We first started work on Eternal Soldier in 1981 at Indiana University when we got tired of having to buy a different set of rules to play in different time periods. It just seemed that a set of rules that realistically reflects the way the world and characters operate would function equally well in any time period. Since such a set of rules didn't exist, we decided to create it.

Over the next 5 years the rules were revised and re-tested and revised and re-tested and, well, let's just say that after 5 completely new combat systems and several bloody noses and black eyes we finally came up with a system that was consistent, realistic, fast, flexible and enjoyable. Eternal Soldier came into publication in 1986 and by that time featured everything needed to handle an insulting big ugly guy in any time period.

After a period of selling the game regionally and at a couple of Gen-Cons the rest of life (like work and a lack of money) interfered and we put the game on hiatus. We've continued gaming however, and to this day haven't found another system that allows the flexibility of Eternal Soldier while still giving realistic results.

We were discussing this a few years ago when the question came up, "Why not re-release the rules?" The reflexive answer was, "Nah, that would mean typing in all the rules, etc. Too much work."

Well as it turns out, we still had the original disks with the rules, as one of us demonstrated by literally pulling out the nine year old floppies and blowing the dust off them. (By the way, I'm sold on 3M floppy disks forever, now.)

We put up a website, and to our surprise starting getting messages from people who encountered the game a GenCon years before and were still playing it. New people also got interested in the rules. We found once again a community of people who like the rules and wanted to use them and expand on them.

The website got trashed by a data accident, and then the domain name expired, and for a while life once again got in the way of supporting the rules. But we occasionally get requests from people to bring the website back, and hell, why not? So here we are, and here are the rules.

What interests us most is seeing people play the game, and the ability to spread the game via the internet gives us the chance to give you the rules so you can form your own opinion. These are in the fact the rules included in the original book, changed only in having been reformatted for the web. Download them and try them yourselves. We think you'll be glad you did.

Who are you guys, anyway?

Tai-Gear Simulations is Rob Arnold, Chris Arnold, Joe Mays, and Don Mellen.