Tommy's Take on tremulus

I’ve had a few blog posts about it, one of which being from my first guest blogger, and I’ve even ran it…though it’s not been officially released to the public. That said, the next review is for tremulus by Reality Blurs.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: tremulus came into my hands as the result of a very successful Kickstarter. I currently have the PDF (Kickstarter Edition v1.3) and am waiting the eventual physical book, as well as a number of other goodies. tremulus is a self-described storytelling game of Lovecraftian Horror using the Haiku system, which is a hybrid of Apocalypse World, FATE and Fiasco. It is a “player-facing” game, meaning the GM rolls no dice…all rolls are performed by the players. (Edit: The PDF is now available at RPGNow for $15.)

In a nutshell, any roll by a player is 2d6 plus an attribute, with the following guidelines: 10+ is a success, 7-9 is a partial success with a consequence and 6 or less is a failure of some sort.

The core game includes 11 Playbooks (character archetypes, essentially) and only one of these archetypes can be used in a game at a time. For instance, there is only one Detective, one Dilettante, one Journalist, etc. Each player picks a Playbook and customizes it, picking the name, distinguishing features, point arrays to be spread over the Attributes (Reason, Passion, Might, Luck and Affinity), and Special Moves.

See, Moves are the actions the characters can do in the game, and there’s a big list of Basic Moves, with each Playbook getting two Special Moves and each having a Lore Move. Basic Moves include Resort to Violence, Threaten, Poke Around and Act Under Pressure. In the game I ran, the lone PC was a Detective and his two Special Moves were Tough As Nails which gave him +1 armor at all times and Methodical, which let him use Reason for his Poke Around rolls instead of Luck, which turned out to be a huge boon for him. Additionally, he had a Lore move, called Playing a Hunch, which costs a Lore point and gives the Detective +1 on rolls involving a given NPC. Each of the Playbooks have their own unique flavor and options. The Basic Moves all have tips on when to use them, as well as ideas to help you interpret the dice rolls.

As is common in games inspired by Apocalypse World, the PCs are encouraged to work out their connection with each other beforehand, in this case tying into a Trust Mechanic, ranked on a scale of +3 to -3, and if it ever crosses either extreme, you learn a deep, dark secret about that PC!

As noted, this is a game of Lovecraftian Horror, though that doesn’t necessarily mean Cthulhu and the Elder Gods, just cosmic and unknowable horror (which the book makes a point of explaining up front). This also explains why there are two “damage” tracks: Harm and Sanity. Insanity and Lovecraft tends to go hand in hand. You can adjust the lethality of the game by allowing PCs to take Debilities for Health, Sanity or both (or neither, by default), taking penalties instead of facing death or insanity.

The Keeper’s Section is pretty extensive, preaching a “fiction first” approach (it IS a storytelling game) and the three approaches to starting a game (running with a playset, like the included Ebon Eaves, running with a framework like the Primrose Path Kickstarter framework, and just winging it). The game I ran was using the Ebon Eaves playset, and was really quite a fun exercise.

One of the twists in the GM paradigm is that GMs are largely assumed to use THEIR moves when they are spending points of Hold that they have acquired from PC failure. Keepers have Moves and Hard Moves, the difference being that PCs can interrupt Moves and they are reacting to the outcomes of Moves if you are using a Hard Move. For example, a Move would entail a creature leaping out of a closet, then asking the PC how they react. A Hard Move has the creature leaping out and hurting the PC, THEN asking him how they react.

Everything that opposes the PCs is classified under Hazards, grouped as Elders (people in position of power), Townies (larger groups in the setting), Landscape (Prisons, Mazes, Breeding Pits), Weird (pretty much anything that is ultimately strange and alien) and Doom (any bad practical circumstance). Each Hazard type has a set of Moves and a Subtype of their own to help you figure out how to use them.

The Keeper’s section then walks you through putting all of this together in order to make your framework for the game, by putting Hazards together, tying them together with a Lynchpin and adding a Texture (like Revenge, Transformation or Forbidden Love) to make a Thread…and then tying multiple threads together. This gives you five elements: The Tragic End (what happens if the baddies win), The Unknown (unresolved questions), Lurking Evil (the stuff in the PCs’ way), Darkness Grows (how the bad guys’ plans progress) and Theme (the aforementioned Texture).

Bad guys/NPCs are slightly more streamlined with PCs, and a selection of creepy monsters are included, like Ghouls (which I used in my one shot) and Shoggoths, as well as a handful of regular animals. Not a big selection by any stretch, but the focus will generally be on investigation anyway.

Rituals are also included, and are powered by Lore. Anyone can try to cast them, but you take damage if you don’t have enough Lore. For that reason, I strongly recommend not telling the PCs how much Lore a ritual takes until they use it (unless they do some crazy research first). These include enchanting weapons, summoning or dismissing entities and contacting Outer Gods.

A lot of other good advice is scattered around, including a bit on pacing.

The Ebon Eaves playset is included to get you started, and is quite interesting: You start off by asking the players two groups of seven questions, to which they must answer yes to three each. Their answers dictate the starting descriptions and plot hooks of the town, with each entry having a paragraph for you to read to them, and a paragraph for you to keep to yourself about the secrets of the town. These questions also help to set elements like the Hazards. By Sean Preston’s count, including turning the elements into Frameworks and adding Textures, the Ebon Eaves set alone provides 17.500 combinations. That’s impressive.

WHAT WORKS: A ton of great advice is present throughout the book. An improv happy group will have a field day with this, and there’s already a lot of great support coming from the Kickstarter stretch goals, including expansions to Ebon Eaves and a lot more Playbooks, as well as new Playsets. The system works well for horror, with its harsh and unforgiving damage systems, and the Playbooks being designed with all the PC Moves already on them makes the game much easier to pick up and go for newbies (speaking from experience here). Playset creation is similarly inspiring, using the players’ answers to help dictate the plot threads (and probably in ways they will never expect). One of the best “Player Facing” systems I’ve seen thus far.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK: Some of the terminology (Forwards, Holds, etc) can take a bit of getting used to. I always prefer a bigger monster selection. Some of the advice can be repetitive, and the organization feels like it could be cleaner.

CONCLUSION: We played one session of this with me not having a chance to fully read the book and all prep done at the game table and had a good time. My player for that solo session actively wants to play again (and he’s a hardcore Savage Worlds nut), but with more people so we can use the Trust mechanic in play. I also told him about some of the Playbooks coming to me as a Kickstarter backer and how many of them seem more his speed and he was pumped.

tremulus doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, though it does a really nice job of supporting investigative horror, providing a TON of structure to this as opposed to everyone standing around and swapping the story baton or something. It’s a pretty traditional horror/investigation RPG with some narrative quirks, and you can decide for yourself if that’s a good or bad thing. For us, it was a lot of fun…fun that we will surely revisit in the future.

tremulus Actual Play Report

Last night, we decided to give tremulus a go in a solo game as we work through various breaks before we finally resume Necessary Evil.

My lone player selected the Detective playbook (which I rather expected) and gave him the name "Harry Copperfield Dresden" (so he wasn't looking for points for originality).

We went through the Ebon Eaves creation, generating a town that had seen its heyday come and go, after wealthy eccentric McKenzie Baker, leader of the Silver Circlet and owner of the Windsor Place, had passed away. Harry was actually in Ebon Eaves at the behest of Lorraine Raslo's second cousin, Judith Crandall. See, Raslo murdered her family, saying it was "God's Will" until her brother-in-law Jack returned to Ebon Eaves. Jack, a big-time explorer who had been thought dead, was riding this fame and controversy all the way to the Mayor's office. Judith couldn't believe her cousin was capable of this, and sent Harry to investigate.

Ebon Eaves, PA
1927

As Harry rolled into town, he took a visit to the police station where he met Clint, a young, overworked officer manning the station by himself. Harry slipped him a quick bribe to get into the Raslo case files where he stumbled across the journal of Raslo's husband Stanley. Harry tried to slip it in his pocket, but when he "accidentally" dropped the case file, the journal fell behind Clint's desk. Harry came away from that visit with two things: The journal contained rantings about "snake men" and the police chief was an alcoholic.

Harry set out for the old Windsor Place, operating on a hunch, and while snooping around outside the house he stumbled on some dirty, yet fancy, eye glasses. Trying them on, he decided that the glasses belonged to someone who was incredibly nearsighted and pocketed them. Harry tried to enter Windsor Place and found the way barred, so he scaled the side of the house to the third story balcony...where an attractive, older woman in a flattering red dress was standing at the large double doors drinking tea. Harry tried to bluff his way through his trespassing, claiming that he heard cries for help, and when she pointed out that the road was two miles downhill from the house, he claimed his car had stalled. She instructed Boris and Dmitri  a big, lumpy Russian and a handsome younger one, to eject Harry...and they nearly threw him off the balcony. She ultimately relented and had them take Harry out the front door...though on the way out, he saw a portrait of an older gentleman surrounded by a dozen people...including the blond woman and the two Russians...and the older gentleman was wearing the glasses Harry had found outside. As Harry was being thrown outside, he heard an eerie moan from somewhere inside the mansion.

Harry's next stop was the Ebon Eaves Home for the Mentally Distressed, where he was told it was past visiting hours.

Harry went to the bar, where he found the chief knocking back drinks and he told the chief that he saw Clint taking bribes. His smooth talking combined with the chief's drunkenness lead to him and the chief heading back to the police station and sending Clint home, giving Harry his chance at getting the journal back. Inside, he ran the insane rantings of Stanley Raslo, who claimed that his entire family was snake men.

Harry got himself a room in a boarding house, and wound up oversleeping the next day.

He rushed back to the Asylum where he was told that Lorraine had been having "incidents". He asked to speak to her doctor, Dr. Gould, but was told he was in a meeting. Making arrangements to speak with Dr. Gould later, he went out to his car, where he was clubbed in the head from behind. When he awoke in the car, he was missing the journal and had a note on his chest telling him to leave Raslo alone.

Deciding to head a diner for some food and hoping to rustle up a lead, he found out a bit more about the woman in Windsor Place, and spied something lurking around his car. Heading outside to investigate, he was shocked to see - momentarily - the pale form of McKenzie Baker...missing his glasses. Heading back into the diner to pump the waitress for information, she directed him to the local paper and Jackie Laurence, intrepid reporter.

Harry found Jackie working late and the two began to talk. Jackie questioned why Harry was snooping around the Windsor Place if he was sent here to investigate Raslo, and then he dropped a bombshell on Harry: Lorraine Raslo's cousin had committed suicide since the last time Harry had spoken with her. Jackie dismissed both families (Stanley's and Lorraine's) as being crazy, but was intrigued with the activity at Windsor Place. He also noted that Lorraine's doctor, Dr. Gould, was part of Baker's inner circle. The two men set off for Windsor Place.

They searched around the house and found a shed...and Harry removed floorboards to find a tunnel underneath. The two men ventured in and followed the tunnel back to the house...where they found a large metal, unlocked door. As they started in, Harry heard the Russians coming and tried to threaten them with his gun, but only wound up trading bullets with Boris instead. Dmitri moved in to kill Harry, but he ripped Dmitri's hand around and shot Dmitri in the throat with his own gun.

Harry and Jackie, both armed now, entered the underground chamber, which was disturbingly cold, and began looking around. Harry came face to face with Baker once more...who was staring at him with glassy eyes. Harry offered Baker his eyeglasses and felt the chill of the grave as Baker touched him. Tabitha McFlaherty, the woman Harry had met earlier, walked into the chamber and explained that Baker had died but that she was trying desperately to restore him...she just hadn't gotten it right and he came back "wrong". Harry countered that the dead shouldn't come back at all, and she dismissed that as "rules for the little people". She explained that Ebon Eaves NEEDED Baker now, more than ever, due to Jack Raslo's moves to take over the town. Harry asked her why she didn't just run a candidate against him, and she pointed out that Raslo's serpentine tentacles were everywhere...including the newspaper.

Harry turned to see Jackie Laurence with his gun in Harry's face. Harry and Jackie both fired and Harry went down. As he recovered, he saw a blood trail heading out the tunnel and Tabitha and Baker closing the door to the house. Harry tried to break down the door and ultimately shot his way in...and managed to make it through the house and in front of an escaping hearse. He ordered the driver to stop, but he swerved around and Harry shot the tire out, causing it to crash into the large, wrought-iron gate. Harry moved in on the hearse, only to have Baker bust out of the back, attacking him. Harry was bitten by Baker multiple times, but managed to blow Baker's face off.

Tabitha, wounded from the crash, climbed out of the hearse and cursed Harry for his actions and all the damage he had caused, causing Harry to retort "that's what little people do". Dying, from his injuries and the arcane infection running in his veins, Harry asked Tabitha to save him like she did Baker, but she said she didn't know how...that's why they were trying to get the Raslo family secrets from Lorraine. She said she would put Harry out of his misery, though, and use the mystical artifacts collected by the Silver Circlet to fight Jack Raslo that way. As she moved in to finish Harry off, he snapped off a shot between her eyes.

Harry, in desperation, crawled back up the hill and into Windsor Place, where he searched desperately for something. Bleeding all over the place, his blood began to seep into runes in the fireplace, causing it to spring to life. The flames parted and hands reached for him as he passed out from the blood loss.

THOUGHTS: This definitely could have gone smoother, but we had constant interruptions from my kid, I was having Adobe issues with the PDF (on my end, not Reality Blurs' end) and I was distracted by a couple of additional outside factors at points in the game, aaaaaand I hadn't made enough time to really read the book as thoroughly as I wanted to before play. I was also scrambling to pull the plot threads together, though a LOT of things that came up were entirely improv based off of the PC's die rolls (like finding the glasses, being unable to see Lorraine). Raslo partisans were all over the town and I was noting how much Harry said to whom, and if the story had gone in a different direction the implication was going to be that Raslo's reach had gotten to the cousin.

We were fine with the player facing rolls, though the lack of "initiative" and "combat rounds" was a bit of a struggle, and trying to fit everything into the Basic Moves was difficult (though I recovered and began making up relevant moves on the fly). Lore is kind of a big thing in the game and all of Harry's Lore came from rolling 12s while making Moves.

There was also a bit more comedy, intentional and unintentional, than tremulus probably expects by default. I wasn't setting out to kill the PC, but a) we knew this was probably a one shot and b) the tremulus rules are fairly unflinching when it comes to combat. It can get really ugly, very quickly...which, I mean, is fine for a horror game.

In the end, we both had fun (especially as we entered the final act, I think) and we'll bust this out again, or at least another Apocalypse World-hack (like Dungeonworld or Monster of the Week). I also think that the bonus playbooks that'll be coming would really have helped my player out, as Detective was one of the very few within his comfort zone.

Ideally, I'd love to try this with multiple people next time, so we can see the Trust mechanic in play, as well as the Help/Hinder move.

Great set-up, great ending, some Keeper (GM) failure in the middle...but really no worse than most first time experiences with a game.

Tommy's Take on Hollowpoint

Hollowpoint sounds like a game about people shooting each other. It appears to be aptly named.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: Hollowpoint is the game of “bad people killing bad people for bad reasons” and draws inspiration from (and heavily references) my all-time favorite comic book series, 100 Bullets.

That’s a great start, right there.

In addition to 100 Bullets, Hollowpoint heavily references GI Joe and James Bond for examples…but it really does seem tailor made for a 100 Bullets type of game. It is available in print for $22.95 or PDF for $11.95. Hollowpoint sidesteps the question of how the group gets together by making everyone part of the same Agency, and setting them out on a mission.

Character creation is based off of assigning a value (0-5, using each number once) to skills (Kill, Take, Terror, Con, Dig, Cool, though you can optionally expand the list to include Seduce, Watch, Hurt and Boss). After the skills are assigned, you assign Traits, which can be burnt off in play to provide bonus dice. One method of doing this is by Q&A, like “You’re a pro and you know you’re a pro, because you always do *this*”. Optionally, you can create traits on the fly instead, or use Company Traits, which are things like equipment, sidekicks and the like. Lastly, you pick a Complication, which links you to the mission in personal ways (and is kept from the other players).

The core mechanic is a dice pool of d6s, with rolls calculated similar to Arc Dream’s One Roll Engine, with the matching dice grouped together and calculated by “length” (number of dice in the set) and “height” (value of the dice in the set). The referee has his own dice pool that is based off of the number of players in the game and grows with each successful conflict. Additionally, PCs can work together (or not), as working together is up to the person being asked for assistance, and if they say no, they actually take dice from the PC needing help. If the request for assistance fails, the PC can draw from the Teamwork pool instead.

Length of the sets determines who acts first, and as hits are inflicted, dice are knocked off the smallest sets. As characters take hits without sets, they take on damage effects based on the skill being used (this can be “social” attacks as well as physical damage).

Scenes can have objectives set, which must be completed before the opposition is taken down, to further complicate matters.

There are a couple of detailed conflict examples and a mission building chapter that offers advice, though mission building is pretty simple: Pick a target, an objective or two, add a Principle or two that are acting against the PCs, then see if the PCs come up with an Objective that deliciously complicates things.

Sample missions are included, like a celebrity deathmatch kind of arena, a riff on The Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai and a sci-fi mission/setting.

In addition to the conflict examples, a pair of playtest reports are also included, as well as a nice, if unnecessary set of memos designed as helpful information for new members of the Agency.

WHAT WORKS: Anything drawing this much inspiration from 100 Bullets is a good thing. Lots and lots of examples help, especially if you’re not a big fan of some of the terminology used in the game. The potential for tense interplay between characters is great, especially for a pick-up game. Several great examples to diversify the game, showing off that it’s more than just “hitmen in suits”.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK: Some of the rules bits are confusing until you get into the examples. I could do without game mechanics dropping the F-Bomb, personally. Not a big fan of the core mechanic, though it seems more intuitive than the similar mechanic the One Roll Engine uses.

CONCLUSION: Hollowpoint was nominated for three Ennies and has some enthusiastic support. The mechanics have some interesting depth to them, such as adding objectives to a scene that must be completed before the opposition is taken out, and how rolling too many dice can backfire and cause you to blow your opportunities early. When you factor in how adaptable it is to other settings (VCSA Publishing’s site includes a link to Hollowpoint being used for a Skyrim game), this is an impressive package to draw on, perhaps as an interlude between your group’s campaigns.

Tommy's Take on Dust Devils

I love westerns.

One of my favorite games is Deadlands, in both Reloaded and Classic incarnations.

I'd heard of Dust Devils as being the best western RPG ever, and it seems as though it won an award saying something to that effect back in 2002. This is the Revenged Edition, which was released last year, with More Stuff, including some alternate genres.

The PDF is $10, black and white, and lacks bookmarks. The layout is light enough that I don't think it would really need a dedicated printer friendly version, but I could be wrong.

INTRODUCTION

Up front, we learn that the author considers it a "story-telling game", which kinda jibes with my reading. It's not a traditional RPG, anyway.

Dust Devils pays much respect to Unforgiven, which is always a good selling point, as I rather loved that film...and that's apparently the kind of western it is meant to emulate.

The kicker in the game is that all characters, no matter who they are, have a "Devil" inside them that they need to deal with.

CHARACTER ROUND UP

Characters have four stats: Hand, Eye, Guts and Heart, which are keyed to playing card suits Spades, Diamonds, Guts and Hearts in order. You divide 13 points up among them, no Score exceeding 5.

Every character has two Traits. In today's parlance, they would be similar to FATE's Aspects, as they can be used to provide a bonus, or to earn chips when invoked in a negative fashion.

Next, you determine the character's Past and Present, which are essentially one word descriptors detailing what they did, and what they do. Four points are divided up here, to show which holds a larger sway over him.

Then, you pick the Devil, which is the dark driving force inside the character that they have to deal with. Devil has a rating as well, from 1 to 3, that shifts from session to session, as the player sees fit.

THE LAWS OF THE WEST

Conflict resolution requires the players determine what their character wanys, and to determine who is opposing them.

Resolution uses a poker deck, and the best poker hand in each conflict wins. The number of cards are based off of the two Scores used in each conflict, which the Dealer has final say on. For instance, trying to take down a rampaging drunken bear of a man with your bare hands might be Hands and Guts. If your Hands are 2 and your Guts are 4, that's six cards.

You may have an applicable trait, like Bare Knuckles Brawler. That's a bonus card.

Your Devil can also affect things: If you are acting in accordance with your Devil, that can provide bonus cards...if you are trying to fight it, that can take cards away. For instance, if your Devil is Bloodthirsty 2, and you are trying to drop your opponent with minimal damage, you could lose 2 cards...but if you have no qualms with crushing his wind pipe and biting his nose off, then you may wind up with 9 cards to make your poker hand with...but a bar full of horrified people staring at you afterwards.

Finally, if you Past or Present are relevant to the situation, you can discard and draw a number of cards equal to their rating. From there, you make the best five card poker hand that you can.

If you are opposing multiple people and you only beat some of them, you may or may not succeed, depending on what you are trying to accomplish and who you beat. People that lose out, take Harm, which reduces their Scores. The amount of Harm inflicted depends on the Poker Hand. High card is 1 Harm, Royal Flush is 5 Harm.

Whoever has the highest card in play gets to be the Narrator for the Conflict. They HAVE to make sure the Winner's goal succeeds regardless...but they have leeway on everyone else, as well as where Harm is inflicted at.

Anyone that has a Score drop to 0 is just limping towards death. The moment that they have to enter an action requiring that 0 score, The End is near.

When The End arrives for a character, that Player gets to narrate their big swan song.

Poker chips come into play, and players can earn chips by fighting their Devil, acting in opposition to their Traits, and wagering chips in Conflict. The chips can then be spent to gain additional cards during the Deal, discard and draw new cards during the Draw, to Fold (and remove themselves from a conflict...and thus harm), to become Narrator, and to restore any Score that has received Harm but not reached 0, to delay The End by using the character's Devil in place of the depleted Score, and to Harm or Redeem (heal, essentially) other characters while narrating your own End.

A very nice chart is placed following this, breaking all that down in easy to read format.

REACH FOR IT

This is kind of a "here's what your getting into" chapter. It talks about players forcing Conflicts, sometimes with each other (the game certainly does not actively discourage it), as well as some other, none conflict stuff like Stud Hands, which are essentially Hazards. They are rated (with examples) from Minor hassle (3 card draw for the Dealer), Big Challenge (5 cards), Difficult Problem (7 cards) and Biblical Calamity (9 cards).

Tips are provided for generating NPCs on the fly, and some basic GM advice, liking making sure the characters' stories intersect, and knowing when to rein them in or cut them loose.

A mini-situation is provided, involving warring cattle barons and a Romeo and Juliet twist, complete with NPCs.

HOW THE WEST WAS WON

This is a discussion of the genre, with some notes on how some famous characters from western films may look in Dust Devils, as well as a list of seven recommended films, complete with a paragraph or so on how to rip them off for your own game.

A list of other recommendations, both book and film, are also presented.

The second half of the chapter focuses more on the "real" West, and how it might apply to a Dust Devils game, such as the harshness of the weather conditions, life for cowboys as technology encroached and the frontier disappeared, and so on. It's some pretty good material that doesn't feel as preachy as I've come to expect from this sort of thing.

BEYOND THE WEST

These are three alternate settings, using modified versions of the Dust Devils rules.

Deathwish, the first of the settings, unfortunately has nothing to do with revenge driven action films (like Deathwish, for instance) and is all about James Bond type stuff. I think it's probably a little more appropriate when you focus more on source material like 24 and The Bourne Identity, rather than James Bond, but that's just me.

Deathwish swaps out the Scores with four new ones, but they serve the same mechanical purpose. Past and Present become Specialties, Traits are replaced with Loyalties, and Devil is replaced with Deathwish. A lot of leeway is granted with loyalties, which can include agencies, countries, people or ideologies.

Incredibly fiting is the next setting, Ronin. Given that a number of westerns were reimagined samurai films, twisting a western game into a samurai game is oddly appropriate. The four Scores are replaced with Water, Wind, Earth and Fire. Water is martial ability, Wind is intellectual capacity, Earth is brawn and Fire is passion. Honor and Spirit replace Traits, and Talents replace Past and Present, though every character has the Bushi Talent and one other talent. Duty replaces Devil.

Two sample Ronin are provided, to give you some idea as to how character creation differs. Mechanically, the poker trappings probably feel the most out of place here, but I'll give it a pass because of the samurai-westerns link.

The final setting is Concrete Angels, which is meant to evoke source material such as Sin City. The four Scores become Trade, Resource, Violence and Emotion, and uses higher point totals. Additionally, characters now have an Archetype, choosing between one of four (each tied to a Score).

Traits are now Vices and Virtues, and Angles replace Past and Present. The Devil is replaced by The Zero, though it functions the same.

Honestly, none of them feel as cool as the western setting, but that may be a tad bit of bias on my part, as I do love Westerns so.

An Afterword is included, followed by a number of Game Play Aids, including the Poker Hands chart how to earn and spend chips, and a character record sheet which actually holds to sheets (print them off and cut them in two).

THOUGHTS

For those who care about such things, it's definitely closer to a "Story game" than a "role-playing game". It also will not be replacing Deadlands at my table anytime soon.

That said, I would gladly give it a go in its primary, Western incarnation. I have no real desire to run it in the alternate settings, though...although, some combination of Deathwish and Concrete Angels might work to produce a decent 100 Bullets-style game, and that could be cool.

At 70 pages, it's probably a little light for $10, but I wouldn't give it a thumbs down...just not an enthusiastic thumbs up.