Evocative art, check. Awesome genre, check. Great price, check.
Oh God NO!!
Classes. They're called Paths, but yeah, its a Class. Damn..
Hit points. Stamina points in this game. Oh, and a different die type by class. At least you don't get harder to kill by going up in level. I like the re-roll at the start of each session. That I think is a cool idea. The 0 Stamina points table is not bad either. Tying stamina to the Grit attribute I like also.
Ahh... ok, well maybe it can still be cool.
Uh oh, here's something like Armor Class. Damn. Okay, so its Defense score. And, armor somehow makes a person harder to hit. Oh, sorry, "Armour". This right here is the other biggest gripe I have with the D&D combat system. Armor just doesn't work that way in my mind. It makes a person harder to DAMAGE or hurt. Usually it makes someone EASIER to hit, as it slows them down, what with being heavy and all. Ah well.
Skill use and Tasks. Okay, cool, you roll against a difficulty on a D6, adding or subtracting for your skill levels. Ummm, okay. Reasonable. Er... What skills? We got some Paths. No idea what each of these Paths should be able to do. I realize its only 8 pages, so a skill list by Path was omitted. We can figure it out.
The Magic and Special abilities section I like. Got some very cool quirks and perks in there. Well done.
This ain't gonna work for me. I pretty much loathe D&D in all its incarnations. I had no idea what this little game was going to be like before I bought it. Since then, I've been reading Stuart's blog, so, I could have known about Weird West if I'd found the blog first. No big deal, its only a buck, and I like to support people making "small press" type games.
I do wonder why I wouldn't just use the Sixguns and Sorcery section in the AD&D DMG though.
So, if you're in to D&D, and want to play a Western, these rules will be perfect for you. Its really a cool little game. I really really want to like it. Its just not for me.
5 comments:
Brent, I recommend by recommendation of Master Gilius (of CBW fame) the FREE West End Games D6 Adventure rules. Someone made those beautiful Character Templates (NOT Classes! :D) -> http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/showthread.php/8913-Interest-Recruitment-WEG-D6-Adventure-Western.
You can get the Modern D6 stuff from the following direct link for nothing but download time:
http://www.whitesaber.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16:d6-adventure-pdf&catid=2:board-games
This is not exceptionally rules-light (about 150 pages), but VERY easy to play and learn, quite different from the usual D&D/d20-stuff, and you only need d6 (lots of them ... dice pool mechanics). It provides some (Indian?) magic and horror too, if you need something to spice up your campaign.
Thanks Paladin. I bought D6 back in the 90's, right after WEG published it separate from Star Wars. The first Weird Western I ran used that system. Would have been about '93 I'd say. Long before Deadlands. I do like the templates this guy made though. Nice work. Thanks for the link.
Ah, you are a D6 Veteran, Brent! I have bought the D6 Star Wars Second Edition (nice pics ...) some years ago, but have only read some parts of it, never played it. I am interested to use the latest D6 Fantasy stuff for something, though. What are your memories, Brent, did you like the system when you played Weird Western D6? Was it clunky (as some say) or smooth? Did it feel good?
D6 is a great system. One of the best ever written I think. Since you have opposed rolls for combat and skill contests, it has a competitive feel to it.
Its also a game well suited for fast action, probably why it worked so well for Star Wars.
I remember sessions would just "take off", and suddenly it was 5 hours later and you had accomplished all these scenes... the game just wrote itself.
I never thought it was clunky in any way. Its too easy to build excitement with the system for it to be clunky.
Once you understand the dice and pips concept, its so simple to play. I highly recommend it.
Thanks alot for your recommendation, Brent! This was the last kick I needed to dig deeper into D6. I am searching for a very simple system to have some fun with my gf, you know. She knows nothing about roleplaying games, so the easier and more flexible (to adapt to my meandering plot-lines and world concepts), the better!
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