I think you could easily fit at least faction in your high concept. Easy enough to say Scum Hacker or Ultimate Mercenary, etc. You could probably fit background in as well e.g. Drifter Anarchist Explorer, or Argonaut Infolife Hacker. You also lose the crossing paths phases which I think are pretty important. I'd probably go with something like this. * High Concept - [Background] [Faction] [Job/Specialization] * Trouble * First Firewall Adventure * Crossing Paths * Current Motivation I might also be tempted to abandon the High Concept/Trouble and go with a more traditional lifepath. * Background * Faction * Joining Firewall * Crossing Paths * Current Motivation I'd also add a sixth aspect describing the character's current morph. This aspect is special in that it can be changed at any time by making a morph brokerage/integrate test. Here's my first shot at a EP inspired skill list. Assets Willpower Somatics Networking Kinetic Weapons - includes Spray Weapons Beam Weapons Thrown Weapons Melee Combat Gunnary - Includes Seekers Interface - Includes Research InfoSec Navigation Pilot Hardware Persuasion - Includes Deceipt Intimidation Kinesics - Includes Impersonation Investigation - Includes Perception and Scrounging Free Running - Includes Climbing, Swimming, and Fray in gravity Free Fall - Includes Flight and Fray in micro-gravity Arts Academics Demolitions Medical Profession [Field] Infiltration - Includes Palming and Disguise Survival Tactics Vehicle Psi I'd probably leave stuff like Programming, Psychosurgery, and Animal Handling to Profession[] skills. Skill list is still a bit large, but a lot more manageable than the default EP skill list. Definitely go with a 5-cap skill pyramid. You could also probably combine pilot/vehicle and survival/navigation. Stress tracks would be: Durability - linked to Somatics Lucidity - Linked to Willpower Wealth - Linked to Assets Rep - Linked to Networking

I like the skill caps. You could cap most skills at 4 or so and require the appropriate morph to use your pinnacle skill at 5, otherwise it's capped at 4 (I'm assuming 5 cap skill pyramid). For example you'd need a bouncer morph to get the full 5 ranks in agility, menton to get full 5 ranks in science, slyph to get full 5 in charm, ghost to get full 5 in stealth, etc. I'm not sure I like skill prerequisites. That would suggest that you cannot be sleeved in certain morphs without the appropriate skills which seems weird to me. Any ego should be able to be sleeved in any morph, they just might not be able to take advatnage of it. I suggest handling integration/alienation with aspects or consequences. Resleeving would cause mental stress which could result in mental consequences. A particularly good integration might result in an additional aspect "best morph ever" with a couple free tags on it.

I see what your saying. Instead of a morph giving you a skill bonus, you justify a high skill by saying you have an appropriate morph. I can get behind that. Ultimately it doesn't address the issue of how to add mechanical weight to morphs and differentiate power levels. Of course, the issue we are not addressing is that fate doesn't really handle different power levels well. By design Fate trys to give everyone equal story weight, no matter what type of character they want to play. Weaker and more flawed characters usually gain more fate points to tip things back in their favor. In EP core, you would never pick a Flat over an Exalt. But in Fate, picking a Flat could result in gaining more fate points which allows you to influence the story in other ways, even if you can't keep up in combat with your modified teammates. It is similar to putting more character points into moxie instead of your morph and gear. I think EP Fate's biggest challenge will be to avoid trying to convert EP Core's rules to Fate and instead try to convert EP Cores fiction. There is a lot of mechanical baggage with EP Core that isn't necessarily important to the experience. It will require some fundamental changes in perspective on morphs, gear, etc.

Having been playing a bunch of fate games (albeit badly, go look at Roleplayidiots.com if you want :P ), Making sure you get the feeling is totally key. You're right where you've gotta avoid the temptation to convert the rules and instead need to just convert the lore. To that end, going with the Highconcept, trouble, background faction and motivation aspectss are a good idea. For skills? Keeping the initial skill tree from fate works okay. To add more makes the game bulky, and I'd only suggest it in big games (ones with 4 or more players), since then the specificity gives players a chance to each have a domain of excellence. Keeping the original skills allows you to always apply the reasonable skill to the situation. Hacking as burglary, is fine, it essentially shows that your character has experience with the shady, and isn't too far fetched that you might be able to pick a pocket coming from that background. When jiyunatori said the skills are more like "assets", I feel he's right, its essentially just defining your background a little further, and what you were likely to have picked up (alot closer to the background packages idea from Transhuman) Morphs and gear and Psi (and specialised professions). Here's the complicated stuff. And it shouldn't be. Morphs - Should be an aspect. Simple as that. Its an aspect that changes whenever you resleeve. During character creation, it should be a character related morph (if your players will all pick a reaper just because there's nothing stopping them, then that sort of powergamer shouldn't be playing FATE :P ). It should be able to be invoked, like other aspects, whether it be an eidolon or faust. Each morph has story behind it. "Polished Steel Morph with Jetpack" gives plenty of description. "Chinese Neotechnic" works great too, coming with the social stigma and the genome of the morph for whatever relevant bonus's and minus to be invoked or compelled. When the character resleeves, you remove the aspect and add the new one, whatever relevant. Characters presumably will roll resources or contacts to get a new morph, and their result on the roll should inform the quality or type of morph they get at the other end. "hey, a 5! Superb!" may result in an "Familiar clone Exalt", or "Combat modified ruster". All of this should be negotiated with the GM relevant to story! as for gear, you should acquire it through play and they should become temporary aspects. You rolled a notice in the lab, and picked up those guardian nanoswarms, you've got an aspect "bug protection" on a post-it note ready to whip out next time you're asked to make a physique against the dissemblers. Like in EP, EPFATE gear should be quickly acquired, applied situationally and then forgotten about. Your players should be happy when they find "starjuice in a can" (hellburst grenades), but let them invoke it once and get the relevant bonus (lets say a +4 in this case). If your players just want to do it again and again, it'll be boring and repetative and not great for story, which is what fate is about. Forcing them to change up what they're doing, or create some new scene aspects to assist their pathetic attempt to fend off the nanoswarm, is what makes fate interesting. Psi-slights and specialised professions? Yup, using it like Magic in fate, as extra's costing refresh is a great idea. I'd personally increase the refresh of characters to 5 to accommodate this (plus its the score of Moxie most players end up with in EP from experience). Specialised professions, gives you new story-telling mechanisms that should allow you to do abnormal things (though id' still encourage rolls for challenging things). -1 refresh for "Lost mind reader", would give you those scan abilities and then allow you to try rolling empathy to find specific feelings about subjects, or even perhaps notice, investigate, or burglary depending on the method used to pull out those memories. Specialised professions should be much the same. Think "Fork-specialised Psychosurgeon" for -1 refresh. Or "Biosculptor", "nanotechnology programmer" should give your character specific access to things, new storytelling tools to be applied to the game. Essentially these become specialised Stunts, giving you access to a field of play via an existing skill or set of skills. So a character might look like this: Adam Klaus HC: Journalist Socialite Trouble: I've got to know! BA: Old world values (reinstantiated) FA: Everything has a price (Hypercorp) MA: Everything in its place (Stability + ) Skills: 4+ Investigate 3+ Rapport, Resources 2+ Burglary, Athletics, Contacts 1+ Notice, Will, Empathy, Shooting Morph: Subtly beautiful Slyph (rolled a 4) Profession: Memetic & Social Manipulator (-1 Refresh) Refresh 4. ============= What'chu chaps thing? As far as capturing the feel of the game without rules-bogging-down?

I agree that morph power level needs to be in there. Morph aspects could give from +1 to +4, and/or they could come with their own pool of points.

Well, I would not go that simple with Morphs or Skills. after all Morphs are important in EP, they are not just decoration. Skills are very important in EP as well, a PC often has many skills with a wide range of uses. as such I would be wary of cutting them down all that much, stuff like Hardware is very important to know just which one you know how to use, allowing it to cover everything makes it very, very powerful. We could go with a more robust, but still slimmer skill set and just go with more skills than the normal Fate Core or use something like skill mods from the toolkit for Factions. Much as the core game grants you extra skills from a faction and background Fate could do the same by giving you extra skills. Now Morphs, I think could well be gear that would give aspects and could be augmented allowing stunts and more than one aspect with that morph. I do not think they should be simply an aspect.

But the point is that morphs are NOT created equal. You're supposed to be much more capable in a Remade or a Reaper than in a Splicer. You're supposed to do better on all COG-based tests when in a Menton.

Domaac Machar Aspects Soul of the Machine: Helps Others To Give His Life Meaning In his youth he was a Decorated Veteran Of The Pan-African War. In his maturity, he was a Crime Reporter On The Mean Streets Of Juba. After the Fall though he is reduced to being a Mechanical Insect Working For A Hypercorp. Domaac become a member of Firewall after he Survived The Exsurgent Attack On Belmar Three. Skills Investigation Contacts Shoot Burglary Rapport Notice Stunts "I Know Someone Who Will Sell Us One Cheap" - Once a session can use Contacts in place of Resources Internal Security - Can resist attempts to hack his cyberbrain with his Burglary skill "My Mind Is My Own" - +2 bonus to resist attempts to hack his cyberbrain Morph - Security Arachnoid Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stacks, Cyberbrain, Mnemonic Augmentation (all standard for synthomorphs and without cost) Enhanced Vision (cost 1) Lidar (cost 1) Pneumatic Limbs (cost 1) Radar (cost 1) Extra Limbs (cost 1) Built in weopons (cost 1) Member of the "Clanking Masses" (cost -1) Non-emotive morph (cost -1) Fate point/refresh rate cost: 4

I see two problems with having everything that comes naturally to a morph being classified as an aspect. The first problem being that some morphs have a lot more goodies about them than others. Having 8 positive aspects that you can potentially invoke is better than having 3 positive or no positive aspects. By charging fate points/refresh for better morphs you ensure that someone stuck in a flat or case may have an inferior morph but they will more fate points from the get go. The second problem being more of a philosophical one. Why should players have to shell out a fate point every time they want to use an ability that their morph has 24/7? Now, I'm not married to my build for Domaac Machar. I put it out there just as a proposal in order to spark conversation. I am, however, partial to the idea that better morphs should come at a fate cost. Maybe if we moved the integral armor and extra SOM over to morph stunt column, since the is very little downside to these features and they would be expected to be persistent, we could split the difference in our two builds.

One thing I'm looking at is how there's a difference between increased capability and additional capability. Putting aside all mechanics, there's still a difference between "You and I can both do X, but you're better at it." and "You and I can both do X, but you can also do this totally other Y thing." As we're examining character economy with respect to morphs, this is at the forefront of my mind. - Ryan

bblonski wrote:

As for morphs being balanced. Earlier we were actually discussing how to represent different morph power levels. I think having more flexible morph aspects is actually a nice way to do it. Both morphs are essentially balanced because they are both just and aspect and you have the same amount of fate points to spend, but the better morph will give you more opportunities to invoke the morph aspect and maybe some unique abilities that don't need to be invoked like the vector thrusters. Otherwise, why would I buy a better morph when I could get equivalent abilities by picking similar ego stunts and save on cost?

So, are the morphs essentially balanced or is one better? You seem to be trying to have your cake and eat it too. I say that more unique useful aspects to invoke and unique abilities at your disposal is better and better =/= essentially balanced.

bblonski wrote:

Good GMs will find ways to make better morphs be a drawback and good players will find ways to make poorer morphs be beneficial. Being in a splicer morph is going to make it a lot easier to blend in than being in a reaper morph. You also balance the power difference by assigning cost to morphs. I assume when a player goes to change their morph, they will have to use some in game currency or rep favor to get the morph. Better morphs will cost more and require players to invest more into their assets and rep networks to get them. However, they won't be too overpowered to overshadow the other players. I also like giving the players the option to invest however many stunts in the morph they want. In fact, I think that is an excellent way to represent morph integration. Players who do better on their morph integration test can pick more morph stunts.

In universe economics don't usually play that large of a role in FATE games. Resources are a skill to roll against not a finite bundle of credits or rep points in. Make Resources your apex skill and get the aspect "Filthy Rich" and you can have a new badass morph every session, and might as well if you have made in universe cost the limiting factor. But as FATE Core says, "This is a game about your character, not about his or her stuff". Balancing the benefits of a snazzy morph with a fate point cost for taking one on will ensure that the games don't degenerate into quest to have the coolest morph. Also, I think having multiple stunts at stake put too much importance on the morph integration test. It would likely lead players to invest heavily in whatever skill the test was made with regardless of whether a high proficiency with that skill fit the character concept.

bblonski wrote:

I'm curious what you think the mechanical effect of most of the advantages you list would be. For example, does your Lidar stunt give some sort of bonus to a roll, or just allow you to find the exact distance to an object? Is that even a meaningful ability in a rule system that largely abstracts distances away? What about extra limbs? Does it have any real mechanical weight? Maybe when climbing or wrestling, otherwise it's mostly flavor. Honestly I would expect such things to be so rarely used that I would not want to waste stunts on them and prefer to spend an occasional fate point instead.

Well Lidar could give benefits shooting, piloting, driving and some notice rolls. In EP extra limbs give extra attacks though the rules state off-hand rules are used on all attacks after the first. There is no reason they couldn't confer a similar ability EP Fate. So, Domaac could shoot at a target with 4 different guns. That would be worth a fate point. However, you'll note that it didn't take much arm twisting to drop both Lidar and extra limbs from my list items to charge for. I'm hard pressed however to see how something like integral armor which you listed as a aspect would not qualify as at least a stunt.

bblonski wrote:

Of course I'm thinking of a Fate Core approach where you only get 2-4 Fate points to spend on all your stunts.

I was using Bulldog! and it system for making new alien races as my inspiration for assigning cost to morph's. Bulldog allows refresh rates of 6 to 12 depending upon the power level of your game and you have to leave at least one left after species abilities and stunts. Of course it's hard to have a horror game with 12 fate points to play with, so I was thinking of a 6 or 7 refresh rate.

Ranxerox wrote:

So, are the morphs essentially balanced or is one better? You seem to be trying to have your cake and eat it too. I say that more unique useful aspects to invoke and unique abilities at your disposal is better and better =/= essentially balanced.

Maybe balanced wasn't the correct word. What I'm getting at is they are mechanically represented in the same way. Both are a single aspect. Creatively or fictionally, they might not be balanced. One aspect might come up more often in game play, but the fate point economy keeps things fair. It's the same with regular character aspects. You can have players who are more creative, come up with better aspects, and find more ways to use their aspects, but all characters are essentially balanced. That's also what I was getting at where better morphs might not always be beneficial, like if you are trying to blend in. What morph you want would depend on the situation instead of which one provides the most bonuses.

Ranxerox wrote:

In universe economics don't usually play that large of a role in FATE games. Resources are a skill to roll against not a finite bundle of credits or rep points in. Make Resources your apex skill and get the aspect "Filthy Rich" and you can have a new badass morph every session, and might as well if you have made in universe cost the limiting factor. But as FATE Core says, "This is a game about your character, not about his or her stuff". Balancing the benefits of a snazzy morph with a fate point cost for taking one on will ensure that the games don't degenerate into quest to have the coolest morph.

I think we agree here. Fate isn't really about gear which is why I think most augmentations should really just be about narrative permission instead of actual mechanical weight. I think this is how gear is usually handled in Fate Core. For example, if you have a radio, it gives you permission to talk to other characters with radios. No aspect, no stunt, no rolling. Just a note that you have a radio. Having cost is just flavor really.

Ranxerox wrote:

Also, I think having multiple stunts at stake put too much importance on the morph integration test. It would likely lead players to invest heavily in whatever skill the test was made with regardless of whether a high proficiency with that skill fit the character concept.

I think you misunderstood me. You would not gain bonus stunts with an integration roll. The integration test is just for determining how much refresh they can spend immediately on morph stunts. You could still spend that refresh in other areas or keep it if you didn't do well on the morph integration roll. I would also allow players to invest refresh into morph stunts at normal character advancement steps. This way they could slowly adapt and unlock more potential of their morph.

Ranxerox wrote:

Well Lidar could give benefits shooting, piloting, driving and some notice rolls. In EP extra limbs give extra attacks though the rules state off-hand rules are used on all attacks after the first. There is no reason they couldn't confer a similar ability EP Fate. So, Domaac could shoot at a target with 4 different guns. That would be worth a fate point.

I feel Lidar wouldn't give a big enough bonus to warrant a constant +1 in all those situations. Fate isn't very granular, a +1 is a pretty big deal. Often Lidar isn't going to make much of a difference, but when you spend that fate point it was narratively the element that gave you the edge. Extra limb fighting sounds like a good stunt, but I'd make it optional. I'd make it so that you need a morph with extra limbs to get narrative permission to take the stunt. Then if you pass your integration test you can spend refresh to purchase the morph stunt immediately. The stunt would look something like this [Stunt] Multi Limb Fighting - You get +2 to harm on successful attacks as long as you are wielding similar weapons (ranged or melee) in your extra limbs.

Acatalepsy wrote:

I don't think that character creation should be the same across all Eclipse Fate games. Whether I want to play a firewall game, or hypercorp mercs, or scum free traders, or gatecrashers - whether I expect my PCs to be cool professionals who know each other by their work, or close friends (or old enemies) tossed into a terrifying situation - these things are going to determine how I run the phases of character creation. Eclipse Fate needs to give me the tools and resources to smoothly run my Eclipse Fate game, not decide for me what that is. On the morph thing...I think it's core to the nature of Eclipse Phase that someone sleeved in a powerful morph is just better. If you're a Flat, and I'm an Exalt, all other things being equal, I'm more likely to win any completion. Being in, say, a Dragonfly or a Novacrab is additional capability, but being in a Fury is just hands down more capable at combat than any biomorph (other than a particularly tricked out Olympian, or a Remade). That's pure increased capability right there. Even more importantly for me: there's no cost for this, other than the obvious consequences of being in a Fury. No refresh cost, no Fate Point tax, nothing. [i]There is no cost for being transhuman[/i]. You upgrade, you win; you don't upgrade, you lose. This is an important thematic conceit to Eclipse Phase, and I can't imagine playing an Eclipse Fate that didn't include that. I've been writing my own Eclipse Phase / Fate hack that I plan on testing sometime next week (or, if I'm feeling lazy, I'll run one of the existing ones with some minor modifications).

I don't agree with you over the whole "you upgrade, you win; you don't upgrade, you lose" thing, but I do agree that EP Fate shouldn't have a one size fits all character generation system. For instance, Domaac Machar lived 80 years on Earth before the fall. So it made sense for me to divide his aspects into Soul In The Machine, Youth, Middle Years, the Fall, and joining Firewall. For a mercurial born after the Fall playing in a non-Firewall campaign, the only one of those aspect events that would make any sense is Soul In The Machine. So yes different campaigns are going to need different creation processes and probably not just for aspects. EP Fate will need to be a toolkit for a number of different types EP campaigns.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having morph power level implemented as a +1 to +4 on the morph's aspects instead of just +2. It's clean, simple, doesn't require extra book keeping, players in weak morphs can still rely on their ego aspects for full effect, while having a powerful morph will give you advantages you can't get otherwise and make morph feel actually powerful. The only downside I see to it is that it can downplay the value of your ego aspects.

I think we're mostly arguing semantics again here. We seem to agree that morphs shouldn't really define a character, they are just another piece of gear that everyone else has. But then you seem to stress morphs as the most important deciding factor in a fight. You can still invoke your Fury morph aspect in a fight, which should give you the edge on most other non-combat morphs. I don't think we're going to get very far arguing the distinction between flawed, interesting, troubled, suboptimal, etc. Fate Core says the best aspects are double-edged, say more than one thing, and keep phrasing simple. Something like battle hardened Fury with a bad back. You want the aspect to be invoked against you just as much as you invoke it to help. We can argue whether or not a character that chooses to keep their original body despite being obsolete is interesting or not. I would say they could be. I think you could have interesting dynamics by throwing in the occasional Jovian or bioconservative who isn't so sure about this resleeving thing. I'd expect these players to be in the minority, but I wouldn't deny them the option. It's like that old detective who sticks to that old trusty revolver, despite everyone else having better gear. Really I'm more concerned that my players have to flip though pages of gear and morph stats. I had to stop playing EP because my players didn't want to deal with all that stuff. They just wanted to play a Ruster or a Furtura because they though it looked and sounded cool. They don't want to consider that a Remade or Ghost morph might be a better choice. Or add every morph and augmentation bonus in. Sometimes you want to just play an everyday worker pod that gets pulled into some heavy shit. Even more, I'm worried about the logistics of it all. If you have lots of aspects and stunts involved in purchasing morphs, then every time you resleeve you have to stop a do a bunch of bookwork. They have to subtract out all their previous morph bonuses and add in the new morph bonuses. If you get resleeved in a morph that requires more stunt slots then you have available, what happens? Can't you just take equivalent Ego stunts? What happens when your ego and morph stunts overlap? If some morphs are just better, why wouldn't everyone sleeve in that morph? Fate isn't particularly good at keeping things from players, so everyone is bound to end up with the best gear. Fate gives players lots agency. Even if you pick skills and stunts that aren't usually as useful, players can make declarations about the world to give them opportunities to use those skills in play. Maybe the player uses their high art skill to notice that the gun left by the assassin has a custom grip and he knows the dealer. Players can choose what skills are useful and influence how they want to play. Ultimately it's important to appeal to Fate players. EP fans already have core. The point of the conversion guide is to let Fate players play in the same setting. Things are going to have to be different from the core EP experience in certain ways. There will have to be a lot less focus on gear. You'll have to save stunts and aspects for the really exceptional stuff you want to focus on, and hand wave most of the rest. That's kinda the way Fate works.

Acatalepsy wrote:

A character that wants to do something ineffective, because reasons....gets to be ineffective. Because reasons. That's not denying them the options; but - like, if I want to play in a modern SWAT game, and I decide I'd like to use a bow and arrow, I don't think the game should stop me - but it doesn't have to give me bonuses for making a bad decision, nor does it have to indulge my desire to do something ineffective and suffer no consequences for it.

What if you're playing a character like Hawkeye or the Green Arrow? Those guys can regularly beat people with better gear. Sure they're superheroes, so they might not fit in your SWAT game, but in a pulp adventure they'd fit right in. Fate naturally lends itself to pulp so I think it's inevitable the EP Fate is going to have more of a pulpy feel. It's fine to have that decision hurt you in certain situations. That's what earns you fate points. It's like deciding to put more points in Moxie rather than buying a better morph. Your character isn't worse for having inferior gear because your character is luckier and more determined.

Acatalepsy wrote:

"morph is just an aspect that has literally zero effect on how effective the character is at doing stuff."

Have you played much Fate? Aspects are kinda a big deal. In fact giving the player more fate refresh instead of the extra stunts will probably be superior in most situations since you can invoke it for +2 instead of +1.

Acatalepsy wrote:

My current working hack is "morphs have two aspects, a Physique stat, and (usually) two stunts". I don't have an exhaustive list of morphs, just a few examples of morph stunts and aspects.

It's not clear, players choose what aspects and stunts go to each morph, or are they predetermined for every morph? Can two morphs from the same line have different stunts and aspects? What about infomorphs, do they still get 2 stunts and a physique stat? The Physique stat sounds like you'd have to explicitly list it for each morph type. Does Physique effect other skills like Fists and Athletics? If so, that's a bunch of skills you have to adjust, if not, then why don't you just invoke the aspect where it makes sense instead of having to adjust a bunch of skills. Aspects are literally the best the way to represent a thematic set of bonuses and penalties associated with things such as being a small child or a big brute. To be clear I'm not saying morphs should only be a single aspect either. My first thoughts were actually something very similar to what you hack is, minus the physique skill. I've come to think one aspect instead of two is probably sufficient. Then, depending on what your morph aspect is, you can purchase certain related morph stunts with refresh. How many and which morph stunts to buy is left up to the player and represents better morph integration, additional augmentations, etc. I'd probably have a mix of predetermined and free form stunts. The only difference between morph stunts and ego stunts is maybe morph stunts are slightly better and players can switch several of their morph stunts when they resleeve (depending on you integration test) instead of only one during character advancement. This allows players to adapt to the situation mid session by changing morphs, where players who invest more into ego stunts have less flexibility, but have guaranteed abilities even if they change morphs. I like this because using aspects to justify stunts is talked about in the Fate Toolkit under aspected stunts, and characters look pretty much the same as a normal Fate character so there isn't really anything new to Fate, but there is an extra rule about being able to switch aspects and stunts on the fly which really suites the setting.

Acatalepsy wrote:

The setting encompasses more than just "this is where you are, these are the dudes who live here". If it was, all you'd need to play Eclipse FATE is the EP core book (for the setting) and Fate Core (for the mechanics). It's also the themes, the ideas, sensibility and tone of the world. You'll note I never said that EP Fate needs to play like EP; but it [i]needs to tell an EP story[/i]. That, to me, is the purpose of the conversion guide - tweaking the mechanics and systems to produce that result. Without that, you're left with a Spirit of the Century game with sci-fi flavor. That I don't need a conversion guide to do.

I agree. Not that long ago I said to KingSwampThing that I thought morphs should be more than a single aspect tacked onto the Fate Core rules. I still stand by that. I still like my idea that how well you do at morph brokerage determines how many morphs aspects you get to define and how many the GM gets to define. I agree with Ryan though that we should keep aspect spamming to a minimum. Absolutely no more than 7 character aspects, not including temporary aspects. I could probably accept two morph aspects. But I think character creation should be fairly similar to Fate Core. Maybe a few more stress tracks to handle rep. No strange mixing of aptitudes and skills. That's just trying to jury rig the EP rules into Fate. Aspects are already an elegant solution to this problem that I even prefer over the way EP Core works. Where I want the EP Fate Conversion Guide to explore is stuff like rules for dealing with morph brokerage, morph integration, hacking, dealing with rep networks, bot jamming, Psi, etc. These are things that might not be apparent on how to represent with Fate mechanics.

bblonski wrote:

Really I'm more concerned that my players have to flip though pages of gear and morph stats. I had to stop playing EP because my players didn't want to deal with all that stuff. They just wanted to play a Ruster or a Furtura because they though it looked and sounded cool. They don't want to consider that a Remade or Ghost morph might be a better choice. Or add every morph and augmentation bonus in. Sometimes you want to just play an everyday worker pod that gets pulled into some heavy shit. Even more, I'm worried about the logistics of it all. If you have lots of aspects and stunts involved in purchasing morphs, then every time you resleeve you have to stop a do a bunch of bookwork. They have to subtract out all their previous morph bonuses and add in the new morph bonuses. If you get resleeved in a morph that requires more stunt slots then you have available, what happens? Can't you just take equivalent Ego stunts? What happens when your ego and morph stunts overlap? If some morphs are just better, why wouldn't everyone sleeve in that morph? Fate isn't particularly good at keeping things from players, so everyone is bound to end up with the best gear. Fate gives players lots agency. Even if you pick skills and stunts that aren't usually as useful, players can make declarations about the world to give them opportunities to use those skills in play. Maybe the player uses their high art skill to notice that the gun left by the assassin has a custom grip and he knows the dealer. Players can choose what skills are useful and influence how they want to play. Ultimately it's important to appeal to Fate players. EP fans already have core. The point of the conversion guide is to let Fate players play in the same setting. Things are going to have to be different from the core EP experience in certain ways. There will have to be a lot less focus on gear. You'll have to save stunts and aspects for the really exceptional stuff you want to focus on, and hand wave most of the rest. That's kinda the way Fate works.

I coudn't agree more! The reason why I'm so excited about the Fate conversion is that it makes it possible to run Eclipse Phase to players who are not willing to use nine page long excels for character creation or use hours to optimize their morhp-gear combinations. Personally I love to tweak and experiment with the stuff, but I totally understand why many players are not willing to take the old school view on gaming. What I would really much like to see in morph rules is the concept of index cards in Fate Core going even further. Optimally (for me and my groups) there would be, say, a letter sized character sheet with quarter of the sheet reserved for the morph statistics. The players and gamemasters could cut out morph template cards and then just replace the portion of the character sheet with the new morph card when resleeving. The morph mechanics would be designed so that they would join seamlessly to the character sheet, without any added calculations or adjustments to the ego and rep part of the character sheet. Of course all this could be done with just erasing the morph stats and replacing them with new ones for those who don't want a hassle with index cards and paper clips. But I love them as a simple visualization tool and they would be avery elegant way to solve the the morph changing part of the game. So there's my two cents' worth for now.

FATE Core already provides the perfect mechanism for Morphs - Extras. My approach would be for Morphs to be phrased as FATE core Extras. Each Morph would have a couple of Aspects (of which just the morph name would be one), as well as a few skills that it granted. Certain Morphs might also grant stunts. Take a look at the Galerider (a ship) Extra on page 286 of Fate Core for a full example. The Morph extra would provide skills that the character could use. If the Ego doesn't already have that skill at Average or better, then can just use that Morph's rating. I'd use the 'helping out rules', so that if the Ego's skill was already higher, they'd get a +1 boost from the Morph, or if the Ego's skill was lower they'd use the Morph's skill with a +1 boost from the Ego. Morph Aspects and Stunts don't really need any elaboration. Also I'd make the Physical Stress track a property of the Morph (but modified as above if the Ego had higher Physique. Mental stress (and any other stress tracks) are probably properties of the Ego. I'd also want to have skill caps dependent on the Morph. I'd probably break all skills down into Mental, Physical and Social skill groupings, because I'd want different skill caps for different skill groupings. For instance a Sylph might have a high Social skill cap, but a pretty low Physical one. I think this gives you lots and lots of dials to tweak to really re-create that Eclipse Phase feel

Yeah I thought some more about this and I think skill caps would work best. Otherwise the points put into character skills are pretty much wasted as the Morph's skills overpower them. It's a tough one though - you want characters to get a tangible benefit form switching Morphs, but at the same time don't want that benefit to overpower a character's own skills. Can't wait to see how this is resolved ;-)

This is eerily close to my thoughts on this. I propose a "jigsaw" type character sheet, with two mandatory and one optional piece: 1) Ego Character Sheet Ego Aspects, Ego Skills, Ego stunts (such as Async abilities), Rep and Mental Stress. 2) Morph Character Sheet Morph Aspects, Morph Skill Modifiers, Morph Stunts, Equipment and Physical Stress. Easily exchangeable when resleeving or egocasting, easily ignoreable when "infomorphing". Costs FP Refresh while in use, according to awesomeness. 3) Fork Subset Reference Card(s) This to me seems the most logical way to do it.

Firstly, I never understood the greatness of the skill pyramid. I can see the point in having a skill cap at 4 for starting characters (so they can improve their specialty), but really I'll probably always just give out a number of skill levels for allocation in any manner the players see fit. This is why I didn't bother trying to cram the pyramid structure into my character sheet. That, and I wanted a way to split the sheet clean in half, to get the pure Ego versus Morph dualism that I like. I chose the skills I feel are most essential, with some smashings-together to get a more manageable set: Academics - The advanced knowledge and general education skill. Art - Creation, evaluation, appreciation. Athletics - Jumping, climbing, dodging. The "pilot" skill for your body. Combat - Armed, unarmed and shooting. Deception - Lying, going undercover, misdirection. Flight - Manouvering things that need piloting in 3D, including you. Hardware - Understanding, breaking and fixing physical tech stuff. InfoSec - Hacking and defending against hacking. Interfacing - Using and understanding software. Investigation - Getting clues. Kinesics - Empathy, body language and sign language. Medicine - Understanding, breaking and fixing meatware. Military - Tactics, strategy, demolitions, weapons systems and heavy weapons. Networking - Finding and making contacts, getting and exchanging favors through Rep. Also physical socializing. Persuation - Bargaining, haggling, explaining, manipulating. Handling Old Economy transactions. Physique [≤2] - Toughness. Capped at 2, because the Skill part only represents "hard-headedness". The rest is the Morph. Programming - Programming stuff. Coding. Psychosurgery - Editing minds. Resources - Hmm, why did I put this on here? Not sure. Stealth - Sneaking around, avoiding detection. Will - Willpower, stability and resilience of mind.

Of course Physique should be a Will Stunt! So obvious, well caught! "Iron Determination", grants +2 to physical exertion tests, and one extra Physical Stress box. The rest of the boxes are all granted by the Morph. Maybe there should only be one "default" physical stress box by the way, for playing really fragile Morph types? I'm not sure about Security though. Can you think of possible applications that are not covered by Military, Combat, Athletics or InfoSec?

Good point on the Interfacing skill. It's mostly there because the EP main book references it a lot. But you're completely correct. Dropping it from the list! Perhaps merge it with Programming, and call it Software? I also omitted the Psi skill from the standard list because I feel psionics are a) not very setting essential, and b) more interesting as something of an extra "surprise" feature. The Fork boxes are used to denote which skill subset the currently played Fork version of the character knows!

I like the military skill. I've never thought about putting demolitions, tactics, and gunnery together, but it makes sense. Personally I'd probably still make tactics a separate skill since it seems to be pretty powerful and useful by itself. I'd probably make it military hardware only. Merging Pilot and Freefall is interesting, and I think justified. Pilot isn't really big enough to justify it's own skill, and with computer assistance probably isn't much harder than moving yourself. It's really more understanding zero-g momentum and maneuvers. Not thrilled with the name though. The only skill that stands out to me as a poor one is psychosurgery. I don't think it's used enough to dictate it's own skill. I guess you could create better forks with it? Mind edits are pretty cool, but I feel they are more of a plot device. I'd suggest making psychosurgery a Stunt that uses the Medicine skill. Give medic type characters some extra tricks. Survival is a good skill. I use it more as a general Boy-scouting skill so orienteering and pioneering both fall under this for me. Would I blow your mind if I suggested that Persuasion and Deception are pretty much the same? I know they are usually separated in most RPGs, but I find they both pretty much accomplish the same goal. Deception is basically persuading someone you are trustworthy, and there are shades of half-truths, unmentioned details, and mis-characterized facts that make it difficult to distinguish between the two. It's all about saying things with conviction, whether or not the thing you are saying is true. I'd replace Deception with Provoke from Fate Core, which is used to invoke emotional responses. It helps cover both intimidation and seduction which aren't really covered with your skill list.