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Neoterra: A worldbook for EABA.
Neoterra is a 99 page worldbook PDF for the EABA game system, but any GM worth his dice can adapt it to most game systems with minimal effort.
Neoterra creates a fairly new, original and unique gameworld that’s rather hard to describe without just quoting the book, but in essence, in the year 2201 new technologies, called “Mutables” were invented that threatened to finally let humanity achieve it’s age old dream of self-destruction.
Fortunately for humanity, the world wide computer network achieved full sentience about this time and decided, for mostly benign reasons, to try and save humanity.
Assuming the role of benevolent dictator, the net, as it came to be called, basically picked up the pieces after a fairly nasty war between factions using the new mutable technology and locked up the dangerous technology away from human hands, then set about improving humanity and upgrading it to the point it could play with it’s new toys safely.
(If only something like this had happened on Altair 4, the poor Krell might not have all died.)
To do this, the net had to recreate human civilization and culture, and in doing so wipe away a lot of illusions humanity had built up about itself over the ages. It created a new society where every physical need was instantly met for free. No one had to work anymore for food, shelter, etc. All the necessities, and a fair few comforts were provided free of charge by uncle net.
Sound like a way to destroy and not improve humanity to you? Please read on…
Now that no one was forced to make anything of themselves just to survive, those who had no drive or ambition were no longer forced to do anything but become ultratech couch potatoes. (“Drones”, in the game terminology, or “feebs” if you’re in a mean mood.)
The only thing that drove people to do more and become more now was an internal desire, ambition and the ability to either fulfill it or find the means to fulfill it.
It’s the people who have these, or can develop them, that the net wants to cultivate, nurture and propagate.
The net controls reproduction in neoterra. While sex is still possible, conception is not and there have been no natural child births on earth form some 600 years in the mainstream neoterra setting. The net “creates” infants who are delivered to prospective parents to be raised.
In order to improve humanity, the net has created the archetype system. The net assigns each person one of 20 archetypes that it believes represents the spectrum on human beliefs and spirit. (You assign your own archetype in neoterra, and you can create more than the stock 20, BTW)
Each year a number of people are picked as “Archetype champions” by the net. Each receives a big pile of money, and has their genes and memes used to help create the next generation of humanity. It is by this process, the selection of the best of each archetype as the main base stock for the next generation, that the net hopes to improve its creators.
Archetypes aren’t really a lot like character classes, but aren’t completely unlike them either, that’s about as well as I can describe them.
You get to be an archetype champion by being the best at what you do, and you get to be the best thru personal effort. Now, personal effort is the crux of the neoterra setting. There are no formal laws, no courts, no nations, no police or other organizations in neoterra that have formal authority to make or enforce laws. Neoterra is at worst an anarchist world, at best a libertarian world, both imposed and enforced by the net.
Everyone has an equal chance to become what he can be, there are no governments, no corporations, no castes, etc. to stop you. “The man” can’t hold you down anymore because he’s been replaced by the net, which is above discrimination.
Everything that the net doesn’t provide for free must be made thru personal effort. There are no corporations. (There are no formal “laws” in neoterra, but there are rules that the net lays down and enforces dispassionately.)
If you want something that the net doesn’t provide you have to either take it by force from someone who earned it, or find a way to earn it yourself, while keeping people from stealing it from you.
There are various informal jobs that you can try to do to earn notice and credit in the neoterra world. You could become a Thug, harassing and beating people for pay if you wish. You could become a protector who keeps thugs from harassing people in an area you’re paid to protect. You could try growing flowers and selling them, or catching rats to sell to restaurants that cater to those who want food other than what the net provides. Work at your job, do it well, watch your back and pick your friends carefully, and you’ll earn credits to buy tools to do a better and better paying job.
But don’t answer a “help wanted” ad that sounds too good to be true, or you might become a slave…
There are organizations in the neoterra world, like small companies that make items by hand as mass production is not allowed. There are groups that enslave people, and groups who hunt slavers, all because it’s what they choose to do.
In sum, neoterra is a strange world not quite like any other RPG setting I’m familiar with. While there are some occasional minor flaws in the product and things that aren’t as clear as they might be, I’d have to say that all in all neoterra is an interesting, unique and possibility laden world that has a lot to offer any decent GM and player group looking for a strange new world to game in. Once you factor in it’s low price you realize it’s flaws are pretty small in comparison to the total package.
The big danger I see for neoterra is that it could end up a like “Transhuman Space” or “Blue Planet”, a great game that a lot of people talk about and like but few seem to play or write adventures for because it is so off the beaten track.
I hope it doesn’t end up that way, because it’s a well thought out and original world that just requires some effort on the part of gamers to make it work, but I think it’s worth the effort. A bibliography of books that could help provide GMs with ideas would have been a nice touch, and I’ll recommend “The diamond age” as one such source reference.
Feel free to head down to www.btrc.com and help yourself to a free sample.
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