The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Deadlands by Pinnacle is a game set in an alternate Wild West with standard fantasy and horror elements added, as well as steampunk. In 1863, an Indian named Raven unleashes the Manitous from the Hunting Grounds onto the American West and all hell breaks loose. It's 13 years later and, naturally, the players are the good guys, searching out these horrors and bringing hope to the ordinary folk of the frontier.

The book is written in western flavor, setting the mood for readers. The players are the Posse, the GM is the Marshal, a critical failure is "goin' bust", monsters are "critters", are some examples.

Let's go over some basic components of an RPG and see what Deadlands does different:

Character Creation

There are a variety of archetypes players can choose. Many examples are presented: gunslinger, ex-soldier, spy, Pinkerton, Texas Ranger and others. Players can also pick one of the four arcane types. These types are representative of the elements of the Weird West. The Huckster slings hexes using the primal energy of the Hunting Grounds, but watch out for Backlash. The Preacher calls upon God to perform miracles and he had better follow his faith. The Shaman performs rituals to appease the animal spirits of the Hunting Grounds before he asks for Favors to help him or others. The Mad Scientist invents gizmos. A player choosing this one can involve himself in the other aspect of this game, the steampunk technology.

Character creation is straightforward and presents the players with many options to create survivable characters that are experts in their field. A player draws 12 cards from a poker deck, keeping 10 and assigning these to 10 Traits or attributes as you see fit. The card's rank and suit determine the dice that is associated with a Trait. A 2 of Clubs is 1d4 and an Ace of Spades is a 4d12. Then you gain so many Aptitude (skill) points based upon what your Smarts, Cognition and Knowledge Traits are. Each Aptitude is associated with a Trait. Shootin' is associated with Deftness, Gamblin' with Smarts, and so on. The higher your die type in a Trait the better you are with those associated Aptitudes. The more points you put into an Aptitude the more dice your roll of that die type. For example, you could have a 1d6 in Cognition, but have a skill level of 5 in Search. So, you would roll 5d6 when you want to track some critter. Of course, you can always default to your Trait if you don't have an Aptitude. There are Edges and Hindrances to add bonuses or penalties to your character. Anyone wanting to play an arcane character would have to pick an Arcane Background Edge.

After that, you buy equipment. Then you would pick some "spells" if you were a Huckster, Shaman, or Preacher. Or choose a gizmo, such as a Flame-thrower, if you're a Mad Scientist.

Task Resolution / Combat

Task resolution and combat are easy to do. Decide what you want to do, choose the appropriate Aptitude and roll your dice. Target Numbers for most tasks start at 5 and usually go up by 2. You re-roll any dice that "max", called Aces. You take the highest die rolled and compare to the target number of the task. Fate chips can be used to roll more dice or to re-roll a die. (Quick note: Fate chips are the third tactile component of the game, along with dice and cards. Every player randomly draws three from the Fate Pot at the start of each session. Players may earn more thru the course of the game. They come in three ranks: white, red and blue.) "Raises", or beating the TN by a multiple of 5 is sometimes used to measure success. They are used in hexslinging, building gizmos and to determine how many Action cards you draw (see below).

Combat operates the same way. To shoot a pistol, figure out the TN for the range and other modifiers and roll your Shootin' dice. If you hit, the hit location is determined by rolling a d20 and referencing a table. The body is divided into parts, notably the legs, arms, guts (torso) and head, and these are listed on the hit location table. The weapon's damage dice is rolled, all dice are added together, and the result is divided by your character's Size, which is 6 for most people. This will give you the number of wounds the body part will receive. Five wounds to the guts or head results in death. Fate chips can be used to negate wounds immediately. Or one can always dodge. It's an Aptitude, so anyone can have it and, believe me, you should pick it.

The twist Deadlands puts on combat is the use of poker cards, called Action Cards. The Posse and the Marshal each have one deck of cards. At the start of each combat round, everyone rolls their Quickness dice and draws cards, based on how high you roll. These cards represent how many actions you have in that round, but not necessarily that you will go first, even if you have the highest Quickness Trait. The Marshal counts down from Ace to Deuce. You may perform actions when your card rank is called. You may also put a card up your sleeve, called a cheatin' card, and play this card later to interrupt an opponent. This card may be held in subsequent rounds. To dodge, you just throw away your highest card and roll your Dodge dice. I love the use of cards in this manner. It offers a simple system that makes combat fun and easy. Players usually have two or more actions per round, making for a cinematic-like combat (unlike so many other RPGs that limit you to one action round after round). As well, the player can have a cheatin' card ready to go at any time he wishes, but can still do actions with his other cards as they are called by the Marshal. I feel this is a superb way of doing initiative and doling out actions in a combat.

This is quick outline and there are more nuances to tasks and combat that I will leave out for brevity.

For the Marshal

The Marshal section reveals some secrets about what is really going on in the Weird West and keeps a couple secrets from the Marshal, although these were revealed in Hell on Earth. Monsters, fear, gizmo failure, Hex-casting backlash, and other aspects of the game fill up the section.

One aspect I want to mention is the poker deck can be used by the Marshal to make his job easier. The main NPCs in your adventures will have stats pre-determined by you. Other minor NPCs like a barkeep, bellboy, or stagecoach driver won't. Or at least, you don't need to prepare these beforehand. Whenever you need to know what Aptitude rating an NPC has, draw a card from your deck and that card's rank and suit tell you the dice for the Aptitude. The same rating is used as in character generation. Simple and quick.

Cons

The book is packed with the basic info for any RPG: character generation, task resolution, combat, monsters, and GM info. As a result some areas are sparse. The "spells" for the Huckster, Shaman and Preacher are small, as are gizmos for the Mad Scientist. Instead, you may buy sourcebooks for these arcane types that greatly expand on them.

The book describes some of the history to the game world, but the rest is left up to the Marshal. This is not too much of a problem, as the game is cinematic and you can use ideas from Western and action movies. However, there is a canon plot to the game that you may follow.

The RPG is set up to have you buy more than one book. This isn't too bad, as I believe most people could make do with just the rulebook. The only other books I'd consider necessary would be the companion, The Quick and the Dead and the Indian sourcebook, Ghost Dancers. These have lots of info on the states, Indian nations, towns, locales and villains of the game.

All in all, the book still gives all that is needed to start playing. I find the mechanics, especially the use of poker decks, meshes with the Western setting. The book is fertile ground for many hours of gaming, so stake your claim and keep your dice within reach.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Deadlands
Author: Shane Lacy Hensley Category: game Company/Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Inc. Line: Weird West Cost: 30.00 Page count: 221 ISBN: 1-889546-01-1 Capsule Review by Martin Ward on 07/01/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Horror Old_West	Deadlands by Pinnacle is a game set in an alternate Wild West with standard fantasy and horror elements added, as well as steampunk. In 1863, an Indian named Raven unleashes the Manitous from the Hunting Grounds onto the American West and all hell breaks loose. It's 13 years later and, naturally, the players are the good guys, searching out these horrors and bringing hope to the ordinary folk of the frontier. The book is written in western flavor, setting the mood for readers. The players are the Posse, the GM is the Marshal, a critical failure is "goin' bust", monsters are "critters", are some examples. Let's go over some basic components of an RPG and see what Deadlands does different: Character Creation There are a variety of archetypes players can choose. Many examples are presented: gunslinger, ex-soldier, spy, Pinkerton, Texas Ranger and others. Players can also pick one of the four arcane types. These types are representative of the elements of the Weird West. The Huckster slings hexes using the primal energy of the Hunting Grounds, but watch out for Backlash. The Preacher calls upon God to perform miracles and he had better follow his faith. The Shaman performs rituals to appease the animal spirits of the Hunting Grounds before he asks for Favors to help him or others. The Mad Scientist invents gizmos. A player choosing this one can involve himself in the other aspect of this game, the steampunk technology. Character creation is straightforward and presents the players with many options to create survivable characters that are experts in their field. A player draws 12 cards from a poker deck, keeping 10 and assigning these to 10 Traits or attributes as you see fit. The card's rank and suit determine the dice that is associated with a Trait. A 2 of Clubs is 1d4 and an Ace of Spades is a 4d12. Then you gain so many Aptitude (skill) points based upon what your Smarts, Cognition and Knowledge Traits are. Each Aptitude is associated with a Trait. Shootin' is associated with Deftness, Gamblin' with Smarts, and so on. The higher your die type in a Trait the better you are with those associated Aptitudes. The more points you put into an Aptitude the more dice your roll of that die type. For example, you could have a 1d6 in Cognition, but have a skill level of 5 in Search. So, you would roll 5d6 when you want to track some critter. Of course, you can always default to your Trait if you don't have an Aptitude. There are Edges and Hindrances to add bonuses or penalties to your character. Anyone wanting to play an arcane character would have to pick an Arcane Background Edge. After that, you buy equipment. Then you would pick some "spells" if you were a Huckster, Shaman, or Preacher. Or choose a gizmo, such as a Flame-thrower, if you're a Mad Scientist. Task Resolution / Combat Task resolution and combat are easy to do. Decide what you want to do, choose the appropriate Aptitude and roll your dice. Target Numbers for most tasks start at 5 and usually go up by 2. You re-roll any dice that "max", called Aces. You take the highest die rolled and compare to the target number of the task. Fate chips can be used to roll more dice or to re-roll a die. (Quick note: Fate chips are the third tactile component of the game, along with dice and cards. Every player randomly draws three from the Fate Pot at the start of each session. Players may earn more thru the course of the game. They come in three ranks: white, red and blue.) "Raises", or beating the TN by a multiple of 5 is sometimes used to measure success. They are used in hexslinging, building gizmos and to determine how many Action cards you draw (see below). Combat operates the same way. To shoot a pistol, figure out the TN for the range and other modifiers and roll your Shootin' dice. If you hit, the hit location is determined by rolling a d20 and referencing a table. The body is divided into parts, notably the legs, arms, guts (torso) and head, and these are listed on the hit location table. The weapon's damage dice is rolled, all dice are added together, and the result is divided by your character's Size, which is 6 for most people. This will give you the number of wounds the body part will receive. Five wounds to the guts or head results in death. Fate chips can be used to negate wounds immediately. Or one can always dodge. It's an Aptitude, so anyone can have it and, believe me, you should pick it. The twist Deadlands puts on combat is the use of poker cards, called Action Cards. The Posse and the Marshal each have one deck of cards. At the start of each combat round, everyone rolls their Quickness dice and draws cards, based on how high you roll. These cards represent how many actions you have in that round, but not necessarily that you will go first, even if you have the highest Quickness Trait. The Marshal counts down from Ace to Deuce. You may perform actions when your card rank is called. You may also put a card up your sleeve, called a cheatin' card, and play this card later to interrupt an opponent. This card may be held in subsequent rounds. To dodge, you just throw away your highest card and roll your Dodge dice. I love the use of cards in this manner. It offers a simple system that makes combat fun and easy. Players usually have two or more actions per round, making for a cinematic-like combat (unlike so many other RPGs that limit you to one action round after round). As well, the player can have a cheatin' card ready to go at any time he wishes, but can still do actions with his other cards as they are called by the Marshal. I feel this is a superb way of doing initiative and doling out actions in a combat. This is quick outline and there are more nuances to tasks and combat that I will leave out for brevity. For the Marshal The Marshal section reveals some secrets about what is really going on in the Weird West and keeps a couple secrets from the Marshal, although these were revealed in Hell on Earth. Monsters, fear, gizmo failure, Hex-casting backlash, and other aspects of the game fill up the section. One aspect I want to mention is the poker deck can be used by the Marshal to make his job easier. The main NPCs in your adventures will have stats pre-determined by you. Other minor NPCs like a barkeep, bellboy, or stagecoach driver won't. Or at least, you don't need to prepare these beforehand. Whenever you need to know what Aptitude rating an NPC has, draw a card from your deck and that card's rank and suit tell you the dice for the Aptitude. The same rating is used as in character generation. Simple and quick. Cons The book is packed with the basic info for any RPG: character generation, task resolution, combat, monsters, and GM info. As a result some areas are sparse. The "spells" for the Huckster, Shaman and Preacher are small, as are gizmos for the Mad Scientist. Instead, you may buy sourcebooks for these arcane types that greatly expand on them. The book describes some of the history to the game world, but the rest is left up to the Marshal. This is not too much of a problem, as the game is cinematic and you can use ideas from Western and action movies. However, there is a canon plot to the game that you may follow. The RPG is set up to have you buy more than one book. This isn't too bad, as I believe most people could make do with just the rulebook. The only other books I'd consider necessary would be the companion, The Quick and the Dead and the Indian sourcebook, Ghost Dancers. These have lots of info on the states, Indian nations, towns, locales and villains of the game. All in all, the book still gives all that is needed to start playing. I find the mechanics, especially the use of poker decks, meshes with the Western setting. The book is fertile ground for many hours of gaming, so stake your claim and keep your dice within reach. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)