The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Eclipse Phase - Of Transhumanism Conspiracy and Horror - Free download!
Rainfall
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Your mind is software.
Program it.
Your body is a shell.
Change it.
Death is a disease.
Cure it.
Extinction is approaching.
Fight it.
Let's face it. You can only take so many dwarves and elves, swords and spells, before you want to try something else. Science Fiction is a pretty underdeveloped aspect of the RPG industry, with only a few standouts like Traveller even making an impression on the general consciousness. And if you're looking for transhumanist sci-fi? You're out of luck.
Until now.
The guys who made Shadowrun got together with the artists for Cthulhutech, and decided to fill the gap. A whole load of transhumanist literature turned into pure liquid awesome, and placed inside some of the best formatting ever seen in an RPG book, and you've got Eclipse Phase.
So that's cool, but it gets better. The game was released under the Creative Commons License. It's free to download. You can find it at the bottom of the page. Of course, if you like it, buy it, but check it out, at the very least. It's worth at least a casual investigation.
So what exactly is Eclipse Phase, aside from an RPG about Transhumanism Conspiracy and Horror?
Well, I'm not good at explaining things. So, I'm going to take this straight outta the book.
We humans have a special way of pulling ourselves up and kicking ourselves down at the same time. We'd achieved more progress than ever before, at the cost of wrecking our planet and destabilizing our own governments. But things were starting to look up.
With exponentially accelerating technologies, we reached out into the solar system, terraforming worlds and seeding new life. We re-forged our bodies and minds, casting off sickness and death. We achieved immortality through the digitization of our minds, resleeving from one biological or synthetic body to the next, at-will. We uplifted animals and AIs to be our equals. We acquired the means to build anything we desired from the molecular level up, so that no one need want again.
Yet our race towards extinction was not slowed, and in fact received a machine-assist over the precipice. Billions died as our technologies rapidly bloomed into something beyond control... further transforming humanity into something else, scattering us throughout the solar system, and reigniting various conflicts. Nuclear strikes, biowarfare plagues, nanoswarms, mass uploads... a thousand horrors nearly wiped humanity from existence.
We still survive, divided into a patchwork of restrictive inner system hypercorp-backed oligarchies and libertarian outer system collectivist habitats, tribal networks, and new experimental societal models. We have spread to the outer reaches of the solar system and even gained footholds in the galaxy beyond. But we are no longer solely "human"... we have evoled into something simultaneously more and different -- something transhuman.
Huh. Sounds neat. What's this about transhumanity?
Transhumanity is damn simple. In the future, we'll theoretically be able to enhance our bodies and minds, eliminating weaknesses like sicknesses, disabilities, genetic disorders, and even death. So as a theme, it raises questions like what defines humanity? What does it mean to defeat all these weaknesses? What does it mean when you can upload your mind and personality onto a flash-drive? If we can make computers and animals sentient, are we responsible for them? What defines 'you'?
So this stuff sounds pretty deep. Why would I want to waste entertainment time with it?
Well, because this stuff also means you get completely badass technology, robots, guns, space ships, virtual worlds, killer AIs, and awesome other stuff.
The default campaign setting of Eclipse Phase sets up the party as agents of a shadowy network known as "Firewall," which is an organization dedicated to stopping things that threaten the entirety of transhumanity. Whether this is rogue AIs, aliens, terrorists with WMDs, nanotech swarms, or hyper-biological superplagues, you've got a good chance of being up on the front lines being totally badass.
Or, if your skills run in different directions, you can also be sneaking around gathering information and performing pre-emptive operations to stop threats before they even begin. It's a wide range of possibilities, and offers a lot of great starting points for getting into the world of Eclipse Phase.
So what makes Eclipse Phase unique as a game?
There's a distinct lack of transhumanist games out there, an obvious lack of sci-fi games, and a distinct lack of games that are as well-presented as Eclipse Phase. However, one of the key things that makes Eclipse Phase is rather unique to the setting. Your character has an Ego, your mind, your personality, your skills. You only get one of those.
However, you also get a Morph, which is your body, your speed, your strength, your durability, your looks. You can swap between these, they are expendable, they can die without anyone batting an eye. provided you've backed up your mind.
The simple idea that your mind isn't inherently linked to your body is a key point of transhumanism, allows for thousands of interesting character ideas(one of the characters in the opening fiction grumbles about always getting stuck in a Morph with a smoking addiction, even though he doesn't smoke,) and is rather unique. There's more, but that's the big one.
How do the rules work?
Eclipse Phase uses a d100 system, from 00(low=good) to 99(high=bad.) You try to roll under your skill, and if you roll double digits, it's a critical result. Neat and simple. That's it. Your character has an array of attributes split between Ego and Morph, skills(which are linked to your Ego,) and positive/negative qualities(again, split between Ego and Morph depending on the quality.)
So you're making a giant thread here, are you going to run a game?
Honestly, I just want to get people talking about this game. I don't have time to run one, sadly, but I would absolutely love it if someone else would step up to the plate. Barring that, let's talk about how freaking cool the setting is, and argue about the rules that you downloaded because they're free.
So, without further ado, here's a bunch of links!
DOWNLOAD HERE
Official Website of Eclipse Phase
Buy it here!
A decent RPGnet thread with character creation broken down and examples all over the place.
Download the writeable PDF character sheet!
Rainfall on
0
Posts
Socialite Sylph Biomorph.
This is like, an update in a fresh universe that also happens to be really pretty and really cool.
So now I'm going to force someone to run a campaign.
At gunpoint.
Now if only I had enough time to run another game...
But hey, my Infomorph supergenius criminal AI could always find time to play someone else's Muse. Especially if they're excessively rich and can afford 'her' services.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time last night flipping through the book, getting a better feel for the system, etc etc.
It's VERY Shadowrunesque in how the rules fit together. There's a lot of bean-counting and math involved in equipment purchasing, which is a bit of a downer, your character can end up incredibly potent in their area of specialty(I was topping 100 with my Infolife/Infomorph character's computer-based skills without even pushing the boundaries) and the initiative passes work in exactly the same way.
Still, it feels like it's a bit more simple and a bit less complex than SR, although I would have liked to see the same skill group system from Shadowrun 4 implemented, it's a bit irritating to have to buy up each skill individually from the 45 skills listed, making sure you get what you want without missing on core competencies.
Of course, even there the system makes sure to let you know what's important. A handy sidebar tells you that if you don't take Fray and Perception your character might end up in a lot of trouble, and Networking skills(in the social sense, not electronic) are absolutely crucial for survival in the modern world. Nice.
Again, toying with my Infomorph character, I quickly put together something that made sense. A few picked traits and lowered Aptitudes made it clear that my character had absolutely never been in a Morph(very low Somatics and Coordination,) but was incredibly smart(high Cognition and Intuition) and could provide information-gathering and hacking power for any group that could afford to pay the bills for processing time.
Taking a secondary set of skills in Psychosurgery and Intimidation also added the criminal touch I was looking for, allowing me to frighten people and get information from them by the threat of hacking into their brains, and actually being able to pull the threat off if they don't fold.
As an Infomorph, I don't need to worry about combat prowess at all, as nothing can directly shoot me. With a little bit of thought, I decided that the character would work best riding along with a combat-focused character as a Muse, using my uncannily high Perception to warn my host about any incoming danger, and dealing with any information or electronic-based threats on my own while they shoot the bad guys.
The background/factional traits that every character has to choose are pretty much a godsend for character creation. I spent five seconds flipping through it and found the character I wanted to make, and the system gave me exactly what I needed to put it together. Unlike a lot of systems, they don't stint you on points. You never have 'too few' points to pull off what you want within realistic bounds, and so you can get your core competencies high and still have enough for general ability.
Now it's just a matter of getting a chance to stress-test combat and see how that works out.
Which makes a very large difference in how characters are made. I like it.
Edit: Interesting setting, perhaps a touch too reliant on wacky made-up words. But...I buy/use rpg books for the system, not the setting, and complex game mechanics/character creation just isn't my thing, especially as a potential DM. For example, the list of skills is enough to put me off. So, play it if you like Shadowrun/BESM, etc or use the setting with a simpler system.
What do you consider excessive, and why? I mean, this is basically built around it, so I wouldn't expect anything less if I were you. But it seems a strange preference for me, so I'm curious.
From an art standpoint there's a limit to what scifi can say about the human condition when there aren't really any humans anymore. On the other hand, computers&robots becoming human and contrasting alien species with humans is great. Whether that's a contradiction I'm not completely sure, but I'm in the Humanity camp.
I don't want to derail the thread from the original purpose.
I'm trying to check it out, but it's telling me the PDFs are unrepairable after I unzip them. Anybody else getting that?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I did at first but then I deleted them and re-downloaded them.
Alright, so I said I would, and here we go. Let's get started!
First off, for a character, you need a concept. This character, JU-D1, is going to be an AGI created by the major triads for hacking(and brain hacking!)
Mechanically, your character's backstory is represented by Background and Faction. Each one gives you certain bonuses, and occasionally penalties.
First I picked the Infolife Background, which means my character started life as an AI. This means that I get to purchase computer-related skills at half-price, as well as getting a bonus to Interfacing(the skill for using unfamiliar electronics.) As a downside, social skills cost double, which is going to hurt, and I suffer from Real World Naivete(meaning the GM can mislead me once per session about the meaning of a social interaction or real world object/item.)
So I'm an AI. I don't get people.
My Faction is obviously Criminal, giving me a +10 to Intimidation(a social skill, which helps because it makes things slightly cheaper for me) and +30 to Social Networking: Criminal, which is standard for Factions, but again helps me. I'll need those social connections to survive.
So I'm an AI created by the Triads. I'll be really good at hacking things, decent at intimidation, and not too good at any other social task.
Now I get to distribute my core Aptitudes. Aptitudes are your Attributes, they determine the base level of all your skills. The higher an Aptitude, the better.
In Eclipse Phase, your Ego has a maximum Aptitude of 30 across the board. Some Morphs have higher or lower attributes, and give attribute bonuses so you can actually take advantage of that, but even if your Ego's Aptitude is higher than the Morph's maximum, it's lowered to the Morph's maximum while you're in it.
Flats, the standard humans, have a maximum of 20, which sucks.
105 points for 7 Aptitudes, it averages out to 15 in each. You can't raise any higher than 30 or lower than 5,
I quickly spread my Aptitudes out like so:
Cognition - 30. This governs all computer skills, so it needs to be my highest.
Coordination - 5 As a physical skill, I'll barely be using this.
Intuition - 20 I want this to be relatively high, as it governs a lot of my secondary skills.
Reflexes - 15 With Reflexes, I can use Pilot to remote control vehicles and robots. Useful, but tertiary.
Savvy - 15 A low Savvy character runs into a lot of problems, and I need help with social stuff already.
Somatics - 5 Again, another physical Aptitude. I don't need it.
Willpower - 15 Willpower is mostly irrelevant to me, but I don't want it low, so I leave it average.
But honestly, this isn't good enough for me. I don't intend to ever be in a physical body, and I'd like to really reach the upper limit for intelligence.
So with a quick look at the Traits, I purchase Feeble for both Coordination and Somatics. This lets me reduce them below 5, and I can never raise them above 5. Useful for someone who's never going to be in a physical body!
Then I pick up Exceptional Aptitude for Cognition, allowing me to raise it to 40, which I immediately do with the points I gain from COO and SOM.
Now I get to put down skills. I get to put 400 CP into Active skills, and 300 into Knowledge skills. For a skill lower than 60, it's one CP per point, for a skill higher, it's 2. However, my computer skills are halved, so I'll start there. I can bring skills up to a maximum of 80.
Infosec - 40 Cog + 40 Skill points costs me a mere 30 CP
Interfacing, Programming, and Research all follow suit, charging me a mere 120 CP for maximizing my computing skills.
Next I run through the rest of my skills, picking up Psychology, Demolitions, Hardware(for repairing object), Gunnery(for the robots and vehicles I might end up controlling), Investigation, Perception, Psychosurgery(for brain-hacking,) and Pilot: Groundcraft(again, for remote-controlling these things)
I bump all of these up to
The last few points of mine I dump into Social Skills. Namely Intimidation. My AI can threaten people with brainhacking, and do it rather well.
I move onto knowledge skills. You have another 300 CP to spend on these, with the same cost value as Active skills. This area covers general fields of knowledge, professional skills, and languages. Your native language starts at 70+COG, so you always can at least read and write very proficiently. I choose Mandarin as my native, since I'm running with the Triads, and pay the cost for Cantonese, Japanese, and English as my lowest. Asian AI! Woo!
For other knowledge skills, I buy up Academics in Psychology, Computer Science, and Cryptology. As a hacker/brainhacker program, this all makes sense. I finish it off with a Profession: Psychotherapy skill.
From there, I have 300 free Creation Points to spend, and I start buying Traits. I already mentioned these above, but in a bit more depth, you can gain/lose creation points by buying positive and negative traits.
I can only spend up to 50 on Positive Traits, and gain up to 50 from Negative Traits, so this will be quick. I already have Exceptional Cognition, so I go and grab a Patron, my Triad Boss. Provided I keep him happy and do work for him from time to time, I can call on the power of the Triads. Not inconsiderable, and probably worth the 30 CP it costs.
For disadvantages, I already picked Feeble Coordination and Feeble Somatics, both of which granted me 20 extra points, so I pick up Edited Memories. Makes sense that the Triad wouldn't want me knowing about some of the stuff I hacked, right? It lets the GM put a dark past on me without me knowing it! Instant plot hook!
From there, gear. I start with 5000 credits, and can get +1000 for every creation point I spend. 30000 will let me get all the software I need, as well as a robot equipped with a Ghostrider module that I can fly around in if required. Handy! I spend 30 points on credits, so I have 5000 lying around to spend on things that might come up in-game.
Onwards to Reputation! Reputation is a neat system that determines how many street favors you can call in, and how well-known you are. There's a few different kinds, for difference circles, like corporate rep, fame rep, criminal rep, anarchist rep, eco-rep, etc. I want G(Guanxi, criminal) rep, mostly, as well as a bit of i-rep(Eye rep, for Firewall, which is the organization you start out as a part of), and @ rep, since a hacker AI is going to get along with open-source promoting anarchists JUST FINE.
I get 50 Rep points to spread around, as well as +10 Rep per CP, so I spend another 10 CP for another 100 rep to spread around.
I go back and spend the last few of my free points on Attributes, building up my Intuition to 30 and Reflexes to 20. I also spend a few points on scattered skills, and then go on to pick my morph, with 30 CP left.
Naturally, I pick an Infomorph, which has no physical body. Perfect for me at this point! It's Aptitude maximums are 40, which means that I get to REALLY bust out my high-powered COG and start kicking ass. Unfortunately, it has no physical form, so I can't affect the real world. But we already knew that.
An Infomorph costs 0 CP, although others cost more. Woo!
Then I go on to derive my stats. My Speed, the amount of times I can act in a single round of initiative, is 3. My Durability, Wound Threshold, and Death Rating are all 0, since I'm just a software program. Durability is HP, Wound Threshold is how much damage you can take in a single hit without getting seriously injured, and Death Rating is how much it takes to outright kill you.
My Lucidity is my Willpower x2, and it determines how much Stress I can take before going bonkers.
Trauma Threshold is how much Stress I can sustain in a single moment without snapping and getting a disability, and Insanity Rating determines how much Stress I can take before going PERMANENTLY insane and losing my character.
The last stat is Moxie, and it's what I was saving my last 30 CP for. Moxie lets you flip a lot of your rolls around, remove modifiers from rolls, and etc. You have Moxie points equal to your Moxie rating, and it starts by default at 1. I buy it up to 3. I'm good, not lucky.
So after all that, what does my sheet look like? Check the spoiler!
EDIT: Forgot to include the bit about Motivations. You get to pick three ideas or concepts, and mark them with a + or - to determine what drives your character.
JU-D1's motivations are:
[AGI] Rights + (I support freedom and social rights for Artificial Intelligences! Obviously!)
Hypercapitalism - (I don't like the Hypercorps. Bring 'em down!)
Techno-progressivism + (I'm being held back by artifical fetters. Let technology advance freely)
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Edit: Woohoo! Success!
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
But I don't see what problem you'd have with d100-based skills, aside from being forced to calculate skills after aptitudes which is a huge bitch.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Edit: I will never have enough spare time to make this character. Let's play Cthulhu.
My final thoughts: It is a pretty book, but the system clashes with my most fundamental views on RPG design.
It seems cool but I want to see it ran before I say ya or nay to it. I say give it a chance.
Seriously? What objections do you have to the game design?