Tag: Westerns

As I explained in my Character Creation Challenge entry for John Carter of Mars, I traded my Judge Dredd books for some new games. US Marshals: A Shared Storytelling Game of Justice in the American Wild West was one of those games. I’ve created a character for Tall Tales B/X in past challenges. I wonder how this will stack up. The cover has a logo for something called the Difference Engine.

There is a two page character sheet. The sheet itself wasn’t available on Fat Goblin Games’ website so I emailed them and they sent me a copy. In the book I turned to page 14 where the start of the character creation system begins. The first step is to choose your nickname (along with your regular character name). So this character is going to be Leonard “Lariat” Daniels.

Next come the attributes. There are only three of them and you choose which one gets the +4, +3 or +2. They are Mental, Physical and Social. Pretty straightforward. With how tough I wanted my marshal to be I selected Mental +2, Physical +4 and Social +3.

For step three, each character selects two talents and two flaws. There is a list in the book. I decided that Lariat was a former soldier and that while he was in the service he was good at handling animals so he was a wrangler. For his flaws, I selected Blatherkite (talks too much which annoys people) and I was really having a hard time choosing a second one. A lot of these were really debilitating when it came to creating a “heroic” cowboy type character. I ended up selecting Dark Secret, which would have been decided later with the GM.

Each character starts with a health score of nine (all of the attributes added together) and one grit. A grit can be used to add to your rolls or character advancement. Luckily with equipment, it is pretty much, as a member of the US Marshals you have this in your inventory. You keep track of what you would have on hand. At your office or house it would be assumed that you would have some common equipment found there. There is a section where you get to name a special item (they give the example of bowler hat) and if you win a challenge against the GM, you get it. I could see this as an interesting way to show the way the dice work in the game. No GM, so I’ll just assume that I won one of the challenges and my special item is a Spanish Doubloon that he wears on a leather strap as a good luck charm. We finally get to roll a 2D6 and the results is how much cash that Lariat has on hand. He has $8 in a billfold.

The last step is to write down your character’s description and background. Lariat was a veteran of the Civil War on the Union side. When he ended his service, he was recruited by the US Marshals to help enforce Federal laws in the wild west. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

The dead tree version of the book I’m using has certain words “linked” like they were hyperlinks. I can see that being useful in the PDF version of the game. It kind of stood out in the printed version that I had.

The game looked interesting. I think I’d want to see how it played out before I decided if I was going to homebrew for it.

Additional Notes:

On one of the RPG message boards participating in the Character Creation Challenge, a participant elected to make a FASA Star Trek character after reading my earlier entry. Apparently they were making decisions on which character to make next on the fly. They are braver than I am. With how busy my schedule is I really need to attempt the easier systems on difficult days.

Coming Up Next:

OSIRC

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

I’ve never played any role-playing games based on the Western genre. I would watch a lot of classic Western movies and television shows and thought that it would make for a good RPG session. I would also wonder, what would the RPG stats be for Blondie (aka The Man With No Name) in the classic movie ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly‘ or James West in ‘The Wild Wild West‘? With a good system, I was sure I could homebrew up some stats.

I knew there was several Western RPGs out there. However I never really owned one until I found Tall Tales BX on DriveThruRPG. This game was written by Mark Hunt who also released Gangbusters BX and was an earlier entry into the Character Creation Challenge. Tall Tales was on sale when I purchased it so I was able to pick it up for a couple of bucks. Plus it was built around the B/X rules which I was very familiar with. So I selected it as today’s entry into the Character Creation Challenge.

As with most games based off of the D&D D20 format, I’m always curious how the ability scores are generated. Tall Tales stuck with the standard 3d6, but it gave the option to discard sub-par characters and re-roll. The RAW also had the option to adjust certain ability scores (only STR, WIS and INT could be lowered). I ended up with the following stats. STR: 15, INT: 9, WIS: 9, DEX: 13, CON: 12 and CHA: 10. Hmm.. pretty average.

The Classes have minimum requirements and are as follows. Gunslinger (a fighter), Desperado (a thief), Mountain Man (I think this is the equivalent of a Druid), Snake Oil Salesman (a swindler that makes potions that may or may not work), Brave (Native American cross between a Ranger and Cleric) and Singing Cowboy (you guessed it, a bard). There is also a More Classes supplement that allows you to play a Lawman, a Preacher or a Gambler. With the stats like this, I elected to take the Gunslinger. The class didn’t have a prime requisite (and thus no bonus XP). This resulted in a d8 for HP (I rolled a 7). I also wrote down the various special abilities for my selected class.

I love the fact that the Alignments are titled Law Biding, Neutrality or Dishonest. I also wrote down my character’s language which is Common (i.e. English). You also had the option to roll to determine your career before the game started. I rolled to see what he was and the Soldier result came up. The RAW stated this was to help the Judge (Game Master) decide on your skills you can use during play, but it did not expand upon this.

The game still listed all money as Gold Pieces, Silver Pieces, etc. instead of dollars which I thought was a little our of character for a Western RPG. I rolled up my character’s starting money and equipped my character.

The Saving Throws are interesting. They are Gumpton (resist with willpower), Quickness, Toughness, Riding and Observation. The information wasn’t listed with the other character creation sections so I had to go search for it. But once I had it and the “to hit” roll information listed down, I was done.

Earl “Buck” Turner was a veteran of the US Army but only served for a couple of years before deciding to head west in order to be a bounty hunter. He brings them in Dead or Alive for the reward. And the reward money is what he wants to collect. Here is the Character Sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I saw some areas where I wanted to write up some additional information on equipment and weapons. When I get some free time (yea right) I’ll have to see if I can put something together. I could really see myself playing this game. I like how some of the classes are set up (including the extra classes) and I’d be curious of how my fellow gamers would take to a game like this.

Additional Notes:

I want to thank those that gave me feedback on yesterday’s Character Creation Challenge entry. Apparently others had noticed the typos in the rule books. It also tells me that people are reading my blog entries. Thank you.

From the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag I was able to locate another blog participating in the challenge. I have added the Orc.One blog to the list of links.

Coming Up Next:

Spycraft