Baalbamoth wrote:

(facepalm) well I guess bring on the anime-furry pron, cutters, "real" vampires, and pachulii salesmen, storytelling is in the haus.

I honestly have no idea why you keep on with this strawman. Why should alternative rules change the setting?

Baalbamoth wrote:

(facepalm) well I guess bring on the anime-furry pron, cutters, "real" vampires, and pachulii salesmen, storytelling is in the haus.

I don't quite get what you're going for here, but the implication that "narrative = shitty" doesn't have much merit. You get bad players regardless of system. I can't wait for this to come out, myself.

Hi Justin< First off, I am a massive fan of The Alexandrian.[url=http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule] The Three clue rule[/url] and the various Node based scenario design[url=http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-sc... based scenario design[/url] posts, are both in my favorite lists so I can wheel them out whenever getting into a discussion on scenario design. However, I'd like to take a moment to suggest you alter your nomenclature. While I am not opposed to the use of STG to describe the indie games of recent years, it is entirely in accurate to describe them as not Roleplaying games. They exhibit ALL of the essential traits of role-playing games after all. It would make more sense to have a separate term to describe those RPGs which cleave more closely to the wargaming tradition. I'd suggest Narrative Skirmish Game, which was coined to describe Inquisitor, but which aptly describes the style of play for games such as DnD, where the focus is very much more on the the more bean county, simulationist and gamist elements.

jackgraham wrote:

Thanks for the vote of confidence. As we've been saying, this isn't about supplanting or casting aside what we've built with our core product. This is about recognizing the fact that mechanics are a tool, not an end in themselves. Core EP is an awesome tool for getting at certain aspects of our setting, but it's clunky for others. This is why I've been noodling around with using systems like DRYH and Fiasco to run Eclipse Phase games, and why I'm excited about FATE. Because we have two goals, dig? One is to make an enjoyable game for you to play, and the other is to immerse you in our world. Sometimes, the latter calls for different mechs. And if we can productize those alternate mechs, why not? Especially if we can do it without fucking up the core game.

This is especially true considering that the total product investment that apparently needs to be made is a single conversion book. It's practically the holy grail of cross-compatibility, something that WotC would have killed to achieve with the d20 system. At worst case, you're looking at a single failed product that can be largely ignored, a pittance of money lost considering that you funded it with kickstarter cash. At best case, you're looking at a new successful product and a new demographic for the rest of the books. It's almost stupid to not take up something that seems so low-risk, high-reward.

Baalbamoth wrote:

that's sort of what I wondering is going to happen here. EP players are identifying big issues with the core system that they feel need to be resolved. but rather than addressing those issues, were getting new kickstarter sups and fate core crossovers.

We're working hard on Transhuman. That sure isn't changing. If we didn't care about improving EP on the whole, we wouldn't be running an Open Playtest of Transhuman.

Baalbamoth wrote:

that's sort of what I wondering is going to happen here. EP players are identifying big issues with the core system that they feel need to be resolved. but rather than addressing those issues, were getting new kickstarter sups and fate core crossovers.

I've been developing a small computer game. When we decided "let's make different uniforms we can sell through micro-transactions" we're not thinking of it like wasting art budget on it. We're thinking it will give us the cash flow so we can get the code and artwork done for the 3rd faction. And make some money personally of course, but as an entrepeneur you want your business to grow. I honestly don't care for colored uniforms, but I do care about being able to take home some pay for my time and being able to hire freelancers to expand the game. A succesful FATE conversion book should bring you more EP Core stuff, not less, because that seems to be where the developers' hearts are at. If they loved FATE, they wouldn't be handing the job off to another team.

Zombieneighbours wrote:

They exhibit ALL of the essential traits of role-playing games after all.

Except the one trait which I would consider definitional. It's like saying that Asimov's I, Robot exhibits ALL of the essential traits of a comic book: It has characters. It's sold as bound paper. It's printed with ink. It has art on the cover. It has written dialogue. It has an author. Probably not the best place to conduct this debate at any length, however.

... I am a man of few words and if more players discover Eclipse Phase as a setting by FATE-rules then go for it. I would love to try it out with my players just to see what it will bring to our experience. STAY POSITIVE!

It's so strange to see all this disdain for FATE and storytellng games! Some of my best gaming has been in World of Darkness, and I haven't been as excited by mechanics as I have with FATE Core in a long time. Mechanics get in the way of the game more often than not (in my experience), and I would have to disagree with anyone who claims EP's mechanics as one of its strong suits. This book sounds like gold to me.

the book was written to attract kickstarter cash and for fans of FATE to send in kickstarter cash. Which may or may not be a great thing depending on how things turn out down the road. IMO

Not getting all the negativity to others preferred way of Roleplaying :s This new customer will be spending lots of money on Eclipse Phase now that it's going to be playable with Fate. Will the Fate rules be an open playtest?

Baalbamoth wrote:

does not change the setting of the game, changes what games are ran under the "EP" name, increases confusion, encourages the types of games (and often gamers) I dont enjoy. Those three things are enough to justify opposition to me.

And? What's the problem of encouraging the types of games and gamers you don't enjoy? The more people are aware of the fantastic setting of Eclipse Phase, the better. Sure, you're within your right to oppose it, and I hate to be a bit blunt, but it's a little selfish to say "I oppose it because it encourages more people/opens up other ways to enjoy the Eclipse Phase universe". They obviously heard the criticism that character creation can be a huge monster for some people if the new Transhuman handbook is any indication. So they are addressing mechanical concerns. The FATE crossover is an alternative for people like myself that loves the setting but doesn't like simulationist approaches to RPGs. It's an alternative, not a replacement.

Quincey Forder wrote:

Well, Is it the "pure" FATE system or the Strand of FATE? either wait, it opens the worlds for crossovers with Nova Praxis

It's Fate Core, the newest version of Fate from Evil Hat

Baalbamoth wrote:

Decivre- Its not the ONLY alternate system, and I dont know that it's the most popular one (its just the loudest).

Well, it seems to be the most popular from what we've seen on the forums. It's the only game system which already has four unofficial conversion documents. You are right that this isn't indicative of definite trends, but what do the developers have to go on other than what the fans tell them?

Baalbamoth wrote:

Right now I'm considering switching over to the HGS version, and I'll tell ya all this fate nonsense is starting to make me wonder if I want to encourage EP play at all or just go a different route. I did a search for "Altered Carbon roleplaying game" and EP is what it showed me... to me the setting is not all that revolutionary, highly derivitive of what I've read before, so what attracted me more to EP was the idea that there was interest in play, that the RPG hobby is embracing EP and it would be more easy to find new players and interest new people with the books etc. now I'll find those new people... and have to convince them I'm not playing FATE.

That's fine. I know none of my groups plan to switch to FATE, and I don't know enough about the system to GM it anyways. However, it has already drummed up a new potential game in my area. So good luck to them. FATE obviously isn't going to be for everyone. It's a new option to bring in some new business. That's it.

Baalbamoth wrote:

Right here: http://eclipsephase.com/resources are conversions for 10 different systems... I still dont understand why FATE is getting all official and the others arent. I'd much rather have it if players want to switch systems thats up to them but not having the confusion of an "offical conversion" whatever the hell that means.

Just because FATE is the first system to get a conversion document does not mean it will be the last. This is the devs chance to test the waters for conversion documents in the first place. If it does well, then who knows? Maybe we'll get EP for Pathfinder, EP for Savage Worlds, EP for classic FUDGE. I wouldn't mind an EP conversion document for the Shadowrun game system, but I don't know if they can get those rights. In fact, that's an important point to make. Of the 10 systems on the resources page, I believe only three of them actually have a license that would allow Posthuman to make a sellable conversion document (and one of them is FATE). It is a bit unfair to hold them all up against this project. After all, Posthuman would get raped by Disney's legal department if they even thought about making a Marvel Heroic conversion document. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Baalbamoth wrote:

Easy and innacurate=dumbed down

Easy ≠ Inaccurate

Baalbamoth wrote:

Noble- creating an "official alternative system" creates confusion, creates friction (as we've seen here) creates edition wars. lots of problems to choose from. as to the confusion of character creation... see my posting to Quincy...

I don't really see an edition war cropping up. We aren't getting a "FATE edition", but rather a single FATE document. No one is even remotely under the presumption that FATE is going to get equal support to the original game system. And not to be offensive, but the only friction present has been your hostility to the FATE conversion document. Most of the rest of this forum has been relatively quiet. A couple of "I'm not getting it"s here, and a couple "awesome!"s there. Nothing to write home about, and certainly not enough to call a significant divide in the community.

Baalbamoth wrote:

Why... just why do we need conversion documents? Why cant the player created conversions be good enough? Why cant fate players already adopt the rules and make their own versions the way I can with GURPS and HERO systems? Are fate players just too stupid or too lazy to do it? You said it yourself, there are three forum threads on the conversion... is the official one really going to be that different? If so... how and why do the three versions already offered not measure up?

Why have a professional product as opposed to an amateur product? Are you serious? First off, many amateur products never get finished. Of the conversion documents on that page, some were dead links, and some are severely unfinished (the GURPS conversion only covered vehicles). Of the FATE conversions present, one hasn't been updated since 2011, one is a forum writeup, and the other two are Diaspora versions, which don't use a free version of FATE. None of them are for the new FATE Core. So there's all that. Second, there's the product support. If an official document needs updating, it'll get updated. If an amateur project needs updating, it'll get updated if the team is still interested. Posthuman can make sure this conversion document is compatible with all current and future Eclipse Phase products until the end of this edition cycle. An amateur group is less likely to pull that off. Lastly, there's quality control. Posthuman books have a pretty high level of quality and finish to them, nice art, great layout, and are well-designed. They have hyperlinked ToCs and Indexes, and are chock full of illustrations. Only one of the FATE conversions I saw had any of these things, and it was mostly a wiki... and outdated. It is a bit unfair for you to call them stupid or lazy. You rarely ever see high-end products produced by amateur groups. Even the high quality things I do see get produced by groups for free, often take up years of time to see final publication. Many of them get little support after that, especially if teams break up. How many amateur GURPS projects still see heavy support today? How many HERO system projects?

The GM tells a Story, players Roleplay their characters. That fits to both systems imo. They might having different approaches, however they are both Role Playing games. Our Hobby is niche enough, without people further breaking it down into smaller parts and alienating people just because you* don't "roleplay" like I do... *the big wide world "you"

godmoney wrote:

baalnmouth wrote:

In all honesty if I saw "COMPATABLE WITH FATE SYSTEM!" anywhere I would have assumed its a storytelling game and wouldent have looked twice at it or bought it.

Is there any plans on placing this tag on any future/reprints of the books? other than the conversion guide?

Nope.

godmoney wrote:

adam jury wrote:

We haven't had people ask us to do d20/Pathfinder Eclipse Phase. We _have_ had many people ask us to do Eclipse Phase with Fate, and it's the most frequent system that fans have built conversions for. We're responding to demand, not attempting to make something and find a market for it or "cash in." We're in this for the long haul, both growing Eclipse Phase and growing Posthuman as a whole.

so PHS is a business and not a group of straight hobbyists/amateurs?

That is correct. You gotta make money to print thousands of full-color hardback book... (and to pay rent!) :-)

Baalbamoth - Nobody is getting in the way of your fun by playing a different way. If you like the current ruleset, nothing is stopping you from continuing to use it. It will still be supported with each book release, and nothing is lost. You seem to be upset that other people will be having fun a different way. I don't understand this; it's as bad as the massive D&D edition wars where everyone yells at each other for somehow playing the "wrong" edition. Let it go, man. This FATE conversion opens up what I think is one of the best sci-fi settings in memory to a larger pool of potential players (who, despite your semantic arguing, are still enjoying a role-playing game) which is nothing but a net gain in my eyes. It has the added bonus of giving Posthuman Studios' writers a little bit more change in their pocket, allowing them to stay afloat (those bastards!) Calm down, dude.

Baalbamoth wrote:

Murgh bpurn- then why isnt it called a "role playing game" why do they lable themselves as STGs? It's because an STG resolves by narration, the mechnaics determine who gets to narrate. it does not resolve simulationist character actions IE the mechanics do not focus on playing a role, they focus on allowing you to narrate a scene. Its not a role playing game, Its a scene narration game aka story telling. feel free to visit the "off topic" section of the forums where this is discussed at length.

From the main page of Fate Core on the Evil Hat website, the second paragraph leads with:

Quote:

Fate Core is a tabletop roleplaying game about proactive, capable people who lead dramatic lives.

So they clearly think it is an RPG. I've cut and pasted a few sections to show that mechanics operate like most RPGs

Quote:

Exchanges in a conflict are a little more complicated than in contests. In an exchange, every character gets a turn to take an action. GMs, you get to go once for every NPC you control in the conflict. Most of the time, you're going to be attacking another character or creat-ing an advantage on your turn, because that's the point of a conflict—take your opponent out, or set things up to make it easier to take your opponent out.

Quote:

Use the attack action to harm someone in a conflict or take them out of a scene. The attack action is the most straightforward of the four actions—when you want to hurt someone in a conflict, it's an attack. An attack isn't always physical in nature; some skills allow you to hurt someone mentally as well. Most of the time, your target will actively oppose your attack. Passive opposition on an attack means you've caught your target unaware or other-wise unable to make a full effort to resist you, or the NPC isn't important enough to bother with dice. In addition, passive or not, the opposition always counts as a defend action so you can look at these two actions as being inexorably intertwined.

So you attack, someone defends, you both roll dice.

Quote:

When you fail at an attack, you don't cause any harm to your target. (It also means that your target succeeded on the defend action, which could get you get saddled with other effects.) • When you tie an attack, you don't cause any harm, but you gain a boost. • When you succeed on an attack, you inflict a hit on your target equal to the number of shifts you got. That forces the target to try and “buy off” the value of your hit by taking stress or consequences; if that's not possible, your target gets taken out of the conflict. • When you succeed with style on an attack, it works like a normal success, but you also have the option to reduce the value of your hit by one to gain a boost as well.

And then damage may or may not be taken. Yes it is encouraged that players narrate how the damage is given or defended against, however the dice determine what the mechanical effect will be.

atamajakki- yes, it is exactly like the D&D edition wars. Baal- hey guys I want to run EP new player- awesome, I love the EP setting! were using the fate system right? baal- no, thats dumbed down storyteller crap... I only run RPGs. new player- drat! thats the old version, I only know Fate system and I'm unwilling to spend a couple of hours to learn how to use the d99 system, if there were no alternate official rules conversion I'd likely take the time to learn d99, but as it is I can keep looking till I find a dumbed down ep game run by a GM who uses the fate version... theres a lot of em. Baal- drat, now I have one less player. Old Player- actually new player is my buddy, so I'll be going with him. Baal- double drat, now I dont have enough players to run. exactly like the D&D edition wars... armored- its very difficult to produce a "new" system, or to create suppliements that expand the system and still remain ballenced. its extremely easy to take a ruleset like Hero that is specifically designed to be generic and slap a new setting on it. (and as mentioned before, EP is unique only because it hasnt been done in an RPG before, there are many similar settings in sci fi going back to the 80s or earlyer) rep systems already have a character point conversion, nothing could be more easy to switch over. morphs, I'd have to create a template for each that I want the characters to have choice of right out the gate, after making the first it would take me about a 15 minutes each to fill in the templates, couple of hours max and the most time consuming issue. rules for hacking are already in core, just have to make some numbers adjustments for specific mesh systems if I even feel its necessary and dont want to do it on the fly. really really easy... afternoon at best. but why do I care about new products... thats a bigger question, mentioned before... sometimes its hard to get dedicated fantasy gamers (aka pathfinder fanatics) to try anything new, having a pretty book with neato art and well written setting descriptions is one advantage, having a game that is becoming more and more popular and has some rep of its own makes it more attractive than "baalbamoth system2.0" but throw a major wrench into it by adding a fate conversion... players like mine might say "oh thats more of that story telling crap" my response: "uh no man its a hard core rpg, just look at the percentage system!" a fate conversion means theres a new negitive perception I dont want to have to overcome to generate player interest. Is it impossible to overcome? do I have to shoot the hostage? (lol) no, but again... its not a benifit, its a hinderance. and I dont really care how many fate players think EP is an awesome setting, or how much money the Devs are making. Neither of those things make it more easy for me to start and run a game. the devs had an option "do we want to alienate some of our current fans by offering an optional system that might earn us more money by increasing the fan base to people who otherwise would not be attracted to our game." the devs said yes and I dont think it was all that great of a decision.

"OMG, Mark Rein*Hagen is Luke's father! ;)" The Sisters of Mercy Bloodletting faction?

Baalbamoth wrote:

atamajakki- yes, it is exactly like the D&D edition wars. Baal- hey guys I want to run EP new player- awesome, I love the EP setting! were using the fate system right? baal- no, thats dumbed down storyteller crap... I only run RPGs. new player- drat! thats the old version, I only know Fate system and I'm unwilling to spend a couple of hours to learn how to use the d99 system, if there were no alternate official rules conversion I'd likely take the time to learn d99, but as it is I can keep looking till I find a dumbed down ep game run by a GM who uses the fate version... theres a lot of em. Baal- drat, now I have one less player. Old Player- actually new player is my buddy, so I'll be going with him. Baal- double drat, now I dont have enough players to run. exactly like the D&D edition wars...

What is to stop this from happening now? No seriously, you yourself pointed out four conversions for FATE just the other day. If these people want to come here and are interested in a FATE conversion, what's to stop them from asking you already to play a FATE conversion? If people really want to play it, you think a lack of official support will change anything? No, it won't. It just means that Posthuman can't capitalize on a new market. Hell, FATE was basically designed for easy transition. It is, after all, a derivative of FUDGE... simplicity of the mechanics is a core aspect of it. So there isn't anything stopping people from asking you to play Champions as a FATE conversion either. You're making mountains out of molehills. I GM for several games, and I only have interest from one player regarding an EP game using FATE. And he was inspired by your comments. So I don't see some rampant FATE endemic on the horizon. I see the possibility of getting the one FATE group at the game shop to try EP.

Baalbamoth wrote:

armored- its very difficult to produce a "new" system, or to create suppliements that expand the system and still remain ballenced. its extremely easy to take a ruleset like Hero that is specifically designed to be generic and slap a new setting on it. (and as mentioned before, EP is unique only because it hasnt been done in an RPG before, there are many similar settings in sci fi going back to the 80s or earlyer) rep systems already have a character point conversion, nothing could be more easy to switch over. morphs, I'd have to create a template for each that I want the characters to have choice of right out the gate, after making the first it would take me about a 15 minutes each to fill in the templates, couple of hours max and the most time consuming issue. rules for hacking are already in core, just have to make some numbers adjustments for specific mesh systems if I even feel its necessary and dont want to do it on the fly. really really easy... afternoon at best.

For you, sure. For others who might actually care about the flow of mechanics, or want a solid port of the setting, it's likely to take a lot more work. I agree that generic systems are easier than most (which is another reason to make this book for FATE as opposed to a non-generic system), but conversion is rarely as simple as just transitioning things over. The probabilities for a new system always have to be taken into account.

Baalbamoth wrote:

but why do I care about new products... thats a bigger question, mentioned before... sometimes its hard to get dedicated fantasy gamers (aka pathfinder fanatics) to try anything new, having a pretty book with neato art and well written setting descriptions is one advantage, having a game that is becoming more and more popular and has some rep of its own makes it more attractive than "baalbamoth system2.0" but throw a major wrench into it by adding a fate conversion... players like mine might say "oh thats more of that story telling crap" my response: "uh no man its a hard core rpg, just look at the percentage system!" a fate conversion means theres a new negitive perception I dont want to have to overcome to generate player interest. Is it impossible to overcome? do I have to shoot the hostage? (lol) no, but again... its not a benifit, its a hinderance. and I dont really care how many fate players think EP is an awesome setting, or how much money the Devs are making. Neither of those things make it more easy for me to start and run a game. the devs had an option "do we want to alienate some of our current fans by offering an optional system that might earn us more money by increasing the fan base to people who otherwise would not be attracted to our game." the devs said yes and I dont think it was all that great of a decision.

A negative perception from whom? DIdn't you just complain that people are going to demand playing a FATE game of Eclipse Phase? How could that happen if so many people hate the game? You keep swapping between claims that everyone hates FATE to the idea that it's a pandemic of STG fever that is sweeping the nation. It's either one, the other, or neither of these. It can't be both at the same time.

Stress and consequences are hit points by another name. I agree with Decrivre you don't know how Fate works.