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  • Why the Origins Awards Still Matter

    Posted on Fri, 2011-06-24 13:06
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    Eclipse Phase: Sunward is up for the Origins Award for Best RPG Supplement this weekend at the Origins game fair. We're up against some stiff competition this year. And yet based on some posts I've read in various online gaming communities over the last few years, there are probably people out there asking, "So what?"

    There's a perception that because the Origins game fair has declined in attendance since its heyday, the awards presented there are somehow less momentous than others in the gaming community. And then there's the fact that some important publishers in the industry have skipped submitting their products in recent years.

    I'm not personally obsessed with winning awards. I write because I love doing it. However, for better or worse, awards are a boon to us in terms of keeping the business end going. So here's why I think Origins still matters:
    1. GAMA's role in nominations. GAMA remains the primary industry group for hobby games, despite some publishers not participating in it. GAMA's role in the awards give the nominations a particular flavor. They're comparable in some ways to the World Fantasy Awards in the science fiction community. Fans get to participate in the voting, but the nominations are driven by people who've been publishing games themselves. This is neither better nor worse than the entirely fan driven process of the ENnies -- but it's different, and that makes it interesting.
    2. New players have entered the arena! Some of the nominations this year went to exciting new contenders. Others went to established companies who didn't have games in the field last year. Either way, Sunward is in a run for its money.
    3. The history of the Origins awards provides a benchmark for present day efforts. It really meant a lot coming home with a few ENnies last year. The competition was fierce, and the fan community takes the ENnies very seriously. But the Origins Awards have some history on their sides. Winning Best RPG last year put EP on a list that includes greats like Call of Cthulhu (1981) and Paranoia (1984). That doesn't mean EP has the stature of CoC -- but it does mean we're looking at some big shoes, and the gaming community is encouraging us to fill them.
    So if you're at Origins this year, please vote (preferably for us!), and if you have friends who are there, encourage them to vote as well. If you think our efforts have been worth it, let the rest of the gaming community know.

    Thanks again for all of your support the last few years!

    I doubt this post is likely to generate much controversy, but just to be clear, these are my own views, not those of Posthuman Studios.

  • Original Art Auction to Support Libyan Rebels [2011 April Fool's post]

    Posted on Fri, 2011-04-01 09:30
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    [This year's April Fools post, with apologies to the octopi of Japan...]
    Posthuman is pleased to be announced that we'll be auctioning the original art for the Salamander morph, Oversight Auditor, and Oligarch characters, with all proceedings benefiting the rebellion against Libya's tyrannical Gaddafi regime.

    All proceeds from these auctions will go directly to the Libyan rebels, funding the purchase of much-needed assault rifles, grenade launchers, flak jackets, medical supplies, and even surplus washing machine timers for the construction of improvised explosive devices.

    "The IED plans are under a CC license," said developer Brian Cross, "We've already seeded the torrent. Anybody in Libya with a Demonoid account has just been empowered to kick some serious fucking ass."

    Your support will make a difference in the lives of thousands of Libyans. While the Obama administration and the CIA hesitate about which insurgent group to support, you can be making a difference now! Imagine a Libya where democracy shines through, free of Colonel Gaddafi's creepy mustache and blinged-out leather tribal robes. We will be opening the auction tomorrow, 4/2. Please bid early&often.

    Posthuman founder Rob Boyle said, "We've been building contacts on the ground in Libya for years now. Now is the time for direct action."

    Some fans may be wondering why, when other game companies are running benefits for Japan, we're instead choosing to support the violent overthrow of a North African government. Leaving aside our well-known political sympathy for rebel groups, we would like to point out that Japan is one of the world's leading nations in the consumption of octopi. While we have much sympathy for the Japanese people, we would prefer to support Libya, a nation whose beleaguered inhabitants devour fewer cephalopods.

    "The Japanese really eat a lot of tako," said EP writer Jack Graham, "I mean, it's horrible what's happening to them. But will no one think of our tentacled friends?"

    Finally, please keep in mind that this art is distributed under a Creative Commons license and continues to be covered by it after you purchase the original.

  • Eclipse Phase Events at PAX East (March 11-13, 2011, Boston)

    Posted on Sat, 2011-03-05 11:11
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    Below is a list of Eclipse Phase games scheduled for PAX East. This second incarnation of PAX in New England will take place at the Seaport Convention Center just outside downtown Boston on March 11-13, 2011. I'll be running all three sessions.

    All games will take place in the RPG Sandbox area hosted by PAX's amazing Tabletop team.

    Eclipse Phase Games (and a Panel!):
    Friday, 3/11
    2pm-4pm
    		 Xenovore 2 hour intermediate game
    Saturday, 3/12
    2pm-4pm Hypnogogia 2 hour beginner game
    Sunday, 3/13
    12pm-2pm Xenovore 2 hour intermediate game
    4:30pm-5:30pmGetting What You Want Out of Your Gamemaster 1 hour panel, Merman Theater

    Hypnagogia (beginner game): Your Firewall team's been shot into the lightless void at the edge of the Solar System to reconnoiter the interdimensional gate at Eris, a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt. But en route, your ship's AI wakes you from cryo sleep to investigate a ship -- drifting lifelessly away from the location you've been sent to investigate. The only people out here are xenophobic Exhumans and equally unfriendly Ultimate mercenaries, so boarding the drifting hulk could get interesting -- if anyone's still alive.

    Xenovore (intermediate game, but will teach rules to beginners): Gatecrashing -- exploration of xenoplanets via Pandora gates -- can be both fabulously rewarding and unspeakably dangerous. The Iktomi ruins on Vishnu IV looked like the find of your careers. With a little luck, you won't end up another layer of dust atop this dead civilization. 'Xenovore' is the first EP scenario to be based on material from the newest EP book, Gatecrashing and features PCs generated from an open design call to EP fans.

    Getting What You Want Out of Your Gamemaster (panel): Gaming books are full of sage advice for GMs on why players play and how to keep them happy, but what do GMs want? Why do they spend so much time preparing games for us? And most importantly, how can players use this to get what they want out of their RPG campaign? Award winning game designers Luke Crane (Burning Wheel), Jack Graham (Eclipse Phase), and Joshua A.C. Newman (Shock: Social Science Fiction) talk about why we play games, why we run games, and how we design them to make them engaging for everyone involved. This event takes place in the Merman Theater.

  • Eclipse Phase Events at TempleCon (Warwick, RI, USA; Feb. 4-6)

    Posted on Tue, 2011-01-11 13:11
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    Below is a list of Eclipse Phase games scheduled for TempleCon. TempleCon is a classy little New England gaming convention (now in its fifth year), held at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick, Rhode Island from February 4-6, 2011. I'll be running all three sessions.

    Eclipse Phase Games:
    Friday
    10pm-12am
    		 Hypnogogia Demo (2 hours)
    Saturday



    9am-1pm Doctrine Full slot (4 hours)
    Sunday
    8am-12pm Xenovore Full slot (4 hours)

    Hypnagogia (Demo): Waking up on a cold metal slab with a week's worth of memories missing is never fun. Factor in the unfamiliar body you're now wearing and the fact that you're quarantined in a clean room, and it becomes pretty clear that your last mission did not go well. (This is the same demo scenario I whipped up for PAX last year).

    Doctrine:     Firewall sends a team of agents to the Martian desert to seek out a missing airship, the Hegira. But once the mission gets underway, a complication reveals itself: one of you is a traitor.

    Xenovore: Gatecrashing -- exploration of xenoplanets via Pandora gates -- can be both fabulously rewarding and unspeakably dangerous. The Iktomi ruins on Vishnu IV looked like the find of your careers. With a little luck, you won't end up another layer of dust atop this dead civilization. 'Xenovore' is the first EP scenario to be based on material from the newest EP book, Gatecrashing.

    And incidentally, I'll be running an old school AD&D 1st Edition game ('White Plume Mountain') on Friday morning.

  • Xenovore: Pick Your Gatecrashing Team

    Posted on Tue, 2010-12-07 12:23
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    Update (12/13): It looks like I'll also be running this scenario as an event on Infrno.net (so you non-North Americans will have a chance to jump in) some time in February or March. I'll announce the date when I know for sure.

    Have your 2 @-rep on the pregens for Xenovore, the scenario I'm writing to run at TempleCon this spring in New England. Here's the scenario description:

    'Xenovore.' Four hour slot. Gatecrashing -- exploration of xenoplanets via Pandora gates -- can be both fabulously rewarding and unspeakably dangerous. The Iktomi ruins on Vishnu IV looked like the find of your careers... at first. But now you're going to need some luck if you don't want to end up another layer of dust atop this dead civilization.

    Help me put together the perfect Gatecrashing team. 'Xenovore' is being written for a team of six gatecrashers. If you were at the table, who would you want to play? Two of the PCs will be developed by me using material from the forthcoming Gatecrashing book. The other four are up to you! Here's how it'll work:
    • Submit no more than one character description in the comment thread on our blog by 12/16/2010.
    • Character descriptions should contain only the following:
    • Name (optional, and I might or might not use it)
    • Faction
    • Background
    • Morph
    • Concept (in 50 words or less)
    • I'll ignore any suggestions that go beyond the information specified above.
    • If your suggestion is used, I'll give credit. If Posthuman ends up releasing Xenovore, I'll request that they include credit, as well.
    • You assign all rights to your character description to me (Jack Graham) upon submission. I agree that they will be used only for Eclipse Phase products, or for Eclipse Phase material released independently by me under Creative Commons licensing.
    • If you're reading this on Facebook, please click through to the actual comment thread on eclipsephase.com so that I only have to look in one place. Thanks.
    Please note that Xenovore isn't an official EP project; it's just an adventure that I'll be taking to cons. I will be offering it to Posthuman. If they decline, I'll put it out for free on my web site.

  • Eclipse Phase at TempleCon (Warwick, RI, USA, Feb 4-6) and PAX East

    Posted on Sun, 2010-11-21 11:35
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    If you're in New England or parts thereabout, I'm currently working on plans for Eclipse Phase at TempleCon (February 4-6, 2011) and PAX East (March 11-13, 2011). TempleCon is far and away the best regional con I've ever attended. Contrary to appearances on their web site, it's a gaming con with steampunk, not a steampunk con with gaming. And if you don't know what PAX East is, you've probably been living under a thick layer of Martian permafrost.

    How many people are going? What Eclipse Phase events would you like to see? Let me know, and I'll try to schedule stuff that y'all will enjoy. I'm even up for writing a scenario based on the feedback I get.

    As in the past, I'll probably end up recycling some of our events from Gen Con, along with debuting some new material.

    Finally, if anyone is planning to attend Arisia (another regional New England con), now would be a good time to speak up, as I'm on the fence about going this year. If it looks like I could run a good slate of EP events, I'd be more likely to go.

    I'll be happily receiving your input until the end of this week.

  • Running the Game: 5 Martian Plot Hooks

    Posted on Thu, 2010-07-29 18:00
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    Martian Street SceneHere are some Martian plot hooks I would have crammed into Sunward if Rob had let me ramble on for even longer...
    • Workin' on the Railroad. As in the American West, railroads will be the key to opening up the Martian back country, and with it, the wealth of the planet. Heavy terraforming equipment, raw materials, and people all move most efficiently by rail. Sure, you can nanofabricate a lot of stuff in situ, but not everything. Railroads are big money, and the hypercorps controlling them play for keeps. Political intrigues abound where railroad rights of way are concerned, and there's a tension between the necessary upheavals of terraforming and the railroads' interest in creating transportation networks. Barsoomian terrorists don't mind targeting railroads when they think it will get their point across, and anybody who's watched Firefly knows that a train heist on a maglev rail system could make for a fun gaming session or two. What about the people building and maintaining the railroads? They're out in the high desert in isolated places -- in some cases not far from areas of past TITAN activity. And by the way, my teacher this week at Clarion West, Ian McDonald, has written two novels on Martian railroads. I hadn't read them when working on Sunward, but both are good inspirations for railroad-based plot lines on Mars. Desolation Road came out in 1988; the sequel, Ares Express, appeared in 2008.
    • East Coast - West Coast. Martian oligarchs don't always act their age -- which can be a pretty bad scene when the parties involved are 170 years old and incalculably wealthy. While much of the conflict over money, power, and influence in Eclipse Phase abstracts into the realm of the digital, good old fashioned territorial pissing hasn't died out. To understand Martian politics, it's important to remember that the big Martian cities are sovereign states, as well. The oligarchs behind the scenes don't like attention, but they all know each other -- and they hate it when a rival plays in their back yard. Characters caught up in these struggles can have a very bad day indeed if they take a job from the wrong person.
    • Space Elevator Murder Train. The Olympus Mons space elevator takes about as long as your average Transatlantic flight to get from Olympus to the counterweight -- and Mesh access is very limited during the trip. A lot can happen during that time, making a space elevator trip a great setting for the type of horror or suspense that works by having the PCs, a bunch of victims, and an antagonist confined in an isolated space together.
    • Never Call Up That Which You Cannot Master. The Ma'adim Valles Pandora Gate opens many times each day on alien worlds. Mostly, it's investigatory teams that come back -- when they come back. But sometimes, other things come back. Security is tight at Pathfinder's installation, but if an alien life form gets loose, it's free in an isolated area of craggy Martian canyon land. And Pathfinder is really going to want it back.
    • Unforgiven/Tombstone/The Quick&the Dead/Straight to Hell/Sukiyaki Django Western. Mars is a frontier world, and people living in the back country have -- very consciously -- adopted the styles of the American Old West. Never mind that most of the population is ultimately of Asian descent; for some reason, people still love cowboys. At the same time, the Martian frontier actually does have a lot in common with the Old West, from the limited reach of the law in isolated back country settlements, to the demands of survival in an arid, rugged land. With this in mind, GMs can have a lot of fun lifting plots from familiar westerns and deploying them on the Red Planet. Kimchee Western, anyone?
    Enjoy Sunward, and have a good time on Mars! We've all worked really hard on this product, and it's awesome to finally see it in people's hands.

    Image from Sunward by Hideyoshi.

  • Eclipse Phase night at Gamma Ray Games, Seattle

    Posted on Tue, 2010-07-20 20:47
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    Eclipse Phase writer and sometime online marketing helper monkey Jack Graham (that's me) will run one awesome session of EP this Thursday, 7/22/2010, at Gamma Ray Games in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

    It'll be at 6:30 pm. Please ping the game store on their Facebook page to RSVP.



    Sorry for the short notice on this. I've been doing the Clarion West writer's workshop, and gaming, like sleeping, eating, and shaving my beard, has taken a back seat to writing sci-fi.

    We'll be playing Doctrine, the scenario that I wrote for Gen Con this year. Secret Club Date! Sneak Preview! Holy Cats, Octomorph!

    Hope to see some of y'all there.

  • [April Fool's Post] Posthuman Studios Acquires License for Iron Sky RPG

    Posted on Thu, 2010-04-01 08:54
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    Trigger Happy Lawyers, Please Take Note: This post was an April Fool's joke, and as such is a work of parody. I wish we didn't need to include such a disclaimer, but we live in a litigious world.

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    Posthuman Studios is pleased to announce the addition of Iron Sky as an alternate setting for the Eclipse Phase RPG. Initial plans call for the release of a core book porting the Iron Sky setting to the Eclipse Phase rules engine, followed by two supplements in 2010 and early 2011.

    What will Eclipse Phase: Iron Sky look like?

    "Basically, you're a Space Nazi," said lead developer Rob Boyle. The core game will feature one playable race (Aryan), a wide range of Space Nazi morph types using Eclipse Phase's unique resleeving mechanics, and a wealth of setting material on the Moon, Earth, and other places where Space Nazis go on Space Nazi adventures.

    "After a white supremacist web site posted comments critical of some of the left wing political activities of Eclipse Phase writers, we felt it was necessary to reach out to this community," said developer Brian Cross, "Doing an Iron Sky RPG seemed like a great way to show that we're not necessarily the pinko race traitors we've been made out to be."

    Eclipse Phase: Iron Sky offers several improvements over the core Eclipse Phase setting, including a space combat system, simplified character creation (who needs 1,000 customization points when all PCs are blond haired and blue eyed?), and an all-white production team -- now with more Germans!

    "I'm really psyched about how this book is going to look," said lead designer Adam Jury, "German blackletter fonts are fucking sexy, and they're impossible to read, which means less whining from the fans about typos!"

    Posthuman will being releasing Eclipse Phase: Iron Sky material in late 2010. Pre-orders for this revolution in science fiction RPGs will begin in July, 2010.

    Eclipse Phase writer Jack Graham added, "Yep, we're kidding about this. Happy April Fools Day. Oh, and fuck you, Nazis!"

    The real Iron Sky web site is here, and it actually looks like a pretty awesome movie which we're looking forward to seeing. Here's hoping the studio's lawyers realize this is fair use and don't sue us!

  • [REVISED] Schedule of Eclipse Phase Events at PAX East

    Posted on Wed, 2010-03-24 12:56
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    UPDATE: I had to make some schedule changes. Real quick: 2 hour demo is now on Saturday; 4 hour game is on Sunday (same time slots).

    Below is a list of Eclipse Phase games scheduled for PAX East. PAX East will be happening at Hynes Convention Center in downtown Boston from March 26-28 (this weekend!). Badges are mostly sold out, but if you've got one, come play Eclipse Phase! I'll be running two brand spankin' new scenarios. The longer event, "El Destino Verde" incorporates some of the background on Mars I wrote for Sunward.

    PAX doesn't guarantee table space unless you're running a tournament or paying them for it (weird, right?), so I'm going to be running this in the free play area. If you have a jeejah, I'll be using the EP twitter account to provide more precise location details once I know where I'll be. I'll also be working as a PAX Enforcer all weekend in the tabletop area, so stop by and say hello!

    Eclipse Phase Games:
    Saturday, March 27
    10am-12pm
    		 Hypnagogia Demo (2 hours)
    Sunday, March 28
    10pm-2pm El Destino Verde
    		 Full slot (4 hours)

    Demo: I'll be running a new two hour demo scenario, "Hypnogogia."

    El Destino Verde:     Martian workers with genetic faults in their morphs have been turning to traditional Chinese medicine for a quick fix. But what's the secret ingredient in the special sauce?