The Gaming Den

How many ideas do you have in a year? How many in a day? Could you think of just one good idea, each day? I'm going to find out.

Farcast is a yearblog for the Eclipse Phase roleplaying game by Posthuman Studios. A new idea, a new entry every day for 2013 - new locations, groups, NPCs, artifacts, morphs, tech, events, weapons, drugs, diseases, and plot seeds for players and gamemasters to use as they would, or take inspiration from in their own games.

The target wordcount for each entry is around 500, and will rely primarily on the material in the Eclipse Phase main book. This is all completely unofficial fan material; I have no affiliation with Posthuman Studios, though I think they're a great bunch.

A Word on Language
When referring to genderless or intersex characters, I've chosen to use the formulation ze/hir/hirs/hirself rather than he/him/his/himself or she/her/hers/herself. Hopefully this won't cause too much confusion.

All this is going to do is make me weep for how bad EP's mechanics are and how much I want to play it.

Nah, this is gonna be fun. You just watch.

Ancient History wrote:A Word on Language
When referring to genderless or intersex characters, I've chosen to use the formulation ze/hir/hirs/hirself rather than he/him/his/himself or she/her/hers/herself. Hopefully this won't cause too much confusion.

Please don't. There are at least a dozen invented pronouns for indefinite/nonsupported genders in marginal fringe use. The, long and widely used, singular they will serve your needs better.

I don't care for singular they, and I've used it before in my EP fanfic. So it stays. Really, it's not a big deal.

Singular they is the shit. The bullshit pronouns are bullshit.

-Username17

Korgan0 wrote:All this is going to do is make me weep for how bad EP's mechanics are and how much I want to play it.

Didn't stop us from playing and houseruling 3rd Edition D&D. Play away!

3.5e at least has a decent core system; EP is just a fucking mess from stem to stern. Frank's review is pretty solid on all the problems, honestly.

I can't ever hear the name Eclipse Phase without picturing Encounter Critical.

I am keen to see some of your ideas in this blog, since transhuman space can be such an engaging genre, and you're the best writer on this site. Good luck!

Spivak gender-neutral pronouns always make me smile, since I cannot help but imagine the user of them speaking in an affected drawl, while Thon literally insists the speaker be proto-human. The singular they would be preferable in any situation not involving sufficient fictional technology such that binary gender is not much more than a cosmetic decision to harken back to outdated modalities. I sorta like xe/xem/xyrs for something like Eclipse Phase, but that's just because it's faux futuristic, and I suspect it would grate over time.

Nope, it grates immediately.

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:I am keen to see some of your ideas in this blog, since transhuman space can be such an engaging genre, and you're the best writer on this site. Good luck!

Don't know about best, but danke!

First NPC today. Gonna try to do two a week.

http://www.farcastblog.com/2013/01/012-face-of-man.html

This is one of my favorite ones to write so far.

One month down, 11 to go!

http://www.farcastblog.com/2013/02/045-catsphere.html

I couldn't help it.

Awesome. Bookmarked.

Please explain how Helium-3 is used in exotic pornography.

You take the Helium-3 and hand it to the Moon farmer, and the Moon farmer hands you the hardcore spacebug-on-spacebug action that you crave. Quid pro quo.

Been eating into my lead this month, I need to work harder to keep writing on schedule. But the yearblog already has more views than my weekly fiction blog!

http://www.farcastblog.com/2013/03/084- ... ssion.html

And this is the one that made someone ask if I was slipping LSD into my virgins.

I've really enjoyed reading these, AH, and just wanted to share that. The entry on Hive Bob reminded me of an informorph version of the Franklin Collective from Stross' Accelerando and was curious how one might model that idea in-game. If you haven't read it,

it's a bunch of individuals able to switch in and out of running an instance of a partial uploaded mind from early on in the singularity, focusing more on personality than skill set.

Keep up the great work!

edit: sorry about the previous lack of spoiler warning

Danke. I have Accelerando on the to-read pile (along with Alistair Reynolds' stuff and the dark gods know only what else), but I can't get to it 'til I finish my Mythos essay/monograph/book that I'm writing.

In celebration of Big Round Numbers, entry 100 is a twofer:

http://www.farcastblog.com/2013/04/100- ... mserv.html

122/366 - Four months down!

http://www.farcastblog.com/2013/05/121- ... epers.html

Stealing a phrase from Scott Kurtz, sometimes with Farcast I feel that the content is serving the schedule. I ate most of my lead in February and March working on another project, been treading water for a couple of weeks and am just now getting around to rebuilding it. If it feels like I'm pushing a lot for feedback sometimes - well, fuck it, I am. I like to keep the entries tight, interesting, and fresh if possible; I hate to repeat myself (and the same mistakes) or get sloppy and lazy. I don't feel bad if I hit 500-600 words and feel that there's more left to write; I do feel bad that maybe I'm pissing away words on how a GM can use X instead of providing some adventure seeds.

Which is long way to ay that I'm not sure if I'm happy with today's entry, The Faceless or not. I mean, I didn't want to do a Transhuman Slenderman or anything, but I did sort of want the idea of an internet legend that Eclipse Phase players and gamemasters could play around in, the kind of thing that Martian Scouts can tell stories about while baking protein tubes over an open heater while camping out in the dust plains for the weekend.