The Inside Scoop on Gaming

RPGs can really be broken down into two aspects of their design: the ideas and the execution. The ideas make up the vision of the game, the kind of stories it inspires you to tell. The execution is how well the game design presents, shapes and encourages the creation of these kind of stories.

This leads us to one of the main methods for evaluating an RPG on some objective scale: if a game fails to provide an execution which in any way matches its ideas, it is clearly an inferior product. However, using this to evaluate how good a game is is less informative, simply because, in most cases, the best ways to execute the ideas is somewhat subjective. Only in the very best games can you say with conviction that the execution is perfect for the ideas.

There are also some games wherein the execution (and sometimes, even the ideas) is inherently singular and contentious, its design so obtuse it sits on a line: automatically enchanting some and disgusting others. Deadlands is one such game, one of rich ideas but divisive execution, a game whose appeal depends on very tiny differences in individual tastes. Thus, reviewing it can be tricky. I have aimed here to give a detailed picture of how the ideas are implemented, so that you can make your own mind up on whether it works for you.

Deadlands is a roleplaying game of the Old West, a genre much loved, full of adventure potential, but sadly, grossly unrepresented in RPG history. The main reason it has been unrepresented is that, like straight crime RPGs, most of the classic western tales centre around violence, and violence that is only really resolved through being the best shot. Since the very beginning with D&D, RPGs have always been built on team play with each player being able to carve their own niche, something which is impossible to do if only one player can be the quickest on the draw.

Again, since D&D, the classical way to solve this problem is by adding the supernatural. This opens up whole new ways to kick ass and thus allowing better team play. This is probably why fantasy continues to be the primary seller of RPG genres; and indeed why so few hard SF or "realistic"-level horror games are sold. It also explains why Feng Shui completely crushed the other Hong Kong RPG competitors like HKAT! and Extreme Vengeance (that, and the fact that EV kinda sucked).

And so Deadlands gives us what they call "The Weird West", adding fantasy, horror and even steampunk ideas to the more typical western setting. This is an excellent idea and is one of the main reasons for the game's success. However, in much the same way that D&D turns the average medieval landscape into a sight-seeing tour of the arcane, the amount of supernatural weirdness poured into the Western world is going to dilute what you could perhaps call the "hard Western" feel. The point is, every person will have a different point at which they think this becomes too "soft", or too silly, or too fantastic, or too horrific, or simply too not-their-idea-of-a-Western. Excellent idea - questionable execution.

So let's describe things in detail. The core of the Deadlands setting runs like this: up until 1863, the history of The Weird West (and the rest of the World) runs just as the real West did. However, on July 3rd, 1863 (the day of the Battle of Gettysberg), a vengeful and insane Indian shaman and his band opened a sort of Hellmouth to punish the white people for their crimes. This opening allowed the Reckoners (god-like evil dudes) full access back into the world they'd been banished from centuries ago. Also returning for the comeback tour were their servants, the manitous (demons), abominable creatures, the living dead and a huge surge in the power and presence of magic and other assorted arcane happenings.

At Gettysberg, the dead men got up and turned on their own side, turning a decisive victory into another stalemate, and the war has since dragged on for another decade and a half. Meanwhile, in 1968, the same damn Indian caused a giant earthquake that turned the whole west coast into an archipelago. This brought forth a new mineral called Ghost Rock, which led to a steampunk technical revolution. As you might imagine, all these events produce a very different America in 1877 (the setting's nominal year) than the one in the history books…but one which still borrows much from said books.

So although it makes great use of real history all the time, Deadlands is not strictly a historical game like Ars Magica or Call of Cthulhu. This can lead to confusion, as you're often not sure if the information you're getting is historical fact or Deadlands-adjusted, and you can't simply use history books as sourcebooks as written. Fans of the real West may be disappointed with this; on the other hand, those of you who love pouring through sourcebooks to see just how things have changed will probably find it very enjoyable.

Speaking of sourcebooks, Deadlands is indeed a game likely to cause supplementitis in those with weaker financial dispositions. If you are the completist type and get intrigued by the tinier details of the setting, you will be most likely purchasing a lot of books to get the full lowdown on all the people, places and plots that move and shake the Weird West. There is no real story-arc in Deadlands, in the Tribe 8 sense of the word, but the background does evolve. However, I can't really evaluate the nature of this as I haven't seen any of these such supplements. The only advice I can give is caveat emptor.

The other key area covered by the rash of sourcebooks which have run onto the market is expanding on the major character types. These character types is another example of the contentious nature of this game: on one hand, they allow you to play some wonderfully inventive characters which add new life to Western archetypes. On the other hand, the combination of magicians, priests, shamans, mad scientists, undead zombies, kung-fu fighters, black sorcerers, voodoo dudes and many more, makes the game feel more like RIFTS than is perhaps considered healthy by some.

Just looking at the basic book itself, however, there are only five "arcane" character types. Like all the other arcane elements in the game, it is personal taste whether you think the variety they offer is too much or not. They will almost certainly turn your Western games into superhero smorgasbords which will detract from any plan to do serious or grim Western stories, even when applied with great care. They are, however, pretty cool.

How so? Well, let's take the Huckster. As a major fan of playing cards, I've always loved the card sharp character in the West: the ultra-cool poker player who always has an ace up his sleeve, of which Brett Maverick is the best example. Until Deadlands, such a character wasn't so viable in a Western RPG. But in a brilliant move, this game turns such characters into mages.

It turns out that Edmund Hoyle's Book of Games is actually a book of magic. Hidden behind the card rules and hand diagrams are instructions that allow the magician to contact demons (or manitous) and play them in a mental duel, with victory granting them magical effects. Because Hoyle was also a great lover of card games, this battle is reflected as a poker game, and "spiritual" cards actually appear briefly in the magician's hand as the spell is cast. As a result of this, and the need to be a sharp thinker and an expert bluffer to outwit the demons, these magicians tend to be card sharps. And so this wonderful Western archetype becomes a very viable (and very cool) character class.

Best of all, the mechanics for casting the spells involve the player actually drawing a poker hand: the better the hand, the more powerful the spell. Should you draw a joker, however, you may suffer backlash as the demon wins the battle and takes control. This is a brilliant way to add in live action type elements to the table and bring the Western feel to the forefront. The magic system feels like no other, and that's a very good thing.

The poker system is also used (although less fittingly) for Mad Scientists. These characters can create wonderfully powerful gizmos such as flamethrowers and airships, thus guaranteeing their importance in the party. They also allow you to bring in the less classic but equally cool Western archetype of the steampunk inventor, as seen in John Delancey's character in Legend, John Astin's character in Brisco County Jr and Kevin Kline's character in Wild Wild West. Mad Scientists have the least well-defined mechanics, but prevent abuse by requiring the player to design the pseudo-scientific theory they are using and design the item in detail, in consultation with the GM, before any manufacturing can begin.

The Blessed character type allows the Western preacher archetype to really perform miracles, assuming he stays faithful. It also makes Deadlands one of the few games where being a nun is not only a viable character choice, but an immensely cool one. The art work accompanying this particular character template will ensure you never look at nuns in quite the same way again.

Similar mechanics are also used for those on the other side of the spiritual coin, Indian Shamans. Like Blesseds, they are limited by the need to gain the favour of their spiritual patrons, in their case through elaborate ceremonies such as dancing, scarring and tattooing. Finally, we have the Harrowed, zombies which house both the player-character and a manitou consciousness, constantly battling for control. This ongoing risk that the PC can be taken over by the manitou compensates for the Harrowed being the most powerful of the arcane types.

Harrowed also epitomise a problem all too common in RPGs - much time is spent showing just how darn cool they are (thus ensuring all your players will want to play one), and then almost an equal amount of time is spent telling us how very, very rare they are. Oh well.

All the archetypes also suffer another big problem, and that is that they are not covered well enough. While the second edition improves things slightly, both versions of the game skimp on the info on these arcane types. Spells, miracles or gizmos listed for each type number a dozen or less, and questions are left unanswered. Some would say it is impossible to do justice to each type without the game becoming huge, but a simple addition of two or three pages for each type would at least remove the cursory feeling these sections have. Yes, an imaginative GM can work with what is here, but there should and could easily have been more meat to these sections. As it stands, these parts are not really complete. What's worse is that each section indicates that more info (and, the game even admits, decent info) is available in the appropriate sourcebook. You decide how outraged this makes you.

This does not totally hamstring the archetypes however, as the net provides a bounty of extra spells/miracles/gizmos and as I said, a GM can definitely work with what is provided, at least in the short term (or by limiting the supernatural). Still, it is annoying.

That aside, these arcane types make for a fun, cool and interesting setting, assuming you don't mind your Western stories bubbling over with monsters, magic and steampunk. If you really want a hard, traditional Western, this isn't the place to look. On the other hand, if you like your Western covered in spaghetti sauce, you'll be fine, and if you want to run something closer to Brisco County Jr or From Dusk to Dawn, you've definitely come to the right place. The game can also handle (with a bit of hacking) more subtle supernatural things akin to Dead Man or High Plains Drifter, but superheroic spaghetti is really the order of things.

But enough of setting - what's the system like?

The core system of Deadlands is another example of a good idea in theory but iffy in practice. Attributes are measured in dice type, ranging from d4 (terrible) to d12 (incredible). Skills (which are tied to a given attribute for the most part) are represented as a number from 1 to 10 (5 in original character creation, however) representing how many dice to roll. The dice are rolled and the highest roll taken. Any dice which rolls its maximum (called an Ace) may be rolled again and added to that die's roll. So a 5d10 roll of 2, 6, 6, 10, 10 would cause the last two to be rerolled, producing 3 and 5, giving the final total of a 15. The roll is made against a target number based on difficulty, ranging from 3 (foolproof) to 13 (incredible).

This is a neat idea because a strong character has access to a lot greater potential power, but can't necessarily tap into that without an appropriate skill, while a highly skilled but weaker character will be far less likely to roll badly, and a fairly good chance of Aces allowing them to beat the strong character even when he rolls his best. However, it does also result in needing to roll 4d12 (or more if you get Aces) just to find out if you hit someone. This is slow, can be confusing and requires a lot of dice, three things almost guaranteed to break up a nice flow of roleplaying. Also, I don't know about you but I only own three d12s. Dice sharing also slows things down a little.

Note that each attribute also has a number of dice associated with it, so that basic attribute tests can be made, but the emphasis is supposed to be on skills (so characters start with basic skills in things everybody possess, such as Climb or Search). In the end, attributes do tend to be more important than skills, and those with high stats almost always succeed, both of which fit the "heroic" mould of the game. There's nothing very gritty here.

Characters are composed of ten attributes, five physical (Deftness, Nimbleness, Strength, Quickness and Vigor) and five mental (Cognition, Knowledge, Mien, Smarts and Spirit). These are fairly straightforward and all important enough to stop one category being the dumping ground for low scores. Attribute levels are determined randomly by drawing playing cards, another fun idea, but one that will disappoint people who prefer the balance and choice of point-based design.

Characters then pick their skills and select Virtues and Flaws. As per usual, the more extemporaneous of these do not and cannot be converted to a number value with any accuracy, nor balance out to any sort of numerical zero-sum. However, the numbers are better than many games, and the choices offered are well designed to suit the Western feel; this is not just another list of "Tall +1" and "Short -1" which are legion these days. (And where these such exist, they become "Big 'Un" and "Scrawny".)

Also rich with Western argot and design flair is the combat system, which appears in the chapter labelled "Blowin' Things All To Hell". Characters start each combat round by rolling Quickness to determine a number of playing cards drawn; initiative then runs from Ace to two. Characters then roll their weapon skill to hit, based on a target number determined by range (or dodge rolls). Damage depends on hit location (a d20 roll) and the weapon: 3d6 is standard for pistols (note these dice are all added). Armour reduces a weapons die type, so 1 layer of armour turns the above rifle damage into 3d4 (2 levels take it to 2d4 and so on). The final damage is divided by the victim's size to produce the number of wounds to the area specified by the hit location - five wounds destroys that body part (which equates to death for the head or guts). The character must then roll to see if they are stunned, and how much Wind (fatigue) they lose. There are more rules for automatic weapons and fanning pistols, and hand to hand combat, plus modifiers for wounds, wild shots, called shots, concealement and so on.

Remember that all of this is using the above multi-dice rolling method. Also, most of these rolls (and also non-combat rolls) can be modified or re-rolled by spending poker chips. Chips can also be cashed in to stop wounds. With all these rules, dice, cards and chips things very easily get out of hand. Especially for a GM running a handful of NPCs. As written, it is overly slow and overly complex and even the most fanatically rules-adhering GM should consider stripping it down before playing it. I also recommend producing cheat sheets and shortcuts to speed things up, or combat really will last all night.

However, once this tweaking has been done, and with common sense, this system does work and is a lot of fun. It is still long and complex yes, but this is part of the charm. Again much like RIFTS, this is a game where combat is the main feature, so it should be long and complex (and full of explosions, superpowers and lots of big guns). The fun of the game comes from this complexity (and aforementioned explosions, powers and guns). If you like this style in Palladium games, you'll warm to Deadlands combat (once you cut it down a tad). On the other hand, if you have a taste for the simple life, you'll positively hate it, regardless of tweaking.

The horror mechanics, however, leave much to be desired, which isn't good in a game with so many horror elements. Players roll on their Guts (a skill under Spirit) to beat a difficulty depending on the scariness; failure results in a mutliple D6 (and then add them up) roll to produce a rather complex result from a table. Given the "gaming" nature of combat, gunshots can get away with taking a few minutes, but I don't believe horror rolls can. Such rolls almost always accompany shocks and moments of wild panic; waiting a few minutes to find out just how you react is the anathema of good horror roleplaying.

This is symptomatic of Deadlands elsewhere: often, it wants to be both a superheroic Western adventure game AND a true horror game. And it can't. It can manage a splatter, monster-hunting horror or campy, side-show horror, but that's about it. There is nothing in this game which is particularly likely to actually scare your players. The odds are often against the characters, and some monsters are immune to bullets, but just because Lando almost falls into the Sarlaac, that doesn't mean Return of the Jedi is a horror film.

But most of the time, Deadlands stops pretending to be what it isn't and goes about what it does best: being cool fun. The system is over complex, but leads to some fun results. The chips and cards slow things down, but they are nifty to play with. The arcane characters may be too superpowered but they are so damn cool. This coolness is reinforced by Ron Spencer's brilliant artwork (particularly of the character templates and monster pictures) and through Hensley's wonderfully witty writing.

Hensley uses humorous asides and irreverent expressions which will make you laugh out loud, and his dry, laconic language runs in every sentence, making the book a joy to read, and making his tone echo in every game you play. This argot also crosses over brilliantly to the mechanics and character sheet (skills, for example, listed as "Shootin'" and "Fightin'"), and you and your players will be drawling out Western aphorisms like "git off ma shootin' iron, yew varmint" and "yew shore are durn purty, Miss Scarlet" within moments.

From the first line of the book, where Hensely dedicates it to all game masters, this book is a rare gem of writing skill in an industry plagued with far too many dreary drudges. Of course, Hensely's humour is not for everyone. As an example, the setting mentions a rare squad of buffalo soldiers who have equipped themselves with the new invention of jet packs. Naturally, they call themselves the Flying Buffalos. I thought that was brilliant; if you think it is stupid or lame, you might be rubbed the wrong way by Hensley.

The Flying Buffalos are however a perfect example of the spirit of Deadlands. It's all about that sort of fun. It's not a humour game, but it is designed, in every aspect, to make you have the kind of game that makes you laugh. It's about having a good ol' ridin', ropin', monster bash with an extra helping of Yeehaa! on top. Like the games of Palladium and West End Gamess, it is infused with this wonderfully childlike spirit of adventuring fun which too many modern games seem to lose. But it has a more consistent and polished system than Palladium's and has enough depth to be much more than just a childish fancy.

Yes, it's an overblown hodge-podge of far too much fantasy, yes, it's not your classical historical Western, yes it's far too superpowered to ever be really scary, yes, it's too complex and convoluted in both rules and setting, yes, it occasionaly stumbles into RIFTS-esque powergaming territory, yes, this is a game with quite a few faults, but durn it, it is FUN. If you enjoy and embrace its freewheeling, shoot-em-up silliness, then all the games foibles are easily forgiven, fixed, or worked around.

Deadlands isn't a masterpiece, but if you like its attitude, don't mind a bit of a Palladium-done-right feel and are prepared to do some work on its flaws, it's a worthy addition to your gaming library.

(Note: I strongly recommend picking up the first edition of Deadlands rather than the second. The first contains all the information needed to play, with a second book "The Quick and the Dead" expanding the setting if you so need this. The second edition contains much the same info as these two books (the rules changes are negligible and are up on the website anyway) but the split into Players and GMs books means that the unnecessary setting info is no longer optional, as the GMs book contains vital rules as well. This effectively doubles the price of the book, so buy the single-book first edition and then decide for yourself if you need the extra stuff.)

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game