I've been mildly obsessed with Eclipse Phase lately and that lead me into reading a lot of the other stuff in the transhuman genre as well.  One thing that popped up is that Transhuman Space for GURPS is one of the earlier and more interesting games in the genre.  Unlike Eclipse Phase, there is no big disaster or outside force... it's just people being people and in the future.

Given my love of some of the concepts in Eclipse Phase, I want to make a few changes to the setting, but they should be relatively seamless.  Primarily, the quality of mind emulation would increase, dates would stretch out (instead of being set in 2100, probably 2200), and there would be some chargen tweaks to make the players the "minds" and treat "bodies" as gear.

My actual thoughts for a campaign is a hyper-liberterian security team providing law enforcement and protection for various newfound colonies and habitats in the main belt.

Anyone run Transhuman Space before and have insights for me?  Anyone interested in this type of game?

I would love to play in a game like this. I even have time! Plus, I've never played in any of your games and would love to try!

Do you plan on using 3rd or 4th edition GURPS?

For 4th you should pick up the conversion books:
Transhuman Space: Changing Times
Transhuman Space: Shell-Tech

What sorts of changes to make it EP like?  It looks like the EP common habit of changing bodies means a fairly high point GURPS game or making everyone ghosts for free and not worrying too much about shell costs.  One person on the GURPS forums mentioned they just ran with everyone getting a template or infomorph+shell for free then had some points to customize.

I've been looking at GURPS for EP for a bit so I'd be interested (easier to add full on Psi and tons of GURPS books to steal from).

The most major difference between EP and Transhuman Space is the quality and difficulty of mind emulation.  In EP you're a rare weirdo if you don't have a cortical stack.  In transhuman space, you're a rare weirdo if you do.  The EP terminology is also generally better since they wrote theirs a decade later so folks had more time to refine concepts.

I'd almost certainly use 4e and Changing Times.  I've never actually played 3e, and running a complex game like this would probably be is a bad time to learn.  I'm thinking, in general, that the following shifts occur:

1. Characters are minds, bodies are gear (so not bought with CP).  This actually removes one of the biggest issues with TS as character points won't fluctuate with bodies.
   
2. Forking is somewhat different from xoxing, and I'd go with forking's concepts instead.
   
3. Infolife doesn't function as well in TS, so I'd probably remove the standard IQ-1 and a few other penalties.
   
4. The geopolitical landscape of EP is more well developed in some places and not as well developed in others.  I'd probably look at mashing together aspects of both to get more diversity than core TS allows but making nations more important than in EP (and hypercorps correspondingly less important).
   
5. Brainpeeling is just gross, so I'd probably replace it with EP standard ego bridges, stacks, and backups.  I actually do like the idea that brainpeeling kills you and makes it an existential issue, but not enough to have it hamper the game.
   
6. Just as in EP, you can sleeve an organic body... but unlike in EP, there are fewer reasons to do so.  Without the danger of exsurgent viruses, I mean.
   
7. TS (and GURPS in general) actually has a better economy system, so we'll end up using that pretty much straight up.
   
8. TS is normally TL9-10.  We'll probably use TL10-11 so that nanofabs are the norm.  It's a bit of a step beyond the other stuff that TS offers, but I like the feel we got from EP

Other problem areas I should think of?  I'm only now starting to really tear into this idea.

I haven't read all of TS and never played.  Mostly I was looking at it to see if I'd prefer using GURPS to EP system wise.  I've kinda wanted to mashup EP, Nova Praxis, and Mass Effect and maybe sprinkle a little Mind Jammer on top or something.


Yeah, the concepts are more refined.


I was surprised not to see monetary values assigned to the various shells.  I figured EP style characters in GURPS would be stats, advantages, disadvantages, and skills with shells either modifying stats or replacing them and then adding advantages and disadvantages.


"Ghost Mind Emulation" in Changing Times didn't lower IQ but the AI templates did.  Still if you go with the EP assumption that its common, probably just give everyone "Ghost Mind Emulation" for free.

The Extra Life advantage doesn't work well for me in a transhuman game.  EL lets you come back once and then you have to pay points to buy it again.  Where in EP you "always" come back ... may not be able to afford a good morph/shell but informorph status is free.


Apotheosis in Nova Praxis is interesting.  Its destructive but not nearly so gross.  You get injected with nanotech that slowly replaces your brain until eventually your biological brain is completely replaced and you are running just as a simulation and have the equivalent to EP basic implants.  At the core of the replacement is a backup like the stack.

Keeps the TS concept that Ghosts might not be considered human at all by some cultures but all the nice EP concepts including stacks and backups.


Plus no AI apocalypse to make people fear/hate robots.


10-11 seems like the right TL for EP and fitting if you push TS forward toward 2200.


How hard will the SF be?  Is there FTL travel (even the 'not ours' style of pandora gates)?  Is there Psi of some sort (not important to me)?

There actually are, but they annoyingly didn't reprint them in Changing Times.  The original TS setting has cash values for all the shells and Shell-Tech lists costs for the ones in there.


Mostly.  I think your ego is going to control your base DX and your IQ (modified up or down by your shell), but the ST and HT will be completely set by the shell.  Advantages and disadvantages would be a mixed bag.


Missed that.  I was looking at the shadow mind emulation which requires you to build off an AI template.


I agree with that.  It's a genre convention and so doesn't end up costing points.  Of course, forknapping and soul trading become things and living forever as someone's sock puppet a possibility.  So, yay?


To a degree, that's how EP sees forks and all that, too.  I think it's a nice theme and I want to keep it.  With the cost of the tech (in the 100k range), only rich folks or folks with a sponsor can afford it.  Sure, it'll be 99% of the people in space (when it's not culturally taboo to do it), but that's space.


I'd say no to the FTL travel, maybe to psi, and the SF would be "as hard as it can be while still being fun" (I realize that's a non-answer).  My main idea is essentially an extropian security team working a section of the main belt's habitats.  There's a bit of EP, a bit of TS, a bit of Firefly, and a few other things mixed up in that idea.

The only big thing I'm seeing that base GURPS is missing is some way to track sanity as that's a pivotal theme in transhuman games.  I've never actually tried the rules in Horror, but I'm going to look into them and see if that's what I want to do for that.

Some people did mention GURPS Horror as one of things to use for EP in GURPS.  Something else about
TS Pyramid (3/15) had an article by Bill about Cosmic Horror in TS

This really sounds freakin' great.

After reviewing the GURPS Horror rules for Stress and Derangement, they are really great for this.  I actually like them better than I like the EP rules (though, clearly, I have to come up with a bunch of situation modifiers that aren't in Horror as things like ascendent forking aren't going to be in there).

Well, I think I'm willing to give this a shot.  There is a LOT of work still to be done to pull off a conversion, though.

Anyone who is interested, please shoot me an RTJ over here:

link to another game