"Old West Rules Survey" Topic

What is it that you love about your favorite set of Old West Rules?

What is it that you dislike about your favorite Old West set of rules?

What do you wish was included in your next favorite set of Old West rules?

To get it started here is my set of answers:

My favorite is Legends of the Old West

1) I love the depth of the various gangs in LotOW. I like the posse progression in the campaign. I like the simplicity of the mechanics. I love the many illustrated examples they give.

2) I greatly dislike the two player aspect of the game. I've tried making it multi-player and it just doesn't work. I dislike the campaign system as a result. The idea is good but I much prefer a more dynamic situation with teamwork. I dislike that you can end up with injured posse members going into the next game. It's realistic, to an extent, but a real hindrance and not generally enjoyable.

3) Faster play. A 5 minute shootout should not take 5 hours. Less waiting, more simultaneous player action. This is critical in multiplayer games. A campaign game that is more like a board game. I don't want just a list of scenarios. I don't want just a leaderboard. I want to have a reason for picking a fight. I want story elements that help me get into the campaign.

Second LOTOW.

Like growth of the posse over time (although it can become too much and we put limits on it and equipment)

My favorite is Fistfull of Lead.

1. I love how easy it is to play. I can teach new players in five miniutes and they are laying on thier own by the second turn. Its easy to run multiple player games too. Its a great convention game.

2 There is nothing that I dont like about it.

3. I dont think they need to add anything.

My favorite is Desperado II. I like that I can have up to 10 guys playing and it doesn't bog down. I do not care for the melee rules and would like them to be more clear.

For me my favorite is The Rules With No Name. The mechanics capture a cinematic theme of the Wild West, it is easy to lean and teach to new players, and can easily accommodate multiple players.

TRWNN for me. Thanks.

My favorite is "The rules with no Name" BUT
my convention game is "A fist full of Lead"

TRWNN: is great, but a little complicated for convention games.
AFFLL: easy, fun, and fast with little to no bookkeeping.

Both are easily adaptable to any type of play.

What do you wish was included in your next favorite set of Old West rules? If you plan on publishing your own set of Wild West rules. Then I would suggest including something all these other set don't have. BUT make it fast and fun. Not an easy task……

I also like LoTOW. I have played is several times with up to 10 gangs and the way I get it to run smooth is to use a deck of cards (A to King, one card for each gang) at the start of each turn I deal out the cards and that is the order that each gang goes in. You can only interrupt using one of your Fame actions. If two (or more) players try to interrupt at the same time the one with the lowest card goes first, then next lowest and so on. For convention games I make up "factions" (outlaw gangs, ranch\cowboy gangs, town folk gangs, and lawmen gangs) and give each certain actions that give them victory points (which is in dollars). As soon as they obtain the VPs I give them play money and whoever has the most at the end of the game wins.

Desperado is the only set I have played and that was over a decade ago. Favorites seem to vary by region. They play different rules in Florida than they do in Georgia or Tennessee. And even a different set in la/miss.

I've tried a few but my current favourite is Dead Man's Hand. It makes for a fun Hollywood-style Wild West game, as opposed to recreating a more historical version of the Old West. I love the use of the cards; it adds suspense & excitement but without completely dominating the game.

Desperado original version. Quick, fun and great for being a back-stabbing varmint.

Dave

These are great points! Thanks everyone. I have a recollection of a game I played at Siege of Augusta a couple of years ago that was Old West skirmish with cards for the models and additional cards for the weapons. It was actually quite fun but I can't remember the name of it.

I THINK I played Boot Hill as a kid but honestly can't remember. It would have been appealing, so I think I may have but I don't recall actually owning that one.

I appreciated the list of things you DON'T want to see.

I've asked these questions because I am trying to do a professional level writeup of my own rules and I'm trying to compartmentalize things. I want it to be easy to start a pickup fight after reading the first few pages of the rules. The system I've been working on solves the one thing I hate the most which is waiting my turn. It's a pretty simple solution but it took 2 years of play testing to get through a game without a hitch.

I love cinematic games. I also love the sensitivity that LotOW put into the treatment of the American Native tribes.

I'm a big believer in keep the rules simple and push the once in a while rules into the scenarios.

I'm a big believer in make the posse construction rules totally open so you can make up your own gangs as you see fit. It means, I believe, a departure from "exceptions based" rules, but it puts creativity back in the hands of the players and reduces complexity quite a bit.

CorpCommander--looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Still looking for Old West rules that I like myself, so any new rules are eagerly awaited.

Good luck in your efforts!

Played a lot of LOTOW, but now we play Dead Man's Hand. Great game, very cinematic, and with far more interesting choices to make.

CorpCommander,

The game you were trying to remember sounds like Shoot-N-Skedaddle. Great game, I have run it many times.

Jim

That is exactly it Legionaire22! That game is fantastic. I highly recommend it.

Gutshot may not be "new," but it did win the Origins Award for Historical Miniatures Game of the year!

I'm biased (because I helped write it), but I like that it can handle both cinematic and realistic game play (with a definitely leaning toward cinematic, in my opinion). I like that it has an experience track for character improvement (great for campaigns). I also like that it accounts for semi-simultaneous fire (i.e. Even though it's your turn, if you jump through a door and unload a shotgun at the guy standing there with his own shotgun pointed at the door, chances are VERY good you'll both wind up dead because he will get to shoot back at you (even though it's your turn).

Mike Mitchell
Hawgleg Publishing
hawgleg.com

I second mmitchell, Gutshot is our main Wild West rules out here. Of course it does have it's limitations- right now we are adapting it to play land action Star Wars. We call it Star Guts.

Once upon a time in the west, followed by TRWNN

CorpCommander,

Yep, I ran SnS at Siege of Augusta a couple of times and my buddy Brian ran a game one time as well (on a huge table). The second version is actually a week or two away from release.

What I like about the Old West games is simple…you can (almost without exception) buy Cowboys and build a town and then play any number of rules. Gutshot for instance is a bit more crunchy with more role-playing esque nature. Some games like Desperado are much faster and easier with huge crowds at conventions etc. LOTOW offers a fun progression system (though it can lead to a break down!). Most games fall right in the middle.

Also the majority of the rules out there are free or cheap…something I would have liked to have done had I not centered mine around cards!

How about a set of rules that can readily swing from cavalry and indian games and then into the Old West – but not just shootouts between a few figures. I want to put hundreds and hundreds of figures on the table and see action going on all over the place.

Yeah, okay, to most of you that is not the familiar Old West iconic game. But the Old West movie doesn't really capture the real old west all that well. There were much bigger actions. Oh, and if you read the history, very, very few bad guys ever got a way with it. The law men were pretty damned good and amazingly dedicated back then. They'd ride for weeks and hundreds and hundreds of miles just to get a clue to find a bad guy – or gal, even.

I want range wars, rustling actions, all of it all mixed in one gigantic and ridiculously active game.

What I don't want – though they can be fun – is what I see as the typical multi-player old west game where it is a free-for-all where everyone is shooting at anyone to see who is last one standing. Those are silly games – even if fun.

So, where is such a set of rules? Do I have to write them?

I can't think of a ruleset which works for that. Most of the Old West games I'm aware of are definitely skirmish scale. There are undoubtedly some other rule sets which could be converted over for large scale Old West gaming though. Muskets and Tomahawks etc.

I would LOVE to see the "Star Guts" conversion!

EMW – 'Hey you in the Jail' from Peter Pig is designed for larger Old West fights, with the 'other ranks' based in threes, and covers all the factions including Indians and US Army. It's also mechanically simple, so you should able to achieve your De Milleian ambitions with ease.

We recently tried a few sets of rules and settled on A Fistful of Lead. Reason is that it is quick and easy and we focus on convention style games as we have a diverse group. Also with a few modifications larger scale skirmishes can be fought (groups of 3-5 figures per card with only one wound each).