Eclipse Phases for Dummies.... [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

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ZenoForce88

2013-10-12, 01:22 AM

NoldorForce

2013-10-12, 01:51 AM

Could you be more specific? Without much information it'll be tricky to guide you.

That said, in my experience Eclipse Phase's two big complications are in character creation and in resleeving. For the former you'll want a spreadsheet (https://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet/Eclipse%20Phase%20Character%20Sheet%20v.95.xls?att redirects=0&d=1) (current through Rimward). This not only will track everything you've done but will also provide a checklist of stuff to do. Strictly speaking you can do the bookkeeping on your own but it's a pain to set up.

Resleeving, on the other hand, is a massive pain and thus I'd recommend having a separate sheet around just for your morph's abilities to be easily considered when necessary. (Or use the spreadsheet, which will continue to track things for you.) If you want to get your feet wet on that I'd suggest using Comrade Gorbash's morph pool rules:

So there are basically two problems with morphs at character creation, which are mirror images of each other. You have one player who drops a bunch of CP on building a badass Olympian with all the optional extras. And then you have the guy who gets 50 free points of CP via the syphilitic flat he bought.

The first case causes two big issues - first, because so much of the character is invested in that morph, it limits what kind of adventures she can go on and still be effective. It matters less for Gatecrashing or political type adventures that focus on a smaller part of the system, but it makes one of the cooler aspects of the setting (resleeving) less interesting. The second issue is if the morph is killed, especially early, the PC is out a significant investment.

The second case is pure BS rules exploit, since the plan from the start is to use rep to snag a top-of-the-line morph after the Flat is inevitably killed.

Now, I recognize that the death issue in the first case should be partly covered by backup and morph insurance, and the second just requires a GM not be a complete pushover. But backup and morph insurance are rather poorly defined and nebulous things, and a new GM could easily be victimized by less egregious variants of the second. I also dislike solutions that lead to players using a lot of vanilla morphs. I think crazy morphs are fun. I want more crazy morphs. I want to enable players who want to play crazy morphs, without making it without consequence.

The morph pool is designed to address these issues, as well as encourage players to resleeve regularly. Essentially, at character creation the player assigns a portion of his CP to his morph. This reserved CP is always tied to the morph, but it also ensures that the player can acquire a morph of equal or lesser value easily and routinely. It protects that investment. It also protects against some of the more ridiculous shenanigans with broken down Flats, since if you have a 0 morph pool, you're not going to be able to get into good morphs easily, even with a good rep.

However, it does not allow a player to swap between super badass morphs at will and at no cost. Second is that it does not prevent players from jumping into a reaper or other crazy morph that pops up as available mid-adventure. Here's the nuts and bolts.

At character creation, the player assigns points to a morph pool. I suggest a cap of 70 CP at character creation.
Through play, the character may assign earned CP/Rez to the morph pool.
Between adventures, or additionally whenever the GM deems reasonable between sessions, if appropriate downtime is available and the characters are in a suitable location, the players may freely resleeve into a new morph of CP cost equal to or less than their morph pool.
Mid-adventure, if a character is restoring from backup or resleeving (whether locally or after farcast) with notice, they can resleeve to a morph of value equal to or less than their Morph Pool. This represents "backup" morphs and insurance. If the resleeve is on short notice - 24 hours or less - the GM assigns the 10CP of Negative Traits which do not count against the CP cost (or Negative Traits limit) from the Rental Penalty Traits list below. These penalty traits apply only to the specific morph, and the GM should always allow the players to freely remove it between adventures.
On a short notice resleeve, the Moderate favor can remove the penalty Negative Traits.
To purchase implants and augmentations for a morph, any CP left over after the morph and its traits are paid for are converted to credits at the normal rate (1000cr per CP). These credits are notional, and can ONLY be used to purchase implants and augments for that specific morph. Any leftover credits after this process are not given to the character.
If a character acquires a morph mid-adventure, they can continue to use it through the entire adventure. However, after the adventure the character may only keep the morph if its CP cost, including augments, is equal to or less than the character's morph pool. The morph can be modified to remove or add traits or augments to bring it in line with this restriction. Additionally, the character can pay for any augments that exceed the morph pool with credits or favors. Note that if the character has unspent points due to adventure rewards, they can choose to assign them to morph pool before they check to see if the acquired morph is at an acceptable cost. This reflects the fact that more expensive morphs require more expensive insurance, backups, and upkeep.

Rental Penalty Traits
Starred traits are worth 5CP. You may ignore the normal restrictions when assigning these traits, with the exception of those that only affect biomorphs, which cannot be assigned to synthmorphs. Additionally, the GM should take care to make sure that none of these traits render a character ineffective. This defects are intended to increase the dramatic and comedic options to all players as well as the GM. I strongly recommend against assigning them randomly, and the GM should be flexible about decreasing the effects should a chosen defect cause more trouble than intended.

Core
Addiction (Mild, Any)*
Addiction (Moderate, Any)
Frail (Level 1)
Implant Rejection (Level 1)
Lemon
Mild Allergy*
Severe Allergy (Uncommon)
Social Stigma
Unattractive (Level 1)
Uncanny Valley
Weak Immune System
Zero-G Nausea
Sunward
Fast Metabolism*
Planned Obsolescence*
Panopticon
Impaired Balance
Impaired Hearing
Weak Grip
Rimward
Temperature Intolerance (Warm)

GOOD INSURANCE [Positive Trait]
Cost: 5 CP
When resleeving mid-session on short notice, you do not have penalty Negative Traits.

CRAPPY INSURANCE [Negative Trait]
Bonus: 5 CP
When resleeving during a session, your morph always has penalty Negative Traits regardless of how much notice you gave.

Beyond that, take a look at the resources page (http://eclipsephase.com/resources) for the game. I particularly recommend the "EP Primer" cheatsheet (http://eclipsephase.com/downloads/EclipsePhasePrimer.pdf). Thankfully EP runs a lot more easier once you've completed setup.

Lorsa

2013-10-12, 02:23 AM

I can help you, but if you have trouble with reading on a screen wouldn't it be better if I explained it to you over skype or something? It's not very complicated at all really.

Zavoniki

2013-10-12, 03:12 AM

Hello playgrounders! Long time reader, but only posted a few times. Recently my group has decided to look into other gaming systems. One that drew the attention to a majority of them was Eclipse Phases. So we all got the Core book, and Quick Start guides and said we'd learn it. Problem is, the system is stumping all of us. One has poor reading comprehntion, and the others, well they seem to not have the time to learn it as completely as we all want, and I'm having trouble following PDFs...I can learn a lot from a hard copy but have trouble following digital media. I was wondering if anyone would be willing to guide me, step by step through learning the system. I'd be willing to chat outside of the Forums if that would help...

It might not just be your group. Despite being a not too complicated system(especially once your past character creation), the Eclipse Phase Core Book is written... confusingly(especially character creation) and has a habit of over explaining things making them more confusing.

The system itself is very simple. You have a target number between 0 and 100. You roll a d100 and are trying to get as close to the target number as possible while staying under it, like Blackjack. If you get a double(00,11,22,33, etc...) its a critical. Below the target number its a critical success, above its a critical failure. Occasionally you can do things that modify the target number.

Character creation is given in the wrong order. This is the order it should be in:

Make an Ego:
Pick Background and Faction.
Allocate Starting Aptitude Points/Spend free points on Aptitudes(Though I would suggest not spending points on them).
Buy Active Skills
Buy Knowledge Skills
But Moxie/Ego Traits(Both Positive and Negative)
But Software(with credits/CP)

Make a Morph:
Pick Morph
Buy Morph Traits(Positive Negative)
Buy Gear

The reason you make a character this way is due to the way bonuses are allocated to your skills/aptitudes. Your Ego is what everything is based off and all the Morph/Gear bonuses get applied after everything from your Ego is calculated. I don't believe the ever clearly explain that in the book. The other reason is to get people used to the idea that your Morph is a piece of gear and is disposable.

If there's anything else confusing remember you don't need to get everything right. Especially when you get in to gear there is a lot of fiddly options and quirky rules that show up but you don't need any of them because they all pertain to specific gear. If you just want to run a basic game just buy guns/armor and some basic mods(Medichines and maybe Neurachem) and just start playing.

Eclipse Phase is a lot easier than it seems.

Yuki Akuma

2013-10-12, 06:34 AM

Alternatively, use the character creation rules from Transhuman. They're easier to grok. Plus, it includes random character generation, which is always fun.

The Grue

2013-10-12, 05:15 PM

In addition, someone's got a campaign journal on this subforum and there's an actual PbP game running right now called Head First. Glancing at either might clear out some of the cobwebs and give you some insight into how the game runs "in the wild".

Libertad

2013-10-13, 12:13 AM

I'd like to chime in an mention that the alternate Packs-based chargen system in Transhuman is much simpler than the Core rulebook's default system. I'd highly recommend using Transhuman for this once you move beyond using pre-generated characters.

Vknight

2013-10-14, 10:09 PM

The System is a roll under system, much like Call of Cthulhu.

Rolling
1d100 is rolled for skill usage.
You try to roll under your skill(lets say its 50%)
So 01-to-50 is a success
51-to-98 is a failure.
100 Is always a critical success
99 Is always a critical failure

Margin of Success your is what you rolled on a success. So a roll of 32(out of 50) is a MoS(Margin of Success) of 32.
Margin of Failure is how many points above the check you rolled. So you roll a 68(out of 50) a MoF(Margin of Failure) of 18.

Doubles are criticals. If you pass the check its a critical success. If you fail the check it is a critical failure. So the numbers for Crits are 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, 100.

If you roll 30-to-59 and succeed its a Excellent Success. Which provides certain benefits. Long tasks like investigating a crime scene it reduces the time it takes by 10%. In combat an attack deals +5 damage on a excellent success.
60-to-89 is a Double Excellent Success. Which doubles the benefits of a normal excellent success. So reduces the time to do an action by 20%. Increases damage by 20%
Triple is of course the another 10%, and +5 damage, and it is 90-to-98.

Character Creation
The Transhuman Systems will help with this.

Or look at it this way.

1000 Points
400 have to go to Active Skills
300 have to go to Knowledge Skills

So instead
400 Points for Active Skills
300 Point for Knowledge Skills
300 Points for Morph/Reputation/Skills/Credits/Gear/Moxie

Morph Advice
Flats
Flats save CP but a character in a flat should have a reason to be in it. Because its a human with nothing added to it, so they should one be rare, and two really says a statement about the individual

Splicers/Exalts/Olympians
These morphs have little modification and generally provide stat boosts. They depending on the character can be worth the CP.
Splicers are cheap baseline and are barely better then Flats having Cortical Stacks and better stat maximums
Exalts are the first to have 30 Aptitude Max and they provide a decent group of stat buffs along with being a quick simple set up
The Olympian is much more focused

Hibernoids/Mentons/Futuras. etc
The various cheap CP cost morphs with a decent selection of Mods and/or stat boosts. They are really worth their CP cost.

Fury/Ghost. etc
These Morphs are decently worth their cost. But only for specific character/builds/what have you. Otherwise they eat up too many of your point

Reaper and Friends
These Morphs are a waste of CP, and a waste at character creation. Except for One-Shots, or Morphs you could easily get. Generally any Morph 80+ CP is this. The Reaper is the pinnacle at 100 CP.

Frankly with a Synth Morph with some mods you have a far more effective combat morph then the Reaper because its not illegal in any habitat.

Cost Effective Gear
Medichines; Always yes
Bioweave Armor Light; Cheap and good protection
Structural Enhancement; For Synths its +10 Durability which is nice
Kinesics Software; +10 Kinesics
Behavioral Software; Gives you 80 Psychology or +20 to Psychology if your Psychology is above 60.
Event Reconstruction; Gives you +20 Investigation
The Various Sense Enhancements which are all worth 250 Credits.
Body Armor Light is frankly better then Heavy Body Armor.
May not provide as much armor but its Blueprint costs 1000 Credits compared to the Heavy Combat Armors blueprint cost of 20,000
The Various Drugs and the Blueprint to make them
Unarmed is the best melee option(Unless you use a Wasp Knife with Necrosis and Twitch)
Kinetic Weapons are the best ranged weapons
Spray Weapons. Though Kinetic Guns are much better being the king of guns, Sprays are the Duke. They may not be useful for long range they make up for this by one dose of Twitch or Necrosis(Or Twitch+Necrosis) coats all 100 shots of your Shredder, yes that is right and its amazing.

Gear That Can Be Worth It
Beam Weapons are good in any games set in habitats with strict rules on weapons, and places were you don't want to penetrate the hull
Seeker Weapons are just fun but they are expensive in games were you can get money and or access to Fabbers well then you got something
Blade weapons outside of the Wasp Knife especially on Ambidextrous builds
Neurachem; +1 Speed, no real negatives
Cyberlimbs; With Ambidextrous your Biomorph now can dual wield Assault Rifles
Hardened Skeleton; Great for getting up your Durability and Somatics if you don't have a high Somatics but would benefit from it
Endocrine Control; Morph doesn't have emotional dampeners? You don't take the -10 to all other Social rolls outside of Deception/Impersonation. You Ignore 1 wound along with several other benefits

Gear Just Not Worth It Unless Free or Speciality Builds
Clubs they are just bad, they have little damage and poor armor penetration
Reflex Enhancer, +10 Reflexes and +1 Speed.... Neurachem or Kick provides similar benefits or the same benefits with Kick, and Kick lets you go over the aptitude maximum of the morph unlike this

Adrenal Boost; Its another +10 REF and ignore 1 wound, for negatives once it deactivates. Not really worth it, especially when I can grab some MRDR or Kick and get speed and +10 REF, or speed and ignore a wound. This mod just eats to much and only is for that one morph

Resleeving Advice
Mess with their expectations.
Point out the more precise they are in what they want the more it will cost rep/credit wise and/or they may not have it.

Make the players ask for things like
Base Morph Type
Mods
Gender
Advantages, etc.
But not all of that. You want it to be the character asking for something that gets close to what s/he has or wants.

Then change it up a bit don't let them get the exact same morph. Maybe the Combat guy instead of a Fury gets a Olympian with Reflex Enhancers. Or the Hacker instead of a Menton a Hypergibon with drug glands to boost cognition
And sometimes mess with them. Put the Bioconservative in a Neo-Avian when the group has to go to a primarily uplift hab. Put the Psychic in a Pod. And other minor things like that. Make resleeving clever but not outright hostile.
Never give them exactly what they expect/want, unless they really shell out the dough for it.

One character is in a Fury with Neurachem.
Then when the PC's transfer to Luna. That is all he wants. Play it up and throw the player for a loop with a morph that is a different gender then their identity or has tattoos or used to be owned by a group which dislikes the player.
Things like that can bring out a lot of clever things. Because destroying the morph to get a new one may simply not work out(Hey we got a Splicer and an Olympian with a Cyberlimb!)

Cool Things To Know/Advice

Ambidextrous
Ambidextrous is a monster of a trait and combat characters will love it.
Its actually better for a character dual wielding guns then one with melee weapons.
A character with 1 Heavy Pistol normally only makes 2 attacks when firing semi-auto. If that character dual wields with Ambidextrous that becomes 4 attacks. On a combat character that will easily be 70%
60% Skill(Which is professional level in a skill). +10% Laser Sight/Smartlink. +10% Homing Rounds. +X% from Coordination boosts to the Morph.

Kinetic Weapons
Kinetic Weapons are just better. It is harder to boost Kinetic Armor.
They have better armor penetration. They have better ranges then many other ranged weapons.
They have a variety of ammo types. Several of which can be stacked together.
They all fire in Semi-auto, Burst Fire, and Full-Auto modes.
Several mods in the book were made for those guns
Were they are not to dangerous to have in a habitat they are very common. Ammo is inter-changeable
Cheap compared to other guns

Homing + Hollow-Point Rounds. Better Accuracy and better damage
Accushot + Hollow-Point Rounds. Long Range sniping with a splat effect

Called-Shots
Head-shots ignore armor and are only a -10. Unless the target has Bioweave which then applies the Bioweave. Or a Helmet which then provides the armors benefits.
Helmets are really really nice because of this. And same can be said for headshots to a target
Otherwise to Ignore armor it is a -30 to the Skill

Full Auto fire can give you +3d10 damage or +30 to the Skill. It goes well with Called Shots for that.
Even better if the target has no Helmet and you call a shot on their head and take the +3d10 damage.... mmmm paste

Murder Simulator
Ignore the -10 to Call a Shot to the Head. Yes, because it ignores armor.

Tactical Network
One person should have this. Well two people so if that person can't make a session the group has it.
Its the PC hive mind. Trade information, talk secretly, communicate battlefield information, make perception/kine-sic checks through each others eyes. Fire blind by looking through a team-mates eyes

Tac-Net sniper lets you ignore some of the penalty for doing that and is worthwhile on any soldier build were that could happen.

The 3 F's
Fray
Free-running
Free Fall

Have each at 40%. Their simple as that I don't care if your a cripple and cannot leave your wheelchair. 40% in each or you won't last long.
Fray lets you dodge attacks
Freerunning is needed to run and do acrobatics
Free Fall so you don't drift through space until eventual death

PSI Kings
PSI sucks for several reasons. -1 To Trauma Threshold, a mental disorder per level of it. But their is something that makes up for it.

The Boxer. A Psi with the right build a focus with Unarmed Combat can devastate a Bio or Pod morph. The build is still effective against Synth's and is still useful by none Psi Users but is best in their hand.
The Build?

Psychic Stab(Psi Sleight), Potent Mind(Trait), Eelware, Cyberclaws, Pneumatic Limbs(Applied to Cyberlimbs or a Synthmorph with a brain box), Ambidextrous.
3d10 + 2 + SOM/10 + Shock; for the Cyber Claws
2d10 + WIL/10; for the Stab
As one punch. So ouch your looking at some nasty damage, with double the chances of getting a Excellent Success. And if your MoF is 20 or less? You still hit with the Eelware and Psychic Stab, nice combo I'd say

PSI also have several passive Sleights which boost your skills.
With the right set up meet the Psychic Ninja
Fray get bought up too 80%(Or 90 with Expert). Which will probably cost between 75-to-85 points. Reflex Enhancer(The one build its worth getting it on), Drug Gland with Kick, and the PSI Sleight which boosts Fray.
110% vs. Melee Attacks. 55% vs. Ranged Attacks.
First thing you do every round? Full Defense! And your stats change over to
140% vs. Melee Attacks. 70% vs. Ranged Attacks
or
140% vs. Melee Attacks. 85% vs. Ranged Attacks

It depends on if your GM rules Full Defense bonus of +30; to Fray gets applied before or after the divide by 2 from Ranged attacks.

Hackers Can Ruin Your Day
Hack your opponents tac-net, add AR-Illusions they will now all suffer penalties unless they leave the Tac-net losing its benefits to organization

If people have Cyberbrains they can be hacked. It takes time but if you have extra mental actions that reduces the time frame by 10% per mental action. Along with the various other ways to reduce the time frame. You can get hacking a Cyberbrain down too 5 Action Phases(5 Rounds of combat after going through each speed). Which is a decent lot of time in Eclipse Phase combat
But with the right set up the Hacker can start this before combat begins, and potentially without the hacked realizing what has happened until it is too late.

Wasp Knife
Doesn't look that great. Does it?
Oh not as strong as the Monofilament or Diamond Axe.
Not a super concealable as the Flex Cutter. Not as useful for sawing through things as the Vibroblade.
It runs the middle road. What the Wasp Knife does have though, it carries with pride.
Underwater/In Space when loaded with air releasing the interior canister does +2d10 damage.
In atmosphere when loaded with water it does the same
It can be loaded with more then one chemical unlike the other melee weapons which need to be coated and unlike them is safe because the drug is stored inside a canister.
Get some Dissemblers, Necrosis, and Twitch
Knife Damage, + 1d10 + 1d10/2 and damage to equipment + the target takes -20 to all actions for several rounds

EMP's
Best friend to disrupt Tac-Net, and/or Nano-swarms. You will value these missiles/grenades for their effectiveness over any other for that simple reason.

Spray Weapons
The Shredder and Shard Pistol are the second best fire arms besides Kinetic Weapons(their only competition being the Plasma Rifle, again Seekers cost a lot and are hard to get in a lot of places along with the other disadvantages to rockets)
Spray Weapons also include the fun things like the Freezer for entrapping targets
Torch to burn
Buzzer to fire Nanoswarms
This amount of options and shorter range makes them great for close quarters combat especially aboard cramped habitats/ships

Zavoniki

2013-10-14, 11:39 PM

Vknight

2013-10-15, 12:46 AM

Uhm... Armor defeating shot is simply a -10 due to being a Called Shot, EP Core 197. Like all called shots you need an MoS of 30+ for the called shot to be successful, otherwise it is just treated as a normal success.

Already fixed that, error. Point being
Murder Simulator Addict is a good Trait for combat characters.

On the subject of Synths & Pods similar rules apply with them as do the other morphs. Look for ones that don't have heavy cost to low output.

The Shaper is much better then the Sylph despite lacking Phermones(cheap add-on), because its got better mods, for 5 more CP. It is also a Pod morph without the negative social stigma of a Pod and Socialites can use it despite it being a Pod at character creation

Jovian is a bad path. Nothing good will come of it. If your going to use the Jovians remember they are Hypocrites with a populace that loves them for this hypocrisy... And somehow their are no groups opposing them. They are like the Cereberus of Eclipse Phase.
They make no sense what so ever, yet they continue to survive and thrive.
I start ranting about the problems with Jovia. Mainly comparing to Cerberus then breaking down all the other problems

Cerberus invades and captures the Citadel. Jovian's are trying to create PSI super soldiers.
Cerberus kills humans to promote a anti-alien agenda. Jovian's will not tolerate any bioware or nanotechnology, but any one of decent rank are cyber-ed up more than some Ex-humans.
Cerberus has people everywhere. Jovian spies are a major threat despite the sample selection spies having no skill with explosives and several explosive weapons(who tries to fight the Transhumans one on one, so no suicide bombing)
Cerberus can enter into Citadel space without immediately being fired upon. Jovians are allowed to control the biggest anti-matter warhead and fleet in the local sun, with no spies informing on their movements
You are to work with Cerberus in 2 and like it. The writers try to shoe horn in that the Jovians could be portrayed as good guys trying to protect transhumanity(when their stated goal is its destruction for the protection of true humanity...)
Cerberus has power armor. Jovians know about the Watts Macleod Virus and know of its connection to the LOST project
Cerberus's leader is the Illusive Man and is always right nor can ever be found. The Jovian leadership(TAHI), have several copies of their backups stored in a group of secure remote facilities around Jupiter(at least a dozen of them)
People believe Cerberus when they say they have not done some horrible war crime. The Jovians actively threaten several groups within the setting without retaliation
Cerberus gets a pass by the writers to be a foil. The Jovians get a pass because your Insert one of the following(Supposed to work with them. Accept they are doing the best for Transhumanity. Are allied with them. They are righteous in their decisions. They are the good guys.) in most games as Firewall agents

The Jovians are the red thumb of an otherwise perfect game. They don't work as a group. If they were a bunch of backwater, people threatening everyone vaguely without much real power beyond their initial spheres, they work.
As they are their a highly mobile, aggressive military strike force that can cream any opposition and want to... SO why haven't they?

It gets worse when you realize no Jovian ships, or treatment centers, or asteroids have the correct shielding to make the radiation of orbit around Jupiter tolerable. Or how about the lack of good medical care. So they have a large amount of innate genetic defects, large occurrence of cancer(Something over 60% of the population has it). Did I mention all their habitats are old and dingy, poorly made shoddy things that have poor air conditions and life support issues...

And no one is opposed to their current lot in life. Tumor ridden with heart defects and being conscription forcefully to the army, for not much better, unless you manage to not die along the way, crawl up the ranks enough to get backup insurance so you can crawl further up those ranks to have some semblance of decent life.

The Jovian life style is stable because the book says it is.
It's show don't tell. Except we've seen the tell and it says the exact opposite!

So with that in mind remember the Jovians, for when you want Cerberus in your Eclipse Phase except at least the Illusive man wasn't a hypocrite and never recruited aliens until being mind controlled by the Reapers

Bobby Derie

2013-10-15, 07:12 AM

Acatalepsy

2013-10-15, 12:20 PM

I tend to assume everything written in the core book written by in-universe fairly radical anarchists. They explicitly acknowledge the biases in some areas, less in others, but it's always there.

One of the other things is that it's hard to get a sense from the books just how much has changed. Remember that the population of every planetary body has increased by at least an order of magnitude over a decade. That's an insane amount of growth, even over the course of a generation, nevermind less than that. While also trying to deal with the aftershocks of a literal apocalypse and an ongoing ideological Cold War. Even with AI and nanofabrication...that's tons of raw change that needs to propagate through the system, and it's going to be messy.

Be wary of treating anything as an established tradition or institution, and keep in mind that the entire solar system is still evolving in so many ways.

Vknight

2013-10-15, 12:26 PM

Jovians are presented as strawmen because, well, look at the biases of the people that are writing them. That said, they don't have to be strawmen in your games. One of the nice things about Eclipse Phase is that they've made it a very open continuity. I had some thoughts related to this here: http://www.farcastblog.com/2013/09/252-bioconservative-ethics.html

And what you talked about in your blog post is a movement against Morphological Freedom. Not being a bio-conservative.

Morphological Freedom refers to a proposed civil right of a person to either maintain or modify his or her own body, on his or her own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling medical technology.
So being against Morphological Freedom does not make your a Bioconservative, but not vice versa.
Being against the idea of Morphological Freedom means that you don't think people should have complete control/right to modify themselves as they wish. It does not mean you wish to completely stop the modification you simply won't controls on who can. Such as stopping someone under 21 from getting tattoos, until they are 21. Its the position of controlled modification, if any at all. And it is your choice and decision to modify yourself

Bioconservatism is a stance of hesitancy about technological development especially if it is perceived to threaten a given social order. Strong bioconservative positions include opposition to genetic modification of food crops, the cloning and genetic engineering of livestock and pets, and, most prominently, rejection of the genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification of human beings to overcome what are broadly perceived as current human biological and cultural limitations.
Control and keeping to the status quo. Don't advance beyond our limitations meaning don't try to make a flying machine or go to the moon. Don't find ways to replace or regrow limbs or to keep a persons DNA to clone them new parts or a new body.

Its sticking to a Social Norm for the safety it provides rather then exploring beyond that to see what we can create.
It is not just a stance against what we have been doing for thousands of years it is also a slap to the face to any great innovator.

Bobby Derie

2013-10-15, 12:38 PM

Vknight

2013-10-15, 02:39 PM

It's a good conversation to have; I tossed out some starting talking points. I think that as you have defined them the stances I gave are efforts at bioconservatism (with a focus on personal augmentation) from a positive standpoint, emphasizing that one of the possibilities of morphological freedom is to remain un-modified, despite the peer pressure and technological ability to do so. At your own table you might argue it either way; the entire point of the post was simply to bring to mind that bioconservative PCs need not be strawmen by default, but can have their own justifications for their beliefs, which can make for more interesting NPCs and games.

Keep in mind those are the definitions for those terms.

And very true.
I still see the Bioconservative movement as being Straw man, along with anyone willingly affiliating themselves to it. Why I make most characters Gm's would call Bioconservative, I instead would play as Precautionist or Anti-Morphological Freedom.
And is my suggestion for the movement. That actual people calling themselves Bioconservative are the straw-men, well Precautionist and People Against Morphological Freedom say they have Bioconservative leanings.

This is all good and your post does a good job for that idea saying a character can argue against modification for their own reasons.
And that works well for Bioconservatives arguing against the free form modification. The fact remains Bioconservatives walk a fine line because of the fact they go against so many things that make up the setting, along with making up the most violent and dangerous groups within the setting.

This bugs me because the arguments I see for the movement and people trying to show them as not being Straw-men comes down to they don't want to and claim they would be forced to be modified. Except a Splicer with the right skill set can get work as easily as an Olympian. And the groups that force laws about augmentation are the Bioconservative ones(or habitats that have particular design were one needs Temperature Tolerance or other things to survive)
This bugs me because the platform is saying we want people to not force us to change. When what they do in the books is force others into not being able to change and look how much better we are for it... All of which seems backwards.
I think straight book to game they are Straw-men. But with the right work they could be shown as not straw-men. They'd still be wrong mind you but at least not straw-men, so sayith the Ex-human

ZenoForce88

2013-10-17, 08:34 PM

Wow, all of this really helped! Thank you everyone, that actually cleared up quite a bit. And you even went so far as to give character creation advice! which personally is always the hardest thing to figure out when there is a metaplot that everyone loves, and want to use.

houlio

2013-10-18, 06:26 AM

I have no more advice towards running the game, but I'll always pipe in about RPPR's Eclipse Phase Actual Plays. They are quite good, and while they get some rules incorrect (especially early on), they can still be helpful for seeing how the game is played out.

http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/category/systems/eclipse-phase/

Kaun

2013-11-14, 06:52 PM

So i have been reading through the core book for this lately and i am really liking the setting.

One question keeps springing to mind though. How do they have kids? maybe i missed the section in the book but ...

are they just growing them out of petri dish after filling out a check list at the local "Kids are us" store?

At what age do they upload them?

Zavoniki

2013-11-14, 10:05 PM

It varies a lot. For the most part they are grown out of petri dishes yes. All Uplifts are born that way and AGI are simply coded.

I'm not sure what you mean by uploaded... Most people(not Jovians) have Mesh Inserts when they are born and have Muses to help take care of them. People don't raise children in Simulated Environments(see the Lost Project) because it causes bad things.

In general people don't have children. It's just not something that happens too often. No one can die so there's no need for people to replace the dead. It's almost impossible to get completely killed off not to mention some people make copy's of themselves.

From what I understand the general way a child is born is that someone arranged for an embryo to be made, it gets birthed from a super awesome vat, and then people try to keep the child in the same morph until it reaches maturity.

Kaun

2013-11-14, 10:54 PM

I'm not sure what you mean by uploaded...

To quote the core book

At the same time came the ability to map the human brain and digitally emulate the mind and memories, making “uploading” possible—followed
closely by the ability to download back into a separate human brain of course.

There has to be the initial human brain to create the Ego or the personality. If the EGO is engineered the its just an AGI. So wouldn't children have to spend some quantity of time in their own body before being uploaded so they don't classify as AGI's.

In general people don't have children. It's just not something that happens too often. No one can die so there's no need for people to replace the dead. It's almost impossible to get completely killed off not to mention some people make copy's of themselves.

Regardless of the question of need i imagine there would still be significant want. Plenty of people want to have children now, i can't imagine that human trait would completely vanish.

Delta

2013-11-15, 05:59 AM

There has to be the initial human brain to create the Ego or the personality. If the EGO is engineered the its just an AGI. So wouldn't children have to spend some quantity of time in their own body before being uploaded so they don't classify as AGI's.

I think you have the wrong impression here, "uploading" is not a singular process, if you have mesh inserts like most non-bioconservatives have you're constantly being "uploaded", as there is a constant real-time backup of your ego.

Since most kids' bodies will be created with those meshs already in place or will have them inserted soon after birth they will be uploaded for all their life, but the basis for this "uploaded" ego will still be the biological brain.

Kaun

2013-11-15, 06:15 AM

I think you have the wrong impression here, "uploading" is not a singular process, if you have mesh inserts like most non-bioconservatives have you're constantly being "uploaded", as there is a constant real-time backup of your ego.

Since most kids' bodies will be created with those meshs already in place or will have them inserted soon after birth they will be uploaded for all their life, but the basis for this "uploaded" ego will still be the biological brain.

Well by upload i meant the initial upload, getting the whole process started.

So basically they genetically engineer kids with the ability to upload their ego already instated. Once they are past they embryo stage they try to maintain their initial biomorph sleeve until the child has developed into some base level of maturity?

lol it seems like it would be a small miracle not to end up with sociopathic monsters even with a nurturing environment provided by their adopted parent/s.

Delta

2013-11-15, 06:29 AM

Well by upload i meant the initial upload, getting the whole process started.

Is it really important when that happens? I guess if it's a biological birth it will happen sometime after giving birth, otherwise as soon as it's practical to put the implants in.

Yuki Akuma

2013-11-16, 11:36 AM

We do know that children can be uploaded. We also know that nanites can build implants inside people's bodies without requiring any surgery.

I don't see why a pregnant woman couldn't hop in a healing vat and get their baby implanted with a cortical stack before they're even born.

Of course, you don't need a cortical stack to upload an ego. It works by injecting the brain with nanites that then record the exact positions of all the neurons and neural pathways in the brain, and the information recorded on them.

I can't imagine why they wouldn't take backups as soon as possible, at least, even if they intend for the kid to grow up in their first morph. Accidents happen.

Longes

2013-11-16, 01:36 PM

Zavoniki

2013-11-16, 02:11 PM

You'll have to clarify your question more.

The problem with EP is that, despite the cool idea and TRANSHUMANISM the system is a complete garbage. Combat rules are drawn out and confusing, the character creation is overcomplicated, psy should be merged into hacking and implants, and the person that wrote hacking rules should be found and staked to prevent further writing.

Personally, I recommend taking FATE and running EP setting with it.

Setting has its own problems, but they can be ignored (why are there still knowledge skills, despite everyone being 100% of the time connected to Google?).

Uhm... No? Wrong on all counts? Combat rules are quite simple(its literally just skill rolls), character creation is a two part process that while long, is not complex(and that's discounting the Transhuman Package system). Psy should not be the same thinking and I don't get what you mean by implants? There's implanted gear that is just gear and has nothing to do with hacking. The hacking rules work just fine(again just skill rolls).

As for knowledge skills, we are all already connected to Google 100% of the time via smart phones and people still need degrees. Just because you can search for something doesn't mean you know how to, or have the ability to interpret what you find once you've found it. You can also find something that isn't on Google(ex-surgent virus, secret military files, etc...).

Longes

2013-11-16, 02:35 PM

Psy should not be the same thinking and I don't get what you mean by implants?

I mean, that with everyone being a ghost in the machine, psy should be replaced with brain hacking, and psy-chi should be replace with cybernetics or bioware or nanoimplants or whatever.

Yuki Akuma

2013-11-16, 02:37 PM

I'm not going to go into how awful the game system is, because it's really not the best but a lot of that is down to personal preference, but...

Why should psychic powers be folded into psychosurgery and implanted gear?

Psi is the result of your brain being rewired by a strange, alien virus. It's meant to be distinct and different and weird.