Pyramid Review
EABA Universal RPG
Published by Blacksburg Tactical Research Center
Written by Greg Porter
150 page PDF download; $12
EABA joins the ranks of electronic-only publications. For $12 you get a 150-pages PDF document, which comes in both color and grayscale versions (the latter for easier printing). It can be purchased at Wizard's Attic or from Hyperbooks. For a few extra bucks, it can be bought on a mini-CD, which is also available from the above sites, and at some retailers.
EABA's 150 pages are in a two-column format. The document is fully color-coded, hyper-linked, and indexed, with information tags to provide other notes. It is divided into nine sections. Each section starts with a full-color art plate of good computer-modeled cyberpunk art. There is little other interior art.
EABA works under an Open Supplement License (with terms included in the book). The full text can be found on BTRC's site, but is basically an agreement allowing anyone to publish supplements using the EABA rule set, as long as they don't reproduce the EABA rules.
BTRC's site includes free extras for EABA, including blank reference sheets, conversions for CORPS, 3G3, Timelords, d20, and GURPS. There are also several alternate, color printouts for the cover sheet for use in whatever binder one keeps their EABA printouts.
Yes, EABA does stand for something. No, it's not found in the text of EABA or on the BTRC page. Mr. Porter only hinted that it did stand for something, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: September 20, 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.