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Eclipse Phase 2nd Edition
Eclipse Phase: The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Survival
Eclipse Phase Second Edition is the post-apocalyptic game of transhuman horror. Humanity is enhanced and improved, but also battered and bitterly divided. Technology allows the re-shaping of bodies and minds, but also creates opportunities for oppression and puts the capability for mass destruction in the hands of everyone. And other threats lurk in the devastated habitats of the Fall, dangers both familiar and alien. In this harsh setting, the players participate in a cross-faction conspiracy called Firewall that seeks to protect transhumanity from threats both internal and external.
Along the way, they may find themselves hunting for prized technology in a gutted habitat falling from orbit, risking the hellish landscapes of a ruined earth, or following the trail of a terrorist through militarized stations and isolationist habitats. Characters may even find themselves stepping through a Pandora Gate, a wormhole to distant stars and the alien secrets beyond.
Along the way, they may find themselves hunting for prized technology in a gutted habitat falling from orbit, risking the hellish landscapes of a ruined earth, or following the trail of a terrorist through militarized stations and isolationist habitats. Characters may even find themselves stepping through a Pandora Gate, a wormhole to distant stars and the alien secrets beyond.
432 pages, Hardcover
Published September 4, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 2, 2020
Le livre de base de la seconde édition du jeu de rôles Eclipse Phase. Nous avons ici affaire à de la science-fiction d'excellente qualité, très bien pensée et au propos éminemment politique. Tout ce que j'aime dans la science-fiction. Presque chaque paragraphe m'a donné des idées de personnages ou d'aventures.
En prime, ce paragraphe parfait où les auteurs expliquent leur façon d'aborder la politique dans leur jeu :
We’re not going to make any bones about it: this is an overtly political game, and political conflicts shape much of the setting. Most readers will be familiar with how capitalist socioeconomic systems work, so we’ve given much more attention in the setting materials to describing new and alternative political systems. If the authors appear biased toward anarchism and socialism, it's because we are — but we also need to describe how they actually work, since Americans don’t understand socialism much less anarchism. Truthfully, all sci-fi games are biased; most just happen to be biased towards the status quo.
En prime, ce paragraphe parfait où les auteurs expliquent leur façon d'aborder la politique dans leur jeu :
We’re not going to make any bones about it: this is an overtly political game, and political conflicts shape much of the setting. Most readers will be familiar with how capitalist socioeconomic systems work, so we’ve given much more attention in the setting materials to describing new and alternative political systems. If the authors appear biased toward anarchism and socialism, it's because we are — but we also need to describe how they actually work, since Americans don’t understand socialism much less anarchism. Truthfully, all sci-fi games are biased; most just happen to be biased towards the status quo.
October 24, 2019
Eclipse Phase second edition is just what a second edition should be: no major changes to the game, just a gradual polish and improvement of systems and background. So you won't find any major changes to the game, but lots of minor tweaks and turns that make it work much better and feel even better than it used to. There are some deeper changes, specially the new character creation system and the new ways morphs work and are bought, so the system as a whole is advancing in the right direction.
May 27, 2024
This is not only a cool tabletop RPG, but a book that I find myself returning to for inspiration. Writing's my prime directive, but gaming is a more passive, yet equally thoughtful escape I use to decompress. Eclipse Phase is both a tabletop RPG and a fictional world with tons of creative potential. It strikes a balance between my love of creative science fiction and playing games.
In the future, humanity's technology has advanced to the point where consciousness can be uploaded to different bodies and death was seemingly cured. That is, until a monstrous faction of hostile AIs massacre ninety-five percent of the population and chase the rest into space. What's left of humanity survives across different factions aboard space habitats and interstellar colonies.
Some created socialist co-op states where everyone is forced to rely on each other. Others are so xenophobic and individualistic that they hide in Saturn's rings from the literal cure for death. Anarchists thrive in noisy, claustrophobic swarms of spaceships. Finally, eternal hyper corporations make everyone dance to the tune of capitalism as everyone's psyche is reduced to how much you can produce. And no, you can't do anything about it because parasitic space billionaires can't die either.
We're also aware of the Factors; an alien race willing to co-operate with us but in a sterile and unfriendly way. One of the most fascinating aspects of the worldbuilding are the Pandora Gates: massive Lovecraftian structures that create portals to uncharted areas of the universe. The situation's bleak, but the story features a well-built world where every nook or cranny in the solar system has detailed lore.
Everything mentioned above is established before you can either start a story as a game master or flesh out your character as a player. Your character can be uploaded to a variety of morph categories that all have their own sub-categories. All the tube-grown human morphs are surprisingly unique and versatile, depending on what jobs you want to specialize in or what kind of genetics you want to keep you beefy. However, you can upload your human consciousness to robots, nanomachine swarms, uplifted animals, or even neanderthals.
The book recommends that a game master guides along four players with different strengths and weaknesses that help you advance whatever story you're looking to tell. You can have a ex-military human sniper strapped for cash team up with a slithering robot xenobiologist, who can then hire whatever octopi engineers or fast-talking nanite swarms can get them out of a jam. And some of those are just premade characters the book came up with. The possibilities are complicated, but so fun.
There's also a hefty list of recommended reading in the back of the book. I've read, watched, or listened to many of those stories by now too. The Alien series Blindsight, Necrotech, Ghost in the Shell, and District 9 were easily my favorites that I've experienced so far. The game's strongest influences stem from Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series and Richard Morgan's novel Altered Carbon. I like the worlds of both of those books, but thought their characters were distant, difficult assholes I found hard to relate to.
Fortunately, Eclipse Phase lets you have your cake and eat it too, then tells you that you have to cure the alien nanites you just ingested that intends to melt your brain. I'd love to come up with an exciting campaign featuring space travel, exciting gunfights, corporate conspiracies, and cosmic horror that'll make your skin crawl. Not only that, but I'm excited to see what influence the book will have on my own stories that feature few or none of those things. I've skimmed most of the gameplay stuff in the book, but read up on most, if not all of the lore. So hats off to Transhuman Studios for coming up with something so swanky.
In the future, humanity's technology has advanced to the point where consciousness can be uploaded to different bodies and death was seemingly cured. That is, until a monstrous faction of hostile AIs massacre ninety-five percent of the population and chase the rest into space. What's left of humanity survives across different factions aboard space habitats and interstellar colonies.
Some created socialist co-op states where everyone is forced to rely on each other. Others are so xenophobic and individualistic that they hide in Saturn's rings from the literal cure for death. Anarchists thrive in noisy, claustrophobic swarms of spaceships. Finally, eternal hyper corporations make everyone dance to the tune of capitalism as everyone's psyche is reduced to how much you can produce. And no, you can't do anything about it because parasitic space billionaires can't die either.
We're also aware of the Factors; an alien race willing to co-operate with us but in a sterile and unfriendly way. One of the most fascinating aspects of the worldbuilding are the Pandora Gates: massive Lovecraftian structures that create portals to uncharted areas of the universe. The situation's bleak, but the story features a well-built world where every nook or cranny in the solar system has detailed lore.
Everything mentioned above is established before you can either start a story as a game master or flesh out your character as a player. Your character can be uploaded to a variety of morph categories that all have their own sub-categories. All the tube-grown human morphs are surprisingly unique and versatile, depending on what jobs you want to specialize in or what kind of genetics you want to keep you beefy. However, you can upload your human consciousness to robots, nanomachine swarms, uplifted animals, or even neanderthals.
The book recommends that a game master guides along four players with different strengths and weaknesses that help you advance whatever story you're looking to tell. You can have a ex-military human sniper strapped for cash team up with a slithering robot xenobiologist, who can then hire whatever octopi engineers or fast-talking nanite swarms can get them out of a jam. And some of those are just premade characters the book came up with. The possibilities are complicated, but so fun.
There's also a hefty list of recommended reading in the back of the book. I've read, watched, or listened to many of those stories by now too. The Alien series Blindsight, Necrotech, Ghost in the Shell, and District 9 were easily my favorites that I've experienced so far. The game's strongest influences stem from Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series and Richard Morgan's novel Altered Carbon. I like the worlds of both of those books, but thought their characters were distant, difficult assholes I found hard to relate to.
Fortunately, Eclipse Phase lets you have your cake and eat it too, then tells you that you have to cure the alien nanites you just ingested that intends to melt your brain. I'd love to come up with an exciting campaign featuring space travel, exciting gunfights, corporate conspiracies, and cosmic horror that'll make your skin crawl. Not only that, but I'm excited to see what influence the book will have on my own stories that feature few or none of those things. I've skimmed most of the gameplay stuff in the book, but read up on most, if not all of the lore. So hats off to Transhuman Studios for coming up with something so swanky.
June 23, 2021
This is a massive book filled with an awesome amount of world-building, and a rather crunchy rules system.
The world-building creates a setting that is largely dark, with transhumanity having barely survived an extinction level event, Earth is off-limits, and the surviving factions of transhumanity include more than one dystopian government. There are elements of horror and body-horror built into the setting. Life is cheap, and large numbers of beings work in indentured servitude.
On the other hand, transhumanity IS surviving, and the players are fighting to ensure that survival. Some factions seek to make things better for more than just the hyperelites. Things MIGHT get better.
I'm not sure I have the time or interest to learn the system to the point I could run it (I'm not even trying to review the mechanics of the game at this point, but I do like that there are multiple pools of bennies players can use). I will probably check out the Fate rules for it and may possibly explore the setting using those.
The world-building creates a setting that is largely dark, with transhumanity having barely survived an extinction level event, Earth is off-limits, and the surviving factions of transhumanity include more than one dystopian government. There are elements of horror and body-horror built into the setting. Life is cheap, and large numbers of beings work in indentured servitude.
On the other hand, transhumanity IS surviving, and the players are fighting to ensure that survival. Some factions seek to make things better for more than just the hyperelites. Things MIGHT get better.
I'm not sure I have the time or interest to learn the system to the point I could run it (I'm not even trying to review the mechanics of the game at this point, but I do like that there are multiple pools of bennies players can use). I will probably check out the Fate rules for it and may possibly explore the setting using those.
June 2, 2021
A great game that allows players to explore any type of sci fi as the setting seems to be flexible enough where you can play a game in a cyberpunk or in a cosmic horror and all of them make sense in the setting. It also has a very interesting character creation where it does allow the players to basically to create any type of character including to playing animals, robots, or cyborgs or any combination they want.
December 15, 2019
An excellent game. Hard sci-fi, intriguing worldbuilding, and a game system that can be as fast or a crunchy as you prefer.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews