I've never heard of (having hit points/not-having hit locations with *charts*) being 'generic and watered down', but yes. :) I agree with Scottbert: if you're looking for 'a sci-fi RPG', this might not be it. It's just *a* sci-fi RPG, and the setting is something you have to commit to all the way.

MrHemlocks wrote:

And what do you mean that this game is something you have to commit to all the way? Confused(

As I see it the setting is very well thought out, i.e. if you remove a part of it, the rest is sufferes. I imagine that is what Yerameyahu meant. I found EP because I was looking for a hard SciFi game. And as far as I see it EP delivered well. It is SciFi from today, projecting modern technology into the future (digitalising and transfering minds into other bodies, computers and robots; geneticaly modified conscious animals; AI as player characters; socioeconimics of the solar system and social networks and alot more). What I really love is the aspect that it is not just rewarming old SciFi canon with a bit advanced internet, but integrates many parts of modern SciFi into the game. Thumbs up for the game from me!

MrHemlocks wrote:

So how would you compare it to games like Traveller? Also, since there is a well thought out campaign setting than I will not need to tinker with it. At the time of my post I was not sure if it had a campaign setting.

I have read Traveler... Mongoose Traveler to be precise. I don't have much experience, but I'll help where I can. 1. Most people in EP didn't have a choice in merging with technology. The fall happened... the once blue pearl flying through space is now a black and grey ash covered wasteland with crazed killbots roaming around killing whatever few pickings they do find. Those who have managed to escape and survive often had to do so by uploading their minds to new bodies (it was faster to upload minds than it was to wait for the space elevator). Those who were unable to escape (or were too proud to upload) didn't make up off world. Because of this, much of the controversy over resleeving kinda died off (it still exists in places, but it is a minority). Most people have resleeved at least once in their lives. In fact, amongst the rich it is common practice to deck out your morph with augmentations (being a sign of wealth and progress), while the poor have to make due with cheap "case" synthmorphs that are prone to breaking down (they have the lemon trait). Seriously, its about as easy to give yourself good genes as it is to buy yourself a good suit (go pay someone to take care of it). Also given the nearly omni-presence of the mesh (and mesh inserts), not having access to even an ecto (a futuristic handheld computer) effectively makes you a cripple (of the mental variety). In traveler, being a modified human can lead to trouble. In certain regions, having too many devices in you might make you property and not a person. 2. Space travel is hard sci-fi. That means that the rules stick strongly to what physics actually says. There is no form of FTL (such as warp or jump drive). Space ships produce thrust from rockets or ion engines (or the like). Reaction mass is an important factor. It can take years for a ship to travel from one planet to another. Currently no transhuman ship has reached another solar system (though there has been a colony ship been sent). The gates are an exception (probably out of foresight to enable other kinds of games). Alien tech is often the exception. In Traveler, jump drive technology is about as common as air planes. If you are rich, you can afford to jump around frequently, you may do so. If you are not rich, you probably have the option to save up the money needed to afford a ticket. 3. There is no central authority. The Planet Consortium (the hypercorps) like to think they represent transhumanity and deserve to rule, but they don't. As such, if you travel to the wrong station, there might not be a higher authority that you can appeal to (or one you would like to appeal to). In Traveler, there is the Imperium that is the central authority that keeps things stable. If one world becomes too troublesome, the empire will take care of it (they don't like competition). They also tend to take care of aliens trying to invade Imperium space.

MrHemlocks wrote:

Humans...are there any none genetically altered ones left?

In theory, no. In practice, there might as well be. There are many "flats" out there that are more or less functionally equivalent as non-genetically altered humans. "Splicers" are the next step up, improving on aptitude capacity and bestowing bonuses to certain aptitudes (aptitudes are the important ego stats). In addition, "flats" are one of the few morphs that *don't* get the following augmentations by default (you can buy them, but if you have the money you should consider getting a new body). Flats don't get one of the holy grail of medicine... "basic biomods" which among many things includes riding a morph of basic defects and bestowing the ability to regenerate. Having your arm be chopped off is more of an inconvenience than anything now a days. You don't need to go to the hospital often now a days... though there are injuries you can get that you might want to go to a hospital get treated. It also bestows a number of fixes that makes space life easy (or easier), allowing one to survive zero-gs in the long run with minimal discomfort. "Mesh inserts" are the computers nearly everyone gets in their heads. Aside from interfacing with your mind so you could use the mesh (the setting's version of the internet) mentally, you get a personal "muse" (a personal assistant), and can do a wide range of things (too many to list here). Suffice to say that most people can control technology mentally and can directly control machines in many cases. A "cortical stack" is a device that uses nanotechnology to make a brain archive of your current mental state once every second. Suffice to say, most people don't expect to die and stay dead. With the right tools, you can be uploaded into a new organic body in an hour, or be uploaded into a new synthmorph is less than 10 seconds. ---- I'll check in later. I need a break right now.

Another thing you should be aware of: the political bias in the book. It's been discussed to death here on the forums and elsewhere, but there are a lot of people saying that the game has a blatant leftist bias. Some don't have a problem with this and just run with it. They say having fun comes secondary to worrying about bias in an RPG, and I agree with this. Others dislike the perceived notion that anarchists are basically the elves of the setting (ie better at everything than everyone else, whilst only having a few minor problems in their society), while the hypercorporations are fascistic practitioners of pseudo-slavery and corruption, and the bioconservatives (especially the Jovian Republic) are basically the Uruk-Hai. Even though I fell in love with the setting almost instantly, I really couldn't stand a lot of the preachy-ness of certain parts of the books, and it has even managed to turn off a few potential players at the college I go to. Well, their loss at playing in an otherwise awesome setting! Point is, just be aware of it. Change it if you must to give more moral greyness to the factions, like I did, or ignore it completely if it doesn't suit your game, or just run with it. I will say that they tone it down in the supplemental books, especially the Jovian Republic, who are still a fascist, militaristic republic but are more sympathetic and much more "human".

Of course not everyone does, and as I said, some people simply don't care about the bias and doesn't let it affect how they run or play in the setting, or they simply change certain aspects of the setting. I can go on and on about how I think the anarchists far too "perfect" for my taste, but that doesn't mean the OP should think this, since everyone is open to their own interpretation. Again, please don't take this to mean that the bias must influence your decision to buy the game. Get it for the thought-provoking and refreshing setting. Hell I got into it not by the core book but by flipping through the Gatecrashers supplemental book at a bookstore, and bought it before I knew what I was doing.

Denmark is the second happiest country in the world (after Norway - and the main difference is probably that they have all that oil money). So Smokeskin, clearly you're just naturally disaffected! (j/k of course)

My mate who introduced me to EP sold me on it when he described it as System Shock 3...

Smokeskin wrote:

@Noble Pigeon: The PC is in very many ways actually evil. It treats a lot of its people horribly. But the PC isn't the entire inner system and it isn't the only hypercapitalist faction.

But the biggest chunk of transhumanity lives in the Consortium. I get that the LLA and Constellation are more tolerable, but one of the reasons why I'm focusing on the PC is because it has the largest population of the solar system and controls Mars, the new cradle of civilization.

Quote:

But all hypercapitalist societies pretty much has to suppress many of the technologies that would otherwise usher in post-scarcity. Some people are kept artificially in poverty. That isn't very nice, but of course abolishing most economic incentives also has its downsides - it is just downsides that hit the society more than the individual.

Right, and I get that, but these anarchist problems are either not mentioned at all, or downplayed in a couple of paragraphs in one chapter, in one book. The flaws of hypercapitalism and the transitional economy is consistently mentioned and amplified to absurd levels in three of the damn books.

Quote:

It seems that you don't have any problem with how hypercapitalism works, but you have a problem with the books describing it. Even when they say that most inner system people wouldn't like living in anarchist societies you seem to think that is is actually a veiled insult.

Not just do I have a problem with how the books describe it, I have a problem with how there's apparently tons of flaws of hypercapitalism and how they're constantly pointed out, while the problems with the "new economy" or anarchism in general is minimized to a few paragraphs of "a few jerks, and hypertech". Oh and those few problems quickly self-correct themselves, not like the money-grubbing capitalists ignore the problem or just institutionalize it! And yeah, I do think that is a veiled insult. When they say "money is for people that don't know how to take care of themselves" in a part of the book that's not supposed to be from an in-universe perspective, then I think they intended for the average Consortium citizen to be mindless corporate wage slaves and subject to mindless consumerism living in an oppressive police state, while the anarchists have better education and have far better, wealthier, all around better lives than the oppressed proletariat of the inner system. Not only does it get preaching, it gets sickening at times. At no point in time did I ever feel more sympathetic to anarchism or want to run adventures even close to any anarchist habitats since, because they're so perfect and enlightened there's literally nothing to do there, except look around for some free gear using your maxed out @-rep. I don't mind a little bit of bias for the anarchists. Really, I don't. But the key phrase is "a bit". This is why, in my Eclipse Phase setting, anarchist terrorists not only exist (as they seem to be suspiciously absent from the core EP setting), but several groups of them are actively going out of their way to use tactics that threaten the lives of civilians, while other anarchists and autonomists keep their distance from said radicals and just want to build their vision of a good society, free from the corruption of state power and heavy-handed policing. Meanwhile, I point out how many hypercorps did go out of their way to evacuate people during the Fall, and does make things safer and more comfortable for people, while still being guilty of using indentured infomorphs and creating a facade of democracy. Not because they're corrupt or greedy, but because they genuinely believe that a firm but subtle hand is necessary to guide transhumanity into a new age. Whether this is justifiable or not is left for the individual to answer, not for a book to spell it out for you.

Smokeskin wrote:

That's just a consequence of free access to cornucopia machines. And that's undeniably a good thing.... ...That's not a political bias or the authors painting anarchist life with a rose brush, it's a fact based on the capabilities of technology that is restricted in hypercapitalist society.

Which is exactly why the PC's form of evil is so suspension-of-disbelief-breakingly strange. It's all here - unrestricted access to cornucopia machines are undeniably a good thing.... yet the PC restricts them out of sheer nihilism. A free, open society of plenty is a fact based in the capabilities of fabber technology... therefore the designated bad guys cannot allow access to them. There's no independent source of evil in the PC - they are evil because they restrict access to transhuman technologies, and they restrict access to transhuman technologies because they are evil. It's a tautology! The LLA and Morningstar only obviate this - they are hypercapitalist, but not virulently restrictive, making it clear that EP [i]does not[/i] hold hypercapitalism = evil as a fundamental tenet of its setting. They explicitly contradict the case that hypercapitalism requires a downtrodden underclass. I think this is actually why I find corporate evil weirder in EP than in cyberpunk - in cyberpunk, corporate evil is a foundation of the setting, while in EP, two (or three, counting Extropians) major factions make it clear there is no necessary relationship between evil and capitalism, and that the only reason the PC is evil is because it is ruled by liches.

Smokeskin wrote:

And finally, look at the big picture. On a societal level, the anarchists are the losers. Whatever advantages the anarchists have as individuals, they're still weak and consigned to the energy and resource poor outskirts of the solar system.

Which is part of the bias - everyone roots for the underdog! Which is why my campaign basically ignores Mars as much as possible.

The capitalists and Jovians in EP just have a case of the Jessica Rabbits. They're not bad, they're just drawn that way.

If you run the combat system verbatim from the book, expect it to come down to who has the drop on who because combat gets messy and deadly fast. To combat this you may find PCs building 'tank' characters which just means things will get even more messy as you scale up the challenge to keep them feeling threatened (remember: in space all bulkheads lead to space... eventually). Being a percentile system with a hefty character creations system it shouldn't surprise anyone that the PCs will on average (without cheese) be hitting more often than not. Armour/Energy Armour absorbs damage (remembering to apply armour penetrating effects is important), if the amount of damage the PCs take is greater than their Wound Threshold (dependent on the body they are in) then they take a wound that builds up cumulative -10% to all actions, however they also take the damage listed. When the damage listed exceeds their Durability then they are incapacitated until they heal. If the damage exceeds their Death Rating then the body is dead-dead. So even minor hits that don't inflict wounds whittle the characters down. I recommend encouraging a hit-and-run, guerrilla style gameplay. PCs should avoid combat unless they are certain they have the upper hand, and even then they should scatter the minute the wound penalties start accruing.

I second Thampsan's assessment of "Deadly", but I don't agree with the opinion that character's will hit more than 50% of the time out of the box. The system demands fairly realistic actions on the part of all combatants in a world of repeating firearms and lasers ie; Maneuver Warfare. It's not difficult to end up with a -30 attack modifier. On the other hand, getting caught in a cross fire or out in the open means you loose. That's just the way it is. Tank characters are not generally an issue given the constraints of travel and surveillance in EP. Rolling random hit location is ok but can give you some funky results. I just use the damage roll to determine how close to the 10 ring the hit occurred. High results are closer to center mass, lower results are peripheral. ( in my opinion that is the purpose of rolling damage.)