Hey, I'm looking at starting my own Eclipse Phase campaign with some friends soon, and I was looking for a little bit of help with it.
These friends have only basic knowledge of EP and I'm looking forward to educating them. I was thinking of having them start off by creating modern (now) characters, then having them reinstantiated into the modern (EP) day. We're not overly concerned with mechanics, so I was intending to start out in free-form and then decide later whether they're reading to start using the EP rules.
My problem is, I can't think of a good starting adventure for a couple of fairly culturally clueless reinstantiates, and I'd rather not involve Firewall at this early point. I've looked at a couple of adventures but they seem to focus heavily on the survival horror side while I'd like to ease them into the setting with something a little more space opera. An EP-era whodunit, or something a little lighter.
Are there any modules that fill that sort of genre role that I could use? I'm excited to get this off the ground but need a boost.
Thanks for any help.
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Opening scenario for a new GM?
Mon, 2012-12-17 11:05
#1
Fion Ravenwater
Opening scenario for a new GM?
Tue, 2012-12-18 13:33
#2
Lorsa
Modern (now) characters if
Modern (now) characters if you follow the general human progression into transhumanity would be rather underwhelming. My recommendation would be to start with real transhumans but make characters that don't need to know an amazing lot of the setting. For my first campaign I let the players work for a security firm operating around Saturn. It is quite easy to come up with any habitat you might like out there and since they might be sent to a place that is new to them it will be exploration both for characters and players. Worked pretty well I think.
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Tue, 2012-12-18 17:05
#3
Quincey Forder
Ego Hunter worked (and works) well for me! SPOILERS!!!!
It offers the bennefit of creating only one character, and assigning a different morph to each. also easier for the players to assimilate the system as they can help each other exploring a new and unfamiliar character sheet.
The fact all play variations of the same characters brings forth really interesting questions to the players, and help them grasp the concept of fluctuating identity in the setting of the game, as well as the possibilities of the forking
also, it drives home the dangers of the Exsurgent virii and the TQZ
the scene in the labs also shows the horror element of the game in a way that isn't tied to traditional monsters. The atmosphere was closer to Andromeda Strain mixed with The Stand and 28 Days later.
my guinea... I mean my players are using B2 (avatar: Legion), B3 (avatar: Conrad Verner), B4 (avatar: Helena Bonham Carter in her ape make up from Burton's PotA) and B5 (avatar: Green Lantern Katma Tui from Justice League).
Nkeka and Roque Vera are both used as NPCs, although they could be used as player characters. B1 (avatar: Wade, from Hitman Absolution) is MIA, but I think I'm gonna adress his fate in a follow up adventure that will bring the conspiracy angle of the game, also set in Anyang.
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Wed, 2012-12-19 01:45
#4
Revinor
I'm toying with idea of
I'm toying with idea of running EP - and my current concept for starting people up would be to:
- advance timeline to 50-60 years after Fall instead of 10
- get players living on post-Fall earth, Terminator-like setting, as offsprings of people who survived Fall
- have actual transhumanity living 'above' a bit like legends (Cloud Atlas?)
- immediately start PCs on 'quest' to contact rest of humanity/escape from Earth/whatever
- let them join the mainstream EP soon, but discovering it in character, instead of giving 5-hours lecture upfront
Not sure about resleeving at the start - probably it would have to be in game from very start, maybe just with robotic or mutated morphs.
And Pandora gates closed for a moment - too nice capaign plot to be actually a part of opening them up and starting exploration, instead of coming to ready-to-use random-quest industry.
Wed, 2012-12-19 02:53
#5
Chase-san
You could probably do that
You could probably do that even only 10 AF. There is no reason why it has to be 50-60 years AF. Who knows what kind of experiments went on down there. Titans could even have somehow made a time dilation field, if you want them to be flesh from the start.
Alternatively the transhumans could have grown up in an accelerated simulspace (that simulates the natural cycle), and managed to escape via sleeving into a morph one way or another.
Perhaps it was even planned by the TITANs for them to 'escape'. Doing this allows you to use the setting as it is, without having to try and come up with what things are like another 40 years down the road in the EP setting.
Wed, 2012-12-19 06:45
#6
Revinor
To be honest, main reason for
To be honest, main reason for me to push it to 50 AF is that I personally perceive current state of the system as way too advanced for just 10 years. Yes, I understand posthumanity is fast - but there are also laws of physics. Given interplanetary distances, there could be possibly like 5 roundtrips between inner planets and outer rim. This is not enough time to evolve entire economy around freshly opened Pandora gates etc. For me, things are as they are, just took 50 years to achieve that state.
Anyway, thats a detail - main point was about idea to have players starting in information deprived environment (Titan-infested, terminator-like resistence in my example, could be as well not-fully-aware Jovian federation members, escapees from some corp lab etc) and feeding them information about the setting as their characters discover it. As soon as they got their muses, full connectivity etc, all bets are off.
Wed, 2012-12-19 13:37
#7
Lorsa
The economy isn't built up
The economy isn't built up around the pandora gates. Transhumans lived in space before the fall and most of the economy hasn't changed. It all depends how you want to run your setting of course, that's what you do in roleplaying, you run things the way you like them. The reason I like the recent part of the fall is that transhumanity hasn't had time to recuperate yet. There aren't morphs for everyone and even though you have cornucopia machines that can make everything some things are still lacking.
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Fri, 2012-12-21 20:01
#8
Quincey Forder
AF/BF is a planetary consortium calender
so, it's logical to think that it was established when the PC inaugurated in its present form
However, I reckon a forty years gap exist between the departure of the TITANs and the Year 1 of the PC
It gave time to the survivor to settle down, wherever they are and move on with their lives. So effectively; this meet with the time table to suggested
But with the "shelf" version of the PC being much younger than the Fall's aftermath.
I could picture a rather big ceremony both on Mars and close to Earth' colony, where the calender is officially switched from uncertain Anno Domini to a brand new and set 1 AF
this alone could provided a good adventure setting: stop a terrorist plot from disrupting the ceremony (and causing lots of physical, economical and memetic damage)
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Sat, 2012-12-22 16:04
#9
Skelshy
For quick adventure hooks, I
For quick adventure hooks, I recommend the Bulldogs! free adventures (on DriveThroughRPG).
For a longer adventure, I recommend Shadowrun 26003 "On the run". This provides excellent mood-setting and getting used to a connected, augmented reality world. For example, a hacker bar:
"If the characters view the scene in AR, they will see that every piece of hardware has sprouted eyes—and in some case mouths, ears, and other body parts. If the team’s hacker or technomancer makes a suc- cessful Computer + Intuition (2) Test, he or she will realize that there’s a lot of cutting-edge tech seeded among the dinosaurs here, though the newer stuff is a lot less obvious. An array of so- phisticated sensors scans the runners as they come in, including an agent run by the Glow’s house network that scans their com- mlinks and shows each team member an AR display detailing any security vulnerabilities they have to well-known exploits..."
you'll want to skip the orcs and elves, but the music disc they are after fits easily into EP's earth memorabilia theme.
Mon, 2013-01-28 07:13
#10
jasonbrisbane
a few ideas:
a few ideas:
- Keep the terminators on earth after the fall idea. And as the last PC dies (TPK?) its revealed to be a sick experiment in an VR scenario (think Total Recall). PC's now in actual morphs need to 1) escape, 2) get back at the sickos who have been torturing them - possibly Nine Lives Cartel, or similar... 3) why were they doing this? 4) How many forks of them in the world are there 5) How to stop it happening to others. The worse you make this seem for the players (ie horror) the more they will want to "Save the Universe"
- PC's create characters with morphs, decked out, etc and then awaken in Cases - no memories on how they got here, just what their characters background was, or why they came to be here. The medical bot sasy he created forks of them without memories so they would not remember what was done to them (mind rape, forced uploads to other morphs, pain and torture (aka bobdog from RIMward, etc). They have to escape the complex, et their original morphs after they release them and can get merged. The morphs may or may not have the knowledge of what they did to get here, especially if they too were Beta forks!.... :)
Just a couple of ideas...
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Mon, 2013-01-28 18:02
#11
NewtonPulsifer
I'd probably drop the PCs
I'd probably drop the PCs into a situation that's over their heads from the beginning. Make it [i]seem[/i] like you're not railroading them, even if you are.
More my style:
Have a recently re-instantiated PC contacted about a bank account of theirs. There's been a large transfer attempted but it needs their personal permission.
What bank account?
If they try to get access remotely, they don't have the codes. No problem - they go to a branch, have a brainscan done there (if they're a biomorph - if synthmorph/informorph maybe an extra step, like evacuating a fork and having that infomorph scanned to rule out brainscan spoofing software), and the passcodes are reset for them.
And suddenly they have a half-million credits in an account. What the hell is going on?
The truth? Perhaps somebody was using the Ego ID and brainscan data of the PC on the idea that the PC's ego would never be reinstantiated (damaged file perhaps, but a new clever reconstruction psychosurgery technique worked around it, or perhaps a clean second copy was found floating in the databanks of a derelict satellite).
Will the PCs turn the cash into the cops? Keep it?
Will they get contacted/arrested by a dirty cop before they have a chance to report to the authorities?
etc.
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