Hi all I am Introducing Eclipse Phase to a group of friends who have never played it before, We have gone through and made characters but we have not actually had our first session which will be this Saturday. Now all the players are comeing from a Cyberpunk/Shadowrun/Dark heresy background insofar as their RPGing is concerned and one issue that ALL of them have constantly brought is that the "combat Morphs" and combat augments dont seem to be much better then a normal baseline human, That sorta stopped me a little and I talked about how you learn to apply your strenghts and that is what somatics represents, however there response was to draw clear parallels between augmentation in Cyberpunk (old school 2020 cyberpunk) and Eclipse Phase in terms that Cyberpunk augments seemed to make a difference whereas Eclipse Phase Augments really didnt. Given that Im new to this sort of thing can anyone assist me in how to approach this new group? Given when I look through the augments you can purchase they dont seem to make one much better then a normal baseline human once you start rolling dice?
Is this simply my New GM naivete? are the augments really a lot better then shown? How should I approach this issue my players have with the "weak" augmentations that are in Eclipse Phase?
Thanks all for your help with a newbie GM and his group.
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Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
Thu, 2010-11-18 09:27
#1
Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
Thu, 2010-11-18 10:34
#2
Re: Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
Firstly, they're in the wrong mindset. EP is more like Call of Cthulhu than it is Shadowrun (muchless, CP2020!) They do need to understand that EP is not a simulationist game - the mechanics and fall of the dice are really secondary to the plot and character decisions. In EP, just about anything is possible, even reasonably so (and yes, the world is much more unstable as a result).
Focusing on the mechanics themselves - I'm not sure where they're getting this from. Implanted armor, for instance, has a very significant combat impact. Implanted senses even moreso. Yes, the benefit from getting implanted muscles is less than the benefit of being a fury (compared to a splicer), but that's a given - it's different technological paradigms. CP2020 and SR are rooted firmly in the grey revolution of cyberware. EP draws on both grey and the green revolution of bioengineering. In some areas, green tech simply outpaces grey. A smart player will adapt to it, and utilize both categories to their advantage.
Thu, 2010-11-18 13:15
#3
Re: Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
Also, have you explained what the average stats correspond to?
The average transhuman aptitude is around 15; average baseline humans (like you, I, and your players) are around 10 (EP core book, page 122, first paragraph of Aptitudes). Maybe, arguably, possibly a gold medalist Olympic athlete of 2010 has a somatics stat of 14 or 15, and a brilliant engineer or physicist of 2010 might have a cognition stat approaching 14 or 15.
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Sun, 2010-11-21 00:50
#4
Re: Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
I have tried discussing those points you both raised with them (after I read them of course ty for the tips) but they came back with a I think equally valid point. If you have all sorts of nano and cyber tech why cant a augmented combat morph (or for that matter a Steel Morph) just pick up a normal human (like those anti-morph, anti-transhumanism people) and just tear him in half with your brute strenght. Its been shown a gorrilla has the strenght in real life to literally pull a persons arm off their body. You have to think the combat morphs would be at least as stronght given the i nherent combat advanges and instead of using normal muscle fibre you could use a nanoweave or syntheic muscle for greater tensile strenght anchored to armoued bone. Things like this just dont seem to be in the system or even if they are Such as the case of the Steel Morphs, they dont seem to have the massive strenght you would expect a robot to have (the steel morhps are in Sunward I think).
Sun, 2010-11-21 12:47
#5
Re: Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
Using just your example of tearing someones arms off, it is pretty easy with a decent morph and good augmentations to get up to a SOM of 40. A Brute Strength test is SOM x3, giving you a value of 120 (easily enough to tear someones arms out of their sockets, even if you make it a hard roll of -30 they have a 90% chance of success). For comparison, the strongest man in the world today probably has a SOM of 14-15, so a Brute Strength value of 45 (barely over the SOM of the augmented transhuman). An augmented character in EP is over double that of a top specimen in todays world. In ShjadowRun, by contrast, the maximum modified attribute is 1.5 times the racial maximum. So I really don't see how your players are coming to the conclusion that EP has underpowered augmentations when they are considerably larger than those in SR.
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Sun, 2010-11-21 14:32
#6
Re: Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
Who says you can't? I don't believe there's anything in the book which specifies how difficult it would be to tear someone in half, so as GM, you'd have to come up with a value. EP is intentionally written without much carved into stone. As GM, it's your responsibility to determine what is a reasonable threshold for the task at hand, and let them overcome it. It's also important for you and your players to remember that what was once superhuman is now almost average. It is assumed, with no further fanfare, that your average PC is capable of advanced calculus, selling ice to eskimos, and resisting massive amounts of trauma - and that the people they are working for or against oftentimes are calculating how many angels can dance on the head of a proton, converting entire populations to their politics without even saying a word, and using weapons that could pulverize tanks. The bar has gone up across the board, and as a result, it seems about the same, relatively speaking.
Mon, 2010-11-22 09:59
#7
Re: Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
I really apprecaite all the replies and help as I eluded too this is my first RPG and I think I am following the rules too literally to the extent that if its not described in there you cant do it. Both of the above posts made me realize as a GM I have to be able to step back and "improvise" situations well abiding by the spirit of hte setting and the rules! I am going to have another conversation with the group next Saturday session we play, We played "Mind the WMD's" and they REALLY enjoyed it so I dont think it will be too hard to show them the game has thees things.
Mon, 2010-11-22 14:14
#8
Re: Help with my First EP Game (and First Game Ever lol).
I would think that the modifier to maim a morph of any kind is the target's SOM doubled over.
So someone with a SOM of 20 would give a -40 modifier.
Someone with 14-15 would give -30, and so on
It's difficult, even hard, but it's possible
BUT
it generate stress. Not sure how much. Perhaps roll a WIL with the MoS of the maim roll as negative modifier? or directly gain the MoS of the maim roll as Stress Value?
That's much meaner and requires no additional roll.
On the atmosphere, one of my players said, about a month ago that the survival isn't really shown. I told him that's because Transhumanity has got over that, they're not relearning to live. But only the most lucky ones got the better morphs, when they get a morph at all. And that most of the earthlings are still infugees. Those who have nice Splicer, Exalt, Ruster, etc, those weren't likely to have been on Earth at the time of the fall to begin with.
it's no wonder that Synth morphed infugees formed the Steel Liberators on Luna.
They lost everything, were forced to sleeve into glorified droids, and then, after all that, they are welcomed with prejudice and injustice?
to quote Globus' lyrics "Descendants of the dispossessed return with bomb strapped to their chest" (the song is Europa, on the album Epicon).
I think, at least for the Inner System, that injustice is a strong red lining theme for the game
and to quote, another song, this time by Disturbed: "Who is innocent, is it relevant in the world, today? I shake me head in disbelief" (Innocence, album Asylum)
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