Review of The Knuckleduster Firearms Shop

Life however, has a way of getting in the way, and combined with my propensity towards forgetfulness, a change in e-mail address, and heading back to school, things just got out of hand. So here's my review, a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short.

Introduction: A Saga of Accquisition

I often saw the Knuckleduster Firearms Shop (heretoafter referred to as Firearms Shop) at the gamestore where I do most of my purchasing, but was never able work up the will to purchase it; it looked too expensive, at $20 for such a slim book (here's irony for you: I was usually buying GURPS supplements, which are similar in size and price), and I never ran or played in Wild West games.

But I still wanted it. It was a sort of lingering, "gosh, that looks neat" want that every gamer experiences, unless they're a millionaire, and can actually afford to support their hobby in comfort and luxury.

So, I pined and pined and bought various other Western-themed game items as an excuse; Deadlands, GURPS Old West, etc. But even after having bought them, I still couldn't bring myself to throw down the $20 for Firearms Shop.

Fortunately for me, RPG.net was there, in a way they'll never be again, considering the lateness of this review. I received a review copy of the book for absolutely nothing, and now, after several months, I can share my insights.

The Book

Firearms Shop is a well-bound book of one-hundred-and-twenty or so printed pages, plus adverts for other Knuckleduster products. The cover is a little flimsy, as these things go, but it isn't in any danger of falling off.The artwork in the book varies in quality; the illustrations (of which there is one for practically every firearm listed) that were (apparently) comissioned for the book are of very good quality, but occaisonally they are dispensed with and a period-piece woodcut is utilized; the woodcuts vary between detailed pictures of good quality to barely relevant and poorly drawn. A little leeway is due on that score, though. Knuckleduster is a small-press company, and the artwork it does provide is of generally high and useful quality; it's certainly of higher quality than most GURPS books can lay claim to. On the other hand, since the book is a listing of generic stats for FUDGE (with a Deadlands appendix at the ned, which I'll get back to) anything that isn't shown isn't very likely to be used in a game.

The listing of weapons is very good, inasmuch as my incomplete knowledge of such things goes; most of the major and/or exciting guns of the period are covered, with information on their likely malfunctions (for the love of GAWD, don't use the revolving shotgun if you're partial to your fingers), and, every now and then, some information of general utility.

The guns section is preceded by several interviews with police officers, which are of good general utility (I use GURPS a lot, and have found the information given in Firearms Shop to be helpful in assigning penalties to shots). There's also some useful tidbits on western gunfights in particular, and an extract from my favorite Mark Twain short story.

The last part of the book, after the index (which, although comprehensive, is of limited use in a book this small) is a Deadlands conversion guide. Now, I've only played Deadlands a few times, but the ratings back here seem a little off, although the suggestion to add a Reliability stat for all guns, instead of merely cap-and-ball or Weird Science gizmos, seems to me spot-on, as suggestions go.

Conclusion

I like this book a lot; that being said, I would probably have never bought it. It's an invaluable book for anyone who's running a Wild West game and doesn't know a lot about the paraphenalia of the time, and the illustrations are generally useful. But $20 is a little steep, so unless there's a real need for it, you probably have other things to spend your money on.