@Matthew J. Neagley – Good point! That’s part of what I was getting at in the last paragraph — internal consistency being the key for wildly implausible settings (and I’d certainly put Toon or Paranoia in that bucket).

I like how your GM explained it, Karizma. That’s a great mindset, and very true.

Then the GM that brought me into gaming told me, essentially: There’s a main difference between Hard Science and Space Opera. They have very different feels, and people read them for different things. People don’t play RPGs for Hard Science, they play for Space Opera. Hard Science is “Realism”, while Space Opera is “Believable”. All you need is for it to be believable, and as long as it can be believed, you can have fun.

Some players are happy to suspend disbelief and run with it, some players are pains in the ass that will argue for an hour on bullet penetration dynamics*, and some players will see hidden clues in the occurance of the implausable.

Similarly, beer and pretzel, comedy or action games need little, if any sensible framework behind them, while detective, horror, or romance games may require a more careful progression of events.