My friends and I have been playing some Eclipse Phase lately, and having a good time hacking at the setting, making it our own. There has also been a little bit of rules hacking, from trying out the new Fate conversion, to our own short lived, in house, Fate-like version. Thus far, I like the original rule set the best. It has the right amount of crunch for the setting, and does a decent job at marrying the simple, roll under percentile system to the setting's hard science fiction hacking, virtual environments, and character progression. Combat, while not a huge part of the game, does exist -- often enough that a solid grasp of it's somewhat simple concepts is needed by all. There is a lot for the GM to track during fights, and a short series of rolls before an action is resolved. It defiantly helps if players know the rules, what to roll when, and how each roll defines part of the outcome. I think for this game to be experienced at it's max, everyone will have to shoulder some of the rules, especially if it only applies to their characters, such as any kind of hacker.
Here is a little section I wrote for a complex left on Earth worthy of exploration.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Pearlman Institute
Created post-fall, by survivors organizing an effort to regain control of the planet while escaping detection from remaining TITAIN threats, the Pearlman Institute's primary functions were to produce biomorphs from harvested chemical bases, and produce AGI's with which to implant them, that were indoctrinated in such a way, to be indistinguishable from natural born human egos. It has been abandoned by any and all caretakers, for reasons unknown.
Through a series of recursive simspace environments, housed on impenetrably closed, non-networked, super computers, the egos are conditioned/raised to believe they live free from the TITIANs and the effects of the fall, in a deep space observatory, far from the edge of civilized space.
The simulated life in/on the Pearlman is based around the rather outdated, bioconservative idea, that a portion of humanity needed to remain pure, both genetically and free from cybernetic implantation. Ego's are taught that the lag they experience when interacting with the mesh is due the Pearlman Station's great distance from the rest of transhumanity, who suffer a similar lag when interacting with the Pearlman residents, thus their general indifference to any social news and happenings occurring on the station. It is in this way, egos are exposed to the harsh realities of the universe around them, without having to suffer them first hand.
Communication from the institute's residents is interpreted by a closed software system on the same main frame on which the ego resides. After some rather lengthy computations by the relic systems and software, relevant incoming mesh transmissions are modified and stored for read only access by the AGI's. One could imagine this process would take some time, growing exponentially complex with time, causing a great deal of lag, and causing more and more computing power to maintain the ruse.
Lack of maintenance, and diminishing computing power has left The Pearlman Institute in a horrible state of disrepair. No longer are the elemental material gathering systems functioning, this has resulted in not only a complete halt to morph production, it's resulted in the rather unwholesome recycling of incompletely developed morphs into based compounds to feed the remaining complete morphs. This too, is changing with time. The incomplete and flawed are running out, and complete morphs are beginning to be sacrificed to feed the dwindling masses.
How much longer will The Pearlman Institute operate?
How many morphs will be available for the egos?
What of those egos left behind?
How will the egos react to their new truth? -- Will they kill the man who shows them they've been looking at shadows?
Who Built The Pearlman, and why?
What are the morphs being created there?
Is there escape from Earth?
