Running the Game: 5 Martian Plot Hooks
Submitted by jackgraham on
Here are some Martian plot hooks I would have crammed into Sunward if Rob had let me ramble on for even longer...
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Gamemastering
Here are some Martian plot hooks I would have crammed into Sunward if Rob had let me ramble on for even longer...Running the Game: What's a Red Market?
Submitted by jackgraham on
Brian G. asked this question on our Facebook page: "The 'Glory' adventure refers to one of the NPCs as part of the 'red
market' dealing in 'red tech.' I can't find an explanation of what that
means. Is it just 'black market' dealing in 'illegal tech,' or
something more specific?" Since red markets are kind of a sci-fi concept (one for which you won't find a Wikipedia entry), I thought an explanation might be helpful... Thanks to Rob for input on this post.
Sort of. It's a concept that doesn't have a lot of useful real-world referents.
Red markets are basically what black markets turn into when they don't have to hide from governments anymore. The economy that characters in anarchist space are taking part in when they use Guanxi networks to get goods & services tends to be a red market.
In a red market, exchange of goods is mediated & regulated by violence and/or the threat of violence. It's sort of the ultimate buyer beware situation; your only guarantee of a fair exchange is your ability to smite the seller if they screw you over. Black and gray markets basically work
Sort of. It's a concept that doesn't have a lot of useful real-world referents.
Red markets are basically what black markets turn into when they don't have to hide from governments anymore. The economy that characters in anarchist space are taking part in when they use Guanxi networks to get goods & services tends to be a red market.
In a red market, exchange of goods is mediated & regulated by violence and/or the threat of violence. It's sort of the ultimate buyer beware situation; your only guarantee of a fair exchange is your ability to smite the seller if they screw you over. Black and gray markets basically work
Running the Game: Identifying & Analyzing TITAN Artifacts
Submitted by jackgraham on
Here's the second in a series on running Eclipse Phase. Advice here is based on our experience running our own EP campaigns
and shouldn't be taken as a canonical interpretation of the rules.
Hopefully it will be helpful to GMs feeling their way around situations
that the rules don't yet cover in detail.
Someone on the forums asked how one identifies TITAN technology. How difficult you want to make it to identify and work with TITAN technology will depend a lot upon your players. Some TITAN tech might look quite innocuous to someone who doesn't know what they're dealing with -- part of the reason it can be so dangerous.
Here are some ideas to try on, though:
Someone on the forums asked how one identifies TITAN technology. How difficult you want to make it to identify and work with TITAN technology will depend a lot upon your players. Some TITAN tech might look quite innocuous to someone who doesn't know what they're dealing with -- part of the reason it can be so dangerous.
Here are some ideas to try on, though:
- Appearance. Can be weirdly designed, mindbendingly difficult just to look at (a la the Pandora gates), or other wise alien-looking.
- Composition. Unusual chemical composition, advanced materials, novel crystalline structures, etc. can clue science-oriented characters in to the fact that they're dealing with something beyond H+ technology.
Get Your Stealth On (or, How Can My Firewall Team Sneak up on the Enemy Habitat?)
Submitted by jackgraham on
Here's the first of what will hopefully be many posts on running Eclipse Phase. Advice here is based on our experience running our own EP campaigns and shouldn't be taken as a canonical interpretation of the rules. Hopefully it will be helpful to GMs feeling their way around situations that the rules don't yet cover in detail.
This post started as a reply to a discussion in the forums about the role of spacecraft in covert operations. As my reply got more detailed, I decided it might merit a blog entry.
The problem posed, broadly, was whether it's possible to sneak up on a ship or hab in space. How would a Firewall team go about boarding and infiltrating a habitat or spaceship if egocasting in and getting resleeved weren't an option? And if their target were an asteroid or moon, would it be possible to do an orbital insertion undetected? I'll save discussion of how one boards a habitat or ship for another time and concentrate here on the issue of sneaking up on things over the vast distances of space.
Detection Methods
This post started as a reply to a discussion in the forums about the role of spacecraft in covert operations. As my reply got more detailed, I decided it might merit a blog entry.
The problem posed, broadly, was whether it's possible to sneak up on a ship or hab in space. How would a Firewall team go about boarding and infiltrating a habitat or spaceship if egocasting in and getting resleeved weren't an option? And if their target were an asteroid or moon, would it be possible to do an orbital insertion undetected? I'll save discussion of how one boards a habitat or ship for another time and concentrate here on the issue of sneaking up on things over the vast distances of space.
Detection Methods
