/epg/ - Eclipse Phase General

Haven't seen one of these in a while, wondering why? I'm just starting to read through the game guide and I'm impressed with the depth of things so far, but all I remember from the old /epg/ was faction shitposting, and it seemed like no one was actually running a game of this system/setting. So what gives? Was it too hard? Anyways, Eclipse Phase General time.

I think everyone just agreed that Hc Svnt Dracones was a better system.

2e and the devs doubling down on Muh Anarchism seems to have killed the thread. Ultimateposters got pissed, the Joveposters and Ozmaposters said "fuck it", and the community died pretty much overnight. Fucking depressing.

So, is first edition still playable? I'm reading it for research into my own transhumanist setting, is EP broken or good to go? What are your personal critiques of it?

What? Don't be silly, nobody plays Eclipse Phase.

Still waiting to see what 2e brings to the table, first edition is okay, though. Just needs some tweaks here and there, like the whole skill bloat thing. Setting is still nice and can always be adapted if one of the faction strikes you as too fancy. In my case, I made the outer system much more chaotic and the consortium didn't get to be the default bad guys...but of course, that is only if anyone was playing EP, which noone does.

Certified pleb here. The setting is really cool but I remember being confused by a lot of gameplay elements, while still being interested

Character creation lets you do some broken things if you let people do it, like taking a morph filled with loads of negative morph traits only to dump it at the start. Also, blueprints and skills rule over gear and inventory if you're running a sleeve-intensive session all over the solar system. Speed is key in combat, if I recall correctly.

No the (((Statists))) will kill you if you play 1e

The threads all sucked and deserved to not be made any more. Maybe neo-epg will be better.

bump

A general cannot run on memes and shitposting alone. It needs actual games to keep going.

That's how I felt. I left /epg/ maybe a year ago and did not notice it died until this thread.

>Anarchists in charge of organizing a game more than once
Let the dead rest, user. Theyre just tragically mistaken zombies wandering around in someone elses flesh anyway.

All the posters regarded their opinions as religious dogma, there was never any new content, and when there *was*, it boiled down to LOL FUCK STATISTS COMMUNISM NOW, with any possible alternate interpretations getting destroyed by the devs.

Or banned, if you posted on their forums.

Reposting from the last general

>Every single possibility has to be either accounted for and countered, or plotted out in case the players choose to pursue it. Even a simple scenario inevitably mushrooms into an elaborate affair as the players spend hours planning how to get around ubiquitous surveillance or use psychic powers, psychosurgery, forking, crazy augmentations, etc to approach a problem from a completely different angle. It should be fun to see how the characters approach the challenges you give them, but it requires such a ridiculous amount of effort to improvise and iterate on things in this game that it just feels like work. It's equally hard on the players, because any plan they come up with has to be couched in an exhaustive knowledge of both the world and mechanics to have even a prayer of success without being blindsided. Yes you can excise the most complex and difficult to use elements of the setting, but at that point you might as well just play Delta Green or some other game instead.

>The FATE conversion is completely bland, the GUMSHOE conversion was never finished, the GURPS conversion requires a huge stack of other game books to play, and EP 2nd Edition so far just makes small mechanical changes without really addressing the real problems with the setting and system.

>I've been running this game for years. I made the lion's share of the homebrew content and shitposting images in this general. And I just can't fucking do it anymore.

so i kinda fucked up.

I was playing fast and loose running a gatecrashing game like stargate. The players went through to a medieval world and slaughtered everyone near the gate after difficulties with communication and translation turned violent.

So now they are on an earth like planet with abundant resources and are using their cornucopia machine to make more cornucopia machines, and then robots to mine more minerals to feed the machines and its all spiraling out of control and the natives cant do fuck all about it with their tech level.

Not sure how to de escalate without them feeling cheated ala "rocks fall"

>devs doubling down on Muh Anarchism

I know they've been doing that since the game released, but are you referring to them doubling down in some particular recent event I'm totally ignorant about?

Let them play god for a while. Or even a long while. Timeskip forward until they've built a substantial empire and completely subjugated the planet - shouldn't take long with the disparity in tech levels. Ask them what policies they institute, how they treat the natives, etc.

What Gate did they go through to reach the planet? That really sets the tone for what could threaten them. Even the Consortium is going to look down on people encountering a sentient alien species and immediately slaughtering/enslaving it. Anarchists and Titanians even more so. Either way, opposition from the Solar System is the most likely threat. Also, enough time could pass while they build up their base that political developments back home could seriously fuck things up for them.

That's funny because that exactly the sort of thing I was dreaming about the other day, I was even thinking what would be the minimal stuff you'd need to bring for that.

Its a really cool scenario. Way i see it its a legit campaign goal to kick-start your own global/gate empire that way, but it shouldn't be easy.

So what i'd do is establish some native harassment (not really a problem if they can actually spend energy and time on defenses). Make up some cool myths and foreshadowing about the planet for later. Give opportunities with the locals too, some maybe start worshiping them or offer to become vassals or some shit once they get big enough, some local politics like others have mentioned.

To add to the frontier spirit, make the world itself a problem, flora, fauna, weather, tectonics and terrain etc. Hindrances, catastrophes, make the world a character itself.

I'd eventually tell them they've found some sort of artificial structure in orbit. A dark satellite, likeley listening in on them using passive sensors. Maybe there's a whole network of them. Point is to know more they either have to go up there or build some serious active sensors and start beaming at it. If they're smart they might realize making high tech noise could 'trigger' whatever it is.

Also, as others have mentioned, rivals and opponents from the solarsystem. Angry humanists who denounce and eventually actively oppose their colonization and mass murder. Greedy entities that want it for themselves. Whoever sponsored their trip comming to collect. Other outsiders like those exhumans coming in to try to hijack/destroy another extrasolar power before anything comes of it.

And of course. That looming thing in the sky. Watching, waiting for its time. Could be titan, could be human opposition, could be something older and more dangerous still.

The satellite(s) i would have activate if a critical level of development and emissions is reached or if they are fucked with or actively scanned. I'd have them start trying to subvert their own local infrastructure. Hack their networks and take over their machines. First turning their own tech against them, and if beaten but not eradicated they'd have sent starter units covertly into nearby monitored areas to build up new bases.

I'd have them be pretty difficult but beatable, starting by using the players own tech then iterating into new stranger units of their own that hint at their origin. Perhaps they puke out big clanking machinery reminiscent of transhuman designs, perhaps they begin to evolve away from human tech into more alien designs. Depends on the type of threat you want from them.

Now im not saying put a seed AI opponent on the planet with them, but a sleeper weapon with some archives it can put in play.

Naturally whatever happens the satellite(s) have probably already alerted their creators who may be sending something far greater. That is unless they are arks for a long dead entity or civilization.

But yeah to summarize.
Native interference/diplomacy, nature being a bitch, solar system politics and agendas spilling over and escalating because no one is gonna just let a bunch of assholes build their own space empire and one way or another they will find out. And then put local mysteries like angry sleeper satellites on the planet to wake up and kick things up a notch.

Shit, now i want to run this scenario.

So I skimmed the thread, there is a 2nd Edition? Same setting right? What fundamentally changed in system that makes it better?

Some stuff like removing ultimate as a playable archetype because they intend them to be villains and not players.

Not that user, but I'm okay with that as long as the Remade are still viable morphs.

I just don't see how Ultimates could possibly cause more frictions than Jovians or literal exhumans. You can still play sociopathic octopus gangsters, but Ultimates are too far now.

This is dumb. It would be easy to homebrew them back in though

I think the reasoning is that self-improvement through discipline and hard work is something that a hypothetical fascist could do in real life, but surgical transformation into an octopus is not. It's like how children's cartoons will let the hero use laser guns but not real guns.

but the ultimates weren't even all that extreme, I mean they had exhuman and double double sleeper agent as options in transhuman

I still don't fully understand how the ultimates are fascist, given their society (if one could even call it that) is more like a commune.

I believe they're advancing the metaplot and the hardliner 1488 gas the genetrash now faction of the Ultimates won the civil war and are actually going through with their seize all the gates plan. It's still a dumb reason to exclude them as PC options since the Ultimates are fairly ideologically diverse and the whole point of Firewall is to unite otherwise opposed characters with a common goal.

It has probably to do with the fact that the ultimates have a very strict ideology and specific MO, almost cult-like and very alien/post-human, and if you were to play one you'd either be the most boring PC ever or behave in a "non-canon" way, which would make playing an Ultimate meaningless. You can play a characer with similar ideals without literally being an Ultimate.

It's like asking to play a character from a very specific order, that is supposed to act in a very specific way, and then going "oh but MY character is unique because..."

Just play something else.

Not much. They've reworked psi in an interesting way according to the october12 release, but it looks like they're just coalescing the system down a bit in all things. It's free over on driverpg for the open beta, check it out.

The one thing I am looking forward to is that I think they mentioned metasleights somewhere in a forum post; which means it might be viable to play someone who's basically just a creepy mystic. Which means that they'll be absolutely bugfuck insane, but whatever.

The Ultimates aren't fascists. There's too much focus on individualism. The Jovians are basically textbook fascist strawmen but apparently they're still fine to play.

The devs shouldn't be disallowing fascist characters anyway. A major theme of Eclipse Phase is the resurgence and clash of ideologies. Being a fascist doesn't proclude a PC from being a loyal Firewall agent any more than being a militant communist or sociopath gangster.

Eh. The commune thing doesn't work so well; you're expected to be able to do it yourself. Even though piles of people can't actually do everything.

>strict ideology and specific MO
>literally 'struggle and challenge yourself, overcome and be the best possible entity you can be'
>Not being a lazy shit is so foreign to EP that it's now a non-playable concept.

>the ultimates have a very strict ideology and specific MO
Are you having a laugh? The Ultimates praise self-reliance and doing things your own way as some of their highest virtues. They encourage their members to think outside the box. You couldn't be more wrong.

But Ultimates are internally divided into at least three major subsections, barring any other potential individual differences in the theory or application of those three subphilosophies. Manu is the be all and end all, but he says so little that every individual member is basically left to personally interpret the philosophy as they please.

One of those subfactions is even specifically about going out into the world and helping people.

Yes and no. Everyone individually has to try and be the best, but groups of ultimates also value unit cohesion (if only for utilitarian reasons) to a very high degree.

The thing is, they're so completely individualistic and focused on their self-improvement ideals, that unless you go the "special snowflake" route like I said before, you'll just be playing a boring as fuck cultist, and canonically they don't fit at all with Firewall.

Since the game is based around the PCs being Firewall operatives, there's no reason for there to be an Ultimates PC option in the core rulebook.

>and canonically they don't fit at all with Firewall
Says who? Ultimates have plenty of autonomy and there are canonical Firewall agents among them. Firewall hasn't managed to break into their upper leadership but the same is true of Jovian Republic. Ultimates are perfect PC material since they're basically vagabond mercenary murderhobos.

You can have a common set of ideals and desires without being a pack of cookie cutters.

>So, to be clear on this, the ultimates are not going away, they're included in the book. We simply chose not to list them in the abbreviated section on choosing a faction in chargen. If you really wanted to still play an ultimate (hopefully a non-fascist one!), you still can, and it's as easy as choosing the Ultimate Faction motivation in that step -- just as you could with any of the other (mostly smaller) factions we don't include in the list. We just chose not to push them as a primary choice.

This is the official response on the forums.

You can play them, they're just not pushed as primary PC options. You still have all the information you need to generate an Ultimate PC using the 2e rules. The Ultimates listed as X-Threats are specifically the Overhumanist faction.

>canonically they don't fit at all with Firewall.

What? Ultimates are an obvious choice to be Firewall agents. No political leanings, good track record against TITAN threats, and they're more than willing to work without pay because just for the chance to test themselves.

>"I would say this varies, we are not some hive-mind, all thinking as the Demiurge does, believing as he dictates to us. Individuality is a core aspect of our being, and judging others by their actions and words is stressed over reliance on rumor or stereotype."

I just don't really see why they'd be taken out, because as mentions they're one of the most obvious choices for Firewall agents, especially Iconics.

I think that chipping away at the Ultimates lore just to make them into something "not-space-nazis" is kinda missing the point of them existing in-universe.

You can be all about self improvement and testing yourself, and create your own faction that is all about that, but the Ultimates were probably created to be a rather extreme, militaristic eugenics cult. I think the authors realized that the Ultimates purpouse was getting really diluted with all the sub-factions and apologistic rectifications to their ideologies, and decided to go back to their original intentions for the faction.

That's all well and good but people like myself are annoyed that they're being removed as a basic PC faction for no real reason. If they are the new designated villain faction who cares? The Jovians were explicitly written to be soulless antagonists and they're still "pushed" as a default character choice. Ultimates have way more justification for helping Firewall than Jovians.

>hopefully not a fascist one!
What the fuck is their problem? I'm not even a fascist IRL but this is bugging me.

>faction with ideological depth, contradictions, and realistic divisions

or

>pigeonholed and ideologically nonsensical bad guy faction

>canonically they don't fit at all with Firewall.

>not joining the organization who's stated goal is to seek out and combat the gravest threats

Its like you don't want to test yourself mentally and physically against the mightiest opponents you can find.

They're perfect firewall operatives, they have excellent personal and greater motivations and as characters present a great source of both comedic and dramatic group tension due to their views.

Playing a team of ultimates might be boring, but having an ultimate as the 'straight man' foil for a bunch of anarkiddo crazies, survivalist luddites and humanist brainiacs is an excellent idea. Or as a spiritual/moral mentor type character with the moral dilemma of their protege reconciling them as an example of self improvement/sufficiency ideal versus their often ruthless, elitist and militaristic preaching and actions.

Personally i haven't kept up with EP in a while and i would hope they took Ultimates out of the core so they can give them a serious go in a spaltbook.

That's a cop-out answer if I've seen one.

Sometimes an orc is just an orc my man. Not every faction in the setting has to be ultra layered, you can have your own ideologically deep faction if you want, the Ultimates just happen to be an extremist transhuman military organization.

>What the fuck is their problem?

How is hoping someone won't play as a fascist a problem?

>How is hoping someone won't play as a fascist a problem?

You can not agree with something and also play it in an RPG.

I really don't give a shit what they put forward as PC choices in the core book since that never stopped anyone from playing whatever they can, or homebrewing what they can't.

I'd be fine with orcs if they made sense. Explain to me how "eugenics" is an actual motivation in a world where bodies are similar to cars or houses.

Well that's easy, Ultimates are like racing fanatics who mostly care about fine-tuning their supercars to win races.
I'm sure there's a good pun on "racist" to be made here but

>Sometimes an orc is just an orc my man
While I agree, I feel it doesn't really apply to eclipse phase, since they spent so much time going about painting everything in shades of gray and trying to give everything a culture and unique government. Having a generic bad guy is already filled by the TITANs and the various flavors of grunt security, and making factional bad guys (which they already tried with OZMA and the Jovians) just seemed like strawmen.

Meanwhile exhumans are all like "racing supercars? How stupid. Planes are much better at traveling over wide distances, bikes are better at squeezing through traffic, and tanks are sturdier ground vehicles."

But Exhumans don't have eugenics as a main motivator.

>Sometimes an orc is just an orc my man. Not every faction in the setting has to be ultra layered
That would be fine if they weren't taking a well-developed faction with depth and regressing them into cardboard antagonists.

>How is hoping someone won't play as a fascist a problem?
Because the Devs can fuck off and not stick their personal opinions into things. There's nothing wrong with fascist PCs in Eclipse Phase. I'll just link a post instead of repeating myself.

As an aside from the ultimate discussion, has anyone tried playing an Earth Survivor/scavenger game? I feel like it would be a good way to avoid the problems of surveillance and social control.

I feel like you're missing the point.

Hidden Concern and Exhumans aren't listed factions either. People are spending so much energy getting butthurt over a missing entry in a list, which gives you a skill and a motivation.

It's fucking stupid on the forums, and its fucking stupid here too.

>Hidden Concern and Exhumans

No, but Mercurials are.

For the PC I'm pretty sure it's the genetic equivalent of buying the new iphone every year. For the Ultimates it's the genetic version of buying the newest hardware for your custom battlestation.

Ok, you got me there

I don't know how many supplies they brought over from the gate, but wouldn't logistics and stuff like power availability be a problem? I remember in Gatecrashing that supplies, at least, are still things to worry about when gatecrashing, post-scarcity be damned. And while I'm sure GMs run it differently, CMs can take up a loooot of power just to operate.

>How is hoping someone won't play as a fascist a problem?
It's not, except that the devs keep bringing it up and bringing it up and it gets annoying that they keep banging that same note. Especially in the current political climate where facism (Also ""Facism"") is a hot button issue.

Yeah, even with the plans for solar panels it'd be complicated to scale up power generation to a meaningful amount. It's hard to keep a colony going with incomplete access to the tech-base, and they didn't exactly plan a whole colony I bet.

Maybe? If they got a SolArchive through they're in luck, otherwise they're going to have to hope they've got the ability to fork and run an infomorph design slave. One with the skill for it. Basic power generation, if it isn't *safe*, is pretty easy. You can still find natural nuclear plants deep in the earth's crust, and they used to be a lot closer to the surface. The inefficiency of these methods means they might have to turn the planet into a dystopian power wasteland, maintained by shuffling slaves who worship their powerplant thanks to psychosurgery, but they could do it.

>You can still find natural nuclear plants deep in the earth's crust,

Not anymore, decay means that the fissionables aren't naturally pure enough anymore. Of course a young exoplanet would be different.

I'm currently running a gatecrashing campaign. First actual session had them find some ancient alien ruins. Where could I find stats for some turrets, or other defense systems? I don't know the system well enough to brew up my own just yet.
Im also free to any suggestions. The aliens themselves are going to be a worm like creatures. The players are going to be tracking down what caused the aliens to dissappear, but I have no plans for the players to actually meet them. I might have some exsurgent mutants, but it will be clear that they have zero resemblance to the species themselves.

Alien or transhuman turrets? What kind of tech, from like modern stuff to alien supertech?

I remember saying they'd do something dumb after Trump.

I'm trying to for for as alien as possible. So I guess less of a straight up turret, and more of a general static defense mechanism. For noe I would like it to be something that the players can actually fight, which is why I thought of turrets, but in the future it could be mines, or nanobots, or some type of trap.
The aliens would be a little more advanced then transhumanity. The idea is that they survived contact with the exsurgent virus, but unlike humanity their home system was destroyed, so the only survivors were distributed across the gate network, with only limited ability to communicate with each other. So with few exceptions, each colony will have gone along its own path for a few centuries before dying out for one way or another.

Aside from ergonomics, their tech is likely to look more or less the same if it's the same level. The main difference is that their weapons might be optimized for targets with different physiology.

Didn't think about the target types. I already figured out the ergonomics. It's more of a harness, and it's aimed with the entire body, with computers doing the finer aiming. Since the aliens are invertibrates, and most of the colony is underground, might do some kind of giant ass shotgun. They wouldn't be able to lift up that much weight themselves, so full body armor isn't a thing. So the primary targets would be either unarmoured organics, or heavily armoured marchines. I'll sleep on it.

I can't do it now but I have I screenshot somewhere of user predicting that the historical background chapter of EP2E will make specific reference to Donald Trump.

Here it is.

Anyone else feel like the timeline is too condensed/ it's too soon after the fall? It really doesn't feel like there's been enough time for any meaningful changes, let alone for all the stuff that's apparently going on

That's the pre-singularity acceleration you're feeling.
Imagine a medieval peasant looking at the speed things are changing and multiplying in our world.

I wasn't that specific, but yeah.

bump

At least bump with a pic, it's too sad otherwise.

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>that fucking pic
I'm crying.
I didn't even know people gave a shit about the rationalist blogosphere around here, although I guess /epg/ would draw those out.

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Land mines? Could look at the Smart Mines from X-risks, or just fancy mines that work other ways.