Vigilance.

Hacking Luke Gearing's Violence for Eclipse Phase.

By this point you are probably aware that I like Luke Gearing's work. I've written an award-winning scenario for Violence and my most recent blogpost at time of writing is a response to his post about wizards. You may be less aware that I am a long-time fan of Eclipse Phase. I've run multiple short campaigns in the first edition and think that Know Evil is one of the few good actual plays. My experience playing, reading and listening to it is that the systems are just fine. Most people I talk to about these sorts of things disagree. 

You probably see where this is going from the title. 

Necessities of Eclipse Phase.

Eclipse Phase is a game of transhuman existentialist horror, action and espionage. In its most classic formation it pits members of a secret extra-governmental conspiracy acting to protect humanity from itself and outside threats alike after the collapse of Earth. It has a complex set of interlocking and interacting factions and each planet has a different feel and government. It more than slightly rocks. Here is what I think you need to represent in order to capture it's setting specifically (and putting aside cool stuff like drugs, spaceships, forking and AI helpers).

You can move your mind between augmented bodies.

You can hack the world around you. 

You are vulnerable to corruption.

You (mostly) rely on your reputation rather than money.

You might have psychic powers.

None of those are represented directly in Violence. Violence provides almost exclusively the tools for it's namesake. Messy scrappy melees and firefights driven by chance that could kill you at any given moment. That drives you towards the espionage and horror and provides some of the action. But it provides no framework for those five points. Certainly you could leverage gm discretion to cover them but I think there is a better way. A process I have cleverly named "It's all just injury rolls baby."

Let's attack these one by one. 

Ego Transfer and Augmentation.

Eclipse Phase posits a setting where the human mind has been understood well enough to be digitally encoded. The majority of humans have a diamond-hard memory drive in their spines that will record their personhood on death and allow for them to transfer between bodies. You can broadcast your mind to travel at lightspeed (or rarely, faster) or obtain the perfect body. Only problem is that human minds are really attached to their bodies. Adaptation is a slow process.

This leads to three rules:

1. You have some Traits that are intrinsic to your Ego (often skills and trainings).
    a. Mental Injuries are the same as physical Injuries in all ways except that they are follow you from body to body unless you reset and forget everything that happened since the backup you reset to. 

    b. Likewise developed skills or mental scars can be lost in a reset.

2. Your body or "morph" in the parlance of the setting is equipment. It carries with it Traits (which grant advantages or disadvantages) and built in equipment (armor, weapons, or tools). These represent both the design of the body and the cybernetic augmentations it possesses. Most cybernetics available in Eclipse Phase simply boost specific actions but some give impossible capabilities. You narratively can fly or survive in a vacuum. These require no additional rules as the Referee can ably adjudicate their use in the world. They also have a cost, which probably scales with traits and equipment.

    a. In special cases they might allow truly incredible feats. The classic example is cybernetics that slow your perception of time. In combat these might allow you act again at the end of the round, but require you to make an injury roll (lethality depending on the quality of the augmentation) each round. 

    b. Physical Injuries follow your morph. Get a new one, ditch the Injuries. 

 

3. You need to adapt to the body. This is a set of injury rolls scaling from one upwards based on how different the body is to your preferred or most recently adapted body, how different it is from the typical human anatomical plan, if you remember your death, and how long it's been since your last body. The Lethality of those rolls is dependent on the quality of the place you are being "re-sleeved". If you are Downed by these rolls it is impossible for you to fully adapt to the body. You gain a scar (something like "Maladapted") that gives you disadvantage on all rolls as well as any Injuries caused by the rolls.

4. You can hack your mind to fix yourself, reprogramming it as needed. Pay a cost determined by your Referee or get a friend to just give you a skill or fix your mental injuries in an instant. Then make injury rolls depending on the complexity of the skill or scar, how long you've had the scar, and how many mental injuries you already have. Lethality is dependent on the quality of the gear and the skill of your psycho surgeon.

Hacking.

Most equipment and morphs have Hardening, which is functionally digital armor and Firewall, which is the default "resistance" to hacking. It applies to the Injury rolls caused by hacking. Hacking work similarly to Melee combat. 

Both "combatants" roll a d12 and add relevant modifiers. Highest roll wins.

- If the difference between them is 1 or less, both are Jammed and make an Jamming check.

- If the difference is 2-3, the victor is Jammed. The defeated is Jammed and makes a Jamming check. 

- If the difference is 4+, the defeated is Jammed and makes a Jamming Check.

Jams are injuries for equipment. When equipment is Downed it is temporarily useless. At the end of the engagement it is either Bricked or Locked out of the network rather than Dead or Critically Injured. You can Lock Out or Brick a morph.

When you hack an object that is not being actively defended you still roll, but they only apply their Firewall rating.

When hacking an entire network, divide it into between 1 and 6 nodes. Each node is a different piece of equipment. When you Down it you can steal it's shit (often data or control of real world things).

Training.

Combatants have levels of skill similar to Violence. They are:

0 Scrub.

1 Skilled/Blooded.

2 Trained/Experienced.

3 Veteran

4 Expert/Hardened.

5 Master/Natural Born Coder.

Programs.

Programs are weapons. You can simply use the weapons table. 

Platforms.

Platforms are your cyberdecks, implants, and cyberbrains. They are where your programs live. They have Hardening (digital Armor, which effects Lethality of rolls). Cheap or high quality ones might offer blanket bonuses/maluses to Reach, Lethality or Fragility of Programs.

Corruption.

Make an injury roll. Gain a mental or physical injury and a related scar.

Reputation Economy.

Whenever you want to obtain something with reputation or favors rather than credits compare your narrative position to the illegality and scarcity of the favor or object you want. Adjudicate using common sense. If you must have a rule here it is.

Reputations.

People have reputations with the same seven groups as in Eclipse Phase. Their reputations are:

-3 Hated

-2 Enemy

-1 Pest

0 Unknown

1 Liked

2 Trusted

3 Beloved

4 Icon

5 Living Saint/Big Wheel/Fat Cat etc. etc.

Offering payment with something the target wants can give a bonus. 

Use the ratings in the Eclipse Phase book to establish the needed roll on a d12 + Reputation. Minor Favors/Gear require a 6. Moderate require a 10. Major require a 14. 

The situation may make some favors/gear more or less available. Use your judgement to adjust the number needed.

Psi.

To be an async (psychic) you need to have an appropriate mental scar. These are rare. Not every mental scar will do it. You need to have survived the Watts-Macleod virus (multiple injury rolls, most likely). You need to be in a biological body with a biological mind. You have Slights. Slights are intrinsic equipment, attached to your Ego. Some are just Traits (psi-chi sleights). 

If you are an async you have a Psi rating. Those ratings are:

0 Unaware.

1 Awake.

2 Aberrant/Able.

3 Threat.

4 Aweful/Awesome.

5 Nightmare.

For active psychic powers (psi-gamma sleights) you may have 2 per mental Scar. When you use a psi-gamma sleight make an Injury roll with Lethality equal to (Infection Rating - 7). Burn out your brain.

Caution.

I've not tested this, it's entirely speculation. I think this is what you need to get going, but you'll want to make it yours. Go play.