I've persuaded my group to playtest the Transhuman FATE rules and we start with character generation next week. I've long wanted to play Eclipse Phase with a stripped down system and this seems like a great chance.
Too keep things contained and simple, I'm running the game in a single location: Elysium on Mars. And it won't be too high-tech. If my plans work, about halfway through the campaign, we'll make new characters and approach events from the other side, that of the hypercorps. Then the toys really will get taken out of the toybox.
I'll post updates as we play but for now, here's the pitch I gave to my players:
Bright Lights, Long Shadows: Campaign Overview
The setting is Mars. In particular, the misleadingly-named Elysium, a city of nine million egos built along the base of a huge natural chasm near to the Titan Quarantine Zone.
Everyone will be sympathisers with The Movement, an underground revolution against hypercorp domination and corruption.
In Elysium. you live under the oppressive oligarchy of the ageless Zevi Oaxaca-Maartens, monarch in all but name. Imagine Elysium as having the rough-and-readyness of Rio de Janeiro or Mexico City but with a middle-eastern and Indonesian edge. Or maybe an (even) more crime-ridden Jakarta. Or a high-tech Kabul where you live a long way from the corridors of power at the Presidential Palace. And Zevi is a Gaddafi, Assad or Marcos, smiling out from posters and AR graphics across the city.
Systemwide, Elysium is famous for its media but the city’s shining heart is a long way from your Elysium. The glitz of Central is nothing but a harsh light that throws your desperation into harsh detail. A place where celebrities mock your own poverty by their wealth, power and freedom.
The fringes - your Elysium - are characterised by criminal gangs and a large underclass of Indonesians whom Zevi bought cheap after the fall to help rebuild his city. They're nominally free now but have few opportunities. There are also infugees from every Earth country, who Zevi also bought cheap and has made work off their indenture over long periods (and often multiple forks). The outskirts of Elysium are a melting pot of the desperate and downtrodden.
This is not high-tech, glitzy, transhuman Eclipse Phase. At least, not for you. Your's is a dusty, harsh, unjust world, where the rich have everything and the poor are controlled, oppressed and struggle to survive - or even get a body to survive in. Between the criminal gangs, bent cops, corrupt government and uncaring media, only The Movement offers a slim chance of freedom and empowerment. A doomed, impossible chance but the only one you have.
I imagine it as part detective story, part conspiracy thriller, with characters from the gutters struggling against overwhelming odds.
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voidstate
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My Playtest Campaign: Bright Lights, Long Shadows
Thu, 2014-11-20 06:28
#1
voidstate
My Playtest Campaign: Bright Lights, Long Shadows
- Various gangs are waging war on the nomads in the wastes around Elysium.
- Hypercorps are behind the attacks, using the gangs to protect themselves from bad publicity.
- The attacks seem random and pointless. What are they after?
[size=24][b]The Enemy Within[/b] [/size]- Something Exurgent-based (perhaps a virus?) is infiltrating the city, using the city’s factionalism to go unnoticed.
- Have the hypercorps been experimenting on something from the TQZ?
We also came up with some important locations, the mazelike souk, a brothel called Xanadu and a the yearly Experia Rally across the wastes... And, or course, the characters. We have: [size=24][b]Hamza[/b][/size] [b]Aspects[/b] High Concept: Honest Chindri Nomad Information Dealer Trouble: Disgraced Myself to Save my Family My Religion Guides My Actions +1 (Something to do with being a spider in the centre of a web) [b]Skills[/b] Great (+4): Kinesics, Rapport [Negotiate] Good (+3): Deceive, Notice, Fair (+2): Interface, Investigate, Willpower, Average (+1): Interest (Religion), Infiltrate, Infosec, Provoke, Survival [b]Stunts[/b] Eiditic Memory [b]Rep[/b] Rednecks: 1 The Movement: 1 Criminals: 1 Morph: Ruster Refresh: 4 [size=24][b]Smith[/b] [/size] [b]Aspects[/b] High Concept: Gifted Freelance Hacker Trouble: Argumentative Reluctant Hero (Something about maintaining a low profile) [b]Skills[/b] Great (+4): Infosec [Brute force hacking], Program Good (+3): Interface, Infiltrate Fair (+2): Deceive, Notice, Shoot, Average (+1): Academics (CS), Athletics (Mars gravity), Provoke, Survival, Willpower [b]Stunts[/b] Situational Awareness [b]Rep[/b] Criminals: 2 Credit: 1 Morph: Flat Refresh: 5 [size=24][b]Antoine Mirelle[/b] [/size] [b]Aspects[/b] High Concept: Hopeful Salvation Army “Paladin” Trouble: The 9 Lives Syndicate Is The Devil! Righteous Indignation +1 [b]Skills[/b] Great (+4): Fight, Interest (Religion) Good (+3): Profession (Soldier), Somatics Fair (+2): Athletics (Mars gravity), Notice, Shoot (Kinetic) Average (+1): Infiltrate, Medicine (Battlefield trauma), Provoke, Survival (Mars), Willpower [b]Stunts[/b] Brave Patron (General of the Salvation Army) [b]Rep[/b] Salvation Army: 1 Criminals: 1 Credits: 1 Morph: Flat Refresh: 5 (NB. Antoine is a member of the new Salvation Army, formed by a brinker colony as a military organisation who send soldiers to fight injustice) [size=24][b]Chad Han[/b] [/size] [b]Aspects[/b] High Concept: Tough Redneck Nanotechnician Trouble: Lent on by the Tong [b]Skills[/b] Great (+4): Profession (Engineer), Programming (Nanotech) Good (+3): Interface, Shoot (Kinetic) Fair (+2): Athletics, Investigate, Notice Average (+1): Deceive, Infiltrate, Pilot, Somatics, Willpower [b]Stunts[/b] Situational Awareness +1 [b]Rep[/b] The Movement: 1 Criminals: 1 Procariat: 1 Morph: Ruster Refresh: 4 [size=24][b]Orion[/b] [/size] [b]Aspects[/b] High Concept: Indentured Gweilo Tong Thief Trouble: “Just hold that tongue, boy!” There isn’t a Graft I Don’t Know How Did He Pull Off That Manoeuvre? [b]Skills[/b] Great (+4): Athletics (Mars gravity) [Parkour], Infiltrate Good (+3): Demolitions, Rapport Fair (+2): Deceive, Kinesics, Notice Average (+1): Fight (Blades), Interface, Pilot, Somatics, Survival (Mars) [b]Stunts[/b] Direction Sense First Impressions [b]Rep[/b] The Movement: 1 Criminals: 2 Morph: Ruster Refresh: 4 Doing the first step of Eclipse Phase chargen first was of mixed usefulness. While it helped anchor the characters in the EP setting, it caused some confusion, too. I had to explain a few times that the Motivations we were picking were not Fate Aspects, and were just for inspiration, and because our game was in a specific place, many of the factions were irrelevant. If I did it again, I’d probably have my players pick an EP Background,then just chat about Factions and Motivations without getting drawn into picking them. Most of the players were unfamiliar with Fate, although most had a played a con game or two. I ran a short Fate Accelerated Edition game a year or so ago for them (in the 40K universe) and some players were concerned about how unbalanced some aspects were in that game. I think I managed to allay some fears by explaining that in this version you have skills, too, and that the Fate Point economy takes care of a lot of possible balance issues. Still, most remained suspicious of the crazy indie game I was foisting on them. It took quite a while to settle on everyone’s High Concept and Trouble. I was pushing back with a lot of questions if I thought concepts were unclear or phrases could be snappier but we got there eventually, and everyone enjoyed the crossing paths sections (where we simply replaced Firewall with The Movement). However, because there are four phases but only 2 Ego Aspects to be chosen, when it came to translating the stories into aspects, quite a lot of the cool got left by the wayside which seemed a shame. I know the conversion has to save some aspects for Morph Aspects, but I would have preferred there to be a 1:1 correlation between phases and aspects. Picking skills went fine (although there was a little confusion between fields and specialisations). A couple of the players would have preferred to just have a set number of points for skills (within the confines of the skill pyramid). Would that matter? For skills, as well, I liked how my players nearly all chose art, academics, interests, and professions skills. I like how in Eclipse Phase characters have to be rounded out with the kind of soft skills real people pursue. Should this be compulsory, or at least have a sidebar or something in the text? Also, you may have noticed that we have changed the reps a bit to suit the setting. They are now: Criminal, Redneck, The Movement, Hypercorp, Media, Ecologist, Procariat. Anyway, I now have to find a way of drawing these characters into an engaging plot. They’re all a Barsoomian cell so hopefully some shadowy threats to the people should be enough to intrigue them... [Feel free to PM me any ideas you have!] [size=32][b]Misc. Feedback[/b] [/size] One player wanted to have a flat but felt cheated that they don’t get any bonus despite their morph being worse than a splicer. Circadian Regulation, Neurachem, etc. Tag: “..This takes up two tag slots.” Marking it as “Tag (2)” would make the increased cost clearer Master table of morph aspects needed p.66 Typo: “sometone”