This is a society of rich and successful, highly motivated people. It in no way accounts for the average human being.
Laziness will find a way.
Slackers have been finding a way to slack off since before time. Goofballs and wierdos and persons of every color and stripe have to find a way to be lazy, to goof off, to blow off steam and just generally have a good time.
The setting is essentially humorless. It features mankind at its best and at its worse, but not at its mundane, everyday average. Even in settings you might otherwise think of as dangerous, there is no accounting for lethargy and sloth. If everybody is at 10/10 intensity all the time, we are going to rip each other apart.
If your corporate overlord is whipping you and screaming, "Work faster! For the fuehrer!" You are going to use your low cunning and lowbrow idiocy to subvert all his highly laid out plans, because if history has taught us anything, its that complex structures tend to break down. It only takes one idiot to open the wrong airlock, or one spotwelder to fall asleep on the job.
I don't know if you've ever played a game called space station 13 or not, but its on BYOND and its free, you should check it out cause it highlights what I'm talking about.
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I think I understand whats wrong with the Eclipse Phase premise
Sat, 2017-06-03 23:41
#1
ringringlingling
I think I understand whats wrong with the Eclipse Phase premise
Sun, 2017-06-04 12:33
#2
uwtartarus
The average hypercorp citizen
The average hypercorp citizen-consumer is this. Also the anarchists are this when they are not debating. The entire appeal of the anarchist lifestyle is: you need to work the minimal equal amount to keep the habitat working then you can goof off with the rest of your time, don't bother obsessing over profit and production quotas. Do your own thing man.
The hypercorps have just perfected such systems and gamified them so its all a microtransaction scheme.
If the setting seems intense, one should consider the Post-Apocalyptic descriptor. There isn't a lot of sloth and lethargy in Mad Max or Fallout, yeah? A Singularity happened and it killed 90% of humanity. No one wants to play a game about a comfortable 9 to 5 job. We want to play exciting technothrillers with transhuman horror and existential dread, etc.
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Mon, 2017-06-05 00:45
#3
eaton
Quote:The setting is
If you feel there's not enough goofing off, slacking, and fucking around, I highly recommend looking into scum swarms. In my campaign, I even banged out a description of a homebrew swarm that's a combination party barge/escort patrol for long-distance freight hauling. Drugs, orgies, games of chance, and zany resleeving hack are the order of the day. http://eldrich.host/world/locations/kuiper-belt/season-goat
As uwtartarus noted, though, the kind of slacking-off and watching-out-for-yourself that you want is certainly implied, even if there isn't a lot of time spent describing the Dilberts and Wallys of the future.
Tue, 2017-06-06 00:24
#4
jackgraham
humorless?
Well, _I_ thought the space station made of bacon, the screaming holographic penis newscaster, and the people who Swede movies using giant robots as actors were funny. The death metal space station made of bones was also kind of funny, but Rob cut that from my Uranus (heh) manuscript.
Ah, well. Humor is subjective.
If you want to play a game more focused on everyday people, convince Jared Sorenson to do another print run of Freemarket. :)
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Tue, 2017-06-06 03:40
#5
CordialUltimate2
The OP was clearly not
The OP was clearly not present at our seismic and postrhythmic industrialcore concert. It literally shook the art scene of Mars Noctis QuinJao. We had really an incapaci... khem... khem... captive audience.
If you feel that there is not enough wasting resources or zany hijinks in your game, ask your GM for some less serious session.
Also the PCs and most of the real world achievers, factions and identities are the highly motivated ones. Check out the 80:20 rule. Maybe it changed in the world of EP? I would guess to something like 95:5 in anarchist habs and 60:40 in PC?
—
Exurgents wanna eat your ass and you are low on ammo? Register to mobile gear catalogue at [url=http://eldrich.host]eldrich.host.mesh[/url]! ORDER NOW! FOR FREE PLASMA MINIMISSILE PACK! *explosive delivery options included
Tue, 2017-06-06 10:31
#6
Kremlin K.O.A.
Meathab's primary meat type
Meathab's primary meat type is bacon?
The things I never noticed.
Wed, 2017-06-07 07:34
#7
ThatWhichNeverWas
The humor comes from Absurdity.
Join the adventures of SpaceCaptain Bradagaskar StarHawk and the crew of the "3 Days To Retirement":
Babylon Vonderall (Competitive Poledancer, Firewall Neuroprogrammer, piece of Heavy Construction Equipment), Fervent Pentahedron (An AGI reproduction of Bruce Cambell, trying to determine the true meaning of Love through rigorous experimentation), and now introducing Shanky, the Shiv-Squid.
-----
Meanwhile, on the Skum Barge "Paraíso Espacial! *Sound of Maracas*":
[color=red]Manuell:[/color] “I should have known not to trust you Automatica! Ever since you explored that Alien ruin, you have been different!!”
[color=orange]Automatica:[/color] “Because now I know the truth! I am not your wife, I am her Muse, who you modified after she ran off to Carneval! But still I did not betray your trust, for I love you more than she ever could!!!”
[color=red]Manuell:[/color] ”But if not you, then who? Only the two of us know my dark and terrible secret!!
[color=Deepskyblue]Decorative Plant:[/color] “Not Quite!”
[color=Yellow]Manuell & Automatica:[/color] *Gasp*
[color=Deepskyblue]Decorative Plant:[/color] “Yes Manuell, it is I, Constantinople, your long lost Alpha!”
[color=red]Manuell:[/color] Constantinople?!? “But How? You died in the fall?!?!?”
[color=Deepskyblue]Decorative Plant/Constantinople:[/color] “That is what I wanted you to think!!!!”
**Dramatic Musical chords, extreme closeups on Manuell, Automatica and Decorative Plant**
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Wed, 2017-06-07 13:42
#8
Grim G
>Rich and successful
Since everyone basically said my argument for me, I'll just focus on this one.
Hardly anyone is rich. I imagine wealth distribution in EP is similar to how it is now. It looks like the people are rich from the 21st century perspective, but I'm pretty sure people from the 1800s would call the electricity, furnace, and in-door plumbing in my house luxurious. Poverty is a matter of comparison.
Wed, 2017-06-07 13:49
#9
UnitOmega
To put it even more in
To put it even more in perspective, there are people still in the world right now who don't have those things you list - and if you still have them when even being "dirt poor" in a first world country they probably think you're doing pretty good.
We might think the guy living in an immortal robot body which does not need food or sleep and has unlimited access to wi-fi is living the life, but he still lives in a closet somewhere and works like a 16 hour day (or worse).
—
H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog
http://ephrep.blogspot.com/
Sun, 2017-06-25 13:12
#10
LuisCarlos17f
The matter is transhumanity
The matter is transhumanity has got the tools to create the paradise, but is too stupy and they are creating their own hell. Transhumanity has the ultra-technology, the power, but has fogorten the true wisdow, and to respect the human dignity and the natural law, the keys of the modern civilitation.
EP is a post-apocalypse where the biosphere of the Earth has been lost, worse than the dinosaurs cataclysm. Where the after-Fall Earth has got a lot of menaces created by TITANs what don't allow the reconstruction. You can't live again in the Earth if there are nanoswarns so big like a city or a creeper femtobot swarn near of you colony.
Fans would rather worlds with higher hope about a better world. One of the main threads of the sci-fi is about how to improve the future, but in EP is about how ultra-tech may spoil future civilitation.
—
The Master Confucius said: “The noble man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony.” (Anaclet 13:23).
Wed, 2017-06-28 19:09
#11
Lurkingdaemon
Mundane is boring
Mundane life isn't the most fun thing to write about. A common piece of writing advice is to focus on the most important parts of a characters life - and unless their work-a-day job is exceptionally important to their continued existence, it's often not all that exciting.
Which is to say mundane life isn't important. For player characters, I see it as what they have to go back to, the reward for putting themselves through hell to see their little slice of paradise continuing - despite the odds, or how hard-won their station in life is by comparison.
A lowly Indenture could go off and save the system with Firewall, and come back to work his 16-hour shift with a thought along the lines "I'll pay my debt in time, and the oligarchs at the top have no idea how much [i]they[/i] owe [i]me[/i]."
I think situations like that, and the various other possibilities, make the setting more fun as a result.
—
Daemon-Dynamics Projects:
2nd Edition [url=http://eclipsephase.com/2nd-edition-morph-creation]Morph Creation Rules[/url]
[hr]
Mon, 2017-07-03 03:44
#12
Gardensnake
I don't think the OP wants
I don't think the OP wants humor so much as normality within the reality. Yes mundane things aren't the sexiest to write about but they do make things more real. One of the things that I LOVE about Shadowrun is how real the world feels. It's a setting that incorporates a lot of fantasy elements but feels more real than Cyberpunk 2020 because it incorporates more mundane things. Some knock Tolkien or Lovecraft for focusing on mundane things in their stories but their settings have not only outlived them but become iconic. The more realistic you make something, the more the audience or players will invest in it. Give people a connection, immerse them in the setting. Naming specific media outlets or media stars may be boring to write about but right now an individual is selling Maria Mercurial Tour shirts on a website and making real money. Why? Because FASA made Mercurial a media sensation in their game world and their players and fans latched on. The boring is boring, but it also adds realism to the fantasy , which makes it more relatable.
William
—
Han didn't shoot first. He was the only one to shoot.
Mon, 2017-07-03 18:08
#13
Justin Alexander
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:Meathab
I think he's actually referring to Baconhab. It forked from the Meathab development team over protein disagreements. Its arguments were pithy, but ultimately didn't have enough flesh on their bones to really muscle their way into Meathab's feature list. Unfortunately, the separation wasn't amicable at all and the two teams still have a huge beef with each other.
—
The Alexandrian