Moar Eclipse Phase?

[Joose]

I have a beard yearning, and a prewritten EP adventure I have run before with another group. Who is up for some forumised space horror?

[Dog Pants]

Yes! Didn't you already ask this though? I've rewritten my character but need to tweak his background a little to remove it a little more from my inspiration.

[FatherJack]

I liked the sciencey character I played at Beardbash, but suspect they were rather pimped-up for starting characters. It was fun playing a character who cowered at the back when the fighting started, but who would fearlessly stroll straight through corrosive nasty to get to the lab when there was Science to be done.

[Joose]

I did previously enquire as to interest, but this is more of a "lets do this thing!"

The characters you played at the bash game were example starting characters. In my experience with such things they tend to be slightly *less* pimped out than a regular starting character (case in point, the examples in the SR4 book don't actually spend all their build points). However, if you want to play a science guy I would make one yourself. Role playing a character you have made is nearly always easier and more fun than playing a pregen. If the complicated pain in the ass character creation process is putting you off there is a section in the new book Transhuman with some alternative creation methods. I particularly like the sound of the one that turns chargen into a chose your own adventure

[FatherJack]

the new book Transhuman with some alternative creation methods. I particularly like the sound of the one that turns chargen into a chose your own adventure

Sounds a bit like the character creator in Elder Scrolls Arena where you had to answer questions about how you'd react in given situations, which I think was still an option in Morrowind and used to be used by a few old-school RPGs like the Ultima series, who had links with Steve Jackson Games.

[fabyak]

If there is space I'd quite like to join. Really enjoyed reading the others

[FatherJack]

Do we have a blank excel sheet for char creation? I see we have a filled-in one in the beardz DBfolder, but I'm struggling to know what to delete to make it blank and start over.

Edit: I think I found one and have plopped it in the folder.

Edit2: Having a bit of trouble re-creating Usagi (http://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/Mobile+Scientist) with it though, nowhere near enough money or CP to replicate the stats on there, some of the skills listed on the character sheet like Academics: Xenoanatomy don't seem to be "official" ones and her listed Rep scores are very expensive to replicate.

I wanted to recreate the essence of her before tweaking it and while spending points on Interest: Haute Nosh Food seems rather obviously counter-jurisprudent, I'm still a bit confused as to how picking a Skill: [Field] that's pretty-much made-up works in-game.

[Joose]

If there is space I'd quite like to join. Really enjoyed reading the others

Absolutely! In fact, 3-4 players is ideal, so with you on we have space for maybe one more player if anyone else wants in. Speak now, etc.

I wanted to recreate the essence of her before tweaking it and while spending points on Interest: Haute Nosh Food seems rather obviously counter-jurisprudent, I'm still a bit confused as to how picking a Skill: [Field] that's pretty-much made-up works in-game.

To be honest, pregenned characters that they give away in the books (like that one) tend to be a bit wrong in various ways. I wouldn't use them as a template really. Its not just that they may have mis-spent on build points, they are often missing skills or equipment generally considered to be vital.

I've popped a copy of Transhuman into the 5punkybeards folder. Hooray for being able to do that legally! I would definitely recommend having a looksee at that. You don't need to read the thing cover to cover or anything, but there is a lot of good stuff for character generation in there. One such thing is an answer to your question about Field skills. Technically speaking the field can be any damn thing, but the guideline I would use is that it needs to be something general enough that it is actually going to come up in game occasionally but not so general that you could apply it to any damn thing. There is a big list of suggested fields for those kinds of skills in the Transhuman book (ill pull up a page reference later).

Ive had a bit of a closer look at the Transhuman chargen stuff as well. Theres two bits, the "pack" system and the story system. The pack system is quite neat: instead of building the entire character from scratch you build it out of premade packs that all add up to a complete character. Essentially the same results as making it entirely bespoke but a lot quicker, easier and less likely to result in a character with serious gaps. Of course, the downside of that is that its slightly less personalised, but you could always make a pack based character and then tweak it afterwards.

The story system I am really taken with. Its actually slightly different to what I thought, its more like character creation in WFRP, but with more steps/options. You give it a bit of guidance (I want to be a fighty character! No, I want to be a scientist!) and then everything is done by rolling against tables and seeing what has happened to your character through thier life and therefore what their stats/skills/gear are as a result. I'm going to give it a go tonight and see what a completely randomised EP character looks like. If it works as well as it seems I will try and make an excel sheet to automagic the process as much as possible.

BTW: for new characters I am happy with anything from the core rools, as long as your morph is at least roughly humanoid. Im ok with uplift in human bodies or humanoid synths, but no swarms of nanobots, infomorphs or giant space whales please. Also I will consider stuff from the other books but run it by me first.

[fabyak]

Where is this 5punkybeards folder you speak of?

[Dog Pants]

Dropbox. If you don't have access poke someone on Steam (Me, Joose, Jock, FJ, Grimmie, Buzz, Deject, Pete, Roman and Bits currently have access and can invite).

[fabyak]

Cheers! Mr Joose has given me access

[Joose]

Just to check before you all get too deep into character creation: What skill focuses are you all going for? I know FJ is making a science spod and if I remember right Pants's guy is kind of combat focussed, is that right? If so, the obvious skill-holes for Fab to fill would seem to be:

Techie
Face
Psi-Ops
Hacker

I would say everyone should consider a bit of facey type skills, ideally for a range of different factions (one of you focus on Scum, one Hypercorps, one on Anarchs, that sort of thing) rather than having one all out Face character. Psychics are entirely optional fancy extras and if you are Doin It Rite you wouldn't in character be all that open about it so that definitely shouldn't be a characters focus (not at the start anyway). Hackers are interesting but potentially brain bending in an already brain bending game. If no one particularly wants to play a hacker I'm happy to just tone down hacking to something that can be covered by science spods or techies. I think therefore that the role probably best suited to fill the skillhole would be some sort of tech focussed character. In case its not obvious what the difference between a tech and a science guy would be: Science is more theory, tech is practice. In game, the science guy is the one telling you if the blob of goo is just coolant or a liquid alien nanoswarm, or the guy deciphering the strange language written on the walls, or looking at the complex blueprint and telling you what the machine it describes would actually do. The Techie is the guy who repairs your broken spaceship so you are not stranded in deep space, or opens the sealed door, or makes the alien machine actually do something useful. Science guy tells you there are dangerous nanites in the air, techie makes a MacGuyver-contraption to destroy them out of a battery, some tape and a childrens toy. Both are great to have if you want to not die all the time.

I'm basically ready when you are, so if you are having character creation problems or questions just shoot me a PM, steam chat or ask here.

[fabyak]

I'm happy to fill the Techie's hole *readies his dongle* lolololololol

[Dog Pants]

I was going for combat, mainly because I know others like to play non-combat characters. I do have a raft of face skills too, but they're more conman than charmer. If I get the right impression of the game it's like Call of Cthulhu in that if you're resorting to shooting things it's probably too late.

[Joose]

I was going for combat, mainly because I know others like to play non-combat characters. I do have a raft of face skills too, but they're more conman than charmer. If I get the right impression of the game it's like Call of Cthulhu in that if you're resorting to shooting things it's probably too late.

Slightly less so than CoC, but you really dont want to get into a stand up fight. Most fights are likely to be imbalanced, with one side murdering the shit out of the other. The trick is to arrange things so that they are imbalanced in your favour. Its absolutely the case that if you can achieve your goals without entering combat at all you should totally try to do that.

Thats something worth clearing up actually. Firewall as an organisation is split up into various roles. Theres the Crows, which are the intelligence gatherers and data analysts who sit around all day trying to find things to panic about. They highlight the scary things to the Proxies, who organise everything, taking information from Crows and passing that on to local guys called Routers, who give the jobs out. Their preferred solution is to give those jobs to teams of Sentinels (you guys) who follow up on information from Crows and try to make things safe with as little fuss as possible. If that's not possible, or if the Sentinels fail in some catastrophic way, the Erasure Squads are called in.

The key thing here is that Firewall is kind of illegal in large areas of the solar system, and not necessarily looked on kindly everywhere else. They believe that what they are doing is necessary and good for humanity, but the specific humans involved might not agree. As such, Firewall operates like a cross between a bunch of spies and a terrorist organisation. Doing things quietly is best because then people don't know Firewall was even involved. Its you guys jobs to try and achieve that. Its the Erasure Squads who march about the place in pimped out military morphs or throw nukes at infested habitats at relativistic speeds, not you guys. Erasure Squads do the fighting, and if an Erasure Squad is needed then someone somewhere fucked up.

Plus, combat morphs and nukes are expensive shit, and Firewall is by its nature not that well funded. Quiet and Cheap are your watchwords.

What I'm getting at is that if a stand up fight is the only option you have you should be calling someone else to do it for you. You only have combat guys along for those moments where things go sideways all of a sudden and you just don't have time to wait.

[FatherJack]

I put filled-in sheet in the folder, it'd be great if you can have a look and seeing if there's anything glaringly bad there.

Her background is a kind of adventuring scientist, keen to see new things, and is fascinated by new life forms alive and dead equally. There's a connection with the Hypercorps who may have funded her in the past, she does the lecture circuits inbetween travels and has worked with police forensic teams when they are baffled by particularly gruesome and alien remains. She has some computer skills, and while she would argue the she's much more practical than scientists that just sit in stuffy laboratories all day, she lacks what I'd call the engineering skills to be what you describe as a tech.

[Joose]

I've given it a quick look over, and there is nothing obviously bad. Looks pretty good overall actually, nice "field scientist" feel to it with a bit of hacking skills and some decent spread of rep and suchlike. There's just a couple of things I need to check with you but they are more "you realise this means this?" rather than "I don't think you really want to do that do you?" I'll send you a PM on it, as there's a handful of generic background questions I'm putting together to ask everyone that I can send you at the same time.

[Joose]

BTW: I have added this thing about Rep to the 5punkwiki. Its all information from the main book, but its spread out in a godawfully confusing way so I thought I would collect it in one place. Anything else anyone could do with some explanation on before we kick off?

[fabyak]

Lovely! Cheers Joose, that clears things up nicely

[fabyak]

What would be considered High or at least reasonable?