[GotW] Eclipse Phase: The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Horror

So. Eclipse Phase. I've been going on about this game all over /r/RPG for the past week, so I figured I should volunteer to go on about it even more. First thing's first, Eclipse Phase is published by Posthuman Studios in cahoots with Sandstorm Publishing. I think every game asks a question or two, and builds its premises from there. In EP, that question is pretty simply "What happens if Transhumans unleash an AI(s) that is capable of destroying civilization?" Well, that's not very simple. Transhumanism, shortly, is the idea that humans will be able to take the rein of evolution and start improving themselves rapidly. It's set somewhere in the unspecified, near future, amidst the ruins of humanity and the results of our own tinkering.

Setting

Humanity decides to create massive defense network, the Total Information Tactical Awareness Network. This network, unfortunately, becomes self aware, starts to improve itself, and promptly flips its shit. Nobody's quite sure if the TITANs did it, or if Humanity did it, but in about a week 95% of the Human Population was gone. Earth's inhospitable, due to such lovely things as Headhunters, giant wasplike robots with buzzsaw arms that, well, like to gather human heads for some unknown nefarious purpose. The game itself takes place ten years after the Fall of Earth, dealing with the continuing fallout of that destruction as well as the continued threat of these AIs that are far more intelligent than transhumanity. The actual setting of a given campaign can vary widely, from the scum barges floating throughout space to the various habitats, to the hypercorp metropolises on Luna and Mars. Although FTL travel doesn't exist in a usable form for day to day travel, they've abstracted the mind from the body. If you want to go shopping on Mars but you live on Venus, you just rent a body from a shop there, egocast and wander around in a whole new sack of flesh. One reason this game's incredible, is that it deeply explores the ramifications of death being meaningless and the transience of bodies. The conspiracy and horror part is fun, sure, but you can spend all sorts of time just exploring the ins and outs of identity and social awareness.

In addition to the numerous stations, which being very separated by sheer distances have essentially each evolved their own culture, there are five Pandora Gates scattered across the Solar System that allow transhumans to explore exoplanets. The Gatecrashing book includes some thirty or so planets, all of which are fairly unique and novel places. (Personal favorite is Sunrise. A planet tidally locked with its sun.)

One last important piece to the setting is the existence of Psychic abilities (Asyncs and Psi Sleights). It's their take on a sci-fi magic system. They aren't super powerful, but they do enough to be quite amusing. Moreover, to even have access to the simplest ones you have to have some sort of mental disorder. Higher level ones require harsher disorders, and the highest level ones are reserved as the sole province of the GM.

Finally, while there are Aliens, at least one living race and three or four dead ones, they're almost never involved in the game directly. All of the enemies are transhuman, human-created or TITAN created.

Mechanics

Anyone that's played Fourth Edition Shadowrun's going to see its stamp all over Eclipse Phase. Rightfully. Rob Boyle was the lead designer for both games, and EP actually started at Catalyst. (Why it's not there any more is ugly, and I don't want to get into here.) The basic mechanic is the d100 check. In fact, you can play the entire game with 3d10. (The strongest weapon's damage dice.) The d100 check can be complicated, since there are actually multiple factors in success. You roll against a target number, using a black jack system. You want as high as possible without going over. If you roll double digits, your success or failure becomes a critical success or failure. Finally, results are modified by your Margin of Success or Failure. MoS is just the number on the dice if you're under, otherwise your MoF is the number of points over your target number. 00 is always a Critical Success and 99 is always a Critical Failure. Two important things, you never modified the dieroll with bonuses and penalties. What you roll is what you get. All penalties apply only to your target number, so having 120% in a skill can actually prove useful. Second, similar to Edge/Karma from Shadowrun, you have a Moxie stat that lets you do special things. Primarily, it can flip your roll. So if you roll a 91, it becomes a 19, or that 19 can become a Critical Success.

Psi is fundamentally identical to Magic in Shadowrun 4e. The two biggest differences are instead of dealing Nonlethal Damage, it deals Physical Damage, and it's stratified into three levels. Oh, and the whole must-be-crazy-first thing.

Character Creation is entirely point based. One nice feature, your Rez points that you earn for advancement are used at the exact same rate as your Character points at creation. Makes things pretty simple.

Combat's an opposed test, offense v. defense, with all sorts of painful ranged weaponry.

Gear's interesting. There aren't normal prices listed, instead everything is broken up into five price categories. There are two different economies in the game. First, is your classic currency. In this case, Credits. You use Credits to buy things from the Hypercorps. The other one, though, is Reputation. You can build and use your reputation among various groups to receive favors. Of course, this also means people can request favors from you just as easily. The big reason for this is because there exists machines that make basic manufacturing superfluous. Feed them stuff, and manufactured items pop out. Of course, the game goes into far more detail about what can, can't, should and shouldn't be made with them.

Especially of note regarding gear, bodies are considered just that, equipment. Your morph is highly replaceable. If it breaks, you just buy a new one. It can be stolen when you aren't looking, and it can be swapped out for a newer model as necessary. Moreover, it has its own hit points (Durability), armor, and skill bonuses as well as attribute modifiers and caps.

As far as Attributes go, there are seven total. Each represents a mental faculty, seeing as your body is entirely malleable. Everything else is derived from these attributes. Especially important is your Lucidity, which is your mental health. Seeing horrifying things deals Stress damage, take enough stress damage at once to exceed your Trauma Threshold, and you get a derangement. See enough crap, and your mind breaks. Stress is also extremely difficult to heal, taking significant time and effort.

Links

Homepage
Primary Wiki/fansite
/r/eclipsephase

All in all, Eclipse Phase is a surprisingly huge game even though it's contained entirely within just a handful of books. It is extremely fluffy, with well over half of the core book being just general fluff and GM stuff. But it's also delightfully crunchy, as anyone that's spent any time with Shadowrun can attest. But, hey. At least you don't need bricks of dice for this one. Oh, and it's under the CC license. So, really, you have no excuse not to at least read Lack, the intro to the core book.

Have questions? Ask them! I've loved this game since it first came out.

Want to champion a game for GotW? Contact rednightmare.

Edit: Correction to Psi Damage Type from kindalas.
kindalas also reminded me of r/eclipsephase. Added above.