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Writing/Running My First Eclipse Phase game- HELP!!

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Sat, 2013-07-06 22:20
#1
vault13dweller vault13dweller's picture
Writing/Running My First Eclipse Phase game- HELP!!
Hello there, I'm preparing to run my first Eclipse Phase game as since i got the book I've been SUPER hyped about it. Here's an outline of what I have planned. Session 1
  1. Game starts on Progress in orbit above Mars
  2. PC's have a mission from Firewall to get aboard a pleasure yacht owned by a hypercorp tycoon who's hosting a party, and investigate intel that he's carrying exsurgent virus/TITAN tech aboard his ship
Session 2
  1. Once aboard the ship, the PC's need to snoop around the ship and talk around the party to gather intel
  2. Something happens during all this, explosion aboard the ship, and then something collides with the ship, causing the portion of the ship containing what the PC's believe to be what they're looking for to fall off and crash on mars
  3. PC's need to scramble to escape pods, or do something to soften the ships crash
  4. Ship crashes on Mars near Olympus Mons near the TITAN quarantine zone
Session 3
  1. PC's need to either make their way to the ship's crash site from their escape pod, or explore the crashed ship (depending on their choices in session 2) to find the tracking utility to find other parts of the ship/escape pods
  2. Sandstorm+Seismic/Volcanic Activity going on when they crash
  3. Barsoomians/Hypercorps/Tharsis League each has people in the area, PC's need to work with one and make enemies of the others, or go alone, conflict occurs
  4. Track down fractions of the ship in hostile territory
  5. Control/Contain/Manage outbreaks of Exsurgent virus
Session 4
  1. Find that the stuff they were looking for has been already scavenged and taken somewhere rack it to an underground facility close to Olympus Mons, very close to the TITAN quarantine area
  2. Find an advanced facility, built by aliens or TITANs with the purpose of causing volcanic, tectonic, or seismic activity
  3. Learn that the guy who owned the pleasure yacht they infiltrated is planning to cause Olympus Mons to erupt to contain/control an impending outbreak of the exsurgent virus in the city, and for his own socio-political motivations.
First off, how does that sound? Is it not a good idea for a beginner Eclipse Phase session? Secondly, I need help on what I should expect/prepare for. Such as for session 1, what methods should I plan for for the PC's to try and get aboard the ship? What I plan to prepare for is
  • Get invite to party aboard yacht
  • Purchase invitation with f-Rep or Creds.
  • Impress host
  • Convince someone to take you as part of their entourage
  • Sneak in
  • Obtained invitation forgery to get aboard
  • Get aboard with maintenance and serving crews from lower decks
  • Hack and obtain invitation
  • Obtain the morph of someone with an invitation and go as them
  • Get egocast onto the ship
  • Spacewalk onto the ship
What other methods should I plan for, or at least think about so I'm not caught completely off guard when my players do it? And for any other part of the game, what should I plan for? Thank you for your input!
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Sun, 2013-07-07 02:09
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Not half bad.
I started my first game run on Progress. You have a decent outline. So keep it, and wing the rest. You can only plan so much without inevitably railroading your players into a linear story, and that isn't what these games are all about. So stay open, stay on your toes and be ready to pull it out of your ass. You're going to have one hell of a ride.
—
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Sun, 2013-07-07 02:12
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Oh and, to be cliche. With
Oh and, to be cliche. With players, prepare for everything, expect nothing. Space walks, explosions, cabinets losing life support, anti-matter drives losing containment. These things happen, it's space. And in space, no one can hear you scream.
—
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Mon, 2013-07-08 12:30
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
vault13dweller wrote
vault13dweller wrote:
  • Something happens during all this, explosion aboard the ship, and then something collides with the ship, causing the portion of the ship containing what the PC's believe to be what they're looking for to fall off and crash on mars
    • Celestial mechanics being what it is, this requires some trickery. If you are in orbit and blow up, your debris will loosely follow your orbit, not fall down (unless it is a huge explosion giving debris velocities large enough to counteract the orbital velocity). I would solve this by the ship actually doing an atmospheric coast: rather than orbiting properly, it is more or less bouncing along the top of the martian atmosphere. Expensive, would be risky if the ship did not have excellent shielding and navigation, but a great view - just the thing for a cool party as you plan to watch a swarm of terraforming comets impact "nearby". This of course both serves to set the scene, explain why the explosion will drop something to the surface, and, if this is a set-up trying to look like an accident (who are we kidding? Of course it is!) allows someone to blame the explosion of a random comet fragment that spallated unexpectedly. Also, the comets will mess with sensors for a lot of external parties, keeping some secrets to the PCs and/or nearby opposition.
    Quote:
  • Learn that the guy who owned the pleasure yacht they infiltrated is planning to cause Olympus Mons to erupt to contain/control an impending outbreak of the exsurgent virus in the city, and for his own socio-political motivations.
    • Of course, he might be infected with the Haunting strain and now believes that triggering planetary catastrophe is the sane thing to do to stop the infestation... which might be real, might be delusional. Getting OM to erupt definitely requires alien tech. Maybe a gatecrasher artefact that generates quantum black holes that detonate into Hawking-radiation explosions shortly after creation, allowing the "beam" to cut deep into the crust before detonating in the magma chamber. Please don't turn the mass setting too high, or they will instead gobble up the planet and irradiate the inner system. And for heaven's sake, don't press the autofire button. His original plan was to use it while above the planet, but indeed something went wrong. Maybe there is another party out there trying to stop him - like Ozma, or the Factors from whom he stole the device, or Jovian agents (or all three).
    —
    Extropian
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