Eclipse Phase

Eclipse Phase is a dense transhuman science-fiction TTRPG about Firewall missions, resleeving, politics, and existential horror, best for groups that want ideas and consequences to matter as much as action.

At-a-glance

A crunchy classless d100 game of transhuman survival where death is reversible, bodies are loadouts, and every mission asks what identity is worth.

Genres:
Horror Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
Mechanics:
Character Customization Classless Investigation Skill-based Tactical Combat
Themes:
Dark Political Psychological
Visit game site View reviews or buy
Eclipse Phase

Eclipse Phase is one of the strongest fits on the site for groups that want science fiction to feel dangerous, political, and genuinely posthuman rather than like present-day action scenes with better hardware. It is excellent when the table wants espionage, investigation, body-swapping, and existential horror to keep pressuring each other over a long campaign. It is a poor fit if your group wants breezy onboarding, clear heroics, or a low-lore system that can run on genre shorthand alone.

Its real hook is not only that death is reversible and bodies are gear. It is that the game keeps asking what survival, identity, class, and consent mean once minds can be copied, forked, edited, and resleeved. When Eclipse Phase works, the horror is not just monsters or TITAN relics; it is the realization that every tool keeping transhumanity alive can also be turned into coercion.

What the game is

Published by Posthuman Studios and originally created by Rob Boyle and Brian Cross, Eclipse Phase is a transhuman science-fiction TTRPG set after the Fall, the war in which super-intelligent TITAN AIs and the Exsurgent Virus wrecked Earth and killed most of transhumanity. The survivors spread across the Solar System, forming hypercapitalist inner-system powers, outer-system autonomist experiments, criminal networks, gatecrashing operations, and black-budget conspiracy cells. The default campaign frame casts the PCs as Firewall sentinels dealing with existential risks, but the line also supports criminal, political, and Pandora-gate exploration campaigns.

Publication history and editions

Posthuman Studios brought the first edition to publication in 2009, and the core book debuted at Gen Con 2009 before hitting retail that October. The current line centers on second edition: the official site was previewing near-final material in June 2019, the PDF was available by August 2019, and second edition remains the live core supported by the publisher. Since then the line has added the Condensed Player's Guide for faster table reference, a 2024 Character Options release updating lifepath and morph support, and a 2025 reprint with corrections and refreshed PDFs.

What you need to play

The cleanest entry point is the free Quick-Start Rules, which bundle condensed rules, the Acrimony starter scenario, and four pregenerated Firewall characters. If the table clicks with that, the full 432-page second-edition core book is the real investment piece. The Condensed Player's Guide is useful even for committed groups because it strips player-facing material down into a second book people can actually pass around at the table.

Major adventures, supplements, and support

Current second-edition support is practical rather than sprawling. Overrun is an introductory adventure built to teach the flow of play. Router Case Files is the most useful GM-side support product because it gives fast hooks for Firewall, gatecrashing, and Guanxi criminal play. Posthuman's 2022 line summary also highlighted Xenovore plus the Nano Ops line, especially All That Glitters, Better on the Inside, Body Count, and Grinder, as compact mission support. Older first-edition setting books such as Sunward, Rimward, Gatecrashing, and Firewall still matter as lore mines, but the easiest starting arc for a new table is still Quick-Start, Router Case Files, then core.

Third-party ecosystem and community support

Eclipse Phase has one of the friendlier third-party ecosystems in the trad sci-fi space because Posthuman publishes the line under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license and actively curates fan hacks and utilities. That means the community has produced actual usable support rather than just admiration: online character generators, cheat sheets, gear cards, maps, NPC tools, and scenario-building aids. If your group likes hacking systems and sharing house material, Eclipse Phase is unusually welcoming.

Digital tools and VTT support

Official digital support is more toolkit-driven than platform-locked. The publisher maintains a VTT resources page, official downloads for character sheets and rules primers, and a library of free reference materials. There is not a single polished official VTT ecosystem that trivializes setup, so online play still benefits from a GM willing to assemble tools. The upside is that Foundry support, fan utilities, and printable player aids are real enough that remote play is practical once the group commits.

Core rules and play structure

Eclipse Phase second edition uses a variant d100 roll-under system. Most tests resolve by rolling percentile dice against a skill or aptitude, with doubles producing criticals and higher successful rolls producing better outcomes under its blackjack-like success logic. The game also treats the default Firewall campaign as a mission engine: the PCs are sent toward x-risks, conspiracies, alien artifacts, outbreaks, political complications, or criminal intermediaries, then have to choose how much risk and moral compromise to absorb on the way back out.

Characters, morphs, and advancement

Characters are skill-based and classless, built from backgrounds, careers, interests, aptitudes, reputation networks, and gear rather than fixed classes. The most important split is between ego and morph. Your ego is the enduring person; your morph is the current body, whether that means an enhanced human shell, synth body, uplifted animal, or infomorph. Advancement therefore happens on two tracks at once: the lasting growth of the ego, and the situational power shift created by what body, ware, and equipment the mission can support.

Signature mechanics

The signature mechanic is resleeving. Second edition deliberately made it easier than first edition, replacing much of the old recalculation overhead with morph pools and cleaner handling. That change does more than simplify bookkeeping. It turns death, identity continuity, body choice, and economic inequality into repeatable table questions. Other standout procedures include reputation-mediated access, mission-based gear abstraction, and the option to collapse some subsystems into lighter handling when the table does not want every scene to become a minigame.

What play feels like

At the table, Eclipse Phase often feels like a hybrid of conspiracy thriller, investigation game, and posthuman horror campaign. One session might be legwork on a crowded habitat, the next a negotiation between factions, the next a containment operation around TITAN tech, and the next a Pandora-gate expedition. The tone is usually more suspicious than triumphant. Even victories tend to raise bigger questions: who paid for the morph you needed, whose fork got left behind, who benefited from the cover-up, and what new x-risk did you just uncover?

Running the game

The GM burden is substantial. The setting is dense, gear and morph options can sprawl, and the line is most satisfying when the GM can make factions, reputation networks, and posthuman consequences feel concrete instead of like lore wallpaper. The easiest way to keep it playable is to narrow the campaign frame early. Firewall missions are the safest on-ramp because they naturally justify briefings, limited objectives, and recurring consequences. New groups should also make explicit decisions up front about how much politics, body horror, hacking detail, and existential dread they actually want in active rotation.

Campaign fit

This is usually a better campaign game than a one-shot game. A one-shot can showcase the weirdness of resleeving or the menace of the Exsurgent Virus, but the real payoff comes from long arcs where backups, favors, ideology, trauma, faction loyalty, and morph choice keep compounding. It can run shorter arcs if the table is happy treating each job as a distinct Firewall or criminal operation, but it shines brightest when repeated missions force the characters to define what parts of themselves they refuse to trade away.

Reception and awards

The first edition won the 2009 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game and picked up 2010 ENnie recognition for Best Writing (Gold), Best Cover Art (Silver), and Product of the Year (Silver). Reception since then has stayed remarkably consistent: the line is praised for original worldbuilding, the resleeving premise, and the way second edition made the game more runnable without gutting its identity. The most common criticism is not that the game lacks ideas, but that it still asks a lot of reading, reference management, and buy-in before those ideas become easy at the table.

Where it is strongest

  • It delivers one of tabletop gaming's clearest examples of science-fiction ideas changing how the campaign actually works, not just how it is skinned.
  • Resleeving lets identity, mortality, class, and capability stay mechanically live for the whole campaign.
  • The combination of conspiracy, horror, politics, and gate exploration gives the GM many ways to vary missions without abandoning the setting's core pressures.

Where it can frustrate groups

  • The lore load is high even in second edition, and many tables will need a guided on-ramp.
  • Gear, hacking, morph choices, and subsystem lookups can still slow play if nobody wants to own that rules overhead.
  • Its tone is built around compromise, surveillance, and autonomy loss, so it can feel oppressive if the table wanted cleaner adventure momentum.

Content and safety notes

Content warnings commonly include body horror, loss of bodily autonomy, mind copying and editing, surveillance, coercive technology, extinction threats, cult behavior, class exploitation, graphic violence, and philosophical despair. The game also foregrounds political conflict and treats many social systems as contested rather than neutral. This is a game that benefits from explicit lines, veils, and tone-setting before session one.

Best starting path

Start with the free Quick-Start Rules and run Acrimony. If that lands, add the Character Pack and Rules Primer so players have faster references, then move into the Condensed Player's Guide or the full core book. Once the group wants campaign material, Router Case Files is the best next purchase for mission seeds, and Overrun is a good teaching adventure for a second or third session.

Research notes