/epg/ - Eclipse Phase General

Seems pretty /deadgamegeneral/ in here.

Everyone's out on the 4th, user. The board in general is dead as fuck today.

Fate is 'less crunchy', in that there's usually less things to keep track of, but that doesn't mean that it lacks for mechanics. The mechanics are more narrative, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist, but rather that they're designed to build consensus rather than enforce results.

>How would you use a fetch in your game
>How specific in mission would a fetch in your campaign be, and how much would that constrain it
>would it be exurgent, clean but totally alien, weirdly comprehensible, intentionally humanesque?
>totally aggressive? Single minded? Manipulative? Pretends to negotiate? actually negotiate?

>Clean but totally alien, pretends to negotiate, isn't actually hostile.

Depends on which TITAN and the context, but my preference is for something that is single-minded, but utterly brilliant and capable of lateral thinking to get what it wants. That means I'm totally willing to retcon traps, minions, and strategies into existence because, yes, a TITAN-fork would have thought of that. Where possible, it will try to arrange things so that PC actions end up benefiting the TITAN in some way that only becomes explicable in hindsight. Most don't meaningfully negotiate, and any negotiation is either an attempt to learn specific information from the PCs, or under the guise of another party that the fetch can roleplay utterly convincingly - the players should only learn in retrospect that they were talking to the fetch.

In general I don't expect any of my players or their characters to be smart enough to meaningfully outsmart a fetch without outside help.

>Slut

...

Who would suspect Cathy Cock Choker of being an exsurgent?

>In general I don't expect any of my players or their characters to be smart enough to meaningfully outsmart a fetch without outside help.

The problem with including even a massively pruned fork of a Seed AI in your game is, unless you're much, much smarter than your players, you have to 'just according to keikaku' anything they do as having been predicted and accounted for in the machine intelligence's plan.

I think its entirely appropriate to say that the level of difference in power between a seed AI and a transhuman is kinda akin to the difference between party's characters and a metagaming DM

>tfw Know Evil has been over for years and Caleb Stokes has moved on from EP

suffering

Fate is my absolute favorite system out there and it's pretty straightfoward: every roll is four Fate dice plus a modifier, everything else can be represented with an Aspect or Stress track.

>FATE
>simple
It has just as much asinine unnecessary complexity as any other RPG.

You can't just have a thing be a thing. A bunch of crates can't just be a bunch of crates. It has to be made an aspect, its properties negotiated, then acted upon, possibly with another layer of helper aspects and such, resulting in another set of aspect changes for the end result, and converted back to plain English again.

What's complex about having Aspects?

Different user, but it's probably the "its properties negotiated" part in his example; presumably they've been in games where there haven't been particularly good aspects made, or people have been asshats about relatively straightforward situation aspects like "A Bunch Of Crates".

What's not complex about having to filter mundane things through a mechanical filter centered around spending narrative meta-currency (and getting it back through 'self compels') in order to interact with the game world?

You make it sound far more complex than it really is. Have you actually played the game, or just read the rules? Most players I've introduced to it have found the rules quite complicated from a read through, but fairly straightforward once they're being used in play.

It's like giving somebody an English dictionary as a primer for speaking conversational English. A bit of experience in day-to-day conversations will reveal that you probably won't need to know "respectuous" or "adelaster"

It doesn't seem that complex until you try to run it with someone that hasn't read the entire book; at which point, yes, it's actually very complex and there are lots of subtle or narrative 'rules' that someone who doesn't know what they're doing can fuck up in a hundred different hard-to-explain ways.

I feel like you're vastly underestimating the difficulty involved. Once you're familiar with the system and it becomes natural to use it, it certainly doesn't feel difficult, but that's true of any complex systen. In the mean time, jumping right in with a group of players who haven't read Fate Core and are used to more conventional RPGs (like D&D, or Eclipse Phase) is a recipe for confusion and frustration. Just because Fate is 'rules light' doesn't mean it's simple or easy.

Source: tried it with some new players, confusion and frustration followed.

Veeky Forums I just finished a campaign a little while ago that I GMed. It went pretty well I think, the players seemed pretty entertained and I felt like I was able to build up the atmosphere surrounding the TITANs and exsurgents really well to make some pretty spooky encounters. But I never felt like my players GOT the setting if you follow me. I mean they never really bothered using REP unless I specifically stated that that was how they'll need to get things, preferring always to use money, they never considered getting a cornucopia machine until half-way through, they all had Exalt or Olympian morphs and the idea of farcasting anywhere seemed to slip their mind, although to be fair the campaign was pretty localised and changing morphs is a pain.

So I was wondering how can I impress the setting and the far out stuff a little bit better so that they use it a bit more. How do I better incorporate the trans-humanist concepts into the game so that the players can better understand and interact with those concepts?

To be fair I think that the players did understand the setting pretty well in terms of its history, locations, people etc, but they maybe just wanted to keep the technology and its impact a little bit simpler than what it is so they can wrap their heads around it a bit better. But as a GM and someone who loves EP's setting I want them to go as complex and balls to the wall futuristic crazy as they can, so wat do?

>In the mean time, jumping right in with a group of players who haven't read Fate Core and are used to more conventional RPGs (like D&D, or Eclipse Phase) is a recipe for confusion and frustration.

I think that's more of the problem, personally - Fate has a different approach to how an RPG should work compared to "conventional" games. Fate comes across as far more complex than it really is because people who have never played it, but have played "conventional" games, cannot easily apply the experience of playing conventional games to understanding and playing Fate. As somebody who has had the great misfortune of being "The Person Who Teaches New Games To People At The FLGS", it's always easier to get somebody playing a game by starting with what it's similar to.

Fate basically goes "You've played a 'normal' RPG, right? Now throw out just about everything you've picked up about the relationship between the GM and the players, what mechanics are supposed to simulate and start learning things from scratch again". The game you end up learning isn't really any more complicated than the thing you've already learnt to play, it's just that you more or less have to go back to square one in order to learn it.

>But as a GM and someone who loves EP's setting I want them to go as complex and balls to the wall futuristic crazy as they can, so wat do?

Throw the futuristic balls to the wall craziness at them and see what sticks. Have an antagonist with good rep and the skills to put that to terrifying use. Send them to a scum swarm where weirder morphs are the norm and their credits aren't going to help them much. Take all the stuff you want to see in the game and put in the game - it will either remind your players that said things exist and they'll see the advantages available to them by using them, or they'll decide they're happy with their Exalts and wallets stuffed with cash, but you'll still get to incorporate the crazy stuff you want to see.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the players not using rep, or sticking to credits, or not really farcasting places, if that's what the players are happy doing. As much as I have a really strong idea about what I want EP games to feature, as long as everyone is having fun around the table - GM included! - then what me, a random stranger on the internet wants, doesn't matter one fucking bit in your game. So just throw the crazy shit at them to satisfy your need to see the craziest shit that EP can handle, and let them approach it in a way that makes them happy.

>So just throw the crazy shit at them to satisfy your need to see the craziest shit that EP can handle, and let them approach it in a way that makes them happy.

That's good advice, thanks. Another player is starting a D&D campaign now and we've made a general move towards board games, but I might try that in the future.

>>Send them to a scum swarm where weirder morphs are the norm and their credits aren't going to help them much.
Also, you may be stabbed or shot for no reason beyond "You had low @-rep and you were in my way, kneecaps grow back." Show off how resleeving and healing vats have made some people (Scum especially) view physical violence and murder casually.

How do I find a game? I want to play this since 2011, and the only guy I know who's okay GMing this is on the spectrum and just won't until he reads all of the books, which he doesn't have the time for.

>How do I find a game?
Why are you asking us?

I would run a heist where the characters are provided with a detailed plan to work with that incorporates those elements. Then the plan goes to shit in such a way that those tools are still available and they have to improvise.

Why not?

Impossible, we all know autonomists are nice people and hold egalitarian views towards all sentients

It's not as if a quick kneecapping to make you stop wasting everyone's time at the fast food order station is actually hurting you, give it an hour in the healing vat and you're good as new. And everyone else in line would rather deal with your screams of pain than wait ten minutes for you to order a goddamn burger, so it's win/win.

I figure things would be just too chaotic if people were routinely maiming each other so casually, just because it's easy to "fix".

Situations where IRL it'd come to punches, sure, but over minor grievances? Unless misanthropy reigned supreme, and I'm not sure that's the case unless you're in the worst hellholes, people would see their rep pinged like mad over nigh-gratuitous mauling.

*Pinged/dinged, whatever the term is for downvoting.

>I figure things would be just too chaotic if people were routinely maiming each other so casually, just because it's easy to "fix".
>Too chaotic
Well you'd never fit in on a scum barge, user. If someone pulls a gun you pull a gun right back, you both exercise your abilities to use violence to defend your rights to the extent that you choose, and either one person backs down or the loser moves aside and slaps a nanobandage on his sucking chest wound and leaking dignity, then goes off to have a gun built into his forehead. Welcome to freedom, enjoy your stay.

Because this general is full of people who can't get games apparently.

Start one and GM it, its what I did.

You're probably right, but scum/anarchist/extropian areas probably have a lot more casual violence than the inner system, ranging from bloodsports to brawls.

>You're probably right, but scum/anarchist/extropian areas probably have a lot more casual violence than the inner system

There's a bit about it in Rimward:

>Interpersonal violence is, of course, frowned upon, though small scale scuffles, such as a fight between friends, are surprisingly tolerated and viewed as a private personal dispute. Sometimes, people just need to brawl to get it out of their system. Murder or other savage attacks are taken more seriously, as is any sort of large-scale destruction.

A swift punch to the gob often offends, but it's not necessarily against the rules in an anarchist habitat.

Absolute freedom (anarchy) means nobody has any rights. And there is such a thing as "too chaotic", given the barge and whatever semblance of society it has onboard wouldn't work if everyone's too busy shooting each other up over petty issues. It wouldn't matter if the maiming were fixed after an hour or two in the vats if said vats were overcrowded and people were further mauling each other while trying to get ahead in the line.

So yeah, while there would be more casual violence in such environments, I don't think it'd reach ridiculous extremes.

Ah, what a book. I learned so much about big 4 threats.
>Exhumans are /pol/
>Tashkent still populated by unclean abominations
>Factors actually sell their alien shit (as expected from wandering merchant race)
>Slugs? In Uranus? It's more likely than you think.
Nice new fluff on TITANS, though.

>>Exhumans are /pol/
>AF 10
>Muh rope day has never arrived
>Degenerates are now immortal
>Everyone thinks fascism is a punchline now and the only fascist state is full of burritos
>Fuck it all, I'm turning myself into a superpredator
>Now every day is rope day, yaaaaaaaay!

Indeed what's a little light maiming between friends.

But i expect that if you made a habit of kneecapping strangers that annoy you your rep would soon sink to the point you'd find it hard to manage in society.
Anarchists aren't so different to the rest of us in that it's mostly peer pressure that stops everything going full grim dark the rep economy just formalises that a bit

>>it's mostly peer pressure that stops everything going full grim dark
>>the rep economy just formalises that a bit
>Your likes and upboats determine your prosperity
>Reddit and Spacebook decide whether you get to eat
>Not a grim, dark future.

>>Reddit and Spacebook decide whether you get to eat

Not how it works. If you aren't such a malcontent the hab is trying to exile you, you still get your three meals a day.

But if you're an unpopular, unlikable little shitler it's all ration brick for you, no gourmet soups.

And again, it's Reddit and Spacebook deciding that. Would you trust Facebook to decide what quality of life you deserve?

I wouldn't, but I don't use Facebook or Reddit.

But, y'know, it could be worse. Hard Vacuum has a terrible quality of life.

Only because flesh is weak. I sleeved into a spaceship a few years back and it's the fucking life. Fly through the void utterly alone for weeks on end, offload cargo while violently shitposting on C-net, load up more cargo and refuel, off to be away from you maniac fleshbags for a few more weeks. It's a good life and I get to play all the AR vidya I like.

Why is it that people desperately try to prop up their lifestyle as the best when they're just as miserable as everyone else. At least I, a pathetic zeroed flat, can admit that my shit stinks as much as anyone elses.

But you don't have hands.

I hope the space combat supplement also includes like, maybe some enhancements only for vehicles, so one might model stuff like a cargo winch or an external manipulator arm.

Would you trust a disant and unaccountable authoritarian government to make the same desicion?
At least with spaceface you can try and repair your rep with funny cat vids

Don't lie you knuckle dragging primitive your shit stinks so bad we can smell you in the next hab. Do us all a favour and get a metabolic optimisation fix!

>So, /epg/, do any of you have any interesting concepts for games?

I'm currently running a Firewall-centered campaign where the players are both good at killing and good at science, and they're sent on missions to do both with extreme prejudice and a standard deviation.

While I dabbled in it for a mission, I'd like to run a stalker-centric campaign - expeditions into the TQZ, hustling with dealers, avoiding Rangers/Hypercorp fuckers, and other crime drama.

The other idea I've had for a while is to get a group of players together and just GM them bootstrapping a new habitat, and eventually a polity. The players pick an ideology, I throw problems and puzzles at them, and how they solve the issues informs the kind of place it turns into. It would need some really self-motivated players though.

>doesn't realize smells don't travel in vacuum
>thinks dooming people to 200+ years of slavery just to make them smell better is a good thing

Can't blame them, transhuman education took a total fucking nosedive when they can just use entoptics and symbols for everything. Oh yeah let's not forget the baby TITANs in their heads that they call muses that acts as their nanny.

Gotta give it to the argonauts, at least they're aware of this and try to stop it.

you could probably make a whole series of missions or campaigns based on how fucked the kids are.

Are Asyncs considered exsurgents, or not?

On one hand, Watts-Macleod is listed as a strain of the Exsurgent virus on page 368 of the core rulebook (and elsewhere), and page 26 defines an exsurgent as "Someone infected by the Exsurgent virus." Thus, by definition, all asyncs are exsurgents.

However, there is a list of Psi-gamma sleights "available to exsurgents" on page 371, and another in X-Risks page 178. Is it possible for asyncs to manifest these sleights, or is it restricted to the more obviously changed exsurgents?

Technically, yes, an Async has been infected by WML and altered by it, thus Psi powers. However, under normal circumstances they're not infectious and do not mutate further, which makes them different from most common enemy exsurgent strains.

After X-Risks, I'd say that normally one shouldn't count that players can access the "exsurgent only" Psi Sleights, since, for example, the ones added by X-Risk tend to explain what entities can manifest them normally, and some of them aren't even Exsurgent, just alien.

>Are Asyncs considered exsurgents, or not?
In a technical and definitional form, yes, they are exsurgents, because WML is a "benign" strain (Or several, depending on how you look at it) of the exsurgent virus.
In game terms, they are not exsurgents, because one of the assumptions the game makes is that full exsurgents are under control of the GM or very soon will be. "Available for exsurgents" is functionally equivalent to "NPC only, unless the GM says otherwise".

Biocons leave now REEEE!!!

Good grief. Even the frogs are exsurgent now. Let's ditch this time dimension and find a better one.

>However, under normal circumstances they're not infectious
But they are infectious for a short period post-infection and can spread WML via sleights. Wake up, sheeple, asyncs are just a version of Haunting with a latency of years instead of months! All asyncs are slowly mutating into aliens! Gas the freaks now and delete their backups before something flips their mutation switch!

That's the kind of thing that is easily delt with by fiat.

...

>can spread WML via sleights
This meme needs to stop.

Its not a meme, it is explicitly stated in the core rulebook, page 223, last sentence of third paragraph, under the heading "criticals".

>implying that rules aren't memes

>Are Asyncs considered exsurgents, or not?
Yes, they have the exsurgent virus.
>However, there is a list of Psi-gamma sleights "available to exsurgents" on page 371, and another in X-Risks page 178. Is it possible for asyncs to manifest these sleights
Yup, exsurgents are as exsurgents do.

We need an anarchist version of this.

That would require a lot more processing power than you're willing to create.

The "meme needs to stop" meme needs to stop.

>pepe becomes a basilisk hask

Nah. All that's needed is to get yourself nearly killed, then SHIFT before you die.

The difference between FATE and most 'normal' RPGs, is that the latter can be run with people who haven't read the book in its entirety, while the former requires one hundred percent player buy-in. Even EP, with all of its expansive lore and setting concepts that need to be absorbed, can be played the same way you'd play any other game with new players: they tell the GM what they want to do and the GM tells them if they have to roll any dice. In FATE, people who haven't mastered the concept of FATE points, aspects, compels, self compels and stunts are going to be totally lost, since understanding these things is required to interact with the game world.

>"You've played a 'normal' RPG, right? Now throw out just about everything you've picked up about the relationship between the GM and the players, what mechanics are supposed to simulate and start learning things from scratch again"
This is the absolute worst pitch I've ever heard. Why would anyone do this for EP when they can easily pick up the Eclipse Gumshoe hack without going through a comprehensive reeducation?

Transhumanity's Fate really isn't for new players to games in general, it's for people who are like "ew, rules, can we make this simpler? I just want to explore the setting". Probably why it was a crowdfunding stretchgoal.

It was made for people who like Eclipse Phase but don't want to wrap their mind around % and tables of modifiers and just focus on telling some kind of story in EP - with the caveat that since it's FATE you're automatically playing the action movie version of whatever setting you run it through.

>Transhumanity's Fate really isn't for new players to games in general, it's for people who are like "ew, rules, can we make this simpler? I just want to explore the setting".
So, it's for terrible players who should literally be beaten to death with a corebook, but since for some reason that's illegal, they come to Veeky Forums to shit up various game generals.

I don't think so, IIRC a lot of strains which give psi have a "becomes an exsurgent under the GM's control" clause at the end, which I think means they don't count as one, though that isn't the RAW

It's for people who like something different than you like, yes.

I've met a few players who didn't like the role under mechanic, the idea of low roles being good just didn't sit right with them

I'm a longtime grognard who likes Fate for its storygame elements and relative simplicity. Transhumanity's Fate lets me enjoy Eclipse Phase with a skill list 1/3 the size and without massive gear lists, which are both massive pluses to me.

The heretics. The infidels.Tha badwrongfun havers. I'm not saying "Deus vult, burn the heretics, crusade now", but...well...Deus vult, burn the heretics, crusade now!

Well, you should tell them that the errata has been using blackjack rules for a while now, you do better when you roll high but still under your skill.

As opposed to Call of Cthulhu which is still smaller numbers = more better.

With due respect, sir, you sound like the Knights Templar version of the Ancient Aliens guy.

Who hurt you, user?

I see the Ultimates as the most philosophically aligned with /pol/. Always going on about degenerates, leeches, and untermensch.

Loving Defilers. Not a threat to any developed hab but could wreck some shit on exoplanets.

They even mutter about "muh gate day" when annoyed. Ultimates are indeed /pol/

I've begin reading X-Risks and there's constant mentions of reading up on [case CAPITAL LETTER], makes me think of a SCP-style wiki/archive and how nice having one to read would be...

Many of those are already described in Firewall.

Naw, Exhumans are Veeky Forums. Ultimates are /pol/.

>Jovians are /int/

Maritza Maria Ortega is WHITE

Who is Veeky Forums? Who is /b/?

Scum are actually Veeky Forums, with their weird hobby culture and constant magical realms.

Considering the setting, there's shockingly little LGBTQA stuff in Eclipse Phase. I've seen all of one character with they/them pronouns.