It has been a busy fall and winter game-wise as our group mustered through the Fall holiday, and into Spring. Our Eclipse Phase game1 we started last Spring, which was intended as a One-Shot has continued through the Fall, and we are still going strong. I am not certain though I think this makes it the longest campaign we have played since our initial foray into Dungeons and Dragons in Spring 2020. (According to my notes, our next session will be session 25.)

A New World

The setting for Eclipse Phase is continually expanding my expectations for a tabletop roleplaying game. The setting is set far in the future where humanity has entered a transhuman society as individuals can download their conciseness into a new body should their current body be destroyed2. There is also easily accessible fabrication technology so material wants for basic items are removed. This all means you need to develop your character’s sense of self and their wants, needs, and desires beyond common tropes in other games (i.e. kill the monster and take their treasure).

A System for A World

Rather than leveraging a generic system or porting the well-known system from another game Eclipse Phase has their system. The game is an attribute and skill-based game rather than level-based (e.g. like the Star Wars game from West End Games vs 5th Edition) and it has been a fantastic campaign experience.

Eclipse Phase Attribute List

Unlike other skill-based games I have played the skills are broken into Active skills and Know Skills with the former being the skills like Athletics, Research, or Info Sec and the latter being specific knowledge domains your character would know (e.g. Hydroponic Gardening).

There are also reputation scores, which tell where your characters fall in their interactions with different communities in the setting.

  • @ Rep:
  • C Rep:
  • F Rep:
  • G Rep:
  • I Rep:
  • R Rep:

A major impact of social networks in Eclipse Phase is the reputation score each provides. Each of your rep scores measures your social standing with a sub-set of transhuman society.3

The reputation scores reflect social standing though also how well you can acquire material goods in a post-scarcity society.

The game is great and is worlds away from the dungeon-delving seen in Dungeons and Dragons. This hobby has such a wide spectrum of game systems and settings. It is truly amazing what great games are available.

If you’re interested the game can be purchased from the publisher, Post-Human Studios,.

  1. The game was first seen during our playing the game series when we were trying different games as one-shots like Numenera and also Eclipse Phase. ↩

  2. Mechanically, this means that you have different “hit points” for your body and also your mind/soul. Your character’s body can be completely fine while your character’s mind is shattered. ↩

  3. See page 307 of Boyle, Rob, Davidson Cole, Simon Berman, and Katherine Cross. Eclipse Phase. Posthuman Studios,LLC, 2022. ↩