Skie wrote:

4)If I wanted to sell it to players, is it a bit like Dark Heresy? Members of secret organization being sent for missions etc.?

I would describe it as flexible. The setting has enough content where you can take things in a very different direction. Don't like the idea of being a member of a secret organization trying to keep transhumanity alive, then do something else. You can make a campaign about traveling through the pandora gates (stargates), or being a member of a Jovian task force that seeks to prevent the destruction of humanity from frankanstien freaks, or being a member of the Barsoon movement that despises the hypercorps that took control over Mars away from them. The various books have provided much material so you have a good idea of how a lot of it works. The gatecrashing book for instance has covered what they do the first time they dial a new world and why. Keep in mind that while Firewall gets a lot of focus, it is only a small piece of the game. There are a lot of other organizations out there and a lot of powerful people. The balance of power isn't always symmetrical. Every faction doesn't always get an equal and opposing faction. The Hypercorps are powerful but there are many who don't like them, even those who are similar to them in many ways. The soul thieves (those who steal copies of people's minds) are despised by everyone. Firewall isn't the only secret organization, but many of the other ones are more localized and serve local interests.

Skie wrote:

5) Perhaps the most important question: in a review I read that all the players must be really convinced to the whole transhumanizm concept, body changing and all (and I love these). That they really have to do some work on their side of the table as well, realising these themes. Would you confirm it?

I'm not sure if this is a big deal. There are places where there are people are trying to fight being pushed and pulled into a dark scary future, like the Jovians. They make a big deal fighting to protect the remaining survivors of humanity, by providing a safe haven from the obvious monsters and from those who would seduce others into "killing themselves" with offers of immortality and better bodies. If your players don't like being part of transhumanity, they can certainly play the game as people trying to fight it.

Skie wrote:

6)With all the extra sourcebooks out, which would you recommend as a must/real help?

Depends a lot on what parts of the game you intend to use. Panopticon helps a lot with understanding how habitats and society works. Gatecrashing covers how the gate organizations work, what people tend to do beyond the gates, and what many of the worlds are like. Transhuman pushes the envelope of what it means to be transhuman further, expanding rules for infomorph (their equivalent of morphs are called Eidolons), flexbots, swarmanoid, and even pushing the limits of merging forks. It is pushed to the point where even 2 very different people can be merged even though the tech isn't ready for the job (expect disastrous results most of the time). Sunward and Rimward cover the inner and outer system of the solar system.

I call it "Delta Green in Space with Transhumanism," which confuses some folks, then clarify "90% Futurama, 9% deadspace" with a lot of hidden philosophy quandaries. I have a few players who won't even bother with the game because they are biocons and are strident opponents to anything resembling digitization of the human mind, or uploading, etc. So your players need to be at least NEUTRAL on the topics of Transhumanism or its a non-starter. Sure, they can play psychopathic "poly-"theists but heaven forbid they roleplay in a world with uploaded minds.

Its a what now? A setting book? But "The Stars Our Destination" sounds like a good adventure name. If I didn't know that then maybe I should go read it now. It doesn't look like it'll take me long.

Best and worst thing about the mechanics for me is the same: the percentile. It's easy to calculate and roll, but it means that, in unopposed rolls, generally players have no incentive to make characters try to do things that they're not over 50 at. As for the setting, the best thing is the breadth of what's going on. While the metaplot is structured towards a conspiracy horror, the far future of man (& etc.) is detailed far beyond what you need to do just that. If you want a straightforward sci-fi adventure, you can do it. Detective story with a futuristic twist? Sure. Spy drama or military action? Included. And you can do all of those things without having to force dark conspiracies or Lovecraftian horrors on your players. The worst thing for me about the setting is that, for all the detail about life post-Fall, some economic things about the scenario are left frustratingly vague. If Firewall or some other group is providing your food, equipment, and express orders, then this isn't important, but if your players are independent contractors (or have their own corporation) and like to sandbox a little, you have to invent a lot of corporate/"international transactions" law to make things work.

Skie wrote:

Unfortunately, my players are not so much into sci-fi - they just like playing RPGs, they are busy and can't spend a lot of time reading about the setting etc. And as uwtartarus pointed out above, there might be a "moral" issue - I think I'll have to probe them first about their approach to transhumanism etc. And start with an introadventure...

Hmm... You might want to ask them how they feel about a game that allows the following: -How do they feel about having their mind moved from one body to another? -How do they feel about having backups of their mind so if they die, someone can load up a backup? -How do they feel about having multiple copies of themselves running around? -How do they feel about having implants allow them to access the internet with a mere thought? -How do they feel about having an AI assistant in their head? -How do they feel about being a digital lifeform, or residing in bodies that are not humanoid? -How do they feel about allowing characters to change race and gender by changing bodies? -How do they feel about changing their minds with psychosurgery, to fix minor problems or to become someone else? I tried to order the list from least offensive at the top to more offensive at the bottom. Feel free to change the order if you think it works better. Try to ask those questions one at a time. You are trying to sense how far you can go, and which directions you can go, not bombard with the whole setting in one go. You might want to skip over possible evils, like stealing egos and putting them in a torture simulation, as that is probably a moral line you don't want to cross when you are probing. Also note that some of those things can be hand waved out any game you play. You could disallow psychosurgery, get rid of mesh inserts and muses, and assume all morphs are humanoid without wrecking the setting. Some adjustments would need to be made but they don't seem to be critical. You could remove the Scum and replace them with another group if the players doesn't like people who like do taboo stuff. Mind uploading techs and backups are important to the setting so it is hard to do without out them. The rules are built in such a way that characters can easily be killed, so backups might be the only reason why players are not creating new characters every session. Your players might change their minds later, so a game might start out where mesh inserts and muses were removed, but later when they grow more accustomed to a high tech future, they might start asking about more gear like a computer in their heads or AI assistants. You could then add mesh inserts and muses back in and everyone pretends that they were always there.

Skie wrote:

But, continuing with my questions: What is the best thing and the worst about the game mechanics? What is the best thing and the worst about the setting?

The best of the rules? They pushed the envelope of what you can do with RPGs and transhuman rules. Before Eclipse Phase, I had an itch I couldn't scratch. Most RPGs I've read that dabbled in this stuff either did so in a shallow manner, or adopted the "cybernetics eats your soul" stance to augmentation. You had to give something up to get an advantage. It was hard to get ahead. It was hard to do anything but the same old. If there was an RPG that did what Eclipse Phase does before Eclipse Phase did, I clearly missed it. As for the worst? The D100 system doesn't appeal to me. It doesn't support the idea that characters can grow in ability to infinity in the same way that DnD 3rd edition did. It all has to fit into a 100 point system with bonuses and penalties unable to exceed +/- 60 points. Most field skills don't help either. The list is supposedly infinite but there are so few guidelines. Something that I found is, the skill themselves don't do a lot in explaining how to use them. Like, what is cool hunting and how you would turn that into a skill? Is it worth making into a skill? The field skills might only list the fields without explaining what they are. Instead, a number of other rules will say you need this skill do this and that skill to do that. It is hard to find them all and find the gaps. Best of the setting? The best is flexibility. This game is not a one trick pony. It can be turned into many things. You can ignore the default campaign and focus on a different faction or location. The material provides plenty of inspiration. I've already given a few examples of just that. It also pushes the envelope of what a RPG can do with Transhuman material. Most RPGs seem to assume that everyone is still going to be human in the 1000 years. The worst of the setting? I don't like the Grim Dark aspect of the setting. Transhumanity faced near extinction about a decade ago. Many transhumans are not sure if the TITANs are coming back to finish the job. Many wonder how far away transhumanity is from extinction. Those who fight existential threats in secret know how close extinction is and how easy it is to justify killing thousands or even millions. It is psychological horror game, something which can eat away at the hope that there can be a better tomorrow. Mind you, you need conflict for most games, but when physical death is no longer a big deal, there are few places left to go other than destroying your mind...

well just wrapped up continuity a couple hours ago. pretty fun. got my player's really paranoid about the environment. they did get stuck a little bit trying to figure out what to do next. I did the whole thing without a roll gm side :P

please do, we're constantly bored :p

Quote:

well just wrapped up continuity a couple hours ago. pretty fun. got my player's really paranoid about the environment. they did get stuck a little bit trying to figure out what to do next.

Yeah, that paranoia makes it essential to talk through the pros and cons and risks and rewards of using the mesh in *normal* areas like habitats and so on. I spent the next few sessions after Continuity reassuring my players that, no, they didn't need to set up line-of-sight laser pulse comm gear or use hardline tethers to stay in communication while walking through a large, secured habitat.

It could actually be pretty funny to introduce a group to Eclipse Phase by starting with a Paranoia campaign, and then transitioning to EP when they manage to break out of Alpha Complex (whereupon they discover that Alpha Complex is either a really disfunctional hab floating around somewhere, or worse actually is a bunker on post-Fall Earth that missed the whole thing because of how Friend Computer kept it isolated). Paranoia would even give them a relatively soft introduction to the concept of backups/resleeving, though the transition from Alpha Complex to, say, Extropia might be a little jarring. Of course there'd be the usual downsides of running a bait 'n switch like that, along with the problem that the starting scenario would basically force everyone to start as humans (though if everyone wants to roll humans anyway that point is moot).

Skie wrote:

1) How rules heavy is the game? I know that it is based on percentile rolls, but from what I've seen these can be modified by a LOT of things, is it a problem at your tables? Is it like with Shadowrun, where when you start adding/substracting all the changeable factors it takes a lot of time? ... 3)How does it scale, character-power wise? Yes, yes, I know, hold your spacehorses. It is not DnD etc. But from my experience most games are tested and work really well for beginning and mid-power characters, and after the gears begin to grind.

I'll answer these two at once, because in my mind they're interrelated. EP is nowhere near as complex as it looks – it all boils down to "roll as high as possible without exceeding X". Pretty much everything else is reflected in modifiers from -60 to +60, and that's it. A big chunk of the game (in my eyes) is having the players trying to get thier effective score to 100, and so long as you're "expecting" it it's pretty easy to control. "More powerful" characters simply have more flexibility with what they can do. This does mean you need to base your storyline/encounters of the idea of them succeeding on Rolls, but you still get to determine what that means – rolling well doesn't mean squat if they make the wrong decisions.

Skie wrote:

4)If I wanted to sell it to players, is it a bit like Dark Heresy? Members of secret organization being sent for missions etc.?

"Delta Green" meets Mass effect by way of "Saints Row 3 & 4". Or: Terminator, Robocop, and Ash from Evil Dead team up to fight Robo-Cthulhu. They are the last, best hope for humanity. Also, you can be a Psychic Poledancing Transformer. Seriously.

Skie wrote:

5) Perhaps the most important question: in a review I read that all the players must be really convinced to the whole transhumanizm concept, body changing and all (and I love these). That they really have to do some work on their side of the table as well, realising these themes. Would you confirm it?

Sort of! As your players are willing to accept that they "work" and are used commonly in the setting you should be fine. Even in the setting proper there are multiple points of view on the various technologies/philosophies involved. In my experience prospective players are a lot more accepting if it's clear that the characters in the game don't necessarily have any more answers tham they do. Imo EP is at it's best when you're showing both sides of the coin. It can also help to use a Fantasy equivalent – Resleeving becomes Druidic Reincarnation, infomorphs are Ghosts, that sort of thing.

Skie wrote:

6)With all the extra sourcebooks out, which would you recommend as a must/real help?

I recomend Transhuman, then Sunward, Rimward and Firewall.

Skie wrote:

But, continuing with my questions: What is the best thing and the worst about the game mechanics? What is the best thing and the worst about the setting?

Best thing about Mechanics: Flexibility. The basic system is really easy to get a grip on, but once you're comfortable there's a lot of things you can build upon or alter as you see necessary. Worst thing about Mechanics: Character Creation. Standard character creation is unholy monster that eats entheusiasm. For the love of Tungsten keep your players away from it until they're hooked – use pregens or the alternate versions in Transhuman instead. Also, the Gear section and Melee combat are a mess. They really need an overhaul, but this is more of an irritation than an actual problem. Best thing about Setting: Anything you want, you can include. You can run games of different genres and styles seamlessly, even flipping between them in a single campaign without breaking a sweat. Worst thing about Setting: The Faction writups are universally two-dimentional, at least at first glance. This is great for you making your own stuff, but terrible if you'Re trying to run it straight. There are usually details which give a bit more depth, but you have to actualy go looking for them. There are quite a few threads discussing this, if you're interested.

Skie wrote:

One more question: how smooth combat is? I'm reading the rules (granted, reading and playing - totally different things) and I see that each character's round involves 2 rolls (the char's and the opposed), plus rolling damage. If some PCs/NPCs have more than one action per round, or their action involves several rolls, and there are 5 players at the table and for example 5 opponents - those 3 sec. in-game rounds can stretch considerably. Yes or no? Is there a "minions" rule? I also noticed there no sample NPCs in the book, which is a major disadvantage for me. Is there a book with typical NPCs etc.? You know, sample scum, sample space pirates etc.

Combat is usually pretty quick because it's lethal as [Redacted]. Almost all ranged weapons can be fired twice as a single action, and have the potential to one-shot your average morph. Resleeving makes this less of a deal, but still. This also makes explicit Minion rules a bit redundant but there are definately ways to fill the role.

Skie wrote:

Yeah, after 10+ games we would know most of these, but while changing morphs is one of the game's pillars (or is it?)

Yeeees-ish. It's a defining element of the setting, but how much it comes up in play is entirely up to you and your group. If your campaign involves a lot of travel or a player really gets into it then yeah, but otherwise it shouldn't necessarily come up in play... unless one of the characters dies and needs a new body to if they're going to keep contributing, and then you're perfectly in your rights to give them either a shoddy version of the one they had or a basic model with no frills. One thing I will recommend is that you look at the "Spare" synthmorph – it's a good standby.

Skie wrote:

Is there a "minions" rule?

No. In a way the PCs are the "minions". Combat is lethal and it is possible to carry weapons that can cause serious harm even to a Reaper. Further more, the PCs are unlikely to have the home field advantage as they often have to be farcasted into a habitat and somehow have to get weapons without being stopped by the local police. On the other hand, their foes will likely would have had the time to collect and make gear, and even do the paper worked needed to legally own and use them. On those grounds, you shouldn't pick a fight with Direct Action. In a default Firewall campaign, the PCs are investigators, not trouble shooters. If they can report back about a problem, the conspiracy can deal with it, deal with it using the right amount of resources, and keep trying until it is dealt with. If the PCs get killed before reporting back, the conspiracy learned nothing, have the disappearance of the sentinels to look into, and possibly have a threat that can act or go into hiding without opposition while the conspiracy is still figuring out what has happened. The PCs should avoid fights. They should play unfair. They should fight smart. They should attack from surprise, set traps, pit enemies against each other (especially if they are better armed), etc. Be diplomatic. Most importantly, keep a low profile. Getting the local authorities or even a whole habitat turned against you is going to make you day very bad very fast.

Skie wrote:

I also noticed there no sample NPCs in the book, which is a major disadvantage for me. Is there a book with typical NPCs etc.? You know, sample scum, sample space pirates etc.

There is a source book for just NPCs. Unfortunately, there is no standard for determining what your average NPCs should be able to do. You could work around the problem if you keep in mind that skills of 40 is considered the professional level. Your mooks should have less than that, anyone who has recently came out of boot camp or a school should be at least 40, and anyone skilled should have more than that. You don't really need to generate NPC stats in advance if you have a general idea of what an NPC should be good at and what skills work well together. Generate the numbers as needed. In fact, you can skip skills if you opt to determine in advance that certain characters will automatically succeed or fail certain things (like find the information that the PCs are asking for), reserving skill tests for when there is any doubt to what the outcome will be.

Combat really depends on the enemies, but really leans towards all combats being dangerous. Definitely more cyberpunk than star wars. Cover is practically mandatory, and well kitted out combat characters are walking TPKs. I had a well built mercenary (Chimera from Chain Reaction, if you're curious) kill everyone in a 4 person party except the swarmanoid (who survived by splitting their swarm across multiple city blocks and having the survivors regroup at a pre-programmed location an hour later) in 3 action phases, so not even one full turn. They got caught in a poor spot, and lost initiative when they really needed it. That said, at longer ranges, and with more cover, combats can actually become fairly prolonged, as each side tries to get around the other side's cover land their killing blows. It feels kind of like XCOM, but sometimes with a lot more explosives. That said, my party is rather power game-y so there's a lot of reserved actions and interrupts being used, which I think lends to that feeling. The above near-TPK happened at less than 10 meters range in a single room, only one PC was in cover, and Chimera used their movement to get a flank, even a little cover would have made that take longer, and longer ranges almost always mean less damage being done, and easier access to cover. Minion rules are pretty easy to implement, just make characters who either need to take 2 hits to go down, or take a wound. Scale difficulty with wound threshold. Typically most people will stop being combat effective after their second wound, either due to penalties or low DUR, so that makes minions about half as tough as a normal low-end enemy. They don't exist by default though, and would still be a serious offensive threat, so having them swarm can still be really dangerous. If the PC's are special, it's because they're well geared combat specialists. Well geared NPC combat specialists will match them, and step all over less combative characters. As an example, poorly-kitted out combat characters, or not really combat characters tend to be some variation on "armed person like thing" with varying degrees of skill. (really) Well equipped combat characters are near-invisible walking and/or flying tanks with enough firepower to flatten a city block, haloed by a swarm of sensors feeding them 360 degrees of wall penetrating hyperspectral data, the reflexes to react to bullets as they travel (though not move a lot), and who've had their fear reflex, kill-stress, and sense of mercy psychosurgically removed. Mind you, that's probably 150k+ credits to pull that off, and a suitably brutal ego to pilot that machine, but the gulf is huge. They might be an uplifted killer whale even, as they make great fighters.

Skie wrote:

Another question: how smooth changing morphs is? For example during a game players come up with a plan that involves changing morphs (and they have access/money to do it). What follows is a 30 minute break when we read up on all the new implants etc. Yeah, after 10+ games we would know most of these, but while changing morphs is one of the game's pillars (or is it?) I'd like to know how you guys do it? Between games? Have cards with morphs and descriptions of involved implants ready?

It depends. Switching is pretty quick, depending on how many skills are morph adjusts, and how the characters note down skill totals. If you're actually rewriting all relevant skill totals when an aptitude changes it can take a while. You don't need to though, and the morph cards can help track that (Personally I write down intrinsic skill totals without morph mods, and do the math on the fly). Besides skill totals changing, it's basically 2 or 3 die rolls with a table to reference. That said, if you need to look up what everything does, that can slow the game down, but once you're familiar with the common mods it's pretty quick. The really slow part is if the players have a lot of customization options, as they can take a while to look through and pick out the stuff they want. Naturally, that doesn't always happen. A lot of the resleeves I've dealt with during play have been emergency body replacements, which tend to be sketchy stuff like running an infomorph on a Guardian Angel bot, or locally found morph, and those typically don't have a lot of customization choice.

Quote:

Wow, more great answers. One more question about combat: is there even a point in melee combat/unarmed combat skills?

Sure, but it depends on how it's treated. A character that's frequently getting into unexpected scrapes with street thugs, engaging in up close and personal wetwork with the element of surprise, etc? They can get a lot of mileage out of a combination of (say) Eelskin and a wasp knife loaded with some nasty paralyzing nanotoxins. One of the PCs in the game I run is a classic social operator, with loads of skills in deception/persuasion/kinesics/etc; she doesn't waste her time running and gunning, BUT she's got a 50 in 'exotic melee weapons: monowire garrote.' It's an easily concealable one-shot weapon that does an insane 3d10 damage with 8AP. Take someone off guard with it and you're almost certain to give a wound (or two) with one attack. She's even used "aimed attacks" to take off an NPC's head when she had the element of surprise. The big problem with melee combat is that barring exceptions like that, damage output is just never going to be as high as (say) a combat rifle loaded with armor piercing rounds fired on full auto. In addition, when dodging ranged weapons, a character only gets to use HALF of their Fray skill level. In melee combat, they get to use their full Fray. I think that's fitting in a modern/post-modern combat environment but it can take getting used to for anyone used to playing a "barbarian bruiser" in other systems.

Quote:

Enough about combat: what about hacking? I've skimmed the rules and it seems less vague that hacking in Star Wars (where wireless connection is or is not) but also less complicated than Shadowrun 4e.

Hacking is awesome in EP; COMBAT hacking takes a little more care. The big problem is that a lot of hacking tricks require an "intrusion" test to get access to a secure server, and that's at least 1-10 minutes. In combat time, that basically means sitting out of a fight. There's a great thread here: http://eclipsephase.com/combat-hacking-unprepared where the regulars on this forum helped me suss out what kind of things a combat hacker could do to be effective without having to engage in those time-consuming intrusion checks, and it's totally worth your time to read if you think it'll be an issue. For non-combat hacking, I whipped up a handy chart for my players that you might find useful: [img]http://i.imgur.com/UXLkV5B.png[/img]

I haven't done that because I like damage rolls, but the game gives every weapon a fixed damage value.

Going back for a sec, it's occured to me that there's absolutely a group that would fulfill the "Minion" design space - Drones/robots, Delta forks, Smart animals and Basic AI. They all have skills that cap around 40 (with some exceptions), and in-setting are largely disposable. More importantly, basic AI can't default on skills they don't have and most of them don't have Fray, so even if their durability/armour is comperable to normal NPCs they're going to go down fast.

DivineWrath wrote:

Average damage for a plasma rifle falls just short of what is needed to one shot a Case morph. You won't be turning Cases left and right into molten metal if you opt for average damage.

Actually they will, thanks to the Concentrated Fire rule - if a Beam weapon fireing Semi-Auto hits with it's first shot, the wielder can ignore the second shot to double the DV. In other words, the Plasma Rifle can be considered a single-shot weapon with a -8 AP dealing 6D10+40 damage, with an average damage of 73. Plasma rifles aren't so much firearms as portable artillery.