Thac0 with Advantage 87. The Fantasy of Space Opera

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D surrounds us and penetrate us, binding our fandom together.

If you’ve ever looked into how fiction is categorized, many times you’ll see sci-fi and fantasy as a meta-category. We know there are some huge differences between sci-fi stories and fantasy stories, but what about those stories that really do have one foot in both genre? And what does that kind of genre mash up mean for fantasy gaming? In this episode we’re going to look at space opera as fantasy, and how that fits into your fantasy gaming.

From the Bardic College

In 1976 TSR published Metamorphosis Alpha, a game about a colony ship carrying the remnants of Earth to a new home in the stars, but over the course of its mission, the inhabitants have formed a low-tech society that no longer realizes they are on a colony ship, with the core gameplay consisting of exploration and relearning how to use the high-tech tools of the past. We could talk about how the AD&D 1e Dungeon Master’s Guide had conversions to this game so you could have your D&D characters wander the Starship Warden, or about how this was the inspiration for Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and the Gamma World RPG. But according to James M. Ward, the designer of Metamorphosis Alpha, without this game we may not have had a dedicated Monster Manual. Apparently after seeing the separate bestiary booklet for the game, Gary Gygax decided that AD&D needed a separate book to consolidate the monsters in the game all in one place.