Count_Zero wrote:

Would removing traits from characters in Eclipse Phase to cut down on clutter and book keeping work or could this break the system?

It would break the system pretty thoroughly. It will NOT cut down significantly on either clutter or bookkeeping. EP is a complex game. If you don't like that, then it's just not for you, no matter how much you may like the idea of a sci-fi transhuman RPG. That said, if you don't like complexity, why in the world are you interested in sci-fi transhuman RPGs based around conspiracy and ancient horror? That's like, a foot-thick smörgåstårta made of complexity.

Noble Pigeon wrote:

Don't know about you but I don't think the proper response is to scare away people with "if it's too complicated for you, then don't bother".

Trying to decomplexify Eclipse Phase is like trying to decomplexify Shadowrun. It's like saying "Well, I like the setting, but I'm not a fan of all these fiddly metatype modifiers, can I just make everyone look like they look and use one set of stats? Also, this Matrix stuff is basically a whole other game, can I just ignore it, and while I'm at it, all these huge lists of gear are grinding, can I just use generic gear stats and have done with it? Oh, and magic's fiddly, can I just forbid players from taking it and quietly ignore any corpsec magic options to level the playing field to the physical only?" [b]Yes[/b], you can, you can do any or all of those things. If you do so, you are administering defeat to the concept of Shadowrun, in part or in whole. I mean, sure, you [i]can[/i] cut out traits, but it (a) completely destroys things like "how is a Neotenic different from a splicer because of its tiny size, other than having a lower DUR and SOM maximum," and (b) it removes one of the important avenues for ego advancement. Which is not to say you can't streamline EP at times, but cutting out a major subsystem is probably not the way to do it. If you [b]are[/b] going to cut out a major subsystem, though, I would suggest Psi (Which is a major bag of dicks that makes you pay points for the privledge of being laden with drawbacks you would otherwise receive points for, and in turn grants a small handful of completely no-brainer powers and a giant pile of "I can do this better with software or hardware" powers), or stress, as, in my experience, mechanically enforcing mental problems on player characters never adds to the game, and can subtract from it substantially.

Quote:

To the OP, I don't think removing traits would be a good idea, but here are two stuff that I do because I'm not a fan of complex systems: -Cut down on the number of skills. Some of them are really splitting hairs and are unnecessary IMO.

This, actually, I wholeheartedly endorse, A lot of skills could be very well lumped into larger skills. Especially exotic weapon skills, and the melee combat skills. This is not for "de-complexity" reasons, though, but because I prefer the way it makes players able to make more rounded characters without sacrificing the ability to actually succeed at the actions they attempt.

Quote:

-Not waste time strictly adhering to the modifiers to rolls the book gives me, especially for combat. I remember the most important ones, and wing the rest. Eclipse Phase, for me, is actually [i]not[/i] a complicated game. At it's core, you're basically just rolling dice and adding and subtracting, even for stuff like resleeving/tapping rep networks. I'd actually say it's simpler in some regards as opposed to, say, D&D 3.5/Pathfinder.

It's worth having the ones you'll encounter often memorized, mind you, but you really don't need to be trying to work out the exact modifiers to a shot taken under high glare conditions with an oppressive smog and wildly fluctuating air-flow. Fortunately, it's pretty simple to say "This is really shitty conditions, -30. -20 if you have two or more vision mods, and -10 if you have them all."

Quote:

Basically I'm also disagreeing with the notion that sci-fi transhumanism is inherently complex...whatever that means, since I think the OP was addressing game mechanics, not setting.

Mechanics are what reinforce the setting. If you play the TITAN warbots as horrific monsters which can brainhack you from afar or gun you down before your cybered-up reflexes can even get your pistol out of your holster, and then they're pathetic jokes that a properly-built combat monster can mow down in droves, then the mechanics are failing to uphold the setting. I mean, sure, you could just cut Psi out of the game completely, make it something that's only rumors on the mesh and that not even Firewall can confirm, but if you cut Psi out of the game completely, but still try to play like if you take any dozen Sentinels there's 1.5 asyncs among them, it's just that your group never, ever, runs into any of them, it's going to be a [i]little odd[/i].

Quote:

Also, the Eclipse Phase wiki [url=https://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/Traits]has a "master list" of traits[/url], which might help a little.

Good ol' Chuck's EP Wiki. Seriously, as a GM, and a player, whenever I want to look up something about Eclipse Phase, I just plug in "Chuck's EP Wiki {subject here}" and most of the time, there it is, top result.

The FATE conversion hasn't quite done a great job of streamlining EP yet. We'll see how the new version shakes out but in the past it's been a little heavier on "conversion" than "FATE". This strikes at the heart, that there are ways to play with making your experience with EP easier to digest or faster to play. But that way will depend from group to group. We can already see we've got a handful of different opinions on the matter. I will agree with most, and say just slashing traits as a system is not the way to do this. For one thing, you're going to completely fuck up morph balance. You'd basically have to rebuild all morphs with traits for cost adjustment. You're also fucking up background and factional balance, as a lot of those have attached traits. And since traits have value, all this is part of the cost/benefit of those things. Honestly, traits also really don't clutter or bookkeep anything. You get a big list out at CC, you pick take what you want, you scribble them on the sheet and that's it. Only a handful of traits have really complex rules, most of the time you could probably just glance at them and figure out what they do. And some traits are purely narrative - and great fodder for a GM. Plus, it helps differentiate the PCs. Not only are you a great hacker, but your a great hacker who is a Digital Ghost with Machine empathy. Not only are you a good rifleman, you're a good rifleman with Tacnet Sniper and Hardening to violence, etc. Feel free to excise complex traits on an individual basis. (I'm also going to disagree wholeheartedly with removing Stress. As, without SAN damage, the game can too easily become a "transhumanity fuck yeah" quest of boring invincible heroes. Death is admitted to be only a temporary setback. Even if taken over by TITANs or the exsurgent virus, that won't bother the next you if he doesn't take Stress. Just roll back to start, and you're fine. Stress sticks with you from Morph to Morph, and is harder to fix. It's a much more permanent and potent form of damage. And I'd say it's borderline hypocritical to the "mechanics enforce setting" argument, unless you've got another non-arbitrary system to handle all that psychological impact which is supposed to be pretty key to the game. It's too much transhuman, not enough conspiracy and horror. Or that's my 2 cents anyway. Which further proves my above point that removing clutter will mean different things to different people).

As someone who plays primarily online through chatrooms or PbP, [em]anything[/em] that speeds things up and streamlines the game is appreciated. Doubly so because EP has a rather steep learning curve just from the lore alone. THe mechanics make it very daunting for new players at times. I cut the skills down tremendously and try my hardest to round everything off to the nearest 10. I haven't had time to work in it in a while, but I'm still interested in furthering the Storyteller system conversion, both because that's my preferred system and most of my friends are more familiar with it. And maybe this is just the crowd I run with, but whenever something like this happens, it tends to ruin the fun of the game. Of course, most of us are artists and writers, not numbers people. I think a lot of the sub-attributes could be simplified, though exactly how, I'm not sure without doing some work on it. The biggest obstacle to simplifying things that I've run into is that character stats change with their morphs, and can do so quickly. Which is essential to the setting, but the implementation feels clunky. Not that I've managed to figure out a satisfying alternative yet.

DivineWrath wrote:

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

One trick for speeding things up if you're using a text file or spreadsheet is grouping your skills by attribute, rather than sorting them alphabetically. It's a little thing, but it means that parsing bonuses and morph attributes becomes a lot easier.

Sorting things alphabetically is over rated. I rather sort skills by their intended function, like keep all combat skills in one place.

Alphabetical sorting has its uses. Using it as a sub-grouping for things under superheadings comes to mind. No reason that "Blades" should find itself being sorted in after "Unarmed," after all.

Just to add to the above post - if one is considering streamlining skills, why not remove Psi Assault and lump it in under Control? There is literally only one power that uses Psi Assault. Heck, maybe don't even make it a skill-driven power. Right now the play sequence for psi stab is, 1. Roll to hit 2. Defender rolls to evade 3. Roll Psi to manifest 4. Defender rolls WILx2 to resist 5. Roll damage Why not treat psi stab purely as a weapon and skip the "rolling dice to see if you get to roll dice" part? Especially if it's governed by a skill used by nothing else.

Epison sleights are explicitly GM fiat and not something which a being with playable levels of sanity would be able to wrap their heads around. That being said, the core book offers no suggestions for what an opposed roll for its various physics-violating examples would BE. PSI Assault is a weird example because Psychic Stab is a source of damage almost nothing else does. The closest equivalent is being infested with disassembly nanobots, and even those are gnawing on the victim's tissues rather than duping a brain signal to make their body tear itself apart. A Scorcher script is pretty similar too, but that's a known quantity that is resisted via Info Security. For the GM, the least headache-inducing option would be to spitball a number (50 or so for numerous Exurgent mooks, 80 or so for a single threatening alien, and a TITAN is 120 or some other arbitrarily high number which can still roll low). In the case of physical threats like Pyrokinesis, grenade blast radius rules might be appropriate.