The road to Future.Shock - "Eclipse Blades"

exhales

It's here. I can't believe it. 

Future.Shock's story started in... 2018, I believe? Several years ago now, at the very least. Two things happened, somewhere around the same time: I started reading Eclipse Phase, and I was just getting used to Blades in the Dark. I was absolutely intrigued by the setting of the former, and definitely preferred the mechanics of the latter to a lot of other roleplaying games I'd played. Naturally, my designer-brain kicked in, and wanted to put the two together somehow.

The first idea was exactly that - just do an Eclipse Phase-style setting with Blades-style mechanics. I believe the first iteration of the document was just the words Eclipse Blades and some loosely connected ideas about how to handle body-swapping in a way that makes sense. Some of those early ideas are still in there, like dividing action ratings between the mind and the body, and combining them in some fashion. The idea of putting the bodies on physical cards, that will then be placed on top of the character sheet, came fairly early on as well. 

The mechanics have gone through a large number of iterations since then. Some versions would even set replace the Forged in the Dark mechanical chassis with other systems - including a lengthy divergence into Mecha Hack-inspired stuff - before finding my way back home. This is part of the reason why the core mechanics of the game itself won't be out until the next release; they're going to need a bit of tuning and some decision-making to find a version I'm really comfortable with. 

The ideological core of the game has been hard to grasp at. My least favorite bit of either of the game's original source materials (EP and Blades) is the horror element. In Eclipse Phase, it clashes with what I want out of the transhumanist themes; in Blades, the competence level of the PCs makes horror a bit abrasive. I wanted the game to be more hopeful, and less prone to violence. The ultimate goal should be to make the world a better place, rather than seizing power for yourselves.

This is already getting a bit rant-y, so I'll hold off here, for now. This project has been dear to my heart for a while now, and I've kept it a bit too close to my chest. I'm just really excited to talk about it, y'all.