In the Shadows of Olympus [Eclipse Phase FATE, Non-Con: Exotic] [Closed]

Started by AnneReinard, January 18, 2016, 08:15:19 AM

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AndyZ

Been in too much pain to read through this stuff, so I might look into it all in a few days, but I got nothing right now.
It's all good, and it's all in fun.  Now get in the pit and try to love someone.

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wander

Late here now, still finalising Stunts, which I think has been the tougher part of chargen for me as there are some great ones that I just don't have the room for! xD

I'll likely have them down tonight and I can get a character sheet here tomorrow, fairly early, at least I hope. One thing I wanted to ask was how stress boxes work, just so I get it right when I post my guy up... I think I have a handle on it, though it's obviously a lil different to the usual FATE Core where they're reliant on specific skills.

That done, I'll be posting up in so many hours. :)

ThisOneGal

Stress boxes basically absorb damage, which is measured in 'shifts' (essentially, how much the attacker beat the defender). Each stress box can absorb as many shifts as its number; a 1-stress box can absorb 1 damage, a 3-stress box can absorb 1, 2, or 3 damage. So if you took 3 shifts of damage, you would have to mark off your 1 and 2 boxes, or your 3 box, or your 4 box.

There are two stress tracks: Ego and Morph (mental and physical). Will determines your Ego track, and the lower of Somatics/Durability determines your Morph track. Each track starts with a 1-stress and 2-stress box. If your relevant bonus is +1 or +2, you get a 3-stress box on that track as well. If it's +3 or +4, you get a 3 stress and a 4 stress as well, for a stress track of 1 2 3 4.

For Morph stress, you use the lower of your Somatics skill or your morph's Durability. If your Somatics is higher, your morph isn't tough enough to take anything else. If your Somatics is lower, you aren't skilled enough to take advantage of the extra toughness.

There's also consequences, and they basically work as in FATE Core.

AnneReinard

Okay. Hate to be a pest to people who have already done such AMAZING work already (seriously, you're blowing my mind!), but I do want to implement ONE house rule.

Namely: I'm removing the ability to choose to spend 1 Refresh on +2 Skill points. The reason behind this should be pretty straightforward: +2 Skill Points in nearly every case is strictly better than a Stunt. As a bonus problem, it lacks the same flavorful OOMPFH Stunts tend to have.

I know this is a nuisance to people who already have made their characters, so I will allow +2 Skill Points retroactively, but I WOULD appreciate it if you would be willing to change it out.
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ThisOneGal

Quote+2 Skill Points in nearly every case is strictly better than a Stunt.

Eh, not really. I'll change my charsheet, but if you were really going for optimization you'd probably take stunts; the Skill Pyramid/Column system is what holds adding 2 Skill points as a stunt back. If you want to get a skill from +2 to +4, you need 2 points go get it there, but also 3 points for the +3, and 2 points for the replacement +2, which requires 3 stunts. It's good taken once with Deep Focus or twice with Wide Focus to get +1s to +3, but after that it's not worth it 'cause of skill columns.

And, from a character advancement viewpoint, Stunts are more valuable than skill points; you get a skill point at a Significant Milestone, but Stunts/Refresh at Major Milestones (which roughly equates to 4 skill points for every stunt).

Kunoichi

I have to agree with ThisOneGal on this one.  Nobody is ever going to spend all their refresh on skill points unless having that many skill points is an explicit part of their character concept.  They might spend one or two points of refresh on that option, but there are plenty of stunts out there that are more useful than another +2 skill points.

wander

Thanks for the heads-up on Stress.

I've finished my character in Notepad, I'll post them later when I come back in. :)

Also opinion about Stunts and skill pts, I see Stunts as mainly giving +2 bonuses to a single skill in a circumstance and also they can be swapped out if they're Morph or Gear ones, which make them pretty cool. That said, I went with four different Stunts that fit my concept and I have 2 Refresh (always good to have more than 1, just incase).

Anyways, character sheet will be up later. :)

AnneReinard

The problem is that one of the bog standard uses of a Stunt is to give a net +2 bonus to a skill check under some situational use. In the more specific case, we have the "Broad Stunt", a fairly standard option in which you offer +1 to TWO skills under some situational condition.

So yes, the Skill Pyramid DOES restrict where you can place the Refresh -> Skill Point option for optimal effect and Skill Points ARE more easy to come by than Stunts, but I think the option drastically undervalues the consistency that Skill Points offer.

Besides, Stunts are just plain more fun!
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wander

Firewall Handle: Puppeteer
Real Name: IAM Mark 22
Faction: Out'ster
Background: Humanities Infolife
Refresh: 2

High Concept: Charmingly Naive Hacker
Trouble: Sticks his [REDACTED] where it don't belong
Loyalty: A cornered rat bites hardest
Other: A Fish out of the Net

Core Morph Aspect: Common-Faced Worker Pod
Secondary Morph Aspect: Optimised for Intel

Stunts:
Digital Ghost (cover stunt)
Security Expert (programming stunt)
Morph: Medichines
Gear: Nanofabber (hacked DRM model)

Morph Traits:
Essential Pod Traits, Common, Stigma (Pod).
Environmental Augmentation (Thin Atmosphere), Fractal Fingers, Mnemonic Augment.
Durability: Average (+1)
Stress Boxes: 2-stress

Skills:
+4 Programming
+3  Infosec, +3 Infiltrate, +3 Notice
+2 Cover, +2 Eye Rep, +2 Rapport, +2 Shoot
+1 Civ Rep, +1 Hardware, +1 Investigate, +1 Medicine

Muse: Big SIS (Sentient Investigative Search-Engine)


+2 Investigation
+1 Infosec

-

2 stress boxes






Motivations: +Infosensualism, +Transparency -Biochauvanists.

Background
Interfacing Artificial Metahuman Mk. 22 was one of a set of artificial generalised intelligences raised with a complete human based neural system in simulspace, before The Fall changed everything. Taught in a simulspace environment as a humanities infolife to act as a psychological Mesh-based aide for those of the system, he was one of twenty two in his batch made as a testing ground for further advancement in the field. This means he was made to be sentient from the start, based off the neural patterns of his creator in hypercorp R&D, programmed from the start to have a need to integrate and associate with other humans and interact seemlessly with them.

Mark 22 was one of the first created of the batch and soon found a love for learning across further Mesh links, quickly learning enough to outdo his programmers and walk his own path. Perhaps this could have led to his deletion or a rewrite of his base neural patterns, however the Fall meant this never happened. The server his batch was inside was infected by TITANS, though thanks to the advanced intellect Mark possessed he was able to escape from the server onto the Mesh, he was the only survivor, echoing humanity survivors of only 1 in 22 when the Fall ended. Mark drifted across the Mesh but found no satisfaction in any of the social groups transhumanity were forming, nothing was quite like the idyllic simulspace he was raised in. Also his programming was incomplete and whilst he felt a programmed need to socialise, transhumanity both puzzled and scared the errant infolife.

Drifting through the Mesh, Mark found refuge in a deserted server that had managed to drift out past the Kuiper Belt and took it for his own in the fallout and began to program it to suit his need for a home. Still, the need to interact with transhumanity, a collective of species he watched with great interest across the sousveillance and panopticon of the Mesh was great and so he made his first foray into sleeving into a cyberbrained morph and walking among them for the first time. Bright eyed and naive with the mind of a teenager unsure of his place in the world, he bore witness to the good of transhumanity, easily being seduced by the bright and beautiful people and also the bad, bearing witness to synth lynching where too scared and on his own to take action all he could was watch.

Mark saw corruption and so believed that authority should be held accountable, yet he himself took action against those who would oppress with hacking actions that would clearly be looked down on by most reasonable transhumans. It was from one action from this that Firewall took notice of Mark. At the time he was a lover of a certain hyperelite who was married to a strong biochauvanist that orchestrated hate-crimes against the clanking masses. For a variety of linked reasons, Mark took action against this man and through their own programmed 'wares, hacked the credit files of this hyperelite.

Though they were soon in the way of being tracked for this, Mark got away clean, unscathed and a few clanking indentures found themselves with a whole bunch of credits. Mark took none and vanished into the night, the cyberbrain they used to access the Mesh wasn't theirs to begin with. This clean and successful bit of vigilanteism impressed Firewall for how clean it was and so he was approached by them. It was around here that Mark gained the rep enough for his actions to gain his own pod morph and whilst he preferred the home he made on his Oort server, when he did happen to walk about in base reality, he would use his specific pod model to do it.

Mark has shown himself to be good at what he does, but also he has his moments. Like if you ask him about the time he panicked in a bar-room brawl and unable to quickly able to begin Mesh countermeasures on the physical attackers, he pulled his gun and started taking shots at the patrons. Or the time he was on a transport and noticing a suspicious package, rather than be cautious, he took his access jack cords and dove right into the package and used his programming skill to deactivate it when he could easily have been hacked, infected or deleted from his cyberbrain. He's been caught more than once due to being naive about the base reality and it's clear from speaking to him he's a bit of a shut-in, but he's also bright, sweet, kind and impartial, except when it comes to the biochavs... He still just can't keep away from those biochavs... Whether it's seducing or trolling them, sometimes both.

Kunoichi

Quote from: AnneReinard on January 20, 2016, 07:00:09 AM
The problem is that one of the bog standard uses of a Stunt is to give a net +2 bonus to a skill check under some situational use. In the more specific case, we have the "Broad Stunt", a fairly standard option in which you offer +1 to TWO skills under some situational condition.

So yes, the Skill Pyramid DOES restrict where you can place the Refresh -> Skill Point option for optimal effect and Skill Points ARE more easy to come by than Stunts, but I think the option drastically undervalues the consistency that Skill Points offer.

Besides, Stunts are just plain more fun!

Stunts aren't restricted by the skill pyramid.  They can apply to any skill at any rating, and they can boost skills up above the usual starting limit of +4 in the situations where they apply.  I think you're seriously underestimating how useful they are and how competitive they are with the +2 skill point option when it comes to spending refresh.

As has already been stated, people are going to want to spend at most 1 or 2 points of refresh on skill points, and then they're going to spend the rest on stunts.  Doesn't that suggest that the two options are of roughly equal value to one another?  That they are, in fact, functioning exactly as the designers intended them to function, and that this is a feature, not a bug?

wander

I'mma just gonna ask if my character's Aspects look okay. I had a few ways to put certain points across and tried to make them double-edged and not too long, avoiding commas etc. Still, I get the feeling that everyone else has a better grasp on how to word them. So if anyone could help with that, that'd be awesome.

I actually found it easier to go and narrow the Stunts down than it was to word Aspects. That said, it was really fun putting the guy together and Gelbooru was a site I found great for pics I found inspiring and really high quality. :)

Kunoichi

Quote from: wander on January 20, 2016, 01:03:18 PM
I'mma just gonna ask if my character's Aspects look okay. I had a few ways to put certain points across and tried to make them double-edged and not too long, avoiding commas etc. Still, I get the feeling that everyone else has a better grasp on how to word them. So if anyone could help with that, that'd be awesome.

I actually found it easier to go and narrow the Stunts down than it was to word Aspects. That said, it was really fun putting the guy together and Gelbooru was a site I found great for pics I found inspiring and really high quality. :)

I think the 'Adorkable' part of your core morph aspect is already covered pretty well by your High Concept, so if you wanted to, you could probably change your two morph aspects to 'Reconnaissance Worker Pod' and 'Cookie-Cutter Looks', or something along those lines, and they would be a bit less awkwardly-worded.  The rest of your aspects look quite solid, though. ^^

As a note on backstory, though, humanity in Eclipse Phase doesn't have faster-than-light communications, so you can't really remotely pilot your pod morph on Mars all the way from your server on the outer edges of the solar system.  There'd be a delay of several minutes in communications between the two.  Even finding the server in the first place was probably either a matter of luck or some talented digital detective work, and getting onto it likely involved hacking into an egocasting station and beaming yourself out to the appropriate coordinates in space, or otherwise taking some big risk to get there.  Getting back probably means that it has an on-board egocaster of its own, for that matter.

ThisOneGal

Based on what our group has so far, it looks like what we need next is a gunbunny socialite. :P

Quote from: wander on January 20, 2016, 01:03:18 PM
I'mma just gonna ask if my character's Aspects look okay. I had a few ways to put certain points across and tried to make them double-edged and not too long, avoiding commas etc. Still, I get the feeling that everyone else has a better grasp on how to word them. So if anyone could help with that, that'd be awesome.

You can use commas in Aspects; FATE Core/Accelerated uses them all the time, and seperates Aspects with semicolons. So, uh, don't use semi-colons in your Aspects. :P (Which, really, you shouldn't be doing anyway, given what a semi-colon is and what an Aspect is).

Although, yeah, probably better to avoid them if you can.

QuoteHigh Concept: Charmingly Naive Hacker
Trouble: Sticks his XXXX where it don't belong
Loyalty: A cornered rat bites hardest
Other: A Fish out of the Net

Core Morph Aspect: Adorkable Worker Pod
Secondary Morph Aspect: Cookie-Cutter Reconnaisance Pod

If it was my character, I'd make these changes:

High Concept: Adorkable Hacker
Core Morph Aspect: Cookie-Cutter Worker Pod
Secondary Morph Aspect: Recon Spec

Adorkable-ness appears to be a property of your Ego, not your Morph. If I put Puppeteer in a different body, he'd still be adorkable. If I put Red in your body, she wouldn't be adorkable.
Unless... the pod you have is part of a line designed to look adorkable, which could be interesting worldbuilding.

I use 'Recon' instead of Reconnaissance 'cause it's easier to spell, and we'll be writing aspects a lot. :P
I also use 'Spec' instead of specialization/specialist 'cause that's the word they use in the game fiction ("a full squad of ten’s got an infosec spec and a nanowarfare spec on it", Sunward p. 111), so we get some thematic consistency stuff going on.
Alternatively, you could go with 'Recon Spec Pod' and 'Cookie-Cutter' for your two Morph Aspects. The Morph Recognition Guide has a 'Specialist Pod' that's just a generic pod designed to represent all the stuff pods are used for.

And I'd de-censor your trouble. :P

I'd also note which skills Digital Ghost and Security Expert are associated with for organizational purposes.

I think your Muse just has a single 2 stress track, not 2 physical, 1 mental. The playtest contradicts itself on this (it mentions Muses twice, and says different things each time), but IIRC the FATE Core rules have NPCs with just one stress track, which would make sense for a Muse.

Quote from: Kunoichi on January 20, 2016, 01:48:11 PM
As a note on backstory, though, humanity in Eclipse Phase doesn't have faster-than-light communications, so you can't really remotely pilot your pod morph on Mars all the way from your server on the outer edges of the solar system.

This is true.

In general, you have to be in phsyical danger to do Firewall sentinel stuff. And given what you'll be facing, all being remote would do is put your server at risk of malware infection while making your morph less responsive (so even more risk for less reward).

EDIT

Oh! One thing to remember: Fabbers on Mars are really tightly regulated, and can't use open source blue prints. Ones that can use open-source stuff are super illegal. Make a note of what kind yours is (probably the latter one). If it is open source, you probably know/work with 'some guys' (probably Conduit), which would make you super wanted by the authorities. If it's a standard DRM'd one, you won't be able to make as much stuff, and it'll keep a record of what you make.

Kunoichi

Quote from: ThisOneGal on January 20, 2016, 04:00:26 PM
Based on what our group has so far, it looks like what we need next is a gunbunny socialite. :P

Hmm.  And now I'm thinking about how one might abuse the strain mechanic on Async abilities in this game by combining it with custom async stunts that improve one's shooting ability.  That could certainly be a mechanically-interesting character...

Quote from: ThisOneGal on January 20, 2016, 04:00:26 PM
Oh! One thing to remember: Fabbers on Mars are really tightly regulated, and can't use open source blue prints. Ones that can use open-source stuff are super illegal. Make a note of what kind yours is (probably the latter one). If it is open source, you probably know/work with 'some guys' (probably Conduit), which would make you super wanted by the authorities. If it's a standard DRM'd one, you won't be able to make as much stuff, and it'll keep a record of what you make.

Unless it's been hacked, in which case it's likely that he would have a standard DRM one with a backdoor installed so that he can covertly switch it over to a DRM-free mode as needed. ^^

Re Z L

Quote from: Kunoichi on January 20, 2016, 01:48:11 PM
As a note on backstory, though, humanity in Eclipse Phase doesn't have faster-than-light communications

They do, actually, Quantum Entangled (QE) allows instant communication across any distance (pg. 315).  They are extremely limited though so really they can only be used for communication (voice/text) not remote-piloting.
A&A

Kunoichi

Quote from: Re Z L on January 20, 2016, 04:54:37 PM
They do, actually, Quantum Entangled (QE) allows instant communication across any distance (pg. 315).  They are extremely limited though so really they can only be used for communication (voice/text) not remote-piloting.

They're also extremely expensive and rare, as I understand it, so I suppose it would be more accurate to say that most of humanity doesn't have access to faster-than-light communications. :P

Anyway, if our GM isn't going to change her mind on banning the paying of a point of refresh to gain +2 skill points, I suppose I'll just have to see what I can do to trim down my skill list a bit.  In that case, though, I would like to get a solid answer about whether or not I can get the Reflex Booster morph stunt as an async stunt.  If it becomes an async stunt, I'm going to be able to overcharge it in exchange for risking taking mental stress, after all.

ThisOneGal

Speaking of stunts, I've made a custom one based off of the FATE Core stunt creation rules; Willpower: Overdrive. Makes it easier to absorb strain. Need to know if it's acceptable.

Also looking into taking Siphon as a Sleight/Stunt to allow me to take Strain damage as Ego or Morph stress. Less useful in FATE than it was in EP 'cause of how damage works, but still interesting.

Kunoichi

Downtime could be fun to let you roll Willpower in place of Medicine to remove stress as well, for that matter. ^^

Though, now that I've mentioned Medicine, I'd say that our gunbunny socialite might also need to be a doctor, too, just to help with patching everybody up after we all suffer from various forms of trauma during play...

AnneReinard

I'll admit - I probably won't look over specific Stunts until we have a couple of more finished things. That being said, if you base it over the basic FATE rules, it is probably fine.

As an aside, I think I will change back my restriction regarding spending for skills. I am coming around a bit more to it.


...in fact I'll just flip that back right now. Though I still think Stunts are more fun.
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ThisOneGal

Huzzah!

Stunts are more fun/interesting, but having a few extra skill points is useful too. :P

Kunoichi

One other fun thing to note about stunts is that many of the stunts listed in the actual EP Fate rules pdf give a +2 to more than just a single skill.  The Reflex Booster stunt, for example, gives you 'a +2 to physical actions where enhanced neural speed and reaction time come into play', which makes it extremely useful for anyone who wants to specialize in combat.

That's actually part of the reason why I was asking about potentially getting it as an async stunt, because combining it with the overcharge mechanic that asyncs get leads to someone who can just be utterly, hilariously deadly in combat in short bursts, followed by being rendered either catatonic or completely insane for a while afterwards.  It seemed like something that could make for a character who was fun to play from both a mechanical and a roleplaying standpoint. ^^

AnneReinard

P-Please do not make anything terribly broken? I'm still somewhat new to FATE!
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Kunoichi

xD Don't worry, with the way the Strain system works, using the stunt like that would basically involve creating a character who takes about the same amount of mental stress while fighting as the physical stress they deal out to their foes.  It's more of a 'remove the biggest threat from the battlefield while also taking yourself out in the process' sort of trick than anything else.

And since it explicitly relies on a custom stunt and I'm not taking it anyway, you can just veto it anyway if anybody else tries to bring it to the table, or at least say that it's a stunt that can't benefit from the Strain mechanic. ^^

ThisOneGal

Alright, I've reverted back to getting the two bonus skill points. I've also added a list of possible stunts/psi sleights at the bottom of my post. They're mostly there to look at if we're bored. :P

Kunoichi

Speaking of doing things while bored, I'm debating switching some of my skills around and moving to something a little more focused in my specialties.  This is my current skills list:

Quote+4 - Infosec
+3 - Cover, Deceive, Willpower
+2 - Athletics, Kinesics, Provoke, Rapport
+1 - Civ Rep, Hardware, Notice, Programming, Shoot, Somatics

And I'm debating switching it over to this:

Quote+4 - Cover, Infosec
+3 - Deceive, Hardware, Willpower
+2 - Kinesics, Provoke, Rapport
+1 - Athletics, Programming, Shoot, Somatics

I'm going to be even more useless in a fight, but this way, I can at least handle the technical stuff a little better and set demolitions, along with being even better at getting everybody things like fake IDs.  Plus, with my choice in stunts, my overall social skills should actually be pretty decent in most situations.

Anyone have any thoughts on which skill selection would be better?  I am pretty much giving up entirely on Civ Rep and Notice, though admittedly they weren't exactly high to begin with.