There are free rpg's and there are open source rpg's. And then there is EABA. EABA is the result of a lot of thought, hard work and grueling playtesting. We wanted to make a system that was realistic, heroic, fast, flexible and all the other buzzwords you've come to expect. It's got plenty of original ideas, but we're also not afraid to borrow from some of the best games that have gone before. We wanted a system for the 21st century, one that could be entirely Internet-based and computer-friendly. The price? Less than half what a similar game would cost on store shelves. Pocket the difference, or use it to buy a couple EABA supplements...

EABA is fully hyperlinked, color-coded, indexed and organized into 150 pages of role-playing goodness. And if you don't have access to color printer or won't be reading it from a computer screen, we've also included a grayscale version optimized for laser printers.

Mechanics-wise, EABA is an open-ended d6 system. There is no limit to the number of dice you can theoretically roll (though you're unlikely to ever need more than 8d6). But, you only get to keep the best three results, which puts an upper limit on the total you can roll.

Even super-powered adventurers can find tasks beyond their reach.

Adventurers are built on points, with separate points for skills and the six attributes of Strength, Agility, Health, Awareness, Will and Fate. Fate is used for paranormal powers, for luck, or as an attribute that can be customized for a particular gameworld, to represent genre-specific attributes like honor, sanity and so on. A detailed powers section lets you create individual or global power frameworks, from traditional magic, to psionics, superpowers, gadget-meisters or anything else you can imagine.

In terms of scale, EABA covers everything from normal people up to superheroes of significant power. A level of 6 is about average for Strength, which is a lifting capacity of 50 kilograms and does a kicking damage of 2d6 (1d6 per 3 points of Strength). Each 3 points doubles the effect of an attribute, so a Strength of 21 would be able to lift 1600 kilograms and do a kicking damage of 7d6.

EABA is heroic in scale, but still realistic. Easy to learn, advanced enough for the most experienced gamemaster. We promise a lot, and we think EABA delivers on those promises. Download a little bit of EABA here. Want a second opinion? Try one (or all) of the known reviews of EABA products from the review links on the main BTRC page. Give it a try.

How do I get it?
EABA is available as a direct download from our online vendors (see the links on the menu of the main BTRC page). In addition, you can bypass the "print it yourself" part and get a professional-quality print-on-demand copy from RPGnow, and get the download version for a few bucks while you wait for the hardcopy to show up in the mail. EABA has a free upgrade policy for the pdf edition. If we make a rules change, you get a new download of the updated rules at no charge. Think you'll get that with your traditional hardcopy games? Hyperbooks will take orders for a "burn-to-CD" version of the game for a nominal fee, and last, any and all orders for the CD or mini-CD version of EABA can be made directly from BTRC via PayPal. The mini-CD is an 8 centimeter version of a regular CD, and holds about 180 megabytes of data. We chose this format because it has more than enough capacity for the game and several supplements, and it is less wasteful than leaving blank most of a standard 660 megabyte CD. There is a US$2.00 (domestic) or US$5.00 (overseas) charge to burn a CD for you and ship it, but this is regardless of how much we put on the CD. So, if you buy EABA and the Ythrek gameworld, it still only costs two bucks extra, and you have a permanent backup in case your hard drive goes south. Note that the CD charge is not discounted for individual store orders ($2 barely covers our material and shipping costs). Everything that is free for EABA (listed in left column) is always included on your mini-CD as a default. There may be a delay from third party suppliers of the pdf in including the newest of the free materials on the mini-CD, but you can always get it here for free.

What is available for EABA?
At the moment, the freebies and several supplements, and several independent projects in the works using the Open Supplement License. You can download previews of the supplements from the product listings at our online vendors, or from links in the descriptions below.

Ythrek is a resource-poor Renaissance world with magic, honor and a very harsh climate based on several overlapping cycles that go from searing to freezing as the decades pass. It has been eight hundred years since the Cataclysm that nearly tore the world asunder. So few survived that even the nature of the disaster is unknown. But, from the accounts of the Spirits and the survivors, and tales brought by traders, things thought dead but only sleeping have begun to awaken. The spring decade is upon the people of Novomad, center of Ythrek's civilization (at least they think so). The weather once again permits travel to lands out of touch since the start of the long winter years, and the squabbling scions of the Six Families once again seek fame, fortune and Ancient knowledge in the wastes outside Novomad's fertile valleys. Download a sample here.

The Colonies. Fighting for freedom on occupied Earth. The Virimar landed eighty years ago, their mothership crippled in a partially successful attempt to deflect a comet from Earth. We thought they were our saviors. We were wrong. They had other plans, and found more than enough human hands willing to help subjugate their brethren. Now it's time to fight back. Think of a French Resistance-style background, but make it world-wide and high-tech. Adventurers are largely drawn from Earth's pre-Virimar off-world colonies, dropping to Earth in stealth pods and trying to discern the motives and plans of the enigmatic Viramar, while building enough support to make an invasion possible and avoiding the collaborator secret police. Not an easy life, and if you're not careful, not a long one either... Download a sample here.

NeoTerra. Eight centuries ago, the Information Revolution became the Information War. The information won. Perhaps for the best, for humanity was well on the way to destroying itself with technological advances that came faster than our ability to integrate them into a stable society. The Net still rules, keeping humanity from destroying itself, while searching for the means to restore our self-determination. It governs by its absence, setting only a few limits on human behavior, and watches for the Archetypes of a new humanity. Meanwhile, the power of unlimited information and instant manufacturing technology have split humanity into the "drones", who live in mindless contentment and luxury, their every need met by a system that has eliminated the need for work, and the minority of "workers", who seek more out of life than simple existence and crave the possessions and power that the Net has chosen not to make freely available. No police, no government, no megacorps, no safety net. You are what you make of yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. Download a sample here.

Archetype Mine? is a two-part adventure by Aaron Kavli, for EABA's NeoTerra setting.

Even in the future the rich can't always get what they want, and those overly impressed with themselves can be crushed under their own self-realization. The PCs are hired by the eccentric Master Carabol to help clinch his place in history as an Archetype Champion. This adventure will help players and GMs alike learn the basics of NeoTerra society and lets them face some tough moral dilemmas, or just shoot their way out of them.

While designed for NeoTerra, this adventure is suitable (with varying levels of modification) for many sci-fi, modern, or even post-apocalyptic worlds Most of the locations can be easily transported and the underlying precepts of the campaign could easily be shifted from NeoTerra society to that of corporate espionage, cult revenge, government cover-up, or even alien tradition.

Archetype Mine? is a 25 page adventure released by Aaron Kavli under the EABA Open License, with original cover art and character illustrations, as well as 4 maps of important areas in the adventure. And for $1, who can argue about the price?

TimeLords. The Designers developed time travel to help them escape the heat death of the universe, but instead found extinction in the distant past. By a twist of fate, humanity inherited the ability to manipulate their technology, for better or worse. Everything you know about history has been shaped by those rare individuals who can Jump through time and dimension. And now, unprepared for it, you have become one of those individuals... EABA TimeLords is the third edition of this classic rpg, whose most unique feature is that it lets you design adventurers that reflect your stats and abilities, thrust into infinite time and space with only your wits and your friends to help you survive. And by the time you unravel the mysteries of dimension hopping and can return home again, will you even want to? You can also generate alternate historical versions of yourself, regular members of a Time Patrol like the Guardians, or combine the two. TimeLords contains a huge amount of background information on the universe(s), including real and alternate histories, and a bibliography of time travel fiction, time travel movies and other time travel role-playing games. Download a sample here.

Nocturne is a gameworld unto itself, and a setting that can be layered on top of virtually any other campaign, modern or otherwise. There is the real world, Materia, the world beyond life, Apocrypha, and the world between, Nocturne. Nocturne can only be reached through the unconscious, and it is a world with it own unique rules, unwritten laws, heroes and villains. And you cannot always tell the difference between the two. For the Awakening is coming, when the three worlds will merge. Some feel it will be the beginning of a new era and seek to bring it about (or exploit it), and others fear that it will be the end of everything and strive to prevent it. Not even the gods know exactly what will happen, but that doesn't prevent them from sending agents and avatars from the Apocrypha to Nocturne to further their subtle plans. Download a sample here

Dark Millennium is a tale of 11th century zombie terror. Set in historical 11th century Europe, things take an abrupt turn when on the thousandth anniversary of Christ's death, the First Seal is broken and the dead rise. But, these are the hungry dead, and they are hungry for you! With the Church in crisis and every kingdom at odds with each other, the dead threaten to overwhelm the living and bring Hell and eternal damnation to Earth. At 132 pages, it has full details on life, culture, religion and politics of the period, and provides everything you need for an extended campaign, including three short adventures to get you started. Download a sample here

Age of Ruin is a world of nanotech run amok. It happened only a few hundred years ago, but mankind has been reduced to tribalism. The shattered ecosystem survives only because of protective nano in plants and animals, but advanced tech is nearly gone. But, people have learned to use their inherent nano to Shape themselves into the tools they can no longer make. But the so-called Eaters are complex, and may be developing a mind of their own. Will the Age of Ruin be followed by the Age of Redemption? Or will humanity finally succumb to monsters of our own creation? Download a sample here

Stuff! You make it, you break it. Stuff! is an EABA-based design tool that lets you design just about anything you need for any campaign, at any level of detail you need.

Weapons, vehicles, body armor, creatures, gadgets, even entire civilizations can be created from a single design book. What's more, we do the heavy lifting for you. Each chapter has its own pdf-based spreadsheet that automatically calculates the results from the parameters you enter, with single-button pre-designed items to show you how it works.

Don't believe it? Download the sample and see. The freebie is the basic design rules from the weapons chapter, plus the fully functional weapon design spreadsheet. We'll give you 25 pages, and hope you'll come back for the rest. Download a sample here

Code:Black is a modern horror setting. Yeah, there's plenty of those out there. Some are dark, some are supernatural, some are heroic. Code:Black is none and all of the above. Adventurers are part of an ancient organization the world doesn't want to admit exists, fighting a war no one else believes in. Dangerous, grim and able to seamlessly incorporate just about any horror mythos, book or movie, Code:Black is a struggle for survival and soul, both for humanity as a whole and for each individual who takes part in the secret war. Download a sample here

WarpWorld The old gods have returned. As the universe ages, stresses on the fabric of spacetime cause the fundamental relationships between matter and energy and time and space to shift into new configurations. The last time this happened was in the age of Atlantis, millennia before recorded history, an age rich in the forces men called magic and the beings men knew as gods. Then, the universe shifted, and magic and gods that were once mandatory became impossible. The magically supported works of men crumbled, and the gods became myth.

In 2010CE, the universe shifts back. Magic and the old gods return, and many of the principles we take for granted suddenly aren't there anymore. Civilization collapses, and the gods walk the earth.

WarpWorld is a gameworld with a built-in 300 year story arc, with players taking part from the first chaotic day of the new world, to the final conflict that determines ultimate fate of mankind. Download a sample here and here.

Armageddon, by Phil McGregor. What is it about? Think Twilight:2000 crossed with Aftermath (if you're old enough to remember it, or Darwin's World for DnD 3e if you're familiar with that ... or an intelligent and logical Gamma World, if you're familiar with that. Phil is an Australian player and playtester of BTRC stuff (as well as being the author of the venerable Space Opera and the Shadowrun Rigger's Black Book), and while I can't vouch for his graphic design skills, the material has got quite a bit of depth and detail to it. You find out more from the Phalanx Game Design site here.

The Big Bang Guide to Modern Firearms, by Dana Jorgensen, has included an EABA conversion guide as a separate item. So, if you use that product and have EABA, contact them and ask about product ATN 11001.