Quote from: jan paparazzi;850984I mean posthuman as in playing a talking octopus or a swarm of nanobots. Transhuman are upgraded humans but still recognizable as humans. In Nova Praxis this is odd, because most humans are norms. In Eclipse Phase upgraded humans are the norm and the really weird ones are controversial. So the timeline moved on a little bit further in Eclipse Phase.

Ah I see. Thanx!

(my fave take on transhumanism remains the Leijiverse mind, I'm teh oldskool )

Quote from: jan paparazzi;850984I mean posthuman as in playing a talking octopus or a swarm of nanobots. Transhuman are upgraded humans but still recognizable as humans. In Nova Praxis this is odd, because most humans are norms. In Eclipse Phase upgraded humans are the norm and the really weird ones are controversial. So the timeline moved on a little bit further in Eclipse Phase.

Anyway I think I should seperate cyberpunk from transhumanism. Cyberpunk seems to focus on external conflict. The megacorps are bad. Steal that vault, hack that databank, kill that NPC etc. Transhumanism is a bit more navelgazingly. Conflict is more internal. Do the benefits of genetics outweigh the drawbacks? It feels a bit White Wolfie to me. Very introspective. Interesting to make a book or movie about that subject, but not really RPG material for me.

Well, a classic transhuman theme is that the definition of human has to be expanded to include clearly non-human minds, your uplifted octopi, your AI intelligences and the like.  This goes back at least as far as Neuromancer, with the AI's attempting to procreate and the recorded mind of a dead man giving the main character advice, and continues (again with Gibson) in the Hard Light trilogy when the Idoru steps out of every nano fabricator in the world, going from an imaginary computer program to an embodied person, forcing people to recognize what they had created.

Posthuman tends, from what I can tell, to focus on leaving humanity behind completely. This is the realm of Singularity intelligences, people turning into immortal balls of energy that exist on higher planes (A la the end of Babylon 5, among many many others), or even, for the more grotesque takes, the sort of inhumanity expressed in the Tetsuo: the Bodyhammer films, giving over to the Machine entirely, or the Instrumentality Project of Evangelion.

To take it back to Eclipse Phase, the Transhuman society we are presented is not too unfamiliar to us. They have cities, politicians, an economic system of sorts. People have lives and interests we can relate to, even if they treat their bodies the way most of us treat our clothes.

The Post Humans in the setting are alien to us. They build nothing, seem to have no cares but the next step of evolution. Their interactions with others is usually violent, forcible indoctrinations and the like.  In some cases the concept of self, of ego, seems to be eradicated in favor of a sort of collective gestalt whole. In others, individual perfection is sought to degrees that seem insane, but largely focused on the mind, since 'flesh' in the Transhuman world is so impermanent.

Cyberpunk is the one one of my players really liked for the transhuman aspect. Still have allmost no dealings with the game yet. Another one liked Justifiers alot.

Amazing Engine had the Chromosome book which was interesting, if oddly bland at the same time.

Rifts is my personal favorite. Played a dragon borg for a long and very weird campaign.

d20 Gamma World played up the trans-EVERYTHING aspect to the hilt. nanotech, biomods, mutations, gencoding, sexually transmitted characters, synth-life, soultech, etc.

Quote from: Moracai;849086Of those three I have previously known only Eclipse Phase and it is my fav transhuman game. I even GMed it for a while.

Nova Praxis and Mindjammer are strickt no-no's for me, as I am allergic to anything powered by fate.

I've read GURPs Transhuman Space and it was a bit meh. I haven't followed Eclipse Phase since it's beginnings, but to my knowledge it has a metaplot, which threw me off as well. It could be ignored, but I seem to have a hard time getting anyone to play it, and also hard for me to vision any sort of overarching plot for the players. Firewall is kind of boring, but it is pretty much the only faction capable of sending PCs to all the cool far-reaches of the solar system and beyond.

Nova Praxis and Mindjammer can be easily adapted to BRP if they trigger your RPG ideology political tripwires.

Eclipse Phase is excellent and I really want to try it with a live group, as it seems to use a BRP variant.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;851286Nova Praxis and Mindjammer can be easily adapted to BRP if they trigger your RPG ideology political tripwires.

Eclipse Phase is excellent and I really want to try it with a live group, as it seems to use a BRP variant.

First of all I was amazed that I got quoted after such longish time. Secondly they are not any ideological/political tripwires that have been triggered. Well, nothing has been triggered exactly. After such Fate hype, I really wanted to 'get' it and watched multiple actual play vids, and friends of mine have played it and some of them like it very much. Others don't, and me neither, as it is basically a resource management game that works through narrative that has way too many rules for it's own good. I liked FUDGE very much (before it was cool ) and still do. Fate point economy just messes the beautiful minimalistic core beyond all recognition.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;851286Nova Praxis and Mindjammer can be easily adapted to BRP if they trigger your RPG ideology political tripwires.

So someone couldn't simply find the game not to their taste? Not liking Fate must be a political/ideological reaction?

As for BRP transhumanism... I bought River of Heaven hoping it would scratch that itch somewhat but it doesn't. In particular I don't like that they simply reformatted the magic rules to cover 'augmentation'... nor do I like that it falls back on the old 'cyberpsychosis' crutch to discourage getting too jacked-up on tech.
Eclipse Phase remains the closest thing to a BRP transhumanist scifi game.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;851286Nova Praxis and Mindjammer can be easily adapted to BRP if they trigger your RPG ideology political tripwires.

And this is why I tune out a lot of transhuman shit. They can't be allowed to be a game, they have to be a politicized ideologically correct indoctrination method instead.

Quote from: jeff37923;851331And this is why I tune out a lot of transhuman shit. They can't be allowed to be a game, they have to be a politicized ideologically correct indoctrination method instead.

I think he meant the rules (Fate), not the setting concepts... but I'm guessing you knew that.

Quote from: Simlasa;851332I think he meant the rules (Fate), not the setting concepts... but I'm guessing you knew that.

Nope. I have seen people declare that Eclipse Phase is a great game as long as you are liberal politically and that you should not play it if you are in any way a conservative. Not surprisingly, that was on TBP.

A game can be current political, but if it has to be to attract players then it really is not a successful game because it cannot stand on its own merits.

Quote from: jeff37923;851337Nope. I have seen people declare that Eclipse Phase is a great game as long as you are liberal politically and that you should not play it if you are in any way a conservative. Not surprisingly, that was on TBP.

A game can be current political, but if it has to be to attract players then it really is not a successful game because it cannot stand on its own merits.

It's not just TBP. The guys who made EP have outright said that if you aren't an ardent feminist opposing the evils of rape culture and the patriarchy, they don't want you playing their game.

Quote from: jeff37923;851337Nope. I have seen people declare that Eclipse Phase is a great game as long as you are liberal politically and that you should not play it if you are in any way a conservative.

I get that... the tech-faithful are pushing their agendas. It doesn't really bother me that much because even if they are present in the game, for me they're just another layer of horror... like playing in one of Bioshock's failed utopias.
 
I'm just saying that's NOT what Kaiu Keiichi was on about... unless I was the one misreading him.

Quote from: Brand55;851340It's not just TBP. The guys who made EP have outright said that if you aren't an ardent feminist opposing the evils of rape culture and the patriarchy, they don't want you playing their game.

Fuck me, it's worse than I thought.

Quote from: Brand55;851340It's not just TBP. The guys who made EP have outright said that if you aren't an ardent feminist opposing the evils of rape culture and the patriarchy, they don't want you playing their game.

Do you have some source for that... actual quotes?
Not that I doubt it... nor does it put me off the game. I've got lots of games and books written by people whose views I disagree with.

Quote from: Brand55;851340It's not just TBP. The guys who made EP have outright said that if you aren't an ardent feminist opposing the evils of rape culture and the patriarchy, they don't want you playing their game.

That just makes me want to play it even more, because I stand for all that shit, and I love doing the opposite of what I'm told.








... wait...


did I just fall for a brilliant marketing campaign?

Quote from: Simlasa;851342I'm just saying that's NOT what Kaiu Keiichi was on about... unless I was the one misreading him.

I may be wrong, but I think that is exactly what Kaiu Keiichi was on about.