I have been looking at Greg Porter’s EABA (End All Be All) game system from BTRC as a simulationist throwback to a time before and have found myself really appreciating the carefully balanced and rigorously researched RPG. An easy to consume Quickstarter outlines the core game very well and highlights the key features.
This is a traditional attribute, skill and trait game, using d6 and a small dice pool for rolls, generally picking out the best three to get a result that needs to beat a difficulty or an opposed roll. The game has a number of innovations, at least for the time which place it looking to simulate action movie style genre, with the famous elevator lobby scene from The Matrix being the example used. The things that stand out for me are:
- a single universal table ‘the chart’ that measures and cross references all manner of real world phenomena such as time, damage and distance, giving ready reference in one place for game world effects.
- 3 equals one die with space with a +1 or +2 staying as an add, so hello good ole d6 system. A score of 8 is therefore 2d+2
- an ‘escalation die’ like effect, where each round increments in terms of how long it takes, providing a bonus, whilst acknowledging that more is happening in the story in each round because they are longer. It helps to cap the length of combat and bring things to a resolution
It’s a full on big system and reasonably complex seeming (without playing). Copious examples help to clarify throughout. I had a ‘reached the summit’ moment on combat, only to discover the distant peak of the advanced chapter that followed. A comprehensive power system with lots of build options that cover many if not all the bases and provides a big toolkit of effects, regardless from where they come from.
I’ve dipped into Aerth, one of the backgrounds, a thumping big alien planet of a setting with a lot going on. It has EABA rulings but is predominantly flavour and setting text with campaign seeds to get you going. They look to be well worth mining for ideas whether you EABA or not.
If you are looking for a big system to rule them all then EABA has a lot going for it. It is too big for me and one too many for my GMing mindshelf. Greg writes great systems though!