Character Creation: Eclipse Phase 2nd Ed

FOR THE FOURTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-THREE, FOUR UPLIFTED BIRDS,
THREE GODS A-SENDIN'
TWO DUST BOWLS,
AND CHUUBO'S MARVELOUS ETC ETC BURBLE.

Been a shit 24 hours, really, but I'm feeling better. I'll probably wind up doing a post about it when I'm feeling a little less tired and little more composed, but for now:

The Game: Eclipse Phase 2nd Ed
The Publisher: Posthuman Games
Degree of Familiarity: None. I think I played first ed once at a con, but I might just be thinking of chargen
Books Required: Just the one

RIGHT SO ANYWAY Eclipse Phase is a sci-fi/post-acocalyptic-horror-sci-fi-again sort of thing. And looking back at my character for the first edition, apparently I did play it at Arisia once, but I have no specific memory of that game or even what year it happened (must have been prior to 2010, so like really the Before Times). 

I have to say, this edition is a lot cleaner and more accessible to me, which is impressive for a 400-page hardcover. The basic (very basic) idea is: there was this Fall, y'see, and 95% of humanity was wiped out. There are still a lot of "infugees," refugees whose minds were uploaded into digital form that are stuck in VR until some arrangement can be made to give them bodies ("morphs"), although the VR around here is pretty groovy. PCs are assumed to be working with Firewall, a protective sort of group that assessing and handles x-risks (short for "existential risks", that is, shit that could end the species). 

There's very much a prevailing vibe that humanity is on its way out; that's actually what the title of the game is referring to. I don't mind a little bleakness in my sci-fi.

Now, I'm doing this game as the fourth in my 12 Games of Xmas this year for much the same reason that I did Pirates of Pugmire at this point last year: I can make a character who is a bird, calling or otherwise. Character creation mostly consists of picking packages (lol), and I can get behind that. So!

So, Step One: Background. I know I want to be an uplifted corvid, so my background is Uplift. I get:

That's easy. Step Two is Career, and I'm thinking I want my corvid to be a hacker.

Step Three is Interest, basically "what else ya like." I was all set to roll this randomly, but 

I just really like the image of this big ol' birb flying a spaceship. For Step Four, I must pick one of the Factions. Mercurial makes sense, since they're the ones working to liberate uplifts and AGIs, but I'm gonna go with Argonauts. I like the idea that my bird-pilot is for liberation of his people, sure, but he's generally more moderate on scientific risk. Sure, uplifts worked out and they should probably be treated more like people, but that was a calculated risk, right? 

Anyway, that gives me Argonauts+ as a motivation and Know (Argonauts) 30 as a Skill. And on we go!

Step Five is Aptitude Template; basically I get to pick a stat array. Inquirer, I think, is what I want: 

Step Six is the most labor-intensive step so far: total up my Skills. 

Athletics 50, Fray 40, Kinesics 45, Perceive 80, Provoke 35, Survival 40, Know (Uplift Culture) 80, Know (Sociology) 50, Infosec 80, Interface 60, Program 50, Know (Mathematics) 80, Know (Network Engineering) 50, Hardware (Aerospace) 50, Pilot (Ground) 40, Pilot (Space) 50, Know (Flight Crew Ops) 60

I can't go over 80 for any of these, but I haven't, so that's fine. Probably I'm going to want to raise my Pilot and/or hacker Skills, but I'll wait to do that until the end.

Step Seven is Languages; mostly irrelevant because everyone's got a magical translator in their neck or whatever, but in case we're beyond the reach of the Mesh, my bird speaks three languages. I'll take English, Skandinaviska, and Japanese. 

Step Eight: Flex. HRRRGGHH. I start with 1 Flex. That was easy.

Step Nine: Reputation. Well, not only am I persona non grata but evidently my name is a killing word. No, wait, they mean the character (wakka wakka). I get 100 points to split up, and the book recommends 50/50 or 50/25/25. So, sure. We'll take 50 in r-rep (research network affiliates), 25 in i-rep (the Firewall network) and 25 in x-rep (explorers). 

Step Ten is customization. I get 20 points to divvy up amongst Aptitudes and Skills and whatnot. Well, I know I want to be better at hacking and piloting. 1 CP is 5 Skill points, so I shall raise Program to 60 (2 points), Hardware and both Pilot skills to 60 (8 points, so 10 spent), and I'll spend 1 to get a Specialization in Flying in Athletics. I'll spent 6 more to buy Guns up to 30 (so 40 with Reflexes). Three more. I'll spend two and buy another point of Flex, and put the last one into Kinesics to bump it to 50. 

Step Eleven: Derived Stats! Initiative is (REF + INT)/5, or 6. Aptitude Checks are equal to their controlling Aptitude x3. Lucidity is WILx2, or 30, and Trauma Threshold is Lucidity/5, so 6. Insanity is double Lucidity (60). 

Step 12 is starting morph and gear, and here's where things probably get a little more complicated. Or maybe not. I get two gear packs, one based on career and one based the kind of campaign we'd be playing. Let's assume we're doing gatecrashing (exploration), so I get that one, and the hacker pack.

And then morph, which is the type of body I'm in. I get 6 morph points, but I can buy multiple morphs if I feel like forkin' (lol). I can also buy extra perks for my morph. So let's say I have the neo-avian morph and I've got two identical morphs I can use to fork. Oh, wait, no, I can't; the starting morph has to cost more than 0. Fine, fuck it. Neo-avian morph, and I'll put 2 points each into Acumen, Fitness, and Quickness. I get a +10 to Cognition, Reflexes, and Somatics. 

Step Thirteen is Motivations. I have one already (Argonauts+), so I need two more. They can be expressed either as favorable (+) or not (-). 

Well, I think my guy is in favor of Uplift Rights, so that can get a +, and also in favor of Exploration. That's easy enough.

And everything else is finishing touches. So: Callix is an uplifted raven, hatched or fashioned as a messenger for info in the Mesh. He's had other ideas, though - he feels like he's got a lot more to offer. Like, he's looking for a way to get a couple of forked copies of himself, so he can pilot and crew a ship without help (read: interference) from bipeds! So far there hasn't been a lot of interest; after all, forked copies take up more resources, but Callix thinks its worth looking into further.

Callix is a neo-raven, so he's a raven the size of a human child. He's got prehensile feet and those weird hand-like things on the joints of his wings. He prefers to perch rather than sit when he's flying or driving a vehicle. He doesn't have a consistent alias yet, but he's trying out "Murder" (yes, technically he's a raven, not a crow, but "Unkindness" just sounds meaner than "Murder" somehow). 

That'll do it! Caw-caw.

Character Creation: Eclipse Phase

In the future, everyone will have whatever sleeves they want. That might be dirty or not, depending on what you think of when you hear "sleeve."

Anyway.

The Game: Eclipse Phase
The Publisher: Posthuman Studios, at least this edition
Degree of Familiarity: Not much. I was, at one point, tapped to freelance, never did, but I read it before it was published. Played in a rather unimpressive game of it at Arisia, but that wasn't the game's fault.
Books Required: Just the shiny core book. 

 

So, Eclipse Phase is this nifty sci-fi transhumanist horror game in which you can resleeve if you die. That is, your body ("morph") is just a shell holding your memories and thoughts and all. That can be put into any sort of morph - robot, fleshy, even an octopus.

Wait, what?

Yeah, you can evidently play an "uplifted" animal. But I ain't gonna, this not being Blue Planet. Let's us check in with Michelle to see where she's at in this process?

OK, she's ready to go. Rosie, however, is asleep. We'll check in with her later.

OK, so Michelle and I have a concept. She's doing an uplifted dog (not specifically allowed by the book, but fuck the book, if fucking birds can be uplifted, dogs sure as hell should be). I'm doing the dog's former master. So, we decide we're from (hang on) Earth, and I take the Fall Evacuee Background.

Talking about it, we decide that Michelle's character was a genetically engineered doggie - smarter than most, but still a dog. And then the Fall happened, and I got resleeved off-planet, and when I woke up, my doggie was uplifted. That's gotta be a kick in the head. Think about some of the things our dogs see us doing? Yow. Anyway, as an Earth Evacuee, I get +10 Pilot Groundcraft, +10 Networking in a Field of my choice, and +1 Moxie. However, I start with less money.

For Faction, I choose Socialite. I see this guy as someone who comes from money and whose family was able to buy its way out of trouble. This economy is different; it's based on reputation, not scarcity, because it's so darned easy to fabricate stuff. My character isn't used to that, he's used to being able to spread cash around and fix whatever he's done, and it just doesn't work that way anymore. His doggie, therefore, has to watch out for him and make sure he doesn't offend the pack. Socialite gives me +10 Persuasion, +10 Protocol, +20 Networking (Media). There are some morphs I can't start with, but I'll get to that when I do morph.

Next: Free points. 105 for Aptitudes. Which are: Cognition, Coordination, Intuition, Reflexes, Savvy, Somatics and Willpower. 15 is average, each has to get 5, nothing higher than 30.

Well, Cognition is problem-solving and analysis. I don't see this guy being much about average here, so 15 points.

Coordination deals with syncing with your morph, and I figure that's handy, so I'll put 20 here.

Intuition is following gut instinct and evaluating on the fly, which I figure my character is kind of pants at. 10 points.

Reflexes is thinking fast, acting quickly, and the like. Also not a strong point. 10 points.

Savvy is social intuition, which you'd think I'd be good at, but again, he's having trouble. 15 points for now.

Somatics is pushing one's morph to the best of its physical ability, which I figure my guy's good at, because screw it, he can just get another one anyway. 25 here.

Willpower is, well, exactly that, and I've got 10 points left for it.

OK, moving on. I get Language (English) for free at 70, and I get one point of Moxie, +1 for my Background. I get 2500 Credits (again, less because of my Background), and then I get 50 points for Rep. I think I'll wait to do Rep until I know what the heck these all mean.

Now, Customization Points. I get...1000?!? Seriously? Jesus, it's like they want you to do math. Blah. Anyway, that's why computers have calculators.

OK, well, in fairness you buy everything with these. Skills, psionics, your morph, money, rep, etc. You know, I think I'm going to do rep now, and then spend my points. I need f-rep (fame), 10 in @-rep (because Michelle's character is known there, and so I should be) and 10 in e-rep (ditto).

Right, now on to the 1000 point thing. Jesus. I have to take 300 points of Knowledge and 400 of Active, so let's start there. Skills start at their linked Aptitude and are 1/1 from there (until you crest 60, at which point it doubles). Let's do Active first.

When all is said and done, my Active Skills look like this:

Animal Handling 30 (with a Dogs Specialization)
Climbing 50
Deception 55
Fray 50 (the book recommends you take this, which annoys me - if it's required, it should come standard)
Free Fall 40
Freerunning 51 (Parkour is awesome)
Impersonation 25 (I figure he's not very good at it, but he's got some natural skill)
Interfacing 50
Kinetic Weapons 55
Networking (Media) 50 (I had 30 free points here)
Persuasion 60 (10 free points here)
Protocol 60 (here as well)
Unarmed Combat 50 (lots of immersion games)

OK, on to Knowledge Skills, soon as Michelle's ready.

I figure my guy was involved in an asteroid processing concern at one point, but was never actually out there on the asteroid (that's dangerous!). So he's got some skills related to that, but nothing major.

Academics (Old Earth History) 55
Academics (Astrophysics) 30
Academics (Geology) 30
Interest (Celebrity Gossip) 60
Interest (Drug Dealers) 50
Language (English) 70 (free)
Language (Cantonese) 60
Profession (Asteroid Processing) 35
Profession (Social Engineering) 50
Profession (Viral Marketing) 50

Keen. We'll do Morph next, since that's kind of important. As a socialite, I can't have a flat, pod or synthetic morph. I take an Olympian Morph - probably would've taken Sylph, but I figure my dog wants me to stay physically fit and viable, and Olympians can still be pretty (plus, freerunning). Olympian costs me 40 points, but gives me some cool shit. I get +5 Coordination, +5 Reflexes, +10 Somatics and +5 to one of my choice. Hang on. I think Reflexes, since it's a weak area.

Now, Traits. I'll take Brave for 10 points, since I figure my guy is dumb enough to figure on being able to resleeve in most conditions. I'll take Exception Aptitude in Somatics, so I can actually use all of my bonus from my morph.

Those are the only traits I think I want (I had consider Psi, but eh). That leaves me 210 points yet. I shall buy MORE STUFF.

OK, my Aptitudes are low. They're also 10 points each. Yow. I'll up Intuition to 15, so at least I'm average. That costs 50. I'll buy 2 more points of Moxie for 30 points.

I think Skills are probably a good idea. I'll buy Impersonation to 60 (I know I said I wasn't good at it, but screw it, I've got the points). I'll buy Persuasion up to 75, which costs 30 because anything over 60 costs double. I'll spend 10 and get 10,000 Credits (which I would use to buy gear, but I'm totally not doing the step because I would like to eat dinner). I spend 50 to up my Savvy to 20, which causes a weird cascade in my skills that I'm not explaining here, but it results in a bunch of skills getting bumped up because the points need to work out and spending 5 more on to boost Protocol to 70. And finally, I spend 5 points giving myself 50 points of assorted Rep.

Now, Motivations. I'm in favor of Hedonism, Fame (mine) and Exploration - he still wants to see the universe, and sometimes he wishes he'd pursued that asteroid thing. I'll also say he's opposed to bioconservatism, because his best friend is a dog.

Derived traits, but I do those up and put 'em on the sheet real quick. Easy-peasy.

Final touches: My guy's name is Vic Johnson. In his Olympian morph, he's lithe, blond, blue eyes. He's graceful, and has a habit of tossing small bits of food up to catch in his mouth. He still catches himself scratching Rosie behind the ears and otherwise touching her to reassure her, which weird people out if they don't know the pair's odd history.

OK, I have the sheet, but I dunno how to make it show up as a pdf here, so y'all will just have to wait until I get home and can scan it in. The important thing is, we're done and can go cook foodstuff now.

Arf!