Eclipse Phase the rpg: Anyone tried it?

jabrams007

Hi, I've been on a real science fiction kick lately and was interested in seeing what kind of good sci-fi rpgs were out there. I didn't want a hybrid like Shadowrun and I'm not that into Warhammer 40k, although I think it's cool. I just want a straight-up hard scifi rpg.

Doing a little research on the net, I discovered Eclipse Phase which seems pretty cool and exactly what I'm looking for.

I was just wondering if anyone has tried it or knows anything about it.

Thanks!

Rainfall

There's been a couple of PbPs on this very board, interest kicked up courtesy of yours truly.

My personal opinion of the system is that it has absolutely superb presentation, which is required because it's a highly crunchy system, depending on rather exhaustive lists of equipment and tracking of modifiers, but it's a lot of fun to play if you're on a sci-fi/transhumanist kick.

We've also gotten the devs to post once or twice around here, so there's definitely interest going . Honestly, with such a shortage of good sci-fi RPGs, it's an obvious winner. The tricky part, of course, is to get the players to read the book before starting to play. There's a lot to digest before making a character, which can make it hard to make a casual game start.

jabrams007

Thanks for the info.

I really want to try it out, I'm just worried that my friends won't really be interested in playing it. They're pretty selective in which rpgs they're willing to play and which ones they aren't even interested in.

I'm really looking forward to checking out some of the scifi books they list under their resources page.

Rainfall

Everything listed in their resources is, in fact, pure gold. Definitely worth a read. If you're going to get difficult players into it, best of luck, but it's really not easy, just because it's a big book and you have to read a lot of it to make a character.

It would probably go best if you pre-made characters and a short adventure to showcase the theme and fluff of Eclipse Phase(if you're super-lazy they've already got pre-made characters in the book, and I believe they just released their first published adventure.)

Also, if they're familiar with Shadowrun, a lot of the equipment and Augmented Reality is similar between the most recent edition and EP, so you can draw parallels there.

Edcrab

Yeah, I'd second that advice: the last EP game I played featured pre-prepared PCs since the GM was trying to introduce our infamously stubborn group to the new rules set. Character creation is a bit more prolonged than the fairly simple roll-under percentile system might have you expecting, but it's not so bad once you've gone through it once or twice.

And the background fluff is wonderful. Just thought I'd mention!