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Which Background to choose

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GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture
Which Background to choose
I have the character idea of a re-instantiated uplift but... well which background would this confer? It's a question that came up often with my players, since what would you do if you are a scumborn infolife etc etc? How do you choose which background has to be taken? The one with more impact?
Jason Jason's picture
Re: Which Background to choose
I inferred from the rules that the default Background for uplifts would be Uplift, regardless of the other details of their personal history, as this does imply other guidelines the player would have to follow (e.g., being in an uplift morph). The rules do point out that your background is "where you came from, not who you are now." That said, if I were running a campaign and one of my players came up with a detailed character concept, I'd probably let that player mix and match advantages/disadvantages between those backgrounds. (For instance, an uplifted octopus who was re-instantiated in a transhuman morph to hide from her criminal history would get the skills from the Uplift background, but the disadvantages from the Re-instantiated background, including zero credits and memory editing, to reflect the life she left behind.)
Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Which Background to choose
I would go with whichever background fits best with what you want to be doing. If re-instated fits better than uplift I wouldn't see a problem. But I would be careful with mix matching different background advantages with background disadvantages from another for the simple reason that the backgrounds might be internally consistent with it's own description but not cross consistent with the others. In doing that you might end up either shafting the system (by not having enough disadvantages) or shafting yourself (by having too many disadvantages). Then again this is totally up to the gamemaster and also depends on how much gravy (extra CP/rez during character creation) the GM gives for things like background, extra resources and pictures, keeping an in character diary...things like that. The more gravy a GM gives the less problematic an initial unbalance is. In the end what is truly important is having a character that both the GM and the player feels is representative of what they want.
valen valen's picture
Re: Which Background to choose
I like to keep things simple and would require you to pick one background that most fits. In mind being an uplift would be far more important then reinstaniated. Just add edited memories to your character represent that portion of you background.
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Which Background to choose
The Core Rulebook does suggest that you should feel free to make your own Backgrounds/Factions with your GM, so honestly I wouldn't feel to bad as a GM to let my players mix and match things, as long as I got final say on what goes. EP is not that difficult a game to balance, the broken things are fairly obvious after one or two read throughs.
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