This question is as a GM. Themes are "conspiracy", "post-apocalypse", "horror", and of course, "transhumanism". It's easy to understand them in an abstract way. But, how to really introduce those themes during a session? Encounter examples would be great.
Thanks in advance!
Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.
How to really introduce EP original themes during a game session
Thu, 2016-12-22 12:53
#1
Kssian
How to really introduce EP original themes during a game session
Thu, 2016-12-22 15:32
#2
uwtartarus
To apply some of the game
To apply some of the game concepts in practice is tricky. I try to mix up the morphs that my players get access to, so when they egocast to a distant habitat they change sex and ethnicity, and even social class distinctions, like tattoos or piercings, etc. Trying to separate the ego from the morph, the mind from the body.
In one particular session, I had a player get caught inside a locked down area, the docks of Kronos Cluster (the space habitat near Rhea, a moon of Saturn), and in order to escape capture, he abandoned his pod morph (because it was a cyberbrain equipped morph), so he escaped via the mesh as an Infomorph. That ability to avoid physical capture by abandoning his meat/metal body for a digital existence was a really cool moment of transhumanism.
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Thu, 2016-12-22 21:09
#3
ShadowDragon8685
I kind of sprung EP's themes
I kind of sprung EP's themes on my players slowly, in a game of the Star Wars RPG, inspired by the white hex-skinned aliens from Defiance. (I can't remember their name off the top of my head.)
Imagine a pack of Jedi in Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order meeting an alien who explains to them, patiently, that she's so old she's older than the Republic. Not the New Republic; the Old Republic.
Admittedly, a lot of her chronological age was spent in stasis on a slower-than-light interstellar journey. However, she still arrived during the time of the Old Republic. Her species, even as they were long ago, practiced the art of replacing their biological cells with nanotechnological, biomimicing replacements, and their bodies were swimming with nanites that kept up this replacement regimen, repaired damage, prevented otherwise-fatal damage from being fatal, etc.
They found her freaky, because she had a presence in the Force like an organic being would, but it was oddly distorted somehow. But at the same time, unlike the Jedi of the Old Republic, they weren't willing to pronounce judgement of condemnation upon her, even when she explained that her goal in life was to broad-wave nanotech bootstrap instructions to the entire galaxy. The Old Jedi Order, some hundred years before Revan's time, had found her species' sublight ships, decided they were scary and needed to be quarantined, and used hyperdrive boosters to drag them to a perfectly inhabitable system, which they were told not to leave, and not to experiment upon hyperdrive tech. The one they met was a renegade who did not agree with that, and managed to sneak out by trying to reverse engineer hyperdrive stuff, enough to attract a passing smuggler who picked her up from a remote in-system research station.
Pity that never went anywhere; the game ended.
—
Skype and AIM names: Exactly the same as my forum name.
[url=http://tinyurl.com/mfcapss]My EP Character Questionnaire[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/lbpsb93]Thread for my Questionnaire[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/obu5adp]The Five Orange Pips[/url]
Fri, 2016-12-23 03:36
#4
DivineWrath
*Shrugs*
*Shrugs*
When asked how to introduce players to this game, I always seem to suggest putting players into simulspace. Think of it as the latest generation of video games. You are inserted into a digital reality that replaces your physical senses and responds to your physical actions (while your body rests). Most people want to play them so it doesn't require much explanation of how they got there or know each other. Think of it as the EP equivalent of a few adventures meeting in a tavern and agreeing to adventure together.
As a digital simulation, it can have any rules you want, any equipment you want, and possibly any skill set you want. Want to start out teaching combat? Have the players play the latest FPS. Want to teach rules about nanofabrication? Maybe try a simulation of a random exoplanet. Want to play with rules about the mesh and other computer tech? Maybe try a VR game (where the players run around in the real world using the mesh to overlay another reality over your senses) so they have access to the real mesh for the game.
The best part is there are no consequences for such games. Except maybe breaking your winning streak. Don't forget that most people have muses to help out (such as giving advice or keeping track of stuff).
At some point, you might want to have things get real. Maybe start new characters or introduce the characters to something that is not a game. Firewall have published simulspace games where the players try to survive real threats to the survival of the transhuman races. Maybe the characters perform really well and get recruited. Or maybe a VR friend of theirs gets infected with something, starts acting strange, and then goes missing. Searching for their lost friend could be the start of their campaign.
Fri, 2016-12-23 06:52
#5
Kssian
Thanks. So, for example, a
Thanks. So, for example, a space horror-based encounter, how would it be in EP?
Fri, 2016-12-23 08:16
#6
Opiyel
I ran a one shot that was
I ran a one shot that was this. For me, I used the exurgent virus to evoke a body horror type feel to the players. You could go straight for the jugular with the gore and melded bodies, or you could do the slow burn with the eerie and strange mutations. I went more with the latter, a bit of an Alien feel as the players were hunting (and being hunted by) an infected person aboard a derelict ship. It was fun and the players had a blast with it.
Fri, 2016-12-23 12:05
#7
Kssian
I was seeking more kind of
I was seeking more kind of psychological horror. The lose of self-identity or similar. It's hard for me to put the theory into practice in an efficient way. Thanks!
Fri, 2016-12-23 12:48
#8
CordialUltimate2
For psychological horror
For psychological horror use indenture (terror of slavery extended into infinity by legal loopholes), forking (who is the real you and what happens when you die), psychotorture and unvoluntary simulspaces, ego merging exhumans and psychosurgery. Psychosurgery can be made terrifying or handwaved.
Check out my proposed (horrifying) psychosurgery procedure:
http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59360#comment-59360
—
Exurgents wanna eat your ass and you are low on ammo? Register to mobile gear catalogue at [url=http://eldrich.host]eldrich.host.mesh[/url]! ORDER NOW! FOR FREE PLASMA MINIMISSILE PACK! *explosive delivery options included
Fri, 2016-12-23 15:04
#9
Kssian
CordialUltimate2 wrote:For
Great post & link!
Thu, 2016-12-29 09:15
#10
ThatWhichNeverWas
Gribbly Monsters are the How, not the Why.
I too made a post about Spookies a while back.
If you're looking for psychological stuff, I recommend Memory loss or Manipulation.
The simplest way is through Continuity loss - the PCs have to investigate their own deaths - but other options are through memory erasure (the PCs apparently did something they don't remember and don't remember having their memory edited) or memories they shouldn't have (erased memories are coming back, or they have memories of acts performed by others).
Either way, the goal is for the characters/players to be unsure of their own identity, allegiances and/or mental state.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Thu, 2016-12-29 11:20
#11
Opiyel
I always had it in my head
I always had it in my head that many of the 80's retro colors would fit in well. Hot pink/magenta and neon cyan would fit in well enough.
Fri, 2016-12-30 13:11
#12
eaton
Quote:In one particular
heh. I've got a player who just keeps spinning off alpha forks of himself on private hardware. He's playing a 13-year-old emergent AGI who "passes" for transhuman by staying under the radar, but his radically different perspectives on self-preservation and continuity tend to be a giveaway to other members of the team.
In one particularly memorable instance, he broke into a body bank and sleeved extra copies of the rest of his team *while* they were being killed in a firefight a block away. Literally everyone took stress rolls for told, "Quick! You're almost dead, go finish the mission while you hold them off!" and his character was genuinely baffled at why everyone was squicked out. "But it makes sense! You can cover your OWN escape!"
Wed, 2017-01-04 10:44
#13
FNR
Kssian wrote:This question is
In our group we were introduced to these themes one by one. We started with the a modified version adveture "Mind the WMDs" (I think it was called, the one that comes with the GM-Screen).
You start on s scum barge which is a great way to introduce some transhuman concepts. Humans no longer being restricted to a single body, different kind of bodies (from upgraded 'normal' humans to robot shells to comletely different species like Uplifts), mind-uploading, resleaving and such. The conspiracy part started when we tried to figure out who was behind the smuggling of TITAN-Tech out of the quarantine zone and why. Post-apocalypse - going trough the quarantine zone to. Horrorwise we started to get a bit stressed out when one of the antagonists started asking some interesting questions about the implications of copying your ego or psycosurgery. How many infected copies of you are out there? Did you really die on that space station as you were told or did Firewall just decide that a rescue opperation was too dangerous? When you wanted to quit Firewall but changed your mind, was that really your decission? and so on. The true horror started, when we found out the secret behind the Pandora Gates ;)
Thu, 2017-01-05 15:08
#14
CordialUltimate2
If you want true horror
If you want true horror infect the Meathab with exurgent virus, and cut all the links to the outside world.
There is no escape - as soon as the infection is revealed the habitat is quarantined.
The ego of the Meathab slowly succumbs to the infection, changing from benevolent neutral to insane organic megaexurgent.
The ship is sinking and rats don't have anywhere to go. The panic is absolute.
Unknown forces seem to have their own stakes in the whole affair, the plague is only a hindrance to their plans.
And team of Firewall agents who know that they have to get one man off the habitat without anybody noticing.
Desperation is the name of the game.
—
Exurgents wanna eat your ass and you are low on ammo? Register to mobile gear catalogue at [url=http://eldrich.host]eldrich.host.mesh[/url]! ORDER NOW! FOR FREE PLASMA MINIMISSILE PACK! *explosive delivery options included
Mon, 2017-01-09 01:43
#15
uwtartarus
My follow up scenario about
My follow up scenario about meathab needs to include exsurgent virus stuff I guess...
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Tue, 2017-01-10 07:17
#16
Kremlin K.O.A.
Kssian wrote:I was seeking
You want psychological horror?
There are rules in the game for becoming jaded to a particular stimulus.
Following those rules are the rules for removing jadedness.
That means a skilled psychosurgeon can literally make you feel like a virgin, being touched for the very first time.