I got one of the early Eclipse Phase RPG books from Catalyst when a friend of mine snagged one at last year’s GenCon. I like much of the setting, although I think they throw a little too much at the wall with the aliens and Pandora Gates (think Stargates and your mostly there.) The one thing that I didn’t like: the system, especially the hugely clumsy character generation system.
Also, I found EP mechanics didn’t mesh well with the “you are your mind” theme of transhumanism. You build a character in toto, and while you have the opportunity to reskin with another physical body, it never seemed to capture the idea of the physical body as a tool. So I thought about porting it over into Cortex.
Some initial thoughts: when building a character, the starting level of novice, veteran, or elite gives you points to build the “original” you, the one starting the game. Once built, you can assume that the skills and the psychological traits and complications will stay the same unless the GM has some reason to tweak them, but the attributes might be something that can be toyed with as the character changes skins.
One way to handle changes in the characters “morph”, or physical body might be to allow them to rearrange their attributes when they change bodies. Maybe the character needs a combat shell, but the only thing available is an older mining mecha turned combat walker. It’s got the physical stats you need, but the processor is sub-par, lowering (for the time you’re in it) your alertness and intelligence.
If the character needs to buy/rent something upscale, they can either use whatever monetary /trade system your setting has, or they can throw plot points into it “buying” the higher traits for the length of their time in the body. (Say, they are normally a d6s across the board physically, but they need a high end acrobatic humanoid body for some mission — they want an AGL d10, and VIT of d8…they throw 6 plot points to get the body rented for the time being.)
One idea for the mental attributes might be that while an new skin might have higher attributes, the character is unused to having the processing power or sensor acuity and they need time to ramp up to use it (if they don’t feel like throwing plot points at it.) Allow them to test their attribute over time to see if they can learn to use the excess brainpower.
The toughest part of the EP and other transhuman settings is the disembodied — the sentient program, “ghost”, or whatever you call it. Building a super-intellect AI at character creation is a bit harder. You could 1) For balance the 48 points you have for a veteran character, for instance, could be cut in half to 24 (averaging a d8 for those mental attributes.) The other 24 points could go into traits — maybe buying backups or other benefits you would expect an AI to have. 2) You could allow them to buy their mental attributes a level lower (novice at 42 points) and allow the excess 6 pts to go to traits or skills (I like this, personally.) The get a super intellect that can be stepped down when put into a body, as above.
Another option I’ve toyed with: temporarily trading skills and (mental) traits for new ones. You are a high-end cybershell with a top notch brain, but you need to copy yourself for an operation to a radiation-hardened vacuum-environment mecha on Europa. To save bandwidth and memory costs on the transfer (or to the point, get the boffo physical stats you need), you trade a few of your skills and traits for the physical attributes and traits you need. Essentially, you sent a stripped down version of your persona to the new body, since it’s to be temporary.
This is, admittedly, just a quick bit of spitballin’ to work out how you could work with the ideas from EP for changing character forms and mind-states, but it might be enough for some clever person out there to create rules for a transhuman setting.
The Black Campbell 