Science-Fantasy is about as nebulous a term as they come. But I personally think that once a label sticks, trying to rail against it is a Sisyphean task that is probably not the best use of your time. The most naive (but perfectly valid) reading of it is a blending of science-fiction and fantasy. This readily conjures up that Arthur C Clarke quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But could just as easily refer to something like Shadowrun. It’s also worth keeping in mind that science-fiction and fantasy didn’t used to have hard genre distinctions between them, and so mixing the fantastical with spaceships wasn’t out of place, for example.

That’s certainly how it exists within the context of early D&D adventure modules. D&D was already a melange of fantasy settings, so if people are also into Star Trek, why not add Klingons as NPCs your characters can meet? This is where we get to the idea of gonzo settings, a term that was initially really confusing to me because I didn’t really see the connection to gonzo journalism, etc. But my best take on it is it fits the cultural sensibilities of people in the 70s playing RPGs and just inserting things like pop cultural references not because it makes any thematic coherence, but just because it is fun for everyone at the table. If gonzo journalism breaks with the conventions of traditional journalism, a gonzo setting breaks with expectations of what a fantasy setting is supposed to be, etc. At least that’s my best attempt at inferring a connection.

Now I happen to like thematic coherence, and I’m uninterested in quotidian fantasy. So I’m interested in exploring a non-gonzo sort of science-fantasy setting in the games I run. To that end I’ve coined the term Cybernetics & Sandals to describe the setting and thematic elements that interest me, which I’ll briefly outline below.

Post-Post-Apocalypse

If the Post-Apocalypse a la Mad Max is about the end of the world, the Post-Post Apocalypse is about societies being rebuilt after the collapse of more advanced technological societies. Early Miyazaki movies like Nausicca Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky are the obvious touchstones here.

Bronze Age as Science-Fiction Setting

A lot of science-fiction settings in RPGs either tend to be about cyberpunk or space colonization. These are science-fiction settings that are readily understandable to a modern person, cyberpunk is just our own society dialed up a notch, and space colonization is so media saturated that it is also easy to comprehend. But what about if you want to tell stories about truly alien societies? That can be challenging. Especially in the roleplaying context where you also need to be able to convey ideas as succinctly as possible (I want to do another post about this topic at some point).

A nice work around is in our post-post-apocalypse you have bronze age societies forming in the ashes of technological collapse. This gives players a reference via history while still being very alien to modern sensibilities. The ancient world is so different from our own, they might as well have been aliens, hence the (heavily debated, but fascinating) theory of bicameral minds.

Divisions Between Humans and Animals Less Clear Cut

In myths there are lots of fantastical creatures and gods that are mixtures of people and animals. In a Cybernetics & Sandals setting mutations turn the myths into reality.

Power Comes From Discovering the Past

This is the whole drive of a game like Vaults of Vaarn, and it’s one that really resonates with me. I love learning about history and how it transforms our understanding of present conditions, it feels like a super power.