Publisher(s) Posthuman Studios Genre(s) Science fiction Random chance Dice rolling | Publication date 2009-08-23 System(s) d100/percentile | |
Website | ||
Eclipse Phase is a science fiction horror role-playing game with transhumanist themes. Futurist Anders Sandberg noted its differences from GURPS Transhuman Space included its emphasis on posthuman (rather than transhuman) characters and cosmic horror. Originally published by Catalyst Game Labs, Eclipse Phase is now published by the game's creators, Posthuman Studios and is released under a Creative Commons license. In 2010, it won the 36th Annual Origins award for Best Roleplaying Game. It also won three 2010 ENnie awards: Gold for Best Writing, Silver for Best Cover Art, and Silver for Product of the Year.
Contents
Setting
Eclipse Phase is a post-apocalyptic game of conspiracy and horror. The setting takes place after a World War III project to create artificial intelligence went rogue under the influence of an extraterrestrial entity known as the "Exsurgent" (best described as an organic computer virus with the capacity to infect both machines and animals with sapient qualities), resulting in the deaths of over 90% of the inhabitants of Earth.
Earth is subsequently abandoned, and existing colonies throughout the Solar System are expanded to accommodate the refugees. The setting explores a spectrum of socioeconomic systems in each of these colonies:
From there, the setting explores various scientific advances, extrapolated far into the future. Nanotechnology, terraforming, Zero-G living, upgrading animal sapience, and reputation systems are all used as plot points and background.
With all of this, the game encourages players to confront existential threats like aliens, weapons of mass destruction, Exsurgent Virus outbreaks, and political unrest.
Mechanics
Eclipse Phase uses a simple roll-under percentile die system for task resolution. Players roll the percentile dice (by rolling two ten-sided dice with one of the dice representing a 10 value), and compare that roll to a target number with the goal being to match or go under that number with the roll. Unlike most similar systems, a roll of 00 does not count as a 100. In addition, any roll of a double (11, 22, 33 etc.) is a critical. If the double is under the target number it is a critical success, while being over the target number constitutes a critical fail. For damage resolution (whether physical damage caused by injury or mental stress caused by traumatic events), players roll a designated number of ten-sided dice and add the values together, along with any modifiers.
Books
Creative Commons License
The Eclipse Phase roleplaying game was released under a Creative Commons license; the text found on the Eclipse Phase website is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. As stated on their website, the publishers encourage players and gamemasters to recreate, alter, and "remix" the material for non-commercial purposes. Further, copying and sharing the game's electronic versions is legal.