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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alikar" data-source="post: 4892343" data-attributes="member: 54594">So I managed to be one of the lucky few at Gencon to pick up the Eclipse Phase book. Here is my short review of the game, but please note I have not yet had time to fully read the book and this mostly consists of skimming. I've also done a Character Creation Thread here: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/260785-eclipse-phase-character-creation.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/260785-eclipse-phase-character-creation.html</a> Base Mechanic:In the most basic terms you could look at Eclipse Phase as a redone version of Shadow Run, but the more you look into the book the more that starts to fall away. The first major difference between the two is the dice mechanic (d100), which is a roll under system. You score crits with double numbers (11,22,33) and they are considered a success or failure depending on if you would have normally succeeded with that number. A 00 is always a success and a 99 is always a failure, oddly enough both are crits. Character CreationTthere are no races in Eclipse Phase, since you can change bodies at will it doesn't matter what you were born as only what you are at the moment. With that in mind backgrounds such as Drifter, Lost, Hyperelite, Infolife, Lunar, Socialite, etc give you your advantages and disadvantages. These basically effect positively and negatively your skills. You then get 105 points to distribute among your 7 aptitudes which make up your mental stats. After you have determined these you get 1000 Character points for everything from skills to credits to Moxie. Moxie is basically edge, but it does a few more things. Next a character will choose which Morph (body) to use at the start of the game. Each of which grants you certain advantages, but cost various character points to own. Finally you can then purchase traits which are your normal things like Ambidextrous, danger sense, faster learner and stuff like that. Sub SystemsEclipse Phase does not contain subsystems like Shadow Run, instead Psi and Hacking are built into the main system. Psi is Eclipse Phase's version of magic, which can only affect people at a short range or touch. It also primarily affects the mind of an opponent or self. Don't expect to summon monster or throw fire balls with this, its very subtle. Hacking is no longer a separate subsystem you simply use your same stats on the net as in person, which is very nice. FluffOverall the fluff seems to be pretty solid. Following a darker path of a singularity humanity was nearly wipped out by Sientiant AIs called TITANs (Which the USA made (Which is terribly unoriginal.)) and now hovers around only 500 million people in the solar system. Now humanity is trying to recover from what they call the Fall, which was ten years ago. Most people live either on the Moon or Mars with various other colonies out in the solar system. These consist of City States run by corporations. (What is interesting is how similar this fluff is to the Alpha Omega RPG, but instead of being on Earth its in space.) The main point of the game is that your character works for a secret organization called Firewall which is supposed to protect humanity from internal or external threats. So instead of running for one of many corporations the fluff is more orientated for you working for Firewall, but it does outline many other organizations and city states so it doesn't limit you to just Firewall. There is currently one Alien race that humanity has encountered, a race of fungus snail like creatures that claim to represent a large number of other races. The race is currently peaceful and does not appear to have craft faster than the speed of light, but their frequent appearances lead many to speculate that they have the technology. Mostly the Factors, as the are called, try to steer humanity away from high level AI otherwise they seem content to simply watch humanity grow. There are a few small issues with the fluff, such as the author's bigotry against certain religious groups showing through and the strange and unexplained dissapearance of major nation states when the fall occurred, but most of these fluff issues are easily ignored and replaced with less inconsistent ideas. SummaryOverall its a good book with some slight rough edges. Ironically I may just not run with the main fluff at all since this book is nearly perfect for a Mass Effect conversion all I need to do is replace morphs with races and its basically all done for me. If you have any questions just ask and I'll see if I can answer them.</blockquote>

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