Firstly, the setting is cool. It’s like Cowboy Bebop meets Mass Effect meets Neuromancer. It also (on purpose, I’m sure) channels the old Paranoia RPG. Like… a lot. The overall tone, however, is decidedly less humorous than Paranoia, but certainly no less dark.

That being said, the core Eclipse Phase rulebook and all future supplements are being released under the Creative Commons license. Specifically, the CC BY-NC-SA license. That is, you are free to share or remix Eclipse Phase as long as you do so non-commericially, attribute the original licensor (in this case, Catalyst Game Labs), and only share your remixed work under the same license.

Unlike Wizards of the Coast and their “Open Gaming License” which wasn’t all THAT open, this truly is Open Source Gaming. Which is another reason you need to play this game. The potential within Eclipse Phase for the community to be able to develop and re-use the material is like few RPG’s before it.

So, here is the torrent to download Eclipse Phase. Yes, it’s legal and cheap as free.

Oh, just checked the Eclipse Phase blog, and apparently, Eclipse Phase is the number one seller on DriveThruRPG.com. Not bad for a free, open source product.