I see why Earth is banned...
Submitted by RobBoyle on
Here's another teaser for the core Eclipse Phase book. This fiction piece (PDF), written by Rob Boyle and Davidson Cole, starts the book off, setting the tone for the game. The artwork is by Rich Anderson.
Category:
Mon, 2009-08-03 16:10
#1
GregH
Looks good
Mon, 2009-08-03 16:15
#2
fourthson
Love it, love it! Kudos all
Love it, love it! Kudos all around, can't wait for more greatness! Unleash it.
Mon, 2009-08-03 18:51
#3
David J Prokopetz
RE: EP Core Book Preview: "Lack" Fiction Piece
Nifty.
Tiny nitpick, tho': the phrase is "to foot the bill". "To fit the bill" is a completely different idiom, meaning adequate or acceptable.
Mon, 2009-08-03 20:04
#4
GregH
As good as "Lack" is, it also
As good as "Lack" is, it also illustrates one of the big challenges, but one that if done well will pay great rewards, of EP... that being running adventures like the one we see here where characters can die, be "reloaded" and may not be aware of specific events that occured since their "save point". I know it's going to involve a lot of GM/Player fiat and such, but is there any notes in the sourcebook (or any from experiences playtesting EP) that you can give us as to how to handle occurances where a character may retroactively not know information they previously gained because that data was "not copied"?
Mon, 2009-08-03 20:28
#5
NiallNai
That was really good. I
That was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. A great deal of Richard K. Morgan inspiration.
Now please make the game available for pre-order. My money is just sitting there for you.
Tue, 2009-08-04 17:08
#6
GregH
What he says:) Need to get
What he says:) Need to get the "dead tree" version... don't want my computer to get any ideas looking at the pdf (look at what happened when they tried that at Kilimanjaro)!
Tue, 2009-08-04 22:35
#7
GregH
I also noted that the octopus
I also noted that the octopus got spared... relatively speaking. Do TITAN-spawned death machines show Mercurials the same, er, "intellectual interest" that they showed poor Sarlo? Or are Uplifts and AGI not considered for forced uploading?
Wed, 2009-08-05 15:00
#8
RobBoyle
The TITANs are generally
The TITANs are generally equal-opportunity uploaders :)
Sat, 2009-08-08 02:06
#9
Lars
"Lack" found lacking...
Can't wait for EP either. That said, I wasn't too impressed with the fiction piece. IMO it reads as a piece of Richard K Morgan fan-fic. Not that that is wrong. Just finished Broken Angels today.
I didn't like the casualness with which they were willing to lose their sleeves. I can appreciate it's part of the setting, but I don't hope my games will turn out that way. The characters won't remember the missions they do... Don't see much character development that way.
The last working space elevator just sitting there when either reclaimists or scavengers should have used it long ago also was a bit thin.
Sorry to sound so negative. I really can't wait for the game to come out. The fiction piece just didn't do it for me.
Mon, 2009-08-10 11:17
#10
Nojh
Awesome
Just wanted to let you know I very much enjoyed the story. The presentation of technology, transhumanity, and the atmosphere was enlightening and refreshing. I'm very much looking forward to the book!
Mon, 2009-08-10 11:29
#11
Nojh
I agree with most of your
I agree with most of your concerns, although I wouldn't call it a fan-fic. The story itself is not very indicative of how a roleplaying session would go. Imagine one character dicking over every other character, and then all the players have to pretend they didn't know it happened.
It /would/ however be an interesting dynamic if you (as the GM) sat down, say mid-way through a campaign, and said "Aaaand you all wake up in a re-sleeve facility." Heee. Maybe I'm just a little too mean to my players. You know that one of the characters dicked over the rest for personal gain, but the players and the characters don't know, and what they don't know can lead to some very interesting character development.
As for the last space elevator, that bothered me too. But if we give the story a bone and say that Sava's team is a highly trained specialist team with capabilities beyond the average transhuman that might be a member of the reclaimists or scavengers. It was also a point that the elevator's base facility was where the courier was, so there are likely other ways to Earth (Its mentioned that there are) but this was likely the most direct and safest route, that also allowed Sava to "betray" the corp.
Mon, 2009-08-10 12:44
#12
GregH
It would be an interesting
It would be an interesting challenge to play something like this though... I see potentially the same issue with "Gatecrashing", a character goes out and finds... something... that could have reprocussions later in-game but dies at that point and you want to keep it secret.
Best idea I've come up with is sort of a EP "Trillion Credit Squadron", running occasional one-shots where players generate one-shot characters on a budget that would create something "similar" to their character and near-identical or identical Ego scores. Who ARE they playing? Don't know... the Transhuman that dispatched this entity has taken great steps to conceal their data in the event that it should fail and be compromised. Then run the adventure... later on the results of such an adventure dovetail into the affairs of the mainstream player characters. "Aaaand you all wake up in a resleeve facility" is a great idea too:) As for the space elevator I can see it... but is it the only remaining access point to Earth? Or someone's previous effort to get down there for similar purposes (maybe with one leaving an engraved bone or two...) via re-purposing what was left of a badly damaged elevator earlier. And if so why?... maybe the data from the courier is now being put into a secure isolated drive that holds potentially devestating information certain clients should never see...