 

 

 

Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Latest By
Category:


Armor
Artificial Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work

"As opposed to illiteracy, where you can't read, aliteracy means that you can but you just can't be bothered. They say aliteracy is on the rise these days."
- Peter Watts

International Fantasy Gaming Society (IFGS)  
  A group dedicated to playing live action role-playing games.  

The IFGS has an interesting history, which starts with the description of the organization in the novel. The IFGS runs live action role playing games (LARPs), in which a scenario is established (like an expedition to Tibet). Everyone plays the game out in something like a real-world setting (not necessarily Tibet), while a Game Master keeps score.

A year ago, Chester had taken an expedition into "the mountains of Tibet" hopefully to bring back a mammoth. The party had met disaster, three out of thirteen surviving, and no mammoth. Chester had dropped several hundred Gaming Points, threating his standing in the International Fantasy Gaming Society. And who had been Game Master on that ill-fated expedition?

Aha! Richard Lopez. Chester had yelled Foul to the I.F.G.S., and they had passed down the decision that although something called "snow vipers" were unusually lethal, all of the nasty tricks used against the expedition were within the rules...

From Dream Park, by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes).
Published by Ace Books in 1981
Additional resources -

After reading the novel, John Cade and Mark Simmons of Boulder, Co., created a real-world organization called the IFGS. Together they ran a game called "The Truing." By the late 1980's, there were also chapters in Dallas, Los Angeles and New England.

Authors Niven and Barnes attended an early IFGS convention; Barnes played in an IFGS licensed game in Colorado. In future Dream Park novels, Niven and Barnes adopted the "real-world" IFGS as the historic background for their future one.

Read a bit more about the history of the "real" International Fantasy Gaming Society.

Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |

Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Dream Park
  More Ideas and Technology by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)
  Tech news articles related to Dream Park
  Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)

Articles related to Culture
Is It Better To Be Short?
The Coming Hell Of ChatGPT Salesbots
Holly+ Processes Your Singing In Holly Herndon's Voice
Megachurches Catch Up To Heinlein

Want to Contribute an Item? It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add it here.

<Previous
Next>

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

 

 

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Science Fiction in the News

'Courier Commons' By Tomorrow Lab, From Karl Schroeder (and Bruce Sterling?)
'The pokkecon rang again. *The coffee’s for him?* Tsuyoshi said.'

Terrifying Robotic Apple Harvester
'... little machines, that went from plant to plant.'

Mechanical Horse Sculpture Gallops In Place
'Rod placed the brain inside the panel... the horse raised its head, wiggled its ears, blinked twice, gave a tentative whinny.'

'Make Sunsets' Tweaks Climate By Atmospheric Alteration
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'

Eviation Alice Electric Plane First Flight
'A white electric plane approached at great speed...'

Hotels Turn To Robots As Human Workers Regroup
'Chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.'

Changesite Mineral To Be Mined On Moon By China
'But then... not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon.'

Tongue-Controlled Tong Wearable Mouth Computer
'Griff found the white and pink map distracting and switched it off using his tongue mouse.'

Is It Better To Be Short?
'He was one of the smaller, energy-saving new breed...'

More SF in the News

More Beyond Technovelgy

Home | Glossary | Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.
 
http://www.technovelgy.com/CT/content.asp?Bnum=1525
www.technovelgy.com
CC-MAIN-2023-06
27218
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:4K7TMQK7W6T5DHHXLJROC2LMCQTRKOE5
<urn:uuid:a7f9a397-3800-4645-b17d-cc0f812e690d>
2023-02-05T18:21:25Z
64.41.87.37
text/html
sha1:4K3AH2XHCDRYTBHNHCE4SYWTVNSDQSDW
<urn:uuid:79f35406-f083-48bc-942b-76ec48e2a930>
http://www.technovelgy.com/CT/content.asp?Bnum=1525
response
<urn:uuid:89d16274-0978-4a8c-832f-78201faef36b>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2023-06
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for January/February 2023
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-204
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/