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New players to Eclipse Phase

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Tue, 2010-02-23 19:44

Jimson

New players to Eclipse Phase

I'm going to be starting an Eclipse Phase game in the next few months. I'm familiar with the setting, and pretty close to getting all the rules, but my players won't know much of anything coming into it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to quickly bring new players up to speed?

Wed, 2010-02-24 17:06

Bloodwork

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

Make sure you tell them to start arguing about physics the moment the game starts.

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That which doesn't kill you usually succeeds on the second attempt.

Thu, 2010-02-25 04:00

RobBoyle

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

Jimson wrote:
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to quickly bring new players up to speed?

Perhaps give them the Quick-Start Rules first? (see the Resources page) Honestly, I think you'll benefit by sitting them down and spending a half hour or so explaining the setting and a lot of the core concepts. A lot of people new to transhumanism are initially confused by the terminology and ideas, but once you explain it them, you'll see that light bulb go off over their head as they start thinking of the possibilities.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Thu, 2010-02-25 07:48

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

Sepherim wrote:
Re: Two general ideas We actually role-played the character creation. They were amnesic due to story events, and had all the character points to spend as usual, but spended them by doing something: if they jumped off a building, for example, they could raise Freefall from 1 to 7 points; and so on with everything. And with each of the activities, they received back a memory from before that we would build together. So the characters were created from scratch and they are finding out how the EP universe is by playing.

I would suggest this approach would work well for your players Jimson , Let the them learn EP universe from scratch while role-playing. Their characters doesn't know the universe, either from amnesia, different age or isolation. Suitable Character backgrounds;Lost, Isolate, Re-instated . But that could just be the "offical" background. Beeing discovered in such a state & without proper muse I think that the characters would quickly be identified lacking in basic knowledge & schooling. Some "benevolent" organization ensures that - they (perhaps as a group) get a teacher & guide to help them. This Teacher could be part of their future muses. The Question, Why their benefactor does this? That would be a good starting plot.

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Thu, 2010-02-25 14:52

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

While I generally like to do the half-hour talk with the players, sometimes it is fun to throw naive characters into things directly. One slightly mischievous (but potentially very fun) way of starting the game is to have characters in another game - say a superhero game or a realistic police drama. Run half a session so that the players start to get to know their characters and the somewhat colourful setting. Just as they are about to catch the villains the world freezes. A bunch of odd people materialize out of nothing, commenting "here is another group of poor bastards", do something incomprehensible and the world goes white. When the characters wake up they are among Action Direct/Firewall/the mercurial underground rail-road. It turns out that they were just freed from a Night Cartel entertainment site. The Cartel were taking old backup copies of people and AGIs, editing them heavily and then using them to make XP and realistic game characters in simspace. Now they are free. If they were freed by a somewhat nice group they might be given some training (maybe actually restored skills from the original backup) and morphs, while a more businesslike group like Action Direct will just send them off to a Planetary Consortium charity server. So, how will Captain Terra handle knowing his "secret identity" the timid accountant Benoit LeFarge was actually a real person who died 10 years ago? And how will he fight crime when embodied in a case morph in the middle of Nowhere Planum, Mars? (Hmm, this might do developing somewhat more...)

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Sat, 2010-02-27 09:21

Jimson

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

RobBoyle wrote:
Jimson wrote:
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to quickly bring new players up to speed?
Perhaps give them the Quick-Start Rules first? (see the Resources page) Honestly, I think you'll benefit by sitting them down and spending a half hour or so explaining the setting and a lot of the core concepts. A lot of people new to transhumanism are initially confused by the terminology and ideas, but once you explain it them, you'll see that light bulb go off over their head as they start thinking of the possibilities.

I was thinking of doing this. My first thought was to give them a reinstated background, have firewall meet them in VR, and sign them up, then provide them a whatever morph they want. But during this, firewall would give them a crash course on what has happened since the fall. This seemed fine and dandy, but doesn't really explain transhumanity and what led up to the fall. So, I think I will just have them read the quick start rules. They should be grown-up enough to handle a little homework : ). On a side note, there are only going to be two players, and I'll be creating them with a couple hundred extra CP's at character generation. Will two players be ok for the Eclipse Phase setting? As far as skills, I was going to have them both be good at combat and probably sneaking. Is there anything else I should have one, or both of them, focus on?

Tue, 2010-03-02 02:15

RobBoyle

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

Jimson wrote:
Will two players be ok for the Eclipse Phase setting? As far as skills, I was going to have them both be good at combat and probably sneaking. Is there anything else I should have one, or both of them, focus on?

Two players should be fine, especially if you give them extra CP, assuming they don't get in over their head and you don't throw too many bad guys at them in combat. Having one specialize in Infosec and mesh research/subversion is probably a good idea.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Tue, 2010-03-02 02:30

Decivre

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

Jimson wrote:
On a side note, there are only going to be two players, and I'll be creating them with a couple hundred extra CP's at character generation. Will two players be ok for the Eclipse Phase setting? As far as skills, I was going to have them both be good at combat and probably sneaking. Is there anything else I should have one, or both of them, focus on?

Two players is actually plenty in Eclipse Phase. In fact, I currently run two EP games right now, one of which has a fairly large group of people that I actually have to segment to get it to work right, the other being three players. In the three-player group, two of them are redundant combat characters, of which the game would function fine with only one... the last one is a hacker in a ghostrider module. If you remove one of the combat characters, you essentially have a soldier and hacker in a single body, and it makes for a completely fine EP game. You might even be able to get away with one-player games in Eclipse Phase. I can see it being completely possible to run a game about one character and his multiple alpha forks working together on missions. You might have to grant him a larger amount of bonus skill points at creation, but otherwise he should be solid. Plus, it's a concept that makes more sense than in other games. Whereas playing a single-player game in D&D would equate to "I play four different characters by myself", in EP you could theoretically say "Nah, I just play one guy... and take all four of him on crazy adventures!" Alpha forking can also buff up your two-player group, as a side note.

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Tue, 2010-03-02 20:10

Jimson

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

Well thank you all for your input. Now I'm having a much better feeling about running this. There are still a lot of the rules I need to hammer down, plus bring my players up to speed. With creating two players, what would be an acceptable amount of extra CP's? 100? 250? 231? : )

Sun, 2010-03-07 00:34

#10

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

Decivre wrote:
Two players is actually plenty in Eclipse Phase. In fact, I currently run two EP games right now, one of which has a fairly large group of people that I actually have to segment to get it to work right, the other being three players.

I find that three players makes for a pretty dense game. I do not yet know how four will play ouut.

Decivre wrote:
You might even be able to get away with one-player games in Eclipse Phase.

When one takes into account the power levels of EP when compared to other tRPGs, one player would make for a pretty complete game. Come to think of it, Buckaroo Banzai would fit into EP nicely as a PC. Rock star, neurosurgeon, particle physicist, samurai... sounds about right in terms of relative power levels and character complexity.

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Mon, 2010-03-08 16:27

#11

Decivre

Re: New players to Eclipse Phase

The Doctor wrote:
I find that three players makes for a pretty dense game. I do not yet know how four will play ouut.

Actually, larger groups make for something that looks like futuristic special forces for most missions. Players in my largest group (8 players total) often split up into two-man teams, and coordinate with each other using miniature radio farcasters. The end result looks like some far-flung version of Rainbow Six, and it's very awesome when things go right (or downright disastrous when things go wrong :D).

The Doctor wrote:
When one takes into account the power levels of EP when compared to other tRPGs, one player would make for a pretty complete game. Come to think of it, Buckaroo Banzai would fit into EP nicely as a PC. Rock star, neurosurgeon, particle physicist, samurai... sounds about right in terms of relative power levels and character complexity.

But you also have to remember the power level of enemies that Firewall faces. Running a game where players are not agents might be fine for less players, but fighting existential threats generally requires a bit more manpower, and a more coordinated effort with more minds brainstorming a plan. Even if you are running a solo game, it'd be best to equip your player with the best morphs, the opportunity to use multiples through forking, top-of-the-line equipement and more. Any less, and he's going to need some help.

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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]