One Week Later

Its been over a week since I last wrote, partially because of my Long Beach vacation. It was good, though there certainly could have been more gaming on my gaming vacation. On the bright side, we did play some new games like Mr. Jack.

But that will not be todays review. So far I have done mostly board game reviews, its time to again delve into RPGs. Todays subject: Deadlands.

In the beginning, Deadlands was a surprise Shane Lacy Hensley pulled on his friends, who thought they were going to play in a historical game, but after they all 'unluckily' died in the same battle, they found themselves the recipients of unlife.

And so, the weird west was born.

I have a love hate relationship with the setting. I really enjoy immersing myself a setting, yet I find it hard to relate to something that finds a way to try and be as crazy in all respects as possible. Lets not just have the undead. How about throwing in a host of crazy monsters, magical rock powered steampunk and magic powered by beings from another dimension?

I ran a Deadlands campaign last year, and it was one of the best games I have ever run. Yet, to do so required a careful attention to the world, and moving the setting backward in time a couple of years. For my taste I had to minimize the steampunk aspect and concentrate on the horror. Not only that, but the horror was just below the surface, the kind of things rumors were made of. No sane person admits to its existence.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

The system itself is pretty good. Characters are made by drawing cards and using them to assign numbers to a collection of stats. These each had dice (d4-d12) assigned to them and a number of each from 1-4. Each action has a target number, generally from 3-11, and the appropriate dice are rolled, highest number determining success or failure.

In the game as written, it works pretty well. As long as everyone plays old west guys who shoot people with guns. As soon as you get a brawny guy with d12 strength and a sabre, things go all to hell.

Why you ask? Well, a good rifle does 3d8 (keeping all dice). That aforementioned sabredude rolls a collection of d12s for strength, keeping the highest, then 2d8 for the sabre, keeping both. This is added for damage. Its pretty easy to do a lot more with a melee weapon than a gun.

Outside of that, the system works fast and fun. The initiative system, using cards and counting down, is good. The skills are decent and there is a good collection of edges and hindrances.

What really makes the system shine are the chips. Each character earns them through play, and they can be used to reroll, cancel damage or roll a new die and add it to the last. This allows the GM to go all out with the danger, and still have little chance of character death. They can spend their chips to save themselves. Players get to experience danger, yet without a bunch of messy damage that somehow miraculously heals after 3 days.

The good: Old west settings are fun.

The chips. They can be as flexible as you, the GM, are creative.

Character creation. Its fun to draw cards and assign them.

The bad: Character creation. Drawing cards often leads to overpowered characters.

Melee combat. As previously mentioned.

The verdict. Read it, try it. Savage Worlds is based on it, but has somehow lost a lot of its soul. Deadlands is an excellent game in many respects, but its also a fragile one. Be ready when you use it.