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Blacksburg Tactical Research Center
Blacksburg Tactical Research Center (BTRC) is an American game publishing company best known for the TimeLords, Macho Women with Guns, and EABA role-playing games. They have produced a variety of role-playing games, card games, and board games. Since 2003, they have published exclusively in PDF format. History While a student at Virginia Tech in the early 1980s, Greg Porter designed several role playing and board games as part of the school's wargaming club. He approached numerous game companies about publishing his designs, but after multiple rejections decided to start his own company. He founded BTRC in 1985, in Blacksburg, Virginia. Greg decided early on that he did not want the company to take on large amounts of debt to release or promote products, so the first games saw very limited releases. Its first product was a board game, ''Concrete Jungle'', a modern tactical game of small-unit military and police actions. '' TimeLords'' was its first role-playing game product, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privately-held
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ''Forbes'' survey of closely held U.S. businesses sold a trillion dollars' worth of goods and services (4 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Role-playing Game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal role-playing game system, system of rules and guidelines. There are several forms of role-playing games. The original form, sometimes called the tabletop role-playing game (TRPG), is conducted through discussion, whereas in live action role-playing game, live action role-playing (LARP), players physically perform their characters' actions.(Tychsen et al. 2006:255) "LARPs can be viewed as forming a distinct category of RPG because of two unique features: (a) The players physically embody their characters, and (b) the game takes place in a physica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blacksburg, Virginia
Blacksburg is an incorporated town in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 44,826 at the 2020 census. Blacksburg, as well as the surrounding county, is dominated economically and demographically by the presence of Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University). Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and the city of Radford are the three principal jurisdictions of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses those jurisdictions and all of Montgomery, Pulaski, and Giles counties for statistical purposes. The MSA has an estimated population of 181,863 and is currently one of the faster-growing MSAs in Virginia. Blacksburg High School, which in 2013 opened a new building, is often ranked among the top schools of the nation for its academics. Its soccer, track, and cross-country teams are also among the top in the state . Blacksburg was the scene of the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16, 2007, when 32 peo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greg Porter (game Designer)
Greg Porter is an American game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career Greg Porter's Blacksburg Tactical Research Center was one of a few game companies active in Blacksburg, Virginia in the 1980s and 1990s. Porter initially came to attention for designing '' TimeLords'' and '' Macho Women with Guns'' RPGs in the late 1980s; he then put his energy into two successive generic RPG systems, ''CORPS'' and ''EABA''. Porter subsequently wrote articles for Hogshead Publishing's ''Inter*action'' magazine. He also did work for Imperium Games, writing about equipment and vehicles for the fourth edition of '' Traveller''. After meeting Ron Edwards and other members of The Forge in 2002, Porter became increasingly involved in the indie role-playing game An indie role-playing game is a role-playing game published outside traditional, "mainstream" means. Varying definitions require that commercial, design, or conceptual elements of the game stay under the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EABA
The ''End All Be All'' game system, commonly known as ''EABA'' and pronounced "ee-buh", is a role-playing game system from Blacksburg Tactical Research Center (BTRC). It is a generic gaming system designed to adapt to any imaginary gaming environment. It was created by Greg Porter in 2003. The game cites the ''Hero System'', ''GURPS'' and '' Call of Cthulhu'' as influences in its development. The game books and related materials are available only in a PDF format download, or printed on demand. History Prior RPG History Role-playing games (RPGs) of the 1970s and early 1980s were environment specific, and incompatible with one another. For example, TSR published its ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game specifically for a fantasy environment; ''Star Frontiers'' for science fiction-based role-playing; and other games for other environments, such as ''Gamma World'', ''Top Secret'', ''Gangbusters'', ''Boot Hill''. Each of these games was set with its own self-contained rules system, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CORPS
Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies greatly, but from two to five divisions and anywhere from 40,000 to 80,000 are the numbers stated by the US Department of Defense. Within military terminology a corps may be: *an military organization, operational formation, sometimes known as a field corps, which consists of two or more division (military), divisions, such as the I Corps (Grande Armée), , later known as ("First Corps") of Napoleon I's ); *an administrative corps (or Muster (military), mustering) – that is a #Administrative corps, specialized branch of a military service (such as an artillery corps, a medical corps, or a force of military police) or; *in some cases, a distinct service within a national military (such as the United States Marine Corps). These usages often ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timelords (role-playing Game)
''TimeLords'' is a set of time travel role-playing games by Greg Porter and published by Blacksburg Tactical Research Center (BTRC). The first two editions used a custom d20-based game system; the most recent edition uses the ''EABA'' system from BTRC. History ''TimeLords'' was developed by Greg Porter while attending college at Virginia Tech in the early 1980s, and many of his fellow Wargaming Society members are immortalized in the first edition as sample characters. He approached many game companies with the idea for a time travel based role playing game, but all preferred a supplement for their own systems rather than a stand alone RPG. Fantasy Games Unlimited agreed to publish the game, but sat on it for several years and never did. Blacksburg Tactical Research Center was started by Porter in 1985, and ''TimeLords'' was its first RPG product. It did not initially sell well, but maintained a cult following that allowed a second edition to be published in 1990. Several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macho Women With Guns
''Macho Women with Guns'' (MWWG) is a comedy role-playing game created by Greg Porter and published by Blacksburg Tactical Research Center (BTRC). (A D20 System version of the game is also available from Mongoose Publishing.) Nominally a science-fiction game, it parodies both action films and other role-playing games. Setting ''Macho Women with Guns'' is set in a near-future America where society has collapsed due to the misdeeds of the Reagan administration. Taking advantage of the earthly chaos, Satan has dispatched her female minions, the Batwinged Bimbos From Hell, to rebuild society in a form she approves of. The Vatican has responded to Satan's plans by dispatching its elite group of warrior nuns, The Sisters of Our Lady of Harley-Davidson to combat the bimbos. The two groups of women compete (sometimes violently) to rebuild civilization by vanquishing post-apocalyptic menaces and male chauvinism. Dimensional warps caused by the conflict have opened connections to a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infinite Armies
''Infinite Armies'' is a customizable card game for two players. It was created by Greg Porter, and published in 2005 by Blacksburg Tactical Research Center. It follows on the success of the collectible card game genre, but establishes its own niche by allowing players to fully design, customize, and print their own cards. Whether this is a viable business concept is still being tested, as most card games rely heavily on sales of cards and the continued publication of new cards. The heart of the game is a PDF file called ''iArmy Builder'', which uses the functions of the Adobe Acrobat program to allow players to create and print their own cards using any graphics files they like. The first versions focused on traditional modern armies, with tanks, infantry, airpower, etc. But in theory, a player may base their cards on any idea they like, such as spacecraft, fantasy, cartoon characters In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six regions statewide, a research center in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and a study-abroad site in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland. Through its Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, Corps of Cadets Reserve Officers' Training Corps, ROTC program, Virginia Tech is a United States Senior Military College, senior military college. Virginia Tech offers 280 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to some 34,400 students; as of 2015, it was the state's second-largest public university by enrollment. It manages a research portfolio of $522 million, placing it among the top 50 universities in the U.S. for total research expenditures, top 25 in computer and information sciences and top 10 in engineering, with the latter t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceTime
In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why different observers perceive differently where and when events occur. Until the 20th century, it was assumed that the three-dimensional geometry of the universe (its spatial expression in terms of coordinates, distances, and directions) was independent of one-dimensional time. The physicist Albert Einstein helped develop the idea of spacetime as part of his theory of relativity. Prior to his pioneering work, scientists had two separate theories to explain physical phenomena: Isaac Newton's laws of physics described the motion of massive objects, while James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic models explained the properties of light. However, in 1905, Einstein based a work on special relativity on two postulates: * The laws of physics are invariant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
