but the very most casual relationship with the sci part of things.

On the topic of sci-fi rpg classes, btw, they seem to fall into a few fairly standard brackets:
Melee fighters - Shadowrun Street Samurai, 40K assassin
Ranged fighters - Shadowrun Merc, 40k Guardsman
Tech specialist - Shadowrun Decker, 40k Tech-Priest
Vehicles or drones specialist - Shadowrun Rigger, 40k ... not sure, there's the Navigator in Rogue Trader for 40k
'Wizard' - mage or shaman for Shadowrun, Psyker for 40k
'Rogue' - diverse infiltrator or face types, Shadowrun has an Infiltration Specialist and a Face, 40k has Scum

That seems to cover most of the bases, in most of the games I'm familiar with. There's usually some specialisation, like heavy weapons or demolitions or ... you know. But on the whole, I don't recall finding a great many sci-fi games with classes incompatible with the above.

Science fiction works vary considerably in hardness. There are some surprisingly hard sf tales out there that include only elements that, while somewhat speculative in terms of possibility, don't include anything that is concretely impossible. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels include space elevators and human biological immortality, which are certainly things we don't know how to do yet, but we conceivably could figure out how to do in the future. The biggest issue with science fiction hardness is that people usually want to get out of the solar system, and doing that on any sort of timeframe that allows for dynamic conflict (ie. space warfare) requires FTL travel, which is either flatly impossible, or if possible does horrible things to causality that render storytelling itself impossible.

That doesn't mean you can't have a fairly hard-sf tabletop game, in fact, at least one actually exists: Eclipse Phase. If you remove the Pandora Gates, minor psionics, and the alien Factors from the setting (and this is actually a very modest set of changes) the remaining elements are all pretty plausible, if futuristic, technologies. We may discover in the future that some of them, like uploading a human brain, aren't possible, but from where science stands right now there's no reason that sufficiently potent computers couldn't do that.

In general hard sf is less common, and to a degree less popular than softer sf for a couple of reasons. One is that it's simply harder to write. A lot of the big names in hard sf: Benford, Brin, Egan, Reynolds, etc. have PhDs in some sort of advanced physics and considerable work experience in the field, which is indicate of the research necessary to write this kind of stuff. Second, for the most part hardening your sf means stripping out 'cool stuff' from the universe by saying 'nope, that's impossible' to options, and there are simply a lot of things that you cannot do in a story if you take those options - FTL being the most obvious and most substantial - off the table.

You don't say much that I don't agree with. I'm well aware of some hard sci-fi out there, but ... it's a niche genre. And you cannot argue that Eclipse Phase is hard sci-fi - then on the same breath name the things that need to be excluded to make it so. Like I said, the vast majority of sci-fi relies entirely on 'magic' to work. Hypothetical science is also magic. It is unknown whether we'll develop biological immortality - in much the same way that it's unknown whether we'll be able to develop psionics. Personally, some form of genetic radio transmitter doesn't seem implausible to me, but I'd never try to sell it as hard sci-fi.

Did you watch The Expanse? I really liked it for the sort of semi-hard sci-fi, with actual rocket engines. I liked how warships were depressurised in combat. Then ... bam, space-goo becomes god.

No one really wants hard sci-fi, it's just icing on the occasional cake: Having the poor human schmucks in the solar system use relatively believable tech is only a thing to make it a bigger challenge to defeat space-goo-god.

So, like I said: I don't really disagree much with you. I just claim that, for the majority of the actual genre stuff out there, it relies on 'science' of such speculative nature as to make it indistinguishable from magic.

[Knaight]

If we're talking classics of the genre there's also the small matter of an enormous number of short stories, which have always been one of the genre's more signature forms. The Cold Equations is both pretty well known and very much hard sci-fi*. Most of Arthur C. Clark's work is this too, with a few very notable exceptions. Then there's the matter of how plenty of sci-fi isn't about glorification of the future at all, and is instead about a future that is generally pretty terrible because of how technology is used. Black Mirror is a lot of things, but a glorification of the future isn't one of them.

*Though there's a case to be made that sociology is a science, and the amount of major security and launch procedure screwups that would be needed to make the plot happen are a sociology violation.

[Mechalich]

The main gulf is that fantasy is past (or sometimes post-future), and sci-fi is future (or, occasionally, long long ago in a galaxy far, far away).

Fantasy deals with a glorification of the past, of knights and kings and chivalry and legendary monsters and magic and quests and .... so on.

Sci-fi deals with the glorification of the future, of technology and space travel and aliens and ... legendary monsters and psychic powers and important missions ... and so on.

It's propably the name - science fiction - that is the root of most of the confusion. In the vast majority of sci-fi, be it literature, movies, or games, there is very, very close to zero actual science. Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40k, Shadowrun, Mass Effect, pretty much all of the titans of sci-fi have nothing but the very most casual relationship with the sci part of things.

Nope, you're confusing trappings with themes here.

Science fiction is principally speculative, it's about introducing concepts - usually but not always technologies (including social technologies, Brave New World is absolutely science fiction) - and then speculating as to the consequences of those concepts. Fantasy, by contrast is principally explicative, it posits a concept as true and then explains what that means. Often a moral concept as fantasy is deeply rooted in myth and folkloric traditions that addressed questions of ethics and human nature.

Setting a story in a hypothetical distant future or past has no bearing on whether it qualifies as fantasy or science fiction, the fact that fantasy stories are more commonly set in the past and science fiction more commonly set in the future is a matter of tradition and tropes, not the nature of the genres. The examples you listed, with the partial exception of Star Trek, are space fantasy, that is fantasy stories set in a futuristic interstellar scenario, and not science fiction at all.

Note that it is entirely possible to tell a science fiction story in a fantasy universe, and this actually happens a lot in space fantasy. The Star Wars novel Rogue Planet, by sf grandmaster Greg Bear, is an ideal example of just such a piece (and it's an interesting concept novel but a terrible Star Wars work as a result). Likewise a lot of space fantasy borrows concepts and speculative ideas from science fiction to insert as subplots or side points without having them be critical to the overall story. This is how Dune works. The story of Dune is utterly fantastical (almost Biblical even), but the setting backdrop includes a lot of deeply speculative science fiction elements (especially regarding the ecology of Arrakis) that serve to frame the story.

As to why this distinct matters for classes versus class-less systems, classes are primarily a design element for characters who are intended to experience a dramatic change in their capabilities over the course of their character arcs, which is best suited for characters who go on something resembling a class hero's journey and acquire physical power to match their metaphorical ascent at the same time. We need look no further than Luke Skywalker for a fine fantasy example of how this is supposed to work and that's why classes make a great deal of sense for Star Wars and for many fantasy formats generally. By contrast, because science fiction focuses much more on the impact of concepts than of characters, most science fiction protagonists start in a place where there capabilities are very similar to where they began, even if they underwent immense character development during the interim. Duncan, the nominal protagonist of the Faded Sun trilogy, goes through a massive personal shift to the point of adopting the culture of an entirely different species during the series, but he doesn't become a better fighter or anything during that time and such skills as he does learn are anachronistic and have little relation to his earlier career. The don't make him better, they make him different.

Classes are useful because they take a concept and represent it across varying degrees of power, which helps to streamline advancement and prevent option paralysis in characters who are advancing rapidly (to make a reducto ad absudium point, in Disgaea it is possible to go from level 1 to level 9999 in a single move, that's impossible without classes). For characters who are not advancing significantly and in fact probably spent 90+% of the points that they will ever spend at chargen, classless systems provide the flexibility to allow characters to change in accordance with the story they are experiencing. A true science fiction setting is very likely to be the latter case, and therefore classes are usually not beneficial.

[Kaptin Keen]

Nope, you're confusing trappings with themes here.

Please don't do that. If you cannot express disagreement without calling my views confusion, then you and I cannot have any sort of exchange.

[CharonsHelper]

Well - I'm 90% done with a semi-hard swashbuckling space western RPG - Space Dogs (in my signature).

The 8 base classes (each of which split in two at level 4) are Brute, Commander, Operative, Skirmisher, Trickster, Warrior, True Psychic, and Guardian (the physic/martial hybrid class). Though in many ways it's a class/point-buy hybrid system rather than a more traditional class sytem.

The skills are actually separate from your class as you pick from a longer list of Backgrounds, each of which makes 4 skills cheaper to buy. (Though buying more in the same skill costs quadratically more - so it promotes spreading your skills somewhat.

One point of note, is that the mechanics are such that everyone should have both ranged and melee weapons. Charging across open ground under gunfire with a sword is super risky, but having ravening bug-eyed aliens close to melee with you when you still have a rifle or rocket-launcher out can be equally dangerous.

[Max_Killjoy]

Nope, you're confusing trappings with themes here.

Science fiction is principally speculative, it's about introducing concepts - usually but not always technologies (including social technologies, Brave New World is absolutely science fiction) - and then speculating as to the consequences of those concepts. Fantasy, by contrast is principally explicative, it posits a concept as true and then explains what that means. Often a moral concept as fantasy is deeply rooted in myth and folkloric traditions that addressed questions of ethics and human nature.

Setting a story in a hypothetical distant future or past has no bearing on whether it qualifies as fantasy or science fiction, the fact that fantasy stories are more commonly set in the past and science fiction more commonly set in the future is a matter of tradition and tropes, not the nature of the genres. The examples you listed, with the partial exception of Star Trek, are space fantasy, that is fantasy stories set in a futuristic interstellar scenario, and not science fiction at all.

Note that it is entirely possible to tell a science fiction story in a fantasy universe, and this actually happens a lot in space fantasy. The Star Wars novel Rogue Planet, by sf grandmaster Greg Bear, is an ideal example of just such a piece (and it's an interesting concept novel but a terrible Star Wars work as a result). Likewise a lot of space fantasy borrows concepts and speculative ideas from science fiction to insert as subplots or side points without having them be critical to the overall story. This is how Dune works. The story of Dune is utterly fantastical (almost Biblical even), but the setting backdrop includes a lot of deeply speculative science fiction elements (especially regarding the ecology of Arrakis) that serve to frame the story.

As to why this distinct matters for classes versus class-less systems, classes are primarily a design element for characters who are intended to experience a dramatic change in their capabilities over the course of their character arcs, which is best suited for characters who go on something resembling a class hero's journey and acquire physical power to match their metaphorical ascent at the same time. We need look no further than Luke Skywalker for a fine fantasy example of how this is supposed to work and that's why classes make a great deal of sense for Star Wars and for many fantasy formats generally. By contrast, because science fiction focuses much more on the impact of concepts than of characters, most science fiction protagonists start in a place where there capabilities are very similar to where they began, even if they underwent immense character development during the interim. Duncan, the nominal protagonist of the Faded Sun trilogy, goes through a massive personal shift to the point of adopting the culture of an entirely different species during the series, but he doesn't become a better fighter or anything during that time and such skills as he does learn are anachronistic and have little relation to his earlier career. The don't make him better, they make him different.

Classes are useful because they take a concept and represent it across varying degrees of power, which helps to streamline advancement and prevent option paralysis in characters who are advancing rapidly (to make a reducto ad absudium point, in Disgaea it is possible to go from level 1 to level 9999 in a single move, that's impossible without classes). For characters who are not advancing significantly and in fact probably spent 90+% of the points that they will ever spend at chargen, classless systems provide the flexibility to allow characters to change in accordance with the story they are experiencing. A true science fiction setting is very likely to be the latter case, and therefore classes are usually not beneficial.

And this hits on two of the big issues that I get caught up in around here.

One, going by the distinction you laid out above, my approach to worldbuilding, setting, etc for my fantasy worlds is far more "science fiction" than it is "fantasy". I can't look at a setting as a collection of "just so" elements and "this is True" statements each in isolation, I have to see how the pieces fit together and follow cause to effect to cause to effect etc. If I add a new element, I have to look at and include the effects and consequences of that element.

Two, characters. I greatly prefer characters who possess competence and their general ability set at the start of the story... "coming of age" and "hero's journey" and "zero to hero" are very very much not my cuppa. So character classes as they're usually presented, in the d20/D&D/PF manner, are actively detrimental to my enjoyment of a game... if my character is supposed to be an X who can do Y and Z, then having to wait 6+ levels to even touch on that capability is... just an exercise in wasted time.

[Lord Raziere]

And this hits on two of the big issues that I get caught up in around here.

One, going by the distinction you laid out above, my approach to worldbuilding, setting, etc for my fantasy worlds is far more "science fiction" than it is "fantasy". I can't look at a setting as a collection of "just so" elements and "this is True" statements each in isolation, I have to see how the pieces fit together and follow cause to effect to cause to effect etc. If I add a new element, I have to look at and include the effects and consequences of that element.

Two, characters. I greatly prefer characters who possess competence and their general ability set at the start of the story... "coming of age" and "hero's journey" and "zero to hero" are very very much not my cuppa. So character classes as they're usually presented, in the d20/D&D/PF manner, are actively detrimental to my enjoyment of a game... if my character is supposed to be an X who can do Y and Z, then having to wait 6+ levels to even touch on that capability is... just an exercise in wasted time.

Then congratulations, your just a science fiction nerd rather than a fantasy nerd. that doesn't mean anything bad or good, its just how things are.

a lot of stuff that has the trappings of science fiction (superheroes, Star wars, Halo, Doom, any other fiction with a larger than life hero doing something epic in a short amount of time to save the day from evil) are just fantasies in modern disguises to appeal to people. this is to is just how things are.

science fiction is a bit more restrictive on what it is and does and how you can write it, that is also just how things are. and the more soft the science fiction the more you have to be careful not to verge into fantasy.

as for sociology violations, its widely known that people can be corrupt, stupid, incompetent and so on. I'd consider it more of a sociology or psychology violation to not show people capable of making mistakes or not being good or competent people than showing them all as incompetent. we get mad at people being incompetent or whatever in real life all the time, when you get angry for someone being incompetent in fiction that isn't a writing problem, thats the intended reaction. after all, writing people as too competent runs the risk of mary sues and mary suetopias where you somehow make the best society out of nowhere that has somehow solved the human element of everything. and thats bad both narrative wise AND consistency wise. I'd go far as to say that making people perfect is the biggest mistake you could possibly do in writing or in roleplaying.

[The Fury]

As far as I can tell, the common class in pretty much all sci-fi games that I've seen is some sort of pilot. At least in ones that lend themselves to the space-opera sort of feel, which makes sense. You're in space, you probably need a spaceship so you probably need someone to fly it. The other classes like Soldier, Scientist, Diplomat, Smuggler and such seem a little more loosey-goosey. Like depending on how the system/setting is built, some classes can overlap or be done away with.

Then there's the classes/character types that aren't always around and players rarely seem to pick them: Medic/Doctor and Engineer/Mechanic.

[Particle_Man]

Star Trek:
I mean.....thats not losing much. calling Star Trek something like "Idealistic Space Navy/Explorer Fantasy" wouldn't be inaccurate to me, because the entire idea is that future Earth will somehow after a Eugenics War and WWIII, decide to go exploring into space as peaceful explorers and scientists who are only armed to defend themselves and nothing else, sounds pretty fantastical to me in terms of human behavior. its as unrealistic as WH40k, and has fantastical archetypes that while not mapping to medieval fantasies are pretty tropelike and larger than life:
-The Starfleet captain, the Ego to the balancing force and make this and that decision, the intrepid head of the exploration, the Kirk that always who beds the alien girl, the serious forceful Picard, that sort of thing
-accompanied by The Spock, the Data, the super-logical superego alien speaking in complete cold clarity without intonation ever trying to arrive at the best most logical conclusion no matter what and having no regards for the feelings of others
-The McCoy that is emotional and compassionate, the doctor who cares a lot, who cares TOO MUCH, who has arguments with The Spock, and so on and so forth

see what I mean? These aren't really people, they're larger than life heroes embodying a certain force of human thought present throughout all the world channeled to the most moral versions of them as they can to tell a story about this or that. they're as mythical as Robin Hood or Sir Arthur or Thor. the entire Starfleet set up really reminds me of kind of a knight or wandering cowboy kind of thing, and the rules Starfleet has to be follow being their knightly code. I wouldn't call Star Trek science fiction, I'd call it space knight-errant romance folklore for nerds. not all fantasy is epic good vs. evil clashes of the entire galaxy/universe at stake (which y'know is the kind of Space version of fantasy that Star Wars is).

Babylon 5:
while Babylon 5.....I haven't seen any of that. but from what I can look up, its kind of telling when a space station of peace and negotiation takes its name from the mythical tower of Babylon which when shattered also fractured one languages into many so that people can't speak the same one anymore. and apparently has aliens and technology verging on magic, humans with psychic powers, an ancient evil arising to threaten all intelligent life that was foretold by an alien religion, chosen ones, fortune telling, incredibly advanced races that are still jerks to everyone else for no reason.....
.....sorry thats a lot of destiny and larger than life flags there. it may be another form of Space Negotiation Fantasy, but its still a fantasy. the creator Straczynski saying they wrote it like an epic fantasy just clinches it (sorry but if you write it "LIKE" something your writing it AS that thing, no buts about it.) sorry I cannot call Babylon 5 science fiction, all things considered.

Kaptin:
Well yes. but thats not relevant. its how they are handled and portrayed that makes one fantasy and other science fiction. they are different genres for a reason. they are examinations of different things, and thus do different things with them. and unfortunately most uses of psychic power out there are fantastical, they use the usual tropes to make it something fantastic, rare, special, things to make it a protagonist power and blah blah blah.
you completely miss the point of the difference and how important it is, its not the fact that it exists, its how how one uses them that matters. to use an inverse example:

fantasy is when the protagonist has a legendary sword made of cool indestructible steel to kill people with, and also is a master swordsman and go kills some evil with it.

science fiction is when a group of medieval blacksmiths find a metal thats indestructible and cut through anything and have to figure out how to forge it so that it can function for any purpose at all, if they find a method, find a source of it to mine, then convince the king that its worth using to outfit their lords and troops with it so that the blacksmiths can get rich from it, then details how the kingdoms warfare changes with having access to this new great metal and how it stomps everyone else, making an empire that expands and grows prosperous but over time the metal weapons get stolen and fall into the hands of other people until nations begin to match them/one of the blacksmiths regret what they done and betrays the kingdom to share the metal to even the conflicts out, and how warfare changes with the introduction of indestructible armor from the same metal, then details how a musket fares against said armor and how that changes the existence of guns if there is armor that can't ever be pierced by normal bullets and so on and so forth.

Take it up with the bookstores. They distinguish the two according to the more common way people split fantasy and science fiction. And Star Wars and Star Trek and Babylon 5 novels are in the science fiction section, not the fantasy section.

Anyhow, if we are going for the hardest of hard sci fi, classes are generally “what did you major in while in college/university?” or “what did you get training in while in the military?” So less classes and more a loose bundle of skills. GURPS works well for this (it has some examples of common builds but is really an a la carte skill system at heart), as does Traveller minus the psionic stuff.

[Steel Mirror]

Just to put in my 2 cents, the split between "science fiction" and "fantasy" is not settled or obvious, whether you are talking about among fans, among critics, in bookstore aisles, or among any other group who might care enough to argue about the distinction.

I've heard lots of possible definitions, including those made here.

"Science fiction is about things that COULD happen, fantasy about things that COULD NOT, given what we know about how the universe works."

"Science fiction visits different planets, fantasy visits different worlds."

"Science fiction deals with technologies and discoveries, fantasy with wonder and moral conflict."

"Science fiction has like spaceships and lasers, fantasy has horses and fireballs."

You can certainly debate which definition is best, or why you like your definition, but I don't think that anyone can credibly claim to have "the one true definition" of what, if anything, separates these 2 genres. For me personally, any definition which demands that Star Wars be clearly defined as fantasy and not at all scifi doesn't ring true, even though I'd be happy to concede that on a structural level, in terms of literary criticism, it's a reasonable position to take. But if I were getting together a group to play a Star Wars RPG, I wouldn't tell my players to prepare for a fantasy game. Insisting that I do so is, in my mind, deliberately being pedantic and obtuse. It's just not how the term is used, literary theories and classifications aside.

[JellyPooga]

I have to generally agree with Mechalich on the definition of science fiction as opposed to fantasy (if not necessarily the examples given); to put it a little more succinctly, sci-fi asks a question, while fantasy tells a story.

"What if we encountered sentient life beyond our solar system?"
"What if someone developed a method of reviving the dead?"
"What if artificial intelligence spontaneously arose?"

These are examples of the questions that science fiction asks, while fantasy tends to begin with a premise;

"Here's a story about magical space monks."
"Here's a story about a group of a small race of people in a world dominated by elves and men and threatened by orcs and worse."
"Here's a story about one boys rise to power...in a universe that runs on magical spice...in a fantastic realm...in an alternate history."

This isn't to say that the lines can't be blurred (a lot) or that a work of science fiction can't develop into fantasy. Take the work of H.P.Lovecraft. Much of his earliest work was well within the realms of science fiction (horror too, but nothing says you can't tack other genres onto your story); it famously asked the question "what if there were other beings, or realms of existence, that exist beyond our comprehension and what if someone discovered a way to interact with those otherworldly things?", but also the likes of the second question above (a question also asked, famously, by Shelly in Frankenstein). As his body of work grew and grew in popularity, the "Cthulhu Mythos" became more and more a fantasy setting that both he and other authors could write stories within.

This is opposed to something like Star Wars, which asks no question; it literally starts by telling us that things in this story are not as we know them; it sets us up in a fantastic setting, in space, with magical space monks who have amazing powers, then tells a story in that setting. The questions it asks are solely about the characters in the story, not the setting itself. We might only discover elements of the setting as one or more of the characters discovers them in the story (such as how we discover the ways of the Force along with Luke, or how Harry Potter finds out about the wizarding world), but the story is not predicated upon a question, such as "What if we lived in a galactic society and there were Jedi?" or "What if magic was real?". Fantasy is the stories in settings where those questions are already assumed to be answered. A science fiction follows the course of the question to its "inevitable" conclusion (according to the author), based upon the premise of that question, whether that be something to do with space travel in the future, the third reich researching supernatural technology, artificial intelligence subjugating mankind, or whatever.

It's the "what if" as opposed to the "once upon a time".

That's my take on it, anyway.

[Max_Killjoy]

Just to put in my 2 cents, the split between "science fiction" and "fantasy" is not settled or obvious, whether you are talking about among fans, among critics, in bookstore aisles, or among any other group who might care enough to argue about the distinction.

I've heard lots of possible definitions, including those made here.

"Science fiction is about things that COULD happen, fantasy about things that COULD NOT, given what we know about how the universe works."

"Science fiction visits different planets, fantasy visits different worlds."

"Science fiction deals with technologies and discoveries, fantasy with wonder and moral conflict."

"Science fiction has like spaceships and lasers, fantasy has horses and fireballs."

You can certainly debate which definition is best, or why you like your definition, but I don't think that anyone can credibly claim to have "the one true definition" of what, if anything, separates these 2 genres. For me personally, any definition which demands that Star Wars be clearly defined as fantasy and not at all scifi doesn't ring true, even though I'd be happy to concede that on a structural level, in terms of literary criticism, it's a reasonable position to take. But if I were getting together a group to play a Star Wars RPG, I wouldn't tell my players to prepare for a fantasy game. Insisting that I do so is, in my mind, deliberately being pedantic and obtuse. It's just not how the term is used, literary theories and classifications aside.

And in each case, there's some stuff out there that breaks the rule.

I have to generally agree with Mechalich on the definition of science fiction as opposed to fantasy (if not necessarily the examples given); to put it a little more succinctly, sci-fi asks a question, while fantasy tells a story.

"What if we encountered sentient life beyond our solar system?"
"What if someone developed a method of reviving the dead?"
"What if artificial intelligence spontaneously arose?"

These are examples of the questions that science fiction asks, while fantasy tends to begin with a premise;

"Here's a story about magical space monks."
"Here's a story about a group of a small race of people in a world dominated by elves and men and threatened by orcs and worse."
"Here's a story about one boys rise to power...in a universe that runs on magical spice...in a fantastic realm...in an alternate history."

This isn't to say that the lines can't be blurred (a lot) or that a work of science fiction can't develop into fantasy. Take the work of H.P.Lovecraft. Much of his earliest work was well within the realms of science fiction (horror too, but nothing says you can't tack other genres onto your story); it famously asked the question "what if there were other beings, or realms of existence, that exist beyond our comprehension and what if someone discovered a way to interact with those otherworldly things?", but also the likes of the second question above (a question also asked, famously, by Shelly in Frankenstein). As his body of work grew and grew in popularity, the "Cthulhu Mythos" became more and more a fantasy setting that both he and other authors could write stories within.

This is opposed to something like Star Wars, which asks no question; it literally starts by telling us that things in this story are not as we know them; it sets us up in a fantastic setting, in space, with magical space monks who have amazing powers, then tells a story in that setting. The questions it asks are solely about the characters in the story, not the setting itself. We might only discover elements of the setting as one or more of the characters discovers them in the story (such as how we discover the ways of the Force along with Luke, or how Harry Potter finds out about the wizarding world), but the story is not predicated upon a question, such as "What if we lived in a galactic society and there were Jedi?" or "What if magic was real?". Fantasy is the stories in settings where those questions are already assumed to be answered. A science fiction follows the course of the question to its "inevitable" conclusion (according to the author), based upon the premise of that question, whether that be something to do with space travel in the future, the third reich researching supernatural technology, artificial intelligence subjugating mankind, or whatever.

It's the "what if" as opposed to the "once upon a time".

That's my take on it, anyway.

There is no hard line here... sometimes the difference between a question and a premise is just the punctuation.


Anyway, thought I'd combine these two and try to say something a bit more useful -- more in a minute.

OP / Stormtrooper666 -- what kind of setting will this be in? What kind of game will it be? That would tell us a lot if and which classes might be fitting.

[Particle_Man]

Ok but if your definition excludes everything except your own unpublished works, it is not a very useful definition. And I am willing to bet that more rpg players and designers use the common idea of science fiction than use yours.

In any case since the OP’s username directly references Star Wars I am willing to bet they put that in the Science Fiction category. Also, since the question is about rpgs that are science fiction, I assume that includes rpgs such as Star Wars, Traveller, Star Frontiers, Paranoia, etc. and not merely a non-generic dedicated hard science fiction rpg, if there are any. The OP can feel free to correct my misapprehensions of course.

[Steel Mirror]

To put it more concretely for this thread, I would consider Starfinder, D20 Future, Warhammer 40K and Star Wars to be science fiction RPGs, and they all have class systems.

And links, since the OP asked for them:

Starfinder Classes SRD: https://www.starjammersrd.com/classes/

D20 Future Classes SRD: http://www.d20resources.com/future.d20.srd/classes/

Dark Heresy Classes: https://dark-heresy-rp.fandom.com/wi...Player_Classes

Star Wars Saga: https://swse.fandom.com/wiki/Heroic_Classes