So...I didn't see anything when searching the Players Wanted archives. Anybody here play Posthuman Studios' game Eclipse Phase?

I'm considering running some of A.W. Daberton's adventures. If you have never heard of him or of "Chain Reaction," good!

I would really, really, REALLY prefer players who have not read or played through those modules...Read "If I must fill out a group with one person who has done it before and is willing to not take the lead based on OOC knowledge, fine, but I really would prefer to have a bunch of folks who've never seen it."

I would also prefer players who were familiar with EP character generation (either the Core Rules OR Transhuman methods are fine with me) and have at least passing familiarity with the setting as described in Sunward and Panopticon, particularly focusing on Mars.

If you're new to EP and haven't generated a character and are wondering about this, I was in a game elsewhere which after 2 months of trying to bootstrap various people through chargen simply folded. If you haven't ever played EP but you've at least read through the chargen and tried to create some characters of your own, that's probably good enough...Providing you've read up a bit on Mars in Panopticon and Sunward...But I would prefer not to have to teach someone who is entirely new to the game.

Characters would be Firewall Sentinels. If you're using the Core Rules system for character building, build with 1020 CP rather than 1000. If you're using Transhuman, no modifications (the relevant info about why 1020 CP is on p.13 of Transhuman).

This would be an adult game due to the adult themes involved (frankly, EP in general has a variety of adult themes that aren't easily extracted from its setting). Said themes include terrorism, murder, legalized forms of slavery ("indentured servitude" yes, yes, that's semantic quibbling) varieties of chauvinism that don't even exist in our current world as well as those that do, and all the various elements of vice to be found in inner-city populations.

I am looking for 4-6 interested players, preferably with some experience and at least familiarity with one of EP's chargen systems, preferably not familiar with Daberton's EP adventure modules.

I'd be moderately interested, I do love Eclipse Phase as a game, though I've had problems in the past with players holding the game up by wanting to know the exact science and realism behind every.single.roll... Which has slowed the game to a crawl.

What I mean is, players arguing whether a grenade would reach someone when thrown through a vaccuum when all they needed to do was make a roll and maybe use some Moxie instead of making 3 pages of OOC over that many weeks before throwing it... ^^'

I say that, but I do like Eclipse Phase and I'm glad you're heading to Mars for the adventure, some of the places on Mars are my favourite in the setting, so you got me on that at least. Depending on RTJ requirements I'll likely drop in :)

I've played in a couple EP games on here, though none lasted very long.  I am not familiar with those modules.

Does reading a lot of Charles Stross count as being familiar with the setting?

I have seen EP games from time to time but by the time I’ve seen their RFP’s they’ve already filled up.  Usually, they’re small, the GM limiting the game to about three or four players.   But they do exist.  Or they have.   Perhaps the GM got rid of them or repurposed them afterwards.  Who’s to say?

Although I’ve the full collection of books, I’ve never played in one EP’s prepackaged scenarios.  The only one I’ve gone out and purchased has been The Devotees and our group has yet to get around to letting us run it.

Character creation is not really an issue.

Would there be any other restrictions on character types?   Some of uplifts aren’t so popular and there are the uncomfortable issues around neotechnics.

I’m with Cero though when it comes to slowing things down to argue over realism. It’s hampers the fun.  I much prefer to keep the story moving along.


I'd think Saturn's Children would add a little to your EP cred.
This message was last edited by the user at 14:55, Mon 28 July 2014.

IMHO, without wanting to criticize too much without having been there, just like in any game that sort of stall puts it on the GM to say something along the lines of 'Hey, no, we're cinematic right now. It does what the die roll said it did, if you feel the need to explain why in glorious detail in your post, that's cool, so long as you get it written in a reasonable amount of time and don't hold everyone up, please and thank you.'

There's a time for crunchy detail, and there's a time for shock cinematic, and a good game benefits from a bit of both, IMHO. All depends on the flow of the game. Having said that, I have to add that one really has to be careful about how much granularity and accuracy one demands from a game system or setting, no matter how 'hard SF' it pretends to be (...And I do mean 'pretends.' EP is much harder than Star Trek but it's still pretty soft clay compared to 'real' hard SF.).



If it's Accelerando or similar then oh heck yeah. The Laundry Files? Not so much, but you might get points if you can squeeze that much snark into your character's internal dialogue.



Personally, because I've seen it cause some troubles on some forums I would as soon not negotiate the potential issues surrounding certain laws and neotenics. I'd rather not have to explain that to a board admin, much less anyone's pet lawyer. Easier to just avoid. If someone insists, I'd probably chat with them a bit to be sure we were on the same page and have them make it outstandingly clear in their app that they understood the flavor of the fire they were playing with, you know?

EDIT: I double-checked RPOL's rules on the subject and have to say that this sort of thing is explicitly addressed, so neotenic morphs will not be permitted. Period. End of line. The relevant text is:



Other than that, I'd want to be sure people playing any given kind of oddball morph on Mars were cognizant of the social issues they might run a-fowl of. Or a-monkey of. Or, heaven help us all, a-cephalopod of. If somebody wants to wear something down the street that's going to look like an invitation to harassment by consies or CorpSEs, well, that's fine so long as they recognize what they're inviting.

Okay, well...I guess there are a couple. No blue whale morphs, no orca morphs. If it can't fit through the airlock it can't participate in some things.



Wouldn't it? But so far I've only got Stross's Accelerando under my belt, along with his Laundry Files and Wireless collection. I need a faster input bitrate. Or fewer sources competing for my attention.

I'm a dab hand with a Gibson though, and he and his cohort begat the questions which begat the introspections which became H+ fiction. Going further back than that, I begin at Asimov and stretch as far as Zelazny.

For Mars, though, I'm very much a KSR-flavored sort.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:32, Mon 28 July 2014.

When I mentioned the neotenics, I had no intention of asking later on to use one as a morph.  I’ve seen people play uplifts on Mars but they never have a whole lot of luck.  Still, oh the roleplaying opportunities and chances for trouble.

Saturn’s Children being the first to come to mine and the last book by Charlie Stross I read.  Singularity Sky, The Laundry Files, and, of course, Saturn’s Children being my Stross pedigree.  I’ve actually haven’t had the chance to pick up The Rhesus Chart yet.  I’m one of those freaks who still likes reading full length novels in their paper form and every bookstore within a reasonable distance has gone out of business.  Apparently, I live in one of the more illiterate corners of the world.  Either that or everyone here is progressive with their reading habits though given my knowledge of the area I’m not incline to let this speculation have much sway.   Haven’t got Accelerando.

I went through Gibson’s trilogy and though his work’s not my favorite, it’s a good starting point.  Might be I’ve read it one too many times.  Horror is my home, with conspiracy and sci-fi vying for second place.   Altered Carbon and its sequels aren’t bad for familiarizing yourself with the Eclipse Phase setting.

Nonetheless, sounds like this is building towards a fun game.

I've read all the Stross books mentioned, actually.  Saturn's Children and its sequel are good for this along with Accelerando, but I think Glasshouse is his best posthuman book.

I understand that, and I hope my response didn't sound in any way as if I were condemning you or your question! It was a totally valid question to bring up due to the diverse ways different sites approach legislation which is very difficult to interpret even without introducing the whole 'this is a fictitious role-playing environment and that's a short morph, no more a child in actuality than a hobbit would be.'

With regard to Uplifts:

Depending on where you are on Mars, there's a lot of morph variety.

You'll primarily be on the big peak...or rather its caldera...Olympus Mons.

viz p.109 of Sunward (reproduced here with permission via Posthuman Studios: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.)

"OLYMPUS DEMOGRAPHICS
Population: 1,000,000
Synths: 35%
Pods: 20%
Biomorphs: 43%
Infomorphs: 2%"

viz p.110 of same:
"You got a lot of people living in Olympus who just got no place else to go, so it’s a patchwork of transhumanity. Olympus has helluv people living in synths, which changes the landscape quite a bit. Walk through the souks in the Janks-Yao, and you’ll see near as many shops selling accessories and offering maintenance for synths as you’ll see restaurants and body stylists’ shops. Glamor morphs ain’t too common here, even for the upper echelons. Alpiner morphs are common, and just about everyone else wears a ruster."

Olympus is a relative backwater now compared to places like Valles-New Shanghai (pop. 37 million), but it has a higher percentage of non-biomorphs than V-NS or Noctis-Qianjao or Elysium... In fact, of the cities listed in the book which have a population breakdown, it has the highest percentage of non-biomorphs of all. Many of these are synths which worked (or still work, if they're lucky) on the Elevator. There are more synths per capita in Olympus City than any other place on Mars. By and large, these aren't the wealthy people, either. They're vac-workers or hard-luck Cases. There's bound to be a lot of Steel Liberator sympathizers, even though that's a predominantly Lunar clique. Olympus is tied with Valles-New Shanghai for the smallest number of infomorphs per capita, and has some highly restrictive Mesh regulations, particularly in the vicinity of the Elevator. I consider Olympus to be the original corporate town on Mars, and while a lot of the poor and downtrodden got forcibly relocated during the Fall, quite a few have come back and meanwhile most of the wealthy and more powerful have moved elsewhere to greener, better terraformed pastures. In my estimation, you're more likely to see corporate Uplifts who've bought out their indentures in Olympus than most other places on Mars, but those are a tiny shred of the total Uplifts in town. Apes working orbital steel and carbon are probably the most prevalent Uplift type. That's making a statement about how common they are, not how accepted they are. If you choose to sleeve into an ape and wander around the better parts of town, you should probably expect to have to watch your step with Olympus City's finest. Wearing the Red too publicly in many neighborhoods will also get you hassled by CorpSEs.

But let's be frank here: not being a fine and upstanding Hypercorp employee is enough to get you hassled. Valles-New Shanghai has a small Scum population, and most non-established Scum fleets are more likely to put down a smuggling vessel in the outback than to come down the Elevator head and swagger out into Olympus, but the key word here is 'most.' The Mars Cyclers are predominantly Scum vessels (although the Lazy Eight is Extropian-owned), and when they're around they will do business at the Elevator head).

I'll be honest and up front about this, some morphs and some backgrounds (if advertised flagrantly) will get you hassled one way or another. The thing to bear in mind is that the kind of morph that gets the OIA police on your back is just the sort of thing for wandering around Fuxingmen without getting the local enforcers on your back. Everybody is a stranger somewhere, and in Olympus people can be stranger than most. If you want to be low key most places, you probably want to sleeve in a Ruster or an Alpiner. You can bring a scurrier, or a whiplash, or a Jenkin, or a dolphin with a walker if you really want to feel out of your element. There's probably one of almost everything somewhere in Olympus. Question is, do you want to be known as that one?

One for free, though: sleeving a Reaper on the street will get you a rapid invitation to a party hosted by the OIApol's Tac teams. I'm not telling you that you can't do it, I'm just saying it's a bad idea unless your preferred body-marking style includes size twelve bootprints all over your upper hull. ;D



I haven't read Singularity Sky or The Rhesus Chart yet, either. Soooo much to read, so little time! I will say that huge chunks of Eclipse Phase were clearly inspired by elements of Accelerando. Huge chunks.



Which of his trilogies? Sprawl? Bridge? Blue Ant? I enjoyed Altered Carbon a great deal, and I consider EP's setting to be horrific on a variety of levels, even without invoking such elements as the exsurgent virus and intelligent TITAN femtoswarms.



Haven't read Glasshouse yet, either. I am looking forward to it, though!

And really, I do hope the game will be fun for everybody. I take my core GM values from a couple of brief lines in Apocalypse World:

"Be a fan of the characters...and leave your bloody fingerprints over everything they do."
This message was last edited by the user at 18:57, Mon 28 July 2014.

If you decide to start up a game, I'm definitely interested.

Big EP fan, a whole library of characters waiting for a chance to shine. Own every book, also an avid reader--currently of Hannu Rajaniemi's The Causal Angel.

I’m not a big fan of uplifts myself, but their inclusion adds flavor and diversity.   I just don’t want to play one.  Now AGIs, like the Human Impersonator described in Transhuman, that’s more my style when I’m going for something different.

I meant the Sprawl Trilogy.  I picked up a copy of Spook Country, read a few chapters, and lost the book.  When I found it, I didn’t feel like picking it up.  The only other Gibson I’ve got under my belt is Difference Engine.

Players-wanted thread:
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This message was last edited by the user at 00:31, Thu 31 July 2014.