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Playtesters needed for an Eclipse Phase-Gumshoe conversion

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Fri, 2014-05-30 07:55

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Playtesters needed for an Eclipse Phase-Gumshoe conversion

I love Eclipse Phase, especially for its setting. I noticed that I occasionally want to run games in the world with more focus on mystery and investigation. Others have also noticed that GUMSHOE, the system behind Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorist and Nights Black Agents, would work perfectly for running Eclipse Phase in this manner. Both GUMSHOE and Eclipse Phase are published with a Creative Commons license, so I combined them under the working title Eclipse Shoe. The rules are currently in a early beta and I'd like to get some feedback from the experienced Eclipse Phase players on these forums. That is why I'm starting the first round of beta testing, and asking you to look at the rules, playing with them and giving me feedback on what works and what doesn't. I appreciate that this type of play is not for everyone, but I hope there are other mystery enthusiasts on these forums. Download the beta game and comment [url=https://gitkrax.github.io/epshoe/]on the website[/url].

Sat, 2014-05-31 17:17

burningcrow burningcrow's picture

EclipseSHOE

Although I currently do not have the bandwidth to run a playtest I want to express my support for the idea! Sounds like a great fit! Keep up the great work ... and maybe later this year I can play test your build! Daniel.

Sun, 2014-06-01 05:50

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Thanks. I'll run a second

Thanks. I'll run a second round of playtests later, incorporating changes from this round, so there will also be a chance to participate later.

Sun, 2014-06-01 14:13

thefnord

Definitely going to play around with this.

Myself and two very good friends should be going over the game shortly; I am an EP junkie, they are both big GUMSHOE fans, one's a Mythos heavyweight and the other is very, very good at finding glitches in rules.

—

Lorem ipsum dolore sit amet, motherfucker.

Mon, 2014-06-02 02:16

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Sounds perfect. Have fun and

Sounds perfect. Have fun and drop me some feedback with the form when you are done.

Tue, 2014-06-03 02:33

fellowhoodlum fellowhoodlum's picture

Oddly enough I have been

Oddly enough I have been thinking of doing a Gumshoe version of EP too...

Tue, 2014-06-03 03:17

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Not odd at all. We're not the

Not odd at all. We're not the only ones thinking it's a good match: there is a thread on the topic on rpg.net forums too. It seems that I saved you the effort. Take a look at what I did and throw me some feedback.

Wed, 2014-06-04 22:53

fellowhoodlum fellowhoodlum's picture

I'll see if I can get my EP

I'll see if I can get my EP group together this weekend :) Boosts sound kinda powerful. Are they rules from Ashen Stars?

Thu, 2014-06-05 03:22

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Yes. When I started putting

Yes. When I started putting the rules together, they seemed like an easy way to implement some of the mechanical benefits from EP. I don't mind them being powerful, if it seems that they are balanced with the other parts of the rules. Might opt for another approach, if they seem too powerful.

Thu, 2014-06-12 13:14

#10

jackgraham jackgraham's picture

Let us know how this goes!

Let us know how this goes! Gumshoe would be a great tool for certain types of EP scenarios.

—

J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth! http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham

Fri, 2014-06-13 02:42

#11

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Agreed. I'll be sure to keep

Agreed. I'll be sure to keep you posted. Any comments from the EP-team are of course welcome and appreciated.

Fri, 2014-06-20 05:28

#12

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

I created a new version of

I created a new version of the rulebook that is a bit easier to read. It can be downloaded from the link in the first post. If you want to look at the game, I suggest you download the new version. Any feedback is very much appreciated!

Sun, 2014-08-10 07:46

#13

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

I created a website so the

I created a website so the rules are easier to find and download. Link in the first post.

Tue, 2014-09-16 22:27

#14

fellowhoodlum fellowhoodlum's picture

One of my friends, Kai, ran

One of my friends, Kai, ran the Mind the WMD quickstart using this GUMSHOE conversion as a demo to potential new players. I x-post his feedback so far form our FB page: "Needs a few more morph and gear write-ups, but for a quickstart game it was pretty solid. Networking is streamlined from EP and I like that.." "... the pregen characters hand-converted using some guidelines adapted from ToC: Insanity Rating, old Initiative (back when it ran as high as three digits) /12 and round up to get Stability and Sense Danger. Rep ratings /12 and round up to get new Rep abilities. To convert skills to Investigative abilities, /25 and round up. There are several skills that don't convert neatly because they cover areas like Deception, Persuasion, etc, so I converted their total and divided them among Flattery, Reassurance, etc. To convert skills to General abilities, /12 and round up. There are skills like Climbing, Freefall and Freerunning that all contribute to Athletics, so take the highest to convert, and for each ability that is within 10 of the highest, add another point of Athletics to the total. Shooting and Melee can be derived according to the usual ToC formula, too" "One thing I noticed is the huge difference in spends if you have Core Clues vs without, when you use Rep for information. A poorly rolled Toll check (see Eclipse SHOE) could tell you that you need to spend 5 Rep just to talk to the right criminal fixer, yet if it's a Core Clue, I should give the info out for free. The huge disparity in costs has never been so clear. That's two different philosophies of gaming right there."

Wed, 2014-09-17 02:35

#15

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Great feedback! Thank Kai for

Great feedback! Thank Kai for me! Do you know which version of the rules they used? I agree that the morph and gear chapters are pretty lacking at the moment, but I'll work more on that as soon as I get the time. I've been doing similar conversions with premade characters -- I ran Ego Hunter with EclipseSHOE, but instead of following clear of guidelines I let players do conversions on how they best see fit, just making sure that all the necessary skills were covered. Less systematic and more work for the players, but more room for their perspective. The issue Kai brings up is something I need to look into. Unfortunately, I probably won't have time to look into it in a while.

Wed, 2014-09-17 05:50

#16

fellowhoodlum fellowhoodlum's picture

They used 0.4, which I had

They used 0.4, which I had printed out a week before the game.

Wed, 2014-09-17 08:29

#17

eclipsekrax eclipsekrax's picture

Okay, thanks for the info.