Eclipse Phase: Duality episode 2

cyberpunk__hacker_place_by_dsorokin755-d75gjc7The gatecrashers have escaped from the clutches of the hypercorps, but they now realize they must go back in to retrieve their memories. Their goal is inside the green zone of Pathfinder City, the capital of the exoplanet colony, and in order to get access, the team must overcome the high security of the zone. There’s also the small matter of the prisoners being held inside. Will the team risk even more in order to rescue them? A single misstep could doom the entire team.

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16 Comments

  1. Every time I hear Pathfinder City I think it’s a post-apocalyptic dystopia where everyone has to play Pathfinder as their only tabletop rpg.

  2. Snark Snark Snark

  3. I love Pathfinder RPG and even I have to stop and wonder “wait, what now about PF RPG?”

    And playing any one RPG forever would be pretty awful.

  4. The download comes up as episode 3, not sure if this is a mistake or not, but it’s something to be aware of when you’re doing the next one. Wouldn’t want any labelling disasters.

    Pretty good episode regardless – felt like a bit of a throwback to the bank heist from Know Evil. Caleb did a great job with his character, and I look forward to the other characters getting their time in the sun.

  5. That’s due to this being the third session, since Hedgerow was the prequel to this.

    Liking this campaign thus far. It is always nice to hear Caleb planning stuff, especially when keeping it secret from Ross. Not really feeling the characters yet, but that’ll some with time, I hope.

  6. jeez, that three-tiered identity play. what must the catalog of terrifying futuretech in Caleb’s mind be like? I sense the dice handicapping his every move so that there can actually be a game, not just a Hebanon flag planted in the sun and a gorilla god-queen of the solar system. we saw what got done in Night’s Black Agents without even having any magic science to bootstrap him! he must be stopped! and the dice do their part.

  7. So Caleb is some sort of Conspiracy Seed AI/intelligence? A plotting and conniving singularity-to-be?

  8. At first, I expected a lot more combat in this session. The party face was missing, and they were going into a situation where they would be surrounded by enemies. After the recording ended and I thought about it for a bit, I realized the group is predominantly non-combat. I mean you have three scientists, the aforementioned party face and some kind of psychic simian super spy. Now, this is Eclipse Phase and any of these characters could be a total combat bad-ass, but at face value they’re fairly tame.

  9. It was nice to see everything run smoothly and it not turn turn into “Get to the van!!!”

  10. I gotta say, I almost hated this session. There was just SO MUCH preliminary discussion before anything happened.

    But then Ross steps out of the room and Caleb quietly explains his plan to the rest of the group. That was when this episode went from, “Geez, less planning, more doing!” to, “Oh, shit, here it comes.” And the payoff, with Ross obviously enjoying the reveal as much as everyone else (plus throwing in his own wrinkles, like the disgruntled security bot) was fantastic.

    I do think it would be good for you guys to do an RPPR episode about the perils of over-planning. It can cause serious problems with a session. While Caleb and Ross’s elaborate schemes are usually entertaining enough to make it worthwhile, some of us have groups that spend two hours discussing how to attack some orcs before settling on, “Kick down the door, fireball them all.”

  11. My personal favorite has always been when you come up with the elaborate plan andthe DM throw a wrench in it immediately. Before you know it you’re running through a million dollar fundraiser with a homemade bomb and the party tank has a 7 foot bayonet to the throat of the governor’s daughter.

  12. Same here, Ethan. Had my players plan a raid against a cult in a Noir game for hours. Getting blueprints for the building, recruiting NPCs for distraction, etc. Then they just charged the door without telling the helpers and got killed off by what was supposed to be a recurring minor boss. Welp.

    That said, I greatly enjoy the planning phases of EP-games. How creative you can get with the tech and other madness like async mind tricks. So I loved the planning game in Know Evil, but I thought this one dragged a bit. Much due to 75% of the main cast (with Aaron’s face-man missing) not being much different from each-other probably. Kind of hard to separate quirky scientist from the other quirky scientist.

  13. I am enjoying the Duality campaign a lot. Agent 15 was an awesome(to everybody, probably) surprise NPC, I hope we see more of.

    Always funny when Caleb makes a plan secret to Ross. It’s not like the DM always conspires to throw in a monkey wrench, and make the well thought out plan fail. Well, maybe Ross would, but we all know about his horrible monster instincts. 😉

  14. there’s a difference between planning and dithering, and I think the key thing is that it stay on the right side of the fence.

    and, yeah, planning and then throwing your plan completely out the window.

  15. Fun campaign so far. I can’t wait to hear how the group uses Unit 15 going forward.

  16. I’ve really come to hate the anarchist wank in Eclipse Phase. The setting could be a lot more interesting if it wasn’t always brave anarchist freedom fighters vs evil corporates who greet people by telling them to go fuck themselves. At least a bit more grey area, like at the final encounter of no evil.

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