1) Let's take a look at which of these games you can still pick up right off the shelf.
In Print Out of Print
Dead Man's Hand Boot Hill
Desperado Legends of the Old West
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded
Gutshot
Shoot N' Skedaddle (Cards are out of print and being revised)
The Rules with No Name
2) There is certainly a theme with wild west games involving poker cards, not all of these games use playing cards though so let's sort out the ones that do from the ones that don't.
Uses Poker (Playing) Cards Does Not Use Poker (Playing) Cards
Dead Man's Hand Boot Hill
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded Desperado
Shoot N' Skedaddle Gutshot
The Rules with No Name Legends of the Old West
3) Another common aspect is running a whole posse or gang instead of just 2-3 characters.
Posse/Gang Oriented Character Oriented
Dead Man's Hand Boot Hill
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded Desperado
Legends of the Old West Gutshot
Shoot N' Skedaddle
The Rules with No Name
Something to note though is that really all of these games could be played with just a few characters per player. While several are definitely oriented towards the posse aspect its not necessarily a requirement that you have to play it that way.
4) Movement is an important aspect of the game for me. There is already a fair amount of luck built into any game that uses cards or dice or both in most of the wild west games that I like to have something that I feel I can control. So whether movement distance is random or a set rate is important to me. However, since movement is always part of some action you need to remember that in some of these games some characters are going to get several opportunities to move in a single turn. So temper your like or dislike of random movement and see if it is offset by multiple opportunities to move in a turn.
Random Movement Set Movement Rate
Desperado Boot Hill
The Rules with No Name Dead Man's Hand
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded
Gutshot
Legends of the Old West
Shoot N' Skedaddle
5) Combat; Shooting - This is a hard one to break down into a couple of simple columns so I'm not going to try. I'll just give the basic shooting concept for each game.
Boot Hill - Percentile dice roll with modifiers
Dead Man's Hand - D20 dice roll with modifiers
Desperado - Percentile dice roll with modifiers
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded - A target number based on the range using a D10 roll with modifiers
Gutshot - Each character has a target number to shoot their target using a 2D6 roll with modifiers
Legends of the Old West - Roll your shooting value or better to hit your target, no modifiers. Target gets a saving throw.
Shoot N' Skedaddle - A target number of 5+ is required to hit your target. Consult marksmanship trait to determine the type of die to roll to hit.
The Rules with No Name - Roll a Six to hit. Character ability and weapon type determine how many dice to roll. Modifiers affect the total number of dice thrown.
6) Combat; Hand to Hand. Some of these games use the shooting mechanics for hand to hand and some don't. Again this will be broken down by game.
Boot Hill - 2D12 roll with modifiers
Dead Man's Hand - D10 dice roll with modifiers
Desperado - Opposed 1D6 die roll with modifiers
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded - Opposed 1D10 die roll with modifiers
Gutshot - 2D12 die roll to equal or surpass the target number based on the weapon used in HtH.
Legends of the Old West - Roll your fighting value or better to hit your target, no modifiers. Target gets a saving throw.
Shoot N' Skedaddle - A target number of 5+ is required to hit your target. Consult scrap trait to determine the type of die to roll to hit.
The Rules with No Name - Opposed rolls with the number of D6 rolled by each participant based on the weapon they are using.
7) Scenarios and Campaign Rules - Most of these sets have some form of campaign rules as well as scenarios to play.
Boot Hill - Scenarios - Yes, Campaign Rules - Yes, neither is particularly extensive though. later editions of Boot Hill had both available particularly the 3rd Edition.
Dead Man's Hand - Scenarios - Yes, Campaign Rules - No, but campaign rules are in the Legends supplement (which I don't own, guess I should fix that)
Desperado - Scenarios - Yes, Campaign Rules - No
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded - Scenarios - Yes, Campaign Rules - Yes
Gutshot - Scenarios - Yes, Campaign Rules - Yes
Legends of the Old West - Scenarios - Yes, Campaign Rules - Yes
Shoot N' Skedaddle - Scenarios - Yes, Campaign Rules - Yes
The Rules with No Name - Scenarios - No, Campaign Rules - Yes
And there you have it kind of boiled down to the bare basic game play. I'm not going to sit down and rate any of these rule sets. I will say that while they all share the wild west theme yet the game play is actually quite different. It really comes down to your own preferences. Do you like using poker cards, do you like rolling a lot of different dice, do you want to keep it simple and just roll D6s. I think there is a wild west game to fit all of the different styles of play out there. If you haven't already read the specific blog posts about these different rules I would encourage you to do so. You can find the links to each one below.
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