Wild West Rules - The Compilation

Something I would like to point out is that this is not an attempt to say that one of these rule sets is better than another. What they share is desire to in some way simulate the wild west of Hollywood and our imagination. Each takes its own approach to accomplishing this goal and that's what I want get into here. Do you prefer running one or two characters or a whole posse of characters? Do you like a lot of detail or keep it sketchy and simple? Those are the types of questions I want to answer here. Unfortunately blogger typically doesn't hand excel tables very well so I'll try and make this as reasonable as possible. I'll I'm giving you here is a taste of each rule set for more information you can refer back to the specific post for that set of rules.

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.

Boot Hill

Dead Man's Hand

Desperado

Fistful of Lead; Reloaded

Gutshot

Legends of the Old West

The Rules with No Name

Shoot N' Skedaddle

Wild West Rules - Shoot N' Skedaddle - Turnstyle Games

How can I pass up a game that uses cards for just about everything, especially when the rules themselves are free? Shoot N' Skedaddle let's you read the rules first and then decided if you want to buy the rest of it. Something I can appreciate in these days of the $30+ rulebooks that are only about 40 pages long. It really helps that this is a good game on top of that. And if you don't like the game the campaign rules are well worth reading and solve a lot of problems that I have encountered in other wild west campaigns. It takes a little work and someone willing to play referee but I think they are worth the effort.

Shoot N' Skedaddle
Turnstyle Games
Rules In Print
Card Decks Out of Print (being revised)
8 1/2 x 11, PDF, pages 
Original Price: Rules Free, Card Decks $30

Movement: Like most wild west games when a character is activated one or more of the actions available is or includes moving. In SnS movement rates are set and found on the character cards. Most characters move 6" a couple are a bit speedier and move 8". Rates for animals can be found on an animal movement chart.

Combat: SnS is built around the concept of the test. So shooting and hand to hand fighting use a test to see if your character succeeds in hitting. A test requires a 5+ to succeed (or hit in this case). This is when the various character traits and weapons come into play. A shooting test is based on the marksmanship trait. A soldier's marksmanship trait uses a D12, so he rolls a D12 needing a 5+ to hit. If he is using a carbine then he only gets 1D12 if he was using a sixgun then he would roll 2D12s. The marksmanship of the priest character is a D6 and he still needs a 5+ to hit. Modifiers adjust the die rolled if the soldier is shooting at a target in cover then he is -1 and rolls a D8 for marksmanship instead of a D12 (D10s are not used in this game. The same concept works for hand to hand fighting except the scrap trait is used for the test.

Wounds:  If a character is successfully hit then he receives a wound if the wound check is successful (again that's a 5+). The die roll for a wound check is based on the weapon. A sawed off shotgun only rolls a D6 (but it allowed the character 5 "shots"), while a heavy sixgun uses a D12 (but only gets 1 shot). There is no hit location or severity to go along with it. A wound reduces a characters traits so they are less effective. A character is incapacitated if a second wound is received.

Weapon List: The weapon list in SnS is fairly extensive! It even includes a weapon card for a lasso. My only knock against it is there is still no difference between a single action or a double action pistol.

Campaign rules: The campaign rules are extensive and quite well thought out. Since the rules are free anyway I recommend that you just download them and read them for yourself. They include how to set up the campaign and characters gaining or losing dice for traits as they progress through the campaign.

Rules Bling: This is a step up from the plane jane rules. Since they are only available as a pdf the author didn't need to worry costs. Its in a single column format with the main rules in black and white and colored boxes for examples and commentary. There are pictures but no drawings (probably not a bad thing). There is a nice table of contents and the layout is quite clean. This is really my preferred formatting for a set of miniature rules.

Unique: Somewhat in a different vein from other wild west rules SnS's unique characteristics has nothing to do with the card deck although it does have something to do with cards. Each character in the game is drawn from the character deck, the deck will consist of lawmen, bad guys and neutrals. The first player to draw a lawman or a bad guy takes that side in game. Neutrals can be on either side and make up the majority of the deck. A scenario will state how big a posse will be for the game and players take turns keep drawing till their posse's are full. The card contains all the traits for that character. You will find the equipment he starts with, any special rules that pertain to him and then his traits defined by the type of die that is rolled to make the appropriate "test". For instance "the Drifter" gets to draw two weapon cards, gets to add a joker to the activation deck and activates when the joker is drawn in addition to his normal activation card (King of Clubs in this case). His move is 6", Str D12, Agility D8, Scrap D12, Marksmanship D20 and his Guts is also a D20. A pretty nasty individual. In a campaign situation he could be added to your posse for 75 gold. Each character also tells you what player card the character will activate on. Use two identical decks and pull out the necessary cards to make the activation deck. With the drifter in play you need to start with the King of Clubs (x2), a soldier activates on the Six of Clubs (x2) and the Priest on the Ten of Clubs (x2). So every character in a posse will activate twice during a turn with the drifter getting three activations because he gets to add the joker. So, by design, you are likely playing with unbalanced posse's and a varied mix of weaponry. Remaining neutral characters might enter the game based on the special activation cards (add 0-4 aces to the deck if desired).

My Thoughts:  I enjoy the random aspect of posse creation in SnS. You can play the same scenario at a convention or at home a number of times in a day and have it always be different because of the random nature of the posse's. Using different dice to reflect the character's traits is also fun and reminds me of playing the Deadlands RPG. At first glance it appears quite complex but all you really need to remember is that every test in the game requires a 5+. If you keep that in mind then everything really does fall into place. Its nice that the rules are free, you have a chance to read them before laying out any money for the card decks. I do see that the card decks are no long appearing on thegamecrafter.com. I believe that there are some revisions being made to the decks (like adding pictures of painted miniatures to them) and he didn't want anyone to purchase old decks. If you contact the author directly through his web page he might be willing to send out templates so you can get started. This is another fast and furious game!

Since the rules are PDF and don't really feature a cover I thought I would take a picture of the box cover for the card decks. These were produced on demand from thegamecrafter.com.

Now that's a weapon deck!

Here you can see some of the weapon cards, showing the range, the number of dice to roll (i.e. shots) and the die type needed to wound, along with any special rules and, of course, the cost of the weapon in a campaign

The "special" decks. You only draw from here when an ace comes up in the activation deck

The character cards, there aren't to many good guys or bad guys but there are a whole bunch of neutral guys. You can populate an entire town with these!

Wild West Rules

Things have been very quite on the blog lately. Real life and trying to remodel my house on a minuscule budget is taking a lot of time. However, I thought I would pull together the different western rule sets that I have been accumulating since I started working on my western town of Calamity. I know there has been even less activity there but I think things might start to pick up a bit as destruction and reconstruction on the house slows down a bit. Plus I need to start planning and prepping miniatures for ReaperCon which is coming up at the end of October.

Now this is certainly not a definitive list of all of the Wild West rules that are out there they are just the ones I, currently, own and which caught my eye at one time or another. My initial thought was to do one large post and include everything in it, but I have since decided that I'm going to devote one post to each rule set with a final wrap up post at the end that would include some direct comparisons.

In order not to play favorites I'm going to approach these in alphabetical order.
Boot Hill
Dead Man's Hand
Desperado
Fistful of Lead; Reloaded
Legends of the Old West
Rules with No Name
Shoot N' Skedaddle

The copyright date in this one is 1975 and obviously it didn't belong to me in the beginning

I'll have a specific format so that I'm approaching each rule set in the same way, comparing apples to apples and showing off the unique characteristics of each.