Wild West: OD&D Style

[Zulgyan]

I've played a short one-shot using this very cool rules, and only made one ammendment to them.

Pistols can shoot 6 times before there is a need for reload (that takes one round)

Rifles need to be reloaded after each shot (which also takes one round).

Otherwise they were both the same but the rifle had a longer range.

I also assumed that the skill system was 1d20 roll under your score, with penalties for very hard feats.

[doc]

Awesome Zulgyan! Would you care to give us a brief description of the session?


Doc

[Zulgyan]

Sure.

I had 3 players and these where their INICIAL gunslingers (one died in the first fight).

Dario "el Gordo" - a fat mexican who loved explosives.
Jack the Fast - a kinda of Lucky Luke, your typical western heroe.
Bill - a criminal who has been just freed after 5 long years of prison (he had it cheap for what he had really done).

I made them start level 3.

The game started at the tavern, the PC were strangers bewteen themselves. They are playing cards and talking non-sense and old stories (to roleplay, get in-character and let them describe their characters).

Suddenly a very nasty looking, strong built cowbow shows up, flanked by other more ordinary looking too. I tell each player secretly that he recognizes that man, he is "Rubenson the Redman killer", a bandit with a hatred to indians. I tell each player individually that he remembers that this guy owes him 100, 200 or 300 dollars.

So now these strangers have a common enemy. One of them stands up and says "Rubenson you son of a pregnant dog, you owe me 200 greens". Another stands up and says: "and you owe me 150 you motherf**ker" (he was cheating for an extra 50 ;D). And the 3rd PC did the same.

After building some tension and roleplaying, I told them they could see rubenson reaching for the gun in his belt!!!

INICIATIVE!! this would determine who was the fastest gunslinger. I made the roll a d6 plus DEX bonuses, plus the skill bonus (which was insanely advantegeous, might need revision)

The had the gunfight in the tavern, which was very quick, fun and deadly. The first round was a mad shoot out, and Bill died to the shoots of Rubenson and one of his gangmen (both had exploding damage in one dice OUCH!). Another gangman died (had only 8 hp).

Second round endend the fight with Rubenson shot dead and the remaning follower running away.

The sheriff arrived and there was some roleplaying, but the PCs where pardoned because they argued self defense and Rubenson was a sought after criminal. Anyway, they were warned not to get into fights again.

TO BE CONTINUED

(it was a short session, but describing the session can get long, I still have more than half of the session to tell. Other combats where not as deadly and fast as this one which turned out ultra deadly).

[Finarvyn]

Jan 27, 2009 13:42:27 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

I've played a short one-shot...

I get a chuckle out of the use of the term "one shot" in this context,
1. Because my Boot Hill games always end in massive gunfire (clearly multi-shot).
2. Because the rest of the post described numbers of shots for firearms before reloading.

Perhaps I'm just odd?

[Zulgyan]

LOL, that was really funny.

Briefly, the rest of the session involved assaulting an abandoned mine where bandits had made their hideout. Not very creative but I had preciuos little prep time. I just drawed a small map of the mines, some bandits here, some more there, traps and color and WALA! a fun wild-western "dungeon". The delve very D&Dish: torches, traps, knocking down jammed doors, secret doors, looting, throwing a dinamite (fireball?) into a buch of bandits, even a ghost!

It was hell of a fun and the system proved solid and really delivered.

I think it deserves a publication in FO! along with a small module.

[blackmoor]

FOI? Sounds fun BTW.

Dave Arneson
"Dark Lord of Game Desigh"

[Zulgyan]

That would be "Fight On!", our community fanzine.

I'm glad you found the report interesting. I'm tempted to write the dungeon down for publication in the zine.

BTW, I never told what a great game you have made. So thanks from Argentina.

Santiago