The Inside Scoop on Gaming

In the spirit of "Horror on the Orient Express," "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" or (for you old timers) "Scourge of the Slave Lords," "Canyon o'Doom" is an interlinked campaign mega-adventure that takes your posse from the City o'Gloom to a small town just outside Fort 51, to a Sweetrock controlled mining town, down the Colorado river and into the depths of the Grand Canyon.

The premise is simple, and one that you can get your posse involved in with only the slightest of railroading. Edgar Haskins wants to retrace the ill-fated steps of previous (real-life) Canyon explorer John Wesley Powell. After your posse helps foil an attempt to steal several artifacts relating to the expedition from Haskins, he hires your posse to accompany him on his expedition (though in one of the very few eyebrow-crinklers of the whole adventure, your posse, Haskins and his bodyguard are the only ones on the expedition).

The first three quarters is quite a nicely fleshed out journey from SLC to the Canyon. The mining town that is included, Cliffside, is a nifty little addition, and can be slotted in anywhere that such places might exist (and it guest-stars Sweetrock, heavy hitters in the crossover card game Doomtown, and who, as I recall, were omitted from the Pittsburgh entry in Back East:the North. We really do need a little more info on these guys). The journey has enough well designed pre-written encounters and filling to keep lazy Marshal's happy, and enough empty spaces to keep industrious ones just as happy.

The last quarter...hrm. To put it simply, it's a dungeon crawl. Don't get me wrong...it's a very WELL written dungeon crawl, but something in mah gut just don't take to cowboys doing such things, even though the premise does lend itself to it. This is one of my few pet peeves with Deadlands adventures, as no less than three of them (Fortress of Fear, Bloody 'ol Muddy and Heart o'the Matter [from Lost Angels]) have been such. Again, they're all well written, coherent dungeon crawls, but to me they just feel out of place in an Old West setting (or should that be Olde Weste Settinge?).

Having said that, as a dungeon crawl it's pretty dangerous, and will give your posse that Indiana Jones feeling as they're spelunking through it. The dungeon part also leaves enough room for Marshal fleshing out, and if I were to ever run this adventure, I probably would flesh out a few things. Again, the dungeon is NOT badly written, but it seems a little too D&Dish for my own tastes.

Toss in a couple of encounters with a group of Grimme's benevolent-as-usual Lost Angels, the usual passel of in-jokes (the name of one of the original archaeologists just for starters) and a final encounter with one of the "Heavy Hitters" from Deadlands history and you get a 128 page book that is well worth its $20 price tag.

It bears mentioning that this book is written by Hal Mangold, who has recently left Pinnacle, and this is a wonderful note for him to be leaving on. Hal (and the rest of Pinnacle) has a lot to be proud of here.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Canyon o'Doom
Author: Hal Mangold Category: game Company/Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group Line: Deadlands Cost: $20.00 Page count: 128 ISBN: 1-88954660-7 SKU: DL1028 Capsule Review by Jacques DuRand on 01/23/00. Genre tags: Horror Old_West	In the spirit of "Horror on the Orient Express," "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" or (for you old timers) "Scourge of the Slave Lords," "Canyon o'Doom" is an interlinked campaign mega-adventure that takes your posse from the City o'Gloom to a small town just outside Fort 51, to a Sweetrock controlled mining town, down the Colorado river and into the depths of the Grand Canyon. The premise is simple, and one that you can get your posse involved in with only the slightest of railroading. Edgar Haskins wants to retrace the ill-fated steps of previous (real-life) Canyon explorer John Wesley Powell. After your posse helps foil an attempt to steal several artifacts relating to the expedition from Haskins, he hires your posse to accompany him on his expedition (though in one of the very few eyebrow-crinklers of the whole adventure, your posse, Haskins and his bodyguard are the only ones on the expedition). The first three quarters is quite a nicely fleshed out journey from SLC to the Canyon. The mining town that is included, Cliffside, is a nifty little addition, and can be slotted in anywhere that such places might exist (and it guest-stars Sweetrock, heavy hitters in the crossover card game Doomtown, and who, as I recall, were omitted from the Pittsburgh entry in Back East:the North. We really do need a little more info on these guys). The journey has enough well designed pre-written encounters and filling to keep lazy Marshal's happy, and enough empty spaces to keep industrious ones just as happy. The last quarter...hrm. To put it simply, it's a dungeon crawl. Don't get me wrong...it's a very WELL written dungeon crawl, but something in mah gut just don't take to cowboys doing such things, even though the premise does lend itself to it. This is one of my few pet peeves with Deadlands adventures, as no less than three of them (Fortress of Fear, Bloody 'ol Muddy and Heart o'the Matter [from Lost Angels]) have been such. Again, they're all well written, coherent dungeon crawls, but to me they just feel out of place in an Old West setting (or should that be Olde Weste Settinge?). Having said that, as a dungeon crawl it's pretty dangerous, and will give your posse that Indiana Jones feeling as they're spelunking through it. The dungeon part also leaves enough room for Marshal fleshing out, and if I were to ever run this adventure, I probably would flesh out a few things. Again, the dungeon is NOT badly written, but it seems a little too D&Dish for my own tastes. Toss in a couple of encounters with a group of Grimme's benevolent-as-usual Lost Angels, the usual passel of in-jokes (the name of one of the original archaeologists just for starters) and a final encounter with one of the "Heavy Hitters" from Deadlands history and you get a 128 page book that is well worth its $20 price tag. It bears mentioning that this book is written by Hal Mangold, who has recently left Pinnacle, and this is a wonderful note for him to be leaving on. Hal (and the rest of Pinnacle) has a lot to be proud of here. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty)