I've always been more of a fantasy person than a sci fi person, though I do enjoy both.
For some reason I can never really get into Sci fi books though and prefer games or tv shows / movies in that genre.

I kind of agree. I don't mind magic or technology as long as it at least makes an attempt to be logical. Some sci fi stuff is ridiculous and never really explained well (like why people are still using bullets or swords when there are lasers, though some settings explain these reasonably well).
On the other hand a lot of fantasy settings use magic the same way; it's a cure all for anything (he died? I brought him back to life - magic! An army of ten thousand men? I killed them all - magic!) and wizards are really powerful but only ever use magic to save everyone when it suits the story.

No spaceships (though I'd be surprised if such a setting didn't exist somewhere) but Shadowrun is the first thing that comes to mind for the technology / magic cross over.

I've always thought of advanced technology as the sci-fi equivalent of magic :D
"We can do anything as long as we say magic / alien technology!"
"Ask the captain to raise the barrier of the spaceship! / Ask the wizard to raise the barrier of the city!"

Right, Shadowrun. Still have to play that. Interesting enough, cyberpunk is not really my thing, but I heard good things about the game, so I grabbed them, I just haven't played them yet :)

Sci fi, totally. I hate when there are book bundles that bunch the two together, because I totally want to ignore the fantasy ones.

I agree
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

I think the problem is just that people seem to think "It's magic \ advanced technology" means they don't need to explain how or why it works. But that somewhat poses it's own problems (for magic at least)

I love magic, and when I write or create worlds it's always one of the biggest challenges. How do you make magic that makes sense, and isn't so powerful that wizards just rule the world?
And if magic makes sense, is it still magic?

What is magic? To me, magic is something that most people don't understand. Magic itself isn't really a thing. Magic is just anything we can't understand.
Advanced tech isn't just indistinguishable from magic, it is magic; unless you are one of the few who understands it.
For example, 'real' magic (i.e. the tricks performed by magicians) is actually magical because the audience can't understand how it was done. It's not to say that the woman has really been sawn in half or made to disappear, just that the people watching without inside knowledge can't figure out how it was done.

But let's apply that to fantasy magic. The wizard conjures up a fireball. It's magic because the other people around can't do it, because they don't know how to do it.
But if we can explain how the wizard creates the fireball (through some kind of fantasy science) is it still magic, or is it now just a form of science or technology?
There are quite a few fantasy worlds that play with this concept, where magic is actually just things like guns and other modern technology but out of place, in a setting where they don't belong.

These things keep me up at night... XD


Shadowrun is pretty good. I burnt myself out a bit by playing the first two games back to back and got stuck at the end of the second and lost interest. But it's an interesting world and a fun game so I would definitely recommend them.

I have never enjoyed medieval fantasy settings for some reason. Not in games, books or movies/TV series. I think it's mostly due to MAGIC™ but I'm not really keen on any historical settings pre-1800's either so it might just be that.

So if I have to choose between medieval fantasy and sci-fi settings, I would without hesitation choose sci-fi. However most of the time the sci-fi setting can be quite bland too with their laser guns and flying ships. In most cases I prefer a near future-setting with cyberpunk (see Deus Ex for example) elements or an old times adventure setting (see Indiana Jones for example).

Well, Final Fantasy Legend 2 (aka Saga 2) was a more varied game in terms of the environments. You had more environments but they were all smaller in scale, makign some really interesting and some less so. I really liked the underwater portions personally.

Incidentally, as it relates to this thread, the FFL2 in particular was a great example of Science-Fantasy, an interesting mix that I don't see done enough. You could have robot characters and things like lasers. The first one had some elements of this (especially with the chainsaw & using it on Creator; killing god!) in the form of machine guns and various other modern weapons and the last stretch was in a post-apocalyptic setting, but the the second really carried it to the next logical step.
The difference is advanced tech is real and will continue to be whereas magic is, well, made-up purely.

The question is rather skewed. Medieval Fantasy is just one subgenre of the fantasy genre in general, while sci-fi includes all genres of speculative fiction. The question should really be "Fantasy or Sci-fi?" A subtle, but imporatant, distinction, IMO. With that in mind...

I've read both since I first really got into reading. I love both, so it's really not something I can choose as an either/or. It's interesting that bookstores tend to group the two genres together (sometimes as one big category), and it's the area I gravitate to first when going to a bookstore or library.

I don't really care one way or the other. The important thing is the wirter: if the writer's good, then it doesn't matter to me if it's fantasy or sci-fi. If the writer is bad... the genre and setting isn't going to save it.

Short story: "...and that's why I like medieval fantasy more."

Long story: "Ahh, it's a long story. Better let me tell you a short story."

How about Numenéra? It's both.

While everything around you really is technology, the fact that no one alive has the slightest idea how anything works or what the intended purpose of any device is (and really only by chance figure out what it can be used for, or what happens if it's touched in specific places, or spoken to in a certain way, or perhaps interacted with in whichever other way may be deemed appropriate by the DM), makes it effectively magic as far as the role characters are concerned. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

I whole heartily agree, there is nothing worse than sci-fi that uses technology simply as a magic substitute. So many writers seem to forget the Science part of the science fiction genre. One of the things I used to love about Star Trek was that, even though it takes place in a far off future the tech is still bound by the laws of physics, but it didn't really matter as the stories were much more focused on character interaction. By the time it got to the later series all problems were caused, and solved, by nonsensical jargon.

An example might be a story where there is an ongoing war between two planets within a single solar system, but now the systems sun is collapsing. In classic Trek, the hows and whys of each factions technology is somewhat irrelevant. Instead the focus is on the negotiations and double crosses of the faction play out to an audience already familiar with the concepts of war, feuds, natural disasters, mass evacuations, prejudice and political posturing. In modern Trek the whole planetary war idea would fade into a minor sub-plot because the star collapse was caused by a rogue quasar coming into contact with the gravity well of the star while in a state of temporal flux. But if the crew can reconfigure the deflector dish to emit a phased pulse of anti-tachyons directly into the star then it might cause a large enough sub-dimensional field to stabilize the stars' quantum harmonics. By comparison, magic crystals and Oblivion gates sound totally plausible.

Narrative weight - if baseline story telling is poor, what does the degree of fantastical matter?

I'm currently playing Witcher 3 and all I do is use Signs, I avoid swords as much as possible. I do use potions but they are not needed in regular fights too much (playing on Hard).

Indeed, that is always lame when they just use random words to try and make sense of the nonsensical but to be honest, technlogy needs to be a part of the discussion otherwise it's a drama played out in space. It sure helps if they keep the level of science more real so you can actually follow it or perhaps include the philosophy behind how humans deal with new technology instead of taking hyperspace travel for granted and then discuss politics as if we are still living an era of pre-hyperspace travel.

The delicacy of science fiction lies in changing the fundamental rules we take for granted (afterall, hyperspace travel would merely mean faster travel to longer distances but does if affect our psychology, interpersonal relationships etc..?) while not touching the horizon of making it look like science fantasy where the nonsensical jargon takes over and solves everything. Reminds me I really need to read Asimov's novels.

For RPG or turn based game I can't decide really, but as a whole maybe a little bit on the sci-fi side, because of all the space themed games I love.
For TV and cinema most definitely Sci-fi!

I would agree, medieval is a spefic time period, you could have Nordic fantasy, Jurassic fantasy. Same with Sci-fi, could be with dinosaurs and teleporters. Bit hard to compartmentalise everything. Me I like what I like, be that Discworld or Star Trek its all fantasy.

I can't really say I prefer either one. It all depends on the quality of the storytelling and the background/setting.

In general I'd say that SF seems to lend itself more to political comment and the exploration of philosophical ideas. Be it the "communist utopia" of Star Trek's federation or the dystopic corporation ruled mega cities of cyberpunk or crazy thought experiments like "the brain in the jar" -> Matrix.
Fantasy on the other hand seems to be more "entertainment" with less focus on actual examination of "the state of humankind". Although there are exceptions of course, Sapkowski's works for instance often take an ironic view on human behaviour, politics and so on and don't get me started with Pratchett...

What I prefer is really a matter of my current mood. Sometimes I really enjoy some "shallow" heroic fantasy a le Howard (Conan), sometimes I'd like to read something that puts a lot of questions into my mind (ie. Lem - Solaris). I wouldn't put one above the other.
Horror? *duck-and-cover*