Sounds awesome. Horror and Sci-fi. And you can't top the old man vs. machine themes... they win. These machines sound like more than the average cylon... though. Sounds more like... they're eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.
I'm not a fan really. I follow Asimov on the subject.
Quote:
Originally Posted by robboyle
I highly recommend all of the others, especially Stross (Accelerando) and Morgan (Altered Carbon).
Eh. Accelerando is pretty good but it also has some major flaws.
__________________
"There's one thing I always wanted to ask Jack. Back in the old days. I wanted to know about that Doctor of his. The man who appears out of nowhere and saves the world; except sometimes he doesn't. All those times in history where there was no sign of him.. I wanted to know why not. But I don't need to ask anymore. I know the answer now: Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame." Gwen, Torchwood:Children of Earth: Day Five Holy Web 2.0 I'm on twitter!
Laugh Points: 2 (SteveDx1, Reynard the Pookax1) Don Coleone Points: 1
I'm not a fan really. I follow Asimov on the subject.
I'm normally not much on the Man vs. Machine thing either, and I love this game - there are reasons for the conflict, reasons that are excellent, stranger, and exotic.
I'm normally not much on the Man vs. Machine thing either, and I love this game - there are reasons for the conflict, reasons that are excellent, stranger, and exotic.
Fair enough, I'll probably check it out.
__________________
"There's one thing I always wanted to ask Jack. Back in the old days. I wanted to know about that Doctor of his. The man who appears out of nowhere and saves the world; except sometimes he doesn't. All those times in history where there was no sign of him.. I wanted to know why not. But I don't need to ask anymore. I know the answer now: Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame." Gwen, Torchwood:Children of Earth: Day Five Holy Web 2.0 I'm on twitter!
Laugh Points: 2 (SteveDx1, Reynard the Pookax1) Don Coleone Points: 1
This sounds rather smashing and feels like an auto-buy for me as I love the authors that inspired the project.
It also sounds like the game will suceed where Gurps THS floundered. That is, positing a game premise and an inherent conflict. I love(d) Gurps THS and thought the core book and its 1st couple supplements by Zeigler were phenomenal but THS described more of a setting rather than a game. Yes, there were a million and one things going on in the THS setting but every sandbox-play setting needs light and dark clearly delineated if a conflict-rich game is going to result. THS was completely gray which gave the setting a ton of realism but, IMO, also lent itself to unfocused game-play and left to the GM a ton of work to do in order to run "a game." I've read many threads over the years that basically asked the same question: "Yes, it's an awesome read but what do I do with it?"
It sounds like this new game won't have a shortage of answers.
__________________ Running: Star Wars -- Knights of the Old Republic The Sith have spread terror and destruction throughout the Galaxy. How will 3 Jedi knights and a wanted smuggler stop such an enemy when their system comes under threat?
"D&D 4e isn't very good [outside its] own mechanical box. It easy to change the flavor to make it look like anything else but only if the gameplay you want is mainly a tactical, position intensive combat system." - Scarik
Sounds boring and clichéd to me. It sounds like it makes all the mistakes which THS avoided and will just be another generically implausible post-catastrophe setting with some transhumanist gloss.
I shall take a look though, to make sure, but the description here fills me with little in the way of hope.
__________________ Pip, Pyp, Baz, bazzalisk, James P. Barrett
My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
RPG Stuff: GURPS Exalted, plus Exalted second edition character sheets and charm-cards, and a pdf of Kasumi's combat 201 with a Battlewheel tutorial.
This sounds rather smashing and feels like an auto-buy for me as I love the authors that inspired the project.
It also sounds like the game will suceed where Gurps THS floundered. That is, positing a game premise and an inherent conflict. I love(d) Gurps THS and thought the core book and its 1st couple supplements by Zeigler were phenomenal but THS described more of a setting rather than a game. Yes, there were a million and one things going on in the THS setting but every sandbox-play setting needs light and dark clearly delineated if a conflict-rich game is going to result. THS was completely gray which gave the setting a ton of realism but, IMO, also lent itself to unfocused game-play and left to the GM a ton of work to do in order to run "a game." I've read many threads over the years that basically asked the same question: "Yes, it's an awesome read but what do I do with it?"
It sounds like this new game won't have a shortage of answers.
To be fair, I don't think THS "floundered." It's got around a dozen supplements in print, two adventures and two 4e updates on e23. The "Personnel Files" book gave half a dozen premises for character groups. In any sandbox-setting, the GM needs to make choices on what conflicts he or she wants to have, and make some decisions with players before everyone sits down to start a game. I don't think that being overwhelmed with possibility is a bad thing - you'll only have trouble playing everything at once, and in the long term its IMHO an advantage - once you get tired of playing one trope (say the Vacuum Cleaners) you can do another and have a very different experience.
And anyway, I don't think you need a "clearly delineated light and dark" in order to have rich conflict - you just need interesting NPCs, PCs, and groups with conflicting agendas.
I'm interested in "Elipse Phase," certainly, and in part because it does go in different directions from THS, but there's no need to dump on THS because of it.
__________________
Currently Playing: Shadowrun, D&D 4e
To be honest a lot of us that worked on EP are fans of THS too but we also wanted to make a game that incorporated some of the elements that we like in scifi that THS didn't have, notably the Richard Morgan and Charles Stross. But if you like THS you'll find plenty to like in EP and if you were frustrated by THS check us out too, because we've definitely created a game that's light years away from THS.
And of course we bring a wholly original story line(s) to kick start your campaigns!
Linear Mode
