Eclipse Phase Sunward: The Inner System [ハードカバー]

[Note: Once again, I'm reviewing from the PDF as opposed to the dead tree edition, but aside from actual physical production values, there should be no difference in the two versions.]

Eclipse Phase is undoubtedly growing into one of science fiction roleplaying's newest heavy hitters, an opinion supported by great sales numbers on several game sales sites, as well as the recent winning of a couple of Ennie awards. And there's no reason that it shouldn't be: It's mapping out territory really only touched on by one other game (Steve Jackson's Transhuman Space), so it has a lot of room to play with, and its designers have made the most of that room, crafting an incredibly detailed setting that blends aspects of transhuman science fiction and horror, and that's capable of supporting adventures reflecting a spectrum that runs from Shadowrun to Call of Cthulhu, and all points in between.

The creepy details keep on coming with Sunward, the first "full-length" supplement for the game. Sunward's focus is the Inner System, everything from the Sun to the outer edge of the Martian orbit path. Each planet gets its own chapter (the Sun and Mercury share a chapter, and Earth and Luna each get their own), and each chapter is told from the point of view of a Firewall operative, making the vast majority of the book "player-friendly," with all of the secret stuff in its own chapter (sort of; more on that later). We also get a chapter on the Planetary Consortium, as well as a Game Information chapter into which all the crunchy bits are packed.

As with the material originally presented in the core book, it's good stuff, written in such a way as to detail what's been set up so far, without contradicting or invalidating previous material (a weakness which gaming supplements are sometimes prone to). There are no traces of metaplot that I can make out (all the better), and though there are some details that I'm not a big fan of, they're sequestered away in the Game Info, and are easy to excise from the larger work.

My two minor quibbles:

The Game Information chapter is just that; new gear, new morphs, new traits, and all the stuff that most players immediately flip to when they get a new supplement. It also happens to contain all of the GM Secret Stuff. I would've liked to have seen these separated into two distinct chapters, with a warning for players to stay the heck out, but it's easy enough to say "if you're taking new stuff from the new book, don't go past Page XX."

Also, no Main Belt. This is a really minor complaint, and I assume that we'll see details on the Belt in any Outer System supplement that may be in the works. I'm just not sure where the Inner System ends and the Outer System begins, and as someone who's set his campaign on Ceres, I was hoping for a bit more information.

All in all, this is a great continuation of the line, and I'm already looking forward to the next one!

I'm using this to fill out a fledgling campaign with players that I have played D&D, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, ShadowRun and others for over 20 years. This book and the Gatecrashing book first attracted me to this game. Content is great including beautiful artwork. I bought Gatecrashing standalone just because it was such a nice book. I didn't know anything about the game until I had read half of the supplement.