There is a lot missing to help a new player/GM. There is equipment listed on the character sheets but no information about what they do except for a handful that automatically integrated into their stats. Things that don't directly apply to the adventure, but players would probably ask about and if they can use it. For example many NPC's and Characters have the Mnemonics ware. I have no idea what that does and it's never explained. Many items of equipment/ware are like that with no description. A bigger problem are the morphs a lot of the NPC's are in. What is a "Security Pod" morph and what does it look like, same for a "Dragonfly"...etc, etc. There should probably be an extra page or two of very brief equipment/morph introduction to give some footing on exactly what these things are and what they do. Especially if this QS is handed out by itself without the rest of the books. To run this thing I'd need to core rule book for sure as somebody just getting into EP! EDIT: After reading, that sounded a bit too harsh. Overall I think it's a solid QuickStart and I do wanna see how my players handle it when I run it for them.

GRAAK wrote:

All those subrules regarding superior success and critical success should be trimmed down and optimized imo. I come from 1st edition but felt overwhelmed nonetheless :-/ are those subrules necessary?

I think it's a pretty neat way to replace Measure of Success / Measure of Failure, but I mean it will take a little getting used to (I will need to keep a little chart handy for players - maybe some space on their character sheet / a good opportunity for more of the "playing card" style supplements / etc) I really liked the "What is Eclipse Phase" intro - I hope that is word-for-word something which will be in the core book for 2E I'm definitely going to have to chime in again later after running the adventure :)

I'm OK with getting a less binary result, but so far I've always managed this matter from a narrative perspective, without mechanical effects or rare mechanical effects decided with common sense. It seems to me that all those options are another addition to a system that already has MANY sub-rules and options. 2nd edition definitely gets rid of some crunchiness (resleeving, hacking, wounds side-effects) but substitute those limited (in gameplay) cruchy bits with new ubiquitous crunchiness (the new sub-rules potentially affect every roll during gameplay!). Concerning hacking: some of the homemade player aids regarding hacking (I recall a flowchart) were really useful to clarify how hacking worked in 1st edition. I prefer that kind of sub-rules I have to remember once during a gaming session than a sub-rule I have to remember every roll, and that potentially could affect meta-game... In the end I think I'll play a mix of the 2 editions... I'm reading the adventure atm. So far: great premise! I really hope to read more adventures for 2nd edition! EP is not an easy setting to grasp, pre-made scenarios are a boon to help GMs and players to get into the setting.

Regarding sudden-death syndromes in various EP adventures, should the Quickstart Rules talk about what it takes to get a resleeve (possibly from backup) ? A simple "It counts as your Major Favor" should be sufficient, as long as it's in a place where players will be able to see it. I guess the sample characters are just assumed they'll resleeve into the *same* morph, or at least one known to their party.

Another thing I noticed, there doesn't seem to be an indicated. There doesn't seem to be any indication of magazine capacity.

ubik2 wrote:

It is mentioned for the two railgun pistols, but not the assault rifle. It may have been accidentally left out, since the notes field has the comment about it being 2 handed instead. It's also showing 10 more damage than the June version, so perhaps they replaced armor piercing with the significant damage bump. I'm guessing this is an error, though. I'm guessing ammo limits were left off, since they're not critical when running a one shot.

Too bad, I was hoping to see if they were going to stick with the old ammo system or not.

How on earth am I supposed to pronounce "Bves"???

Are we ever going to get clarification about how burst weapons ie seekers interact with the fray/defense rules?

Grim G wrote:

HOW THE FUCK DOES A Q MAKE A CH SOUND?!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin see section: "Rules given in terms of English pronunciation" so history, romanization, linguistics?

There is a lot of consonant sounds in Mandarin, so choices were made. Also, "Q" has been used for veeeery different sounds across the ages in different languages.

This seems like a huge tangent to me.

Shambleau wrote:

There is a lot of consonant sounds in Mandarin, so choices were made. Also, "Q" has been used for veeeery different sounds across the ages in different languages.

clubspecialbee wrote:

as far as i can gather, the chinese government requested a romanization of its languages in the 1950s, ostensibly to make communication with the english-speaking world easier. The only name I can find is Zhou Youguang, though he claimed to be the "son" of Pinyin, not the "father". In practical terms, apparently there are two very similar sounds in Cantonese/Mandarin/etc that sound nearly identical to non-native speakers but with a subtle difference in tongue placement during pronunciation. [ch] represents one and [q] the other.

I envy the factors. They don't have to worry about pronouncing something wrong. How the chinese do it is a mystery that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Spoilers :)

GRAAK wrote:

Brute Force hacking is -30? Wasn't it +30 back in the 1st ed days?

The intent is to make brute-force hacking applicable within combat. It can be done immediately, by throwing a kitchen sink full of common exploits at the target, but we're running with the idea that it is less effective and noisier. Probing takes longer, outside of combat, but doesn't have the negative mod.

GRAAK wrote:

BTW, is hacking that simplified compared to 1st edition? Or are those condensed rules made for the Quickstart?

Those are condensed rules for the QSR.

Did you intend to ask a question there, Leetsepeak ?

Quote:

The intent is to make brute-force hacking applicable within combat. It can be done immediately, by throwing a kitchen sink full of common exploits at the target, but we're running with the idea that it is less effective and noisier. Probing takes longer, outside of combat, but doesn't have the negative mod.

I like this a lot. Turning it from "harder but faster" to "easier, faster, but wayyyyyy noisier" makes a lot of sense both thematically and from a real-world infosec perspective.

Going to be running Acrimony in a few days, as part of a group new to EP, and there's a few things I can't find, perhaps because I'm simply not familiar enough to realise what the QSR says. I figured I should ask about them now to try and clear things up. To start with, there are two biomorphs, and they are headed to a hab with many tunnels opening into vacuum with no way to protect themselves. From the wiki many people in such habs have vacsuits, and so even with limited fabrication on Kongyùn I'd assume the players can get their hands on them. Unfortunately I don't see any note of how much, if any, credits they have. Two characters (neither of the biomorphs, oddly) have c-rep, one of the two reps that can be used on the station (the other being g-rep, which no-one has even though the book says you could use it to get Chen to send someone to help you), so they *might* be able to get a pair of vacsuits using both of their Moderate favours. It seems odd that they all have @-rep in a mission wherein they can't use it. Same with two of them having r-rep. I suppose they might be able to use it when talking to Dr. Ju Guo, and Chi v2 could maybe use f-rep with Jade if it wasn't for the whole thing with Chi v1 and Jade. It doesn't seem like a good introduction to Rep when only two of them have Rep they can use, for the most part, and since they have no money (though they all have Anonymous Accounts) they can't actually... buy or acquire anything unless they steal it or convince someone to give it to them outside the bounds of the Rep system. That three of them have Makers they can't do anything with seems a little odd, but I suppose they could decide to eat on the ship. That also brings me to weapons though. For new players it looks like there's only one way to get the two weapons they have on the asteroid: have Amal carry them, with a Infiltrate roll of 60-30=30. Not sure if he needs to roll for both guns but it seems very likely they could end the game very early if caught, or be left with only the pistol from the firewall stash and Amal's metal limbs to take on ten well armed soldiers with 35 DUR each while being hacked right after being blown up. It doesn't seem much better if they have their other weapons though, to be honest. What am I missing here? I hope to guide my players to solutions, if there are any, but other than getting really lucky with an unfamiliar system I'm not seeing how they can get past that stage with any reliability. Is that the intent? Edit: I also can't see where the ammo is listed. Is it just not tracked for the QSR? I'm assuming that is the case since the playtest rules list them in the Actions and Combat section. Another instance of not being as familiar with the source material as I'd like; where is Njal meant to actually be? I thought for a while that he was meant to be in Amal's frame but it turned out I'd gotten Puppet Sock and the Ghostrider Module mixed up, and while Njal may be able to try to control Amal he'd still need to actually be there to attempt it. It looks like he can use the Gnat Bots to great effect though, thanks to Panopticon, but I just don't see where he's meant to actually be. I'm also a little worried how much he'll actually be able to do during the fight above, given the penalty to brute force hacking (-30) makes it unlikely he'll be able to pull of the stunts Best intends to, unless the player decides to see if they can turn off Bves' Oxygen Reserve or something, which I don't think Bves would care about due to forks. The book also mentions there are meant to be extra characters available on http://eclipsephase.com/qsr but that just leads to the QSR download. Where are the other characters located? Are they just not made yet? My group may surprise me and avoid combat entirely, but given this will be their first experience with the system I'm not sure how likely that is. Thanks to anyone who can help explain things to me.

Quote:

>To start with, there are two biomorphs, and they are headed to a hab with many tunnels opening into vacuum with no way to protect themselves.

My team ended up pulling in some C-rep favors with one of the local Fa Jing workers who gave them access codes to a supply locker in the tunnels. Had a few suits, two oxygen candles, and some repair spray. Seems like that kind of safety gear wouldn't be uncommon for a mining colony, though they had to go on faith through some of the tunnels before they made their way to the locker and could suit up safely. I, too, gave one of the characters a ghostrider module just to smooth things out.

Thanks for all the ideas. I think I'll take a few of these and see how they go. I noticed that the players get told they have two hours till the ship leaves, so I might let them do a little shopping somewhere the pregens @-rep can be put to use. Beyond that, I saw a EP1 optional rule that i-rep could be used anywhere, and while they all have pitiful i-rep, that and c-rep should give them plenty of chances to get some space suitable gear. We'll just have to see how the fighting goes if it comes to that. I do like the idea of using more synths than biomorphs if there's a difference like that, but we'll just see how it goes. Maybe they'll get into a fight beforehand and I'll base it on that. Maybe they won't smuggle things in and will try to avoid fighting. We'll find out in a few days. For Njal, I think I'll have him be running off of the ship since he's a pilot and the ship has no other crew, and let the players drop some cheap/free spimes just to handwave Njal being able to contact them in the mines. It seems the miners did some stuff like that in the major mines anyway, so they may be able to piggyback off of those sometimes too. I appreciate all the help. Fingers crossed the game goes well.

Regarding Svava... Actually they had Psi in the GenCon version of Acrimony. :)

So my comments are predominantly negative/things I think you should change, but I really do like this a LOT. The reason I've focused on problems and things I have questions about is because I think that will be more useful to you for editing. Actions and Time The rules on how many actions you can take have confused some people. Here's a suggestion for simplifying them and the movement rules a little: Make regular movement a quick action and full movement a complex action. That way no one will think you can have “unlimited” movement in a turn. You also don't have to worry about remembering or looking up all the modifiers due to full movement—it's got a penalty built in. Under Using Moxie: Didn't understand what refresh rep network favors meant. Later, after reading the rep rules, I think you need to change this to reflect the terms used in the rep rules. Something like "Refreshing a minor favor costs one point of Moxie, refreshing a moderate favor costs 2 points, and refreshing a major favor costs three points." (if that's correct) I think using Pools for Morphs is a really good move. This takes care of a serious problem with the 1st edition: having to recalculate skills every time you sleeve a new morph. Character creation was also very difficult in 1st edition, and using pools should streamline that a lot. You no longer have to juggle numbers in your head, trying to figure out if your attributes are too high or too low for the morph you want, given your background, etc. Opposed Tests You didn't say what happens if one person criticals but the other doesn't. Would that trump a higher roll? Do the superior success rules count with Opposed Tests, and if so, if both parties score a superior success, but one person rolls higher, do the superior successes cancel each other out? (This might be another good reason to do away with superior successes—explaining these options might be beyond the scope of the Quick Start.) Initiative I'm not crazy about rolling for initiative, and (Intuition + Reflexes)/5 is going to result in a lot of people with the same initiative after rounding (usually going to be between 4 and 8, right? Not a lot of variation there). What if you just said initiative is the average of Intuition and Reflexes? And don't roll for it? Would that break anything? That would give you numbers between 10 and 40, a little more range. And initiative would look more like other attributes. And you would simplify game play a little—no rolling for initiative, just go in order. Players with low initiative scores still have the option to go first by paying Vigor. Of course, changing this may break other parts of the game, like wound modifiers to initiative. So keep that in mind. Resolving Combat “Attacker Critical Success: If the attacker hits with a critical, the defender’s Armor Value is halved or damage is doubled.” When do you choose which option? It's always going to be better for the attacker if damage is doubled, so to reduce the number of arguments, I'd suggest you just say damage is doubled. “Defender Superior/Critical Fail: Ignored. Getting hit is bad enough.” What, no fumble table? Aw, man, I love those things. Seriously, making exceptions to the critical rules for different skills or contexts unnecessarily complicates the game and might lead to people who aren't as familiar with the rules (read, players) feeling like they're being scammed when the GM says, “Oh, but that isn't used in combat.” One way to make this more universal would be to say that superior and critical fails aren't used in any opposed contests. Not sure I'm advocating that, but it's an idea. You didn't include what happens if the Defender has a Superior or Critical Success. Does a Defender's Critical Success trump an Attacker's higher roll? Does a Defender's Superior Success cancel out an Attacker's Superior Success? If you don't clarify this, it's going to result in a lot of homebrew rules and therefore arguments at the table. Step 7: Apply Armor “Both critical hits and armor-piercing attacks will reduce the AV by half. A critical armor-piercing attack will reduce the AV to 0.” ...unless the critical hit doubles the damage? Or does the type of ammo determine whether a critical success will reduce the AV or double the damage? This seems overly complex to me, doesn't seem to add any realism or fun to the game, and is another vote for saying criticals just double damage, period. If changed, this needs to be changed in the Combat Summary table on page 9, Step 7: Apply Armor on page 8, and under Criticals on page 5. I do like the fact that armor-piercing ammo cuts the AV in half. That's a nice simplication from 1st edition. It's reasonable and easy to remember. Combat Modifiers Table Called shot at -10 seems like it ought to be at least -20, maybe -30, depending on what you're calling. A head shot is much harder than aiming for dead center of the body. Using off-hand seems ike it ought to be -30, but maybe transhumans are more ambidextrous than me. I presume that the Blind Attacks row means that it's -30 or 50% chance, whichever is lowest. Ranged Combat Semi-Automatic (SA): Suggest you tell us how many shots per round someone can take in SA mode. Full-Automatic (FA): Last sentence: “In the case of two adjacent targets, make a single attack test against all three.” I think you mean “In the case of two or three adjacent targets, make a single attack test against all of the targets.” Ranged Combat Modifiers Why would an attacker behind cover get a -10 modifier? I could maybe see this if they're firing around a corner or ducking down a lot, but in a kneeling position behind a wall seems like it shouldn't affect your aim. Is an attacker ever going to be in a situation where they're not using a Smartlink or Laser Sight? This seems like something that would never come up, or come up so rarely that no one would remember the rule, so maybe it could be done away with. Point blank modifier seems like it ought to be more than +10, but I don't feel strongly about this. Terminology The definition of Fa Jing may confuse some people not familiar with the setting (who are the only people who need this table). It's not clear if Fa Jing is a particular conglomerate or if it is a word that means “conglomerate.” Not sure how to rewrite to clarify. (Compare with the definition of triad, which seems more generic, unless I'm wrong.) Mesh: Is there more than one mesh? Like, is there a Mars mesh and a separate Jovian Republic mesh, etc.? This definition makes it sound like there is only one solar-systemwide mesh. TITAN: suggest you put an s on the end of TITANS so it's parallel with the definition and not confused with the moon of Saturn. Movement: See notes above under Action and Time Reputation: Using Rep Scores: “You may use your rep scores to acquire information, gear, or favors from others in the social network. To do so requires time and an appropriate favor.” This makes it sound like you have to do someone a favor to get a favor. Whether that's correct or not, I'd clarify this somehow. Does it mean, “You have to perform a comparable type favor (trivial, minor, moderate, or major) for the network”? Or does it just refer to the limits below, in which case I'd just say, “To do so requires time” because the rest of the limits are clear. Would be good if you gave some indication how much time was required. Typos Page 4, 2nd column, under Detail: Need a space in orfalse. Page 6, 2nd column, under Skills, 2nd line: eack should be each. Page 7, 1st column, under Using Pools, next to last line in 1st paragraph: my should be may. Page 10, Using the Mesh, 2nd line: Real picky, but that comma should be a semicolon or a period and start a new sentence. Page 11, 2nd column, Reputation, 1st line: Everey should be Every.

Ael Wyn, to answer a few of your questions... It's defined in one of the playtest pdfs that a superior result wins against a higher roll, and a critical succeeds against both. Likewise, an action can only be a critical OR superior success/failure, not both. Yes, you're going to have some sort of special result most of the time at extreme scores like 80 or 19... but that's kinda the point. You're either a master in this field with an 80, or completely unskilled at 19. Go figure that with the former, more often than not they're not just going to succeed, but do so better than a normal individual. Likewise that an unskilled person is not just likely to fail, but to completely fuck up. Lastly, superior results are not particularly strong. At high/low skill levels they are basically your normal result, and the benefits are likewise minor. If someone really wants to work out whether spending a pool point will take it from a normal success to a superior one, they can do so, but I imagine most of the time there's better uses for the points. Only having a +10 modifier at point blank assumes your target is trying to defend themselves and isn't helpless. It's not quite holding your gun to their head. Also, there's a bit of a delicate balance between point blank modifiers and attacker in melee penalties. Melee weapons are bad enough as it is without making it even easier to hit someone in range. As for rep networks, saying that it takes time isn't quite accurate. That's much like saying "You can take an extra action in combat, but it takes time." Technically accurate, but it costs a Vigor, much like using rep costs a favor. In both cases, you can have more than one of them (Minor favors can be used 3 times a week), and they recharge based on certain rules. You can even use a moxie to refresh a favor if you so choose. As for "Will I have to do a favor for them later", the assumption is you've already done a favor for them. That's what your rep score is, it's an abstraction that says you've done things to help this faction in the past. Maybe it's favors you did for them in the past, maybe you donate goods and services to them, maybe you're a friendly fellow that always helps cheer them up. It's also implied that this is an ongoing thing, a reputation is something you maintain. It can be assumed that during your downtime your character is likely doing things to help the networks they have a rep score in. When your favors refresh, the idea is that you've done enough to repay them, or enough time has passed that you don't sound like a leech asking again, or you're just so darn likeable that they're willing to help some more.

eaton wrote:

In scenarios where there's sparse cover, it makes "run 10m, fire on full auto, run another 10m to get behind cover" a net +10 to the base kinetic weapons score, and… that feels fairly weird.

How did you get that? I'm reading that as a -20 modifier because the character is running, maybe -30 if the defender is behind the sparse cover.

Quote:

In the scenarios I've run recently I houserule'd it as: * You get unlimited 'free' actions, one 'quick' action, and one 'complex' action each turn. * Your regular movement, "distracted perception," short communications via tacnet or speech, etc are free actions. * Aiming, going prone, getting up from prone, and using your *full* movement are quick actions. * Shooting, interacting with complicated items, reloading a weapon, etc are complex actions. People seemed to catch the tradeoffs pretty quickly, in particular the fact that they wouldn't be able to get aiming bonuses or go prone/rise from prone and use their full movement in the same turn. It does still allow them to run-and-gun pretty aggressively, but it's much harder to boost your accuracy or avoid return fire.

I like that.