Author Topic: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)  (Read 56508 times)

Robot Master

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #15 on: January 28, 2011, 09:27:56 AM »
Dom, I decided overnight that I will be focusing my chargen on an Infolife from Argo/Anarch space who is a part of the morphological/AGI rights movement. Ghost morph. Skill focusing will be on investigative/infiltrative/combat.

The character's personality will be that of an awakened intelligence that not only believes in Firewall's mission, but that the full body experience is an amazing experience that all intelligent creatures should have the option of choosing. Also, awakened need to earn the respect back and regain trust after the fall of Earth at least one bit at a time.

1. He's going to have been already awakened 10 years ago during the fall of Earth, but was smuggled away in the mass exodus. I'll get to the body later.

Gotta go...more to come tonight.
Thanos: "I am going to sacrifice the Earth to gain the love of Death"
Me: (slowly raise eyebrow) "Destroy the Earth? That would be...illogical"
Vortex: "Yes...that...would be...highly...illogical."
Thanos: "Your Star Trek references bore me."

Dom

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #16 on: January 28, 2011, 09:51:33 AM »
Sounds great! Just remember that AGIs are mostly disliked in the inner system. A way to avoid confrontation with the authorities might be to purchase a Fake Ego ID.

Moondog

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #17 on: January 28, 2011, 03:45:47 PM »
EDIT EDIT: You don't think it's a bit too combat focused, with not quite enough investigative abilities?

As long as the you can enjoy roleplaying the character and it doesn't hinder the investigation, you're free to create your character as you wish. If you want to add more investigative abilities, go ahead. As long as a few PCs have investigative abilities the scenario should progress smoothly.

The more I think of it, the more I'm interested in the Infolife. As a GM, do you have any personal preference for my character selection?

None whatsoever, feel free to pick the character that you would enjoy the most and that you feel you could roleplay well enough. I will post a few questions that will need to be answered for the background of the characters, but other than that the character concept can be as you wish, as long as you can stick to the group template.

I'll take a look at the system more and maybe give character generation a shot this weekend hopefully.  When were you thinking of starting?

Hopefully next week. I'll PM Arje for a forum request where I can post some more information regarding the scenario. Once that is done and the players create their characters we will start the game.

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Dom

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #18 on: January 29, 2011, 10:27:46 AM »
While the forum is being set up, we can start with the character creation.

EP character creation can be difficult since there is a lot of number-crunching involved. To help with this, the community created an Excel character sheet that makes most of the calculations for you. Download it here: http://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet

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The full character creation guide starts on page 130 of the core rulebook. A character creation summary can be found on page 390.Here are some of my tips for creating characters for this scenario:

Skill specialization: (EP 173) This will help your character, no matter what. For example, a character with Infiltration (Blending In) at 60 will need to roll under 60 when sneaking behind a guard, but will get a +10 bonus to the skill when trying to avoid being spotted when in a crowd. Also, a skill specialization will give you a better idea of how your character would tackle a problem.

Mars survival: (Sunward 161) Most biomorphs in Mars are outfitted with the Enhanced Respiration and Temperature Tolerance implants. Mars is still in the process of being terraformed- the atmosphere is mostly composed of carbon dioxide and temperatures remain almost constantly freezing, the average being -50° C during the night and 10° C during the day outside of city domes. Synthmorphs are typically unaffected by these conditions.

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Here are a few questions that will help flesh out your character.

Background: Firewall agents come from a variety of backgrounds so that the organization remains adaptable and flexible.

  • Was your character affected by the Fall? If so, how?
  • What sorts of groups does your character associate with?
  • Does your character have a job outside of working for Firewall?

Muse: “Muses are digital entities that have been designed as personal assistants and lifelong companions for transhumans.” (EP 332) Your Muse helps you with tedious tasks such as your accounting, filtering emails, researching on the Mesh, etc. They are highly customized to their user’s liking and develop personalities of their own.

  • What is your muse’s name?
  • What is your muse’s personality like?
  • Are there any other tasks that your muse handles for you?

Robot Master

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #19 on: January 29, 2011, 12:29:24 PM »
Where are we storing these files?
Thanos: "I am going to sacrifice the Earth to gain the love of Death"
Me: (slowly raise eyebrow) "Destroy the Earth? That would be...illogical"
Vortex: "Yes...that...would be...highly...illogical."
Thanos: "Your Star Trek references bore me."

Dom

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #20 on: January 29, 2011, 12:37:29 PM »
Go ahead and email them to me for now. nightraider0[at]gmail.com

EDIT: If you need help with the character creation, send me a PM or add me on Skype, e.dom01
« Last Edit: January 29, 2011, 01:12:50 PM by Dom »

Robot Master

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #21 on: January 29, 2011, 08:30:15 PM »
I've got the bio prepped. Do you think I should wait to write it up and post it until we get the board open? I guess we could just transfer it when it gets created. I'll eat some dinner and then come back to see what you think.

Also if anyone has any questions or whatever about the setting I can answer those too. I worked HARD to get ready to run this game and then we sorta-kinda had a falling out in real life with the people we were gonna play with, so I'm pretty knowledged on the game as well.
Thanos: "I am going to sacrifice the Earth to gain the love of Death"
Me: (slowly raise eyebrow) "Destroy the Earth? That would be...illogical"
Vortex: "Yes...that...would be...highly...illogical."
Thanos: "Your Star Trek references bore me."

Mckma

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #22 on: January 29, 2011, 08:45:06 PM »
Not too familiar with all the intricacies, so I'm looking for information/suggestions.  My character concept is a kind of infiltrator/techie, who is probably an Argonaut leaning towards Anarchist, basically he's mainly interested in the open source idea (both for technology and programs).  I'm looking for a suggestion on first morph.  I'm kind of looking at the first pre-gen, and notice it's a Bouncer.  I basically don't know what would make sense for this character.

Thanks.

Robot Master

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #23 on: January 29, 2011, 11:51:14 PM »
Not too familiar with all the intricacies, so I'm looking for information/suggestions.  My character concept is a kind of infiltrator/techie, who is probably an Argonaut leaning towards Anarchist, basically he's mainly interested in the open source idea (both for technology and programs).  I'm looking for a suggestion on first morph.  I'm kind of looking at the first pre-gen, and notice it's a Bouncer.  I basically don't know what would make sense for this character.

Thanks.

Well the guy that I just made and sent to Dom is an Argonaut infiltrator/hacker as well but there's more than one way to skin a cat in this game. The big difference with the guy that I made is that he's an infolife(an AGI)...he started his existence as data. AGIs (AIs with cognitive capacities equal to humans or higher) are not generally trusted because AGIs are a good part of the reason why Earth was massacred. A My character is also more research/science based and is not a social skills powered character. Food for thought for chargen going forward. Our characters might make a good double team. Also my guy isn't too hot on modifying items, like making personal gear.

Here's starting morphs for you. You have to use CPs to buy your starting morph and some are more expensive than others. Since chargen is a point-buy system, the more CP you spend on your starting morph the less CP you have to spend on extra stuff. So it's up to you to conceptualize how much you want to put into your starting morph. I spent 70 on mine (a Ghost morph) and had -plenty- for other stuff.

Here's some ideas to put things into perspective...

Flats are normal humans that you can add modifications to. They're free but they don't get the biomods for free either, you've got to buy those.

Splicers are genetically fixed humans. Think of a splicer morph as the main morph that many of the NPCs in the game will be. Think of splicer morphs as the "basic" morph, whereas the Flat is like the -1 crappy morph you take to have more money to spend stuff on.

Exalts are a step up from Splicers. They're genetically enhanced and designed for specific traits. This is a nice pick because you can set a +5 to three aptitudes of your choice to kinda represent "this body was made for spy work".

Olympians designed for olympic level athletics, which could be a factor in spywork. Do you want your guy/girl to be an overall physical specimen?

Sylphs are the hotness. Is your guy a con-artist james bond style espionage person? If so this would be a good pick.

Bouncers are designed for zero-G and microgravity, but they also have prehensile feet to start which can turn into all kinds of ninja/climbing/hanging from ceilings awesomeness. This would be a good pick for spy work because of that.

Ghost This is what I chose, and they're designed for infiltration. They have chameleon skin that helps them with disguise checks, adrenal glands to manage their cool under fire, and their grip pads basically allow them to spiderman crawl on walls.

Neo-Hominids Be a chimpanzee with prehensile feet? Running, gunning, climbing all over the place?

The main thing to remember is that this game is more like shadowrun than D&D. In fact it's made by some of the Shadowrun guys. You're not so much picking Race and Class. You're just making whatever the fuck you want. You can pick the uplift background (former animal that was uplifted to sentience, like a chimp/octopus/dolphin) that wears a morph sleeve that looks like Brad Pitt. Likewise you can pick a guy who was a janitor on earth that's chosen to wear the morph that looks like a silverback gorilla (neo-hominid morph). I did the Pinocchio thing and made an AGI that is wearing the body of a ghost and is getting the full tactile human experience.

So approach chargen like you're "arming up" for the game, taking what you want and leaving the rest behind like a salad bar.

The next step really is to conceptualize what you wanna do with your aptitudes. The morph adds bonuses to your aptitudes, so these should be kept in mind as well. These could be useful in determining your "infiltration/spy" style.

COG - Cognition = memory/problem solving
COO - Coordination = Manual dexterity/balance, guns, infiltration(sneaking).
INT - Intuition = self explanatory, but also factors into linguistics, the perception skill, and investigation skill
REF - Reflexes = dodging/piloting/zero g movement skills affected here.
SAV - Savvy = social ability. Persuasion, networking, impersonation skills affected here...
SOM - Somatics = strength/endurance = unarmed combat, freerunning, blades, climbing, clubs skills affected
WIL - willpower = not used on many skills(psionics) but there -is- a sanity check element of the game.

You have to spend 105 points on these, and they all start at 5, leaving you with 70 points left to allocate. The normal human standard is 10. You could choose to set all to 15 and let the morph benefits choose the additional bonuses or tweak them however you want them.

Say you want your guy to be a naturally good shot with a gun? Okay so say you set COO to 15, and your morph adds 10. After this process you'll have a Coordination of 25. So when you go to buy your beam weapons skill (a coordination based skill) it'll start for free at a 25 and you'll use your CP to buy it up from there.

Once this is done, you're basically free to spend CP on whatever else you want with some guidelines that are set in the book. 400 points on active skills and 300 on knowledge must be set.

It SOUNDS a lot more daunting than it really is, TRUST ME. It's just got that new system oddity, but the spreadsheet does all the math for you.

If you wanna skype and go over this let me know, my skype is "lockenstock". Dom and I went over stuff today and when you use that spreadsheet it's a cinch. I don't keep skype on in the background so just gimme a time that you'll be there and we'll voice chat through it.

« Last Edit: January 29, 2011, 11:53:18 PM by Robot Master »
Thanos: "I am going to sacrifice the Earth to gain the love of Death"
Me: (slowly raise eyebrow) "Destroy the Earth? That would be...illogical"
Vortex: "Yes...that...would be...highly...illogical."
Thanos: "Your Star Trek references bore me."

Moondog

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #24 on: January 29, 2011, 11:53:52 PM »
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Robot Master

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #25 on: January 29, 2011, 11:55:13 PM »
Thanos: "I am going to sacrifice the Earth to gain the love of Death"
Me: (slowly raise eyebrow) "Destroy the Earth? That would be...illogical"
Vortex: "Yes...that...would be...highly...illogical."
Thanos: "Your Star Trek references bore me."

Mckma

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #26 on: January 30, 2011, 12:23:38 AM »
Oh, that's cool, I kind of like the idea of maybe making a compliment character to yours if you don't mind.  I definitely want to focus on kind of a MacGyver-esque, customization guy, but I don't know what you have to kid of play off each other.  Maybe part of our backstory could be finding how we compliment each other and joining together?

EDIT:  That or I could roll a party face since I couldn't really tell what the Moondog's character was...
« Last Edit: January 30, 2011, 12:26:16 AM by Mckma »

Robot Master

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #27 on: January 30, 2011, 12:40:09 AM »
Well my guy is some running/gunning/dual extendable batons kinda guy that is good with programming/hacking/breaking into things/stealth. He's good at research and investigation (but then again we're all investigators) and academic knowledge.

What's he's NOT good at is social stuff, anything hardware skill related. My guy also isn't bringing any robots with him with the exception of a few nanite swarms to clean rooms. My guy also is only packing pistols. So a few ideas off of the top of my head are you could go more of a faceman, or you could pack a bit more heat, or you could even pack a series of robots that you control to assist with investigation/infiltration, or you could honestly do all of that. While my guy is "technical" he definitely doesn't have that "tech expert" role.

LOL you could make your guy a big bad of technological asskicking porn. The kind of guy that uses his technical genius to make bigger and better robots, bigger and better guns, and bigger and better shit that most people have to have to put elbow grease into learning how to do. The system supports it.

---edit

Now that I think of it, I'll probably save the concept of a neo-hominid gorilla using his feet to type on a keyboard/decked out in harnesses with guns as a future concept.

« Last Edit: January 30, 2011, 01:22:05 AM by Robot Master »
Thanos: "I am going to sacrifice the Earth to gain the love of Death"
Me: (slowly raise eyebrow) "Destroy the Earth? That would be...illogical"
Vortex: "Yes...that...would be...highly...illogical."
Thanos: "Your Star Trek references bore me."

Moondog

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #28 on: January 30, 2011, 02:21:32 AM »
Actually, think I'll work up an entirely different fellow. Should have it finished in a day or so~
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Mckma

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Re: Eclipse Phase PBP Interest Check (3-6 players)
« Reply #29 on: January 30, 2011, 02:28:20 AM »
Okay, probably going to go with MacGyver-ish tech faceman, unless that doesn't work at all, but I'll see how it ends up.  If anything I would lean more towards the MacGyver concept (building my own robots and devices, taking things apart to "fix" them, etc.)...