I love watching Westerns. True Grit – the definitive one, the one with John Wayne, Glen Campbell, and Kim Darby – is my favorite movie, with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in a very firm second place. My TiVo records Bat Masterson, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Gunsmoke, and Maverick without me telling it to do so, and when it was on the Encore Westerns channel, Have Gun, Will Travel as well. It should come as no big surprise, therefore, that I own a surfeit of “Wild West” genre role playing games (RPGs). I have every edition of TSR’s “Boot Hill” game, in PDF format, as well as GURPS “Old West” and “Aces & Eights” by Kenzer & Co. I recently came across a very rules-lite game, though, entitled “Tombstone: Role—Playing in the Wild West.” This game was free (my favorite price) at RPGNow.Com, and is listed as an “Alpha Playtest”, version V.I. You get a lot more than you pay for with this RPG, though.
Tombstone has a very simple base mechanic: roll three six-sided dice (3d6), trying to beat a target number (in this game, called the “Roll Required”). If the roll equals or exceeds the roll required, the attempted action has generally been successful. Single (occasionally multiple) dice are rolled for damage done. A four-sided die (1d4) is used, as the “Fortune Dice” mechanic. There are two methods of generating a player character (PC). In Method A, one chooses a gender for the PC, gives the PC a name, and selects a “Quick Play” character. Method B is not much more complicated, replacing the third step above with selecting a background (other games might call this a Class), assigning Skill Points, and buying weapons and equipment. There are only six backgrounds, and one of them is optional. One may be a Folk Hero, a Gambler, an Indian Brave, an Outlaw, a Soldier, or the optional Holy-Roller. Each background has special abilities at certain levels, and has restrictions on how to assign skill points. There aren’t many skills in this game, either. Health, Defense, Gunfighting, Brawling, Personality, Investigation, Willpower. One also must know the PC’s speed and how many fortune dice one has available, as well as the PC’s possessions and money, but that’s easily scribbled down, too. At first level, characters distribute five points amongst their skills, obeying restrictions listed according to their Background, and not applying more than two points to any one skill. The Health skill is a bit different, and serves a purpose not unlike Hit Points in other games. A beginning character (not a Quick Play PC, but a Method B character) rolls 1d6+3 to determine starting Health. After doing a bit of math, one sees that a first-level character has a Health skill anywhere between four and eleven. Your average six-gun does 1d6 points of damage… so gunfights are appropriately deadly. (A Gatling gun spits out 6d6 of damage – you would want to be on the trigger-side of it!) There is a short equipment list in the rulebook, as well as a few different scenarios. If you’re familiar with the genre, it wouldn’t be very hard to come up with several scenarios to play. Reading through it, it looks like a simple, easy-to-play, fun RPG. It’s rules-lite and adventure-heavy. Pick up your copy at www.RPGNow.com, or let me know and I’ll email you a copy of the PDF. Get 3d6, 1d4, paper, pencils, and your imagination, and let’s play! Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel”
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Commodore Tank ClarkCommodore Clark has been the Team Leader of the 33rd STARFLEET Rangers for several years. His monthly articles about games (usually Role-Playing Games -- RPGs -- but sometimes about other tabletop forms of entertainment) appear regularly in the Regulator Charge!, the ship's newsletter. Archives
September 2017
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