Timber Ridge – My Northern-Style Old West Town for Warhammer Legends of the Old West & More

 

The Old West town of Timber Ridge underway

 

I’ve embarked on the creation of a Western town for such games as Warhammer Historical – Legends of the Old West, my game Hurled into Eternity, and perhaps even Boot Hill.

Unlike most towns people have created out there on the web, this one is not set in the American Southwest, but rather in more northerly climes. (As an aside, I love the movie Tombstone but I wanted a look and feel that was something different for an Old West town.)

A major inspiration for this is one of my favorite movies of all time: Unforgiven.

I’ve only just started on the town itself, so there is not much to show just yet. I anticipate with the pace I’m going at that I’ll complete it by the fall of this year, but we’ll see what happens.

Thus, the start of the town of Timber Ridge, a logging encampment, but full of cut-throats, desperadoes, and gunmen!

Vintage 1983 Boot Hill Minis Haul – Perfect for Hurled into Eternity Testing

That's minis that is...

On a whim I ran across a "VultureBay" (aka eBay) auction for some vintage minis, vintage as in 1983 Boot Hill miniatures. For $3.50 I figured what the Hell and I ponied up and snagged them. A few days later they arrive.

Minis in Boot Hill makes perfect sense when one considers that Boot Hill 1st and 2nd edition are what I call "a miniatures battle game with a skeletal RPG system attached". That's no knock against Boot Hill, I like it immensely as a system. So much so in fact Boot Hill led me to create my own western RPG, Hurled into Eternity. Of course the fact that it is a skeletal RPG is the reason I created my own from whole cloth, rather than retrofit to Boot Hill.

Time to let the boys out..

I can't really recall seeing these guys on the shelf back in the day in gaming stores, but then again I wasn't really looking for them either, I was looking for Warhammer minis by the time I really became interested in the miniature aspect of the hobby.

I figured it was finally time to let the boys out.

Anyways, here is what I got in the haul: all in all very nice and in the blister too. Think about it, much like

Anyways, here is what I got in the haul: all in all very nice and in the blister too. Think about it, much like Stinky Pete in Toy Story 2 these guys have been in the box for quite some time, in their case for 31 years... So what did I do when I got them? Cut them out of the blister of course. An interesting thing about these minis is the fact that they came out in 1983. By this time (although we didn't know it) Boot Hill was in or near its hibernation phase. Sure BH4 and BH5 would come out, and later 3rd edition Boot Hill, but it was closer to its run than the beginning.

A few period appropriate minis for scale.

In terms of scale they seem to be about 22mm. They are not as small as 20mm, but certainly not 28mm "heroic scale". Note: Warhammer minis will look absolutely huge next to these guys. They are in line with the scale of Ral Partha minis which were the big player back in the early 80s (most of our early D&D games when we used minis utilized Ral Partha minis unpainted or "somewhat" painted).

Adventure squares?

The pack has three gun fighters; one is clearly a gunslinger getting ready to draw, the second wields a rifle up level firing and the last is what looks to be a cowhand firing; also looks like he's wearing a sombrero. It also looks like he has a confederate style shirt with buttons down either side rather than the middle.

Another look at scale: the three gunslingers, a 2nd edition samurai warrior from Games Workshop and a 3rd edition samurai, likewise from GW. The gunslingers are close to their contemporary the 2nd edition samurai but a bit smaller than the 3rd edition one.

Lastly, the back of the package had "adventure squares?" They are the right scale for the miniatures so cut it out and BAMM! Indoor dueling range!

In any event, I like them and will probably be painting them up to use for testing for Hurled into Eternity.

Boot Hill BH4 Burned Brush Wells – Classic TSR Old West Module

Cover art for BH4- Burned Brush Wells

BH4- Burned Bush Wells
The 4th module of the Boot Hill series certainly has a weird name, at least to me that is. It really, really does not roll of the tongue either.

Much like the other Boot Hill modules I did not play Boot Hill back in the day as we were not into Westerns at that time (a shame) and most of our time was spent playing Warhammer Fantasy Role-play and AD&D. For my own part I used to watch a lot of westerns with my father, but drifted away at the time. A few years back I started watching them again and got hooked on Boot Hill. In any event BH4 - Burned Bush Wells is a module produced by Jeff Grubb with some input from Allen Hammock and Brian Blume.  

BH4- Burned Bush Wells is one of the later Boot Hill modules. I say "later" because the graphic design had changed noticeably from the earlier releases, reflecting TSR's increasing focus on Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as the company's primary breadwinners.

The power struggles within TSR during the mid-1980s may also have played a role. It's possible there simply were not enough people interested in developing the Boot Hill line. Donald Kaye's untimely death certainly could not have helped the game's long-term prospects, though that is only speculation on my part.

In any event, Burned Bush Wells would become the second-to-last Boot Hill module, following the same general format as its predecessors. It is strange to think that it was released in 1983, with only Range War following in 1984. From BH1- Mad Mesa in 1981 to Range War in 1984, the entire line of Boot Hill modules spanned just four years.

Art by Larry Elmore for Burned Brush Wells

The cover and interior art
Elmore seems to be a polarizing figure for some in terms of TSR era art. In the realm of Boot Hill (and others) I think his stuff is very good and it certain captures the feel well, certainly for a western RPG. Another thing to ponder the American West isn't usually depicted in the winter, whether its a movie or art; usually its baking, scorching hot deserts and cactus. I also like to point out the crop with the snow on the bottom right corner outside the frame. In short, I like it. One thing that detracts is some of his art in the interior. Not that its not done well, but a lot of his characters tend to look alike, a certain feel to them if you will. Perhaps this is where people object?

Content

Like BH2, the Game Master is presented with an outline of events rather than a rigid sequence of encounters. Much like a movie, certain scenes occur at the appropriate place and time. As I've discussed with like-minded folks over at the OD&D Pro Boards, it is not so much a "sandbox" as a "jungle gym." The module provides a framework for the players without becoming overly railroaded.

This is an area where all of the Boot Hill modules struggle to some degree. A Western is built around a series of largely self-contained scenes that collectively tell the story and inevitably lead to the final showdown. That structure works well when the adventure is treated more like the script of a Western film than a fantasy sword and sorcery adventure with six-guns and Winchesters.

One thing that stands out in this, and every other Boot Hill module, is the sheer number of NPCs. In most cases, I cannot see this level of detail ever becoming terribly important. The local saloon keeper? Yes, we need to know his name. The names of all of his children? Probably not.

The main action takes place in the eponymous town of Burned Bush Wells during the dead of winter. As the module explains, winter is a lean season in the West, and the wolves are hungry. Since Burned Bush Wells is surrounded by cattle ranches, predators are naturally a problem that must be dealt with. Rules are provided for hunting and trapping wolves, along with the animal rules that seem to make an appearance in nearly every Boot Hill module.

The principal mover and shaker is Lyle Underhay, the wealthiest man in town and the businessman with the widest range of interests. He fills the role of the thoroughly unlikable, power-hungry entrepreneur. Underhay is squeezing smaller businesses and ranchers in an effort to force them out. In response, they unite to form the BBBC, the Burned Bush Business Council, and fight back over the ownership of the Waterhouse deed, specifically the deed to the Old Stage building.

Underhay wants the deed, the player characters will most likely end up with it, and from there the central conflict unfolds. It is a classic Western premise that translates well into an RPG. The challenge lies in locating the former owner of the Waterhouse deed so the transfer can be made legally, thereby foiling Underhay's plans. Naturally, a man as powerful as Underhay is not willing to let matters end there, especially since he effectively has the town's lawmen in his pocket.

The BBBC is a particularly well-conceived idea that echoes real historical events such as theJohnson County War in Wyoming, which eventually drew in the U.S. Cavalry. There, the powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association found itself opposed by the smaller Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers' Association. Another obvious parallel is the Lincoln County War, the conflict that famously involved Billy the Kid.

The adventure's most likely course sends the player characters toward Gordon, where the next phase of the story unfolds. The overland journey feels authentic, thanks in part to the random encounter table. Having recently watched Will Penny, I especially appreciated the inclusion of a line rider as a possible encounter. It is a minor detail, but it demonstrates that the author had a solid grasp of the setting.

Another aspect I enjoyed is the inclusion of a ghost town. Gordon, an abandoned mining town, provides an atmospheric backdrop for several of the adventure's key scenes. Ghost towns are common throughout the American West, but we tend to view them through the lens of nearly 150 years of history. In the context of the game, a town that has only recently been abandoned makes the campaign world feel lived in and believable. By comparison, many Western RPGs published over the past two decades have leaned heavily into supernatural horror, largely following the influence of Deadlands.

Finally, a brief word about the maps. They are consistently clear, easy to read, and well executed. Their style matches the cartography found in many TSR products of the era and would have looked perfectly at home alongside the maps that later appeared in Dragon magazine.

Conclusion

Much like the modules that came before it, BH4 plays out more like a script than a traditional adventure. It presents a series of events rather than the dungeon crawls most gamers were accustomed to. I know I sound like a broken record in these Boot Hill reviews, but it is an issue the line never fully solved.

By this point in TSR's history, the company's focus was clearly on Dungeons & Dragons. Add in the growing power struggle between the Blume brothers and Gary Gygax, and it is no surprise that TSR's secondary games, such as Gamma World, Top Secret, Gangbusters, and Boot Hill, gradually took a back seat. Boot Hill was a solid game, and its roots as a miniatures-based skirmish game are evident throughout the rules. It was not until 3rd Edition that it fully embraced role-playing, but by then the ship had largely sailed.

The "cut scenes," labeled I through IX, are well executed and help establish the town and its inhabitants. My favorite section, however, is Waterhouse's Deed. The scene where the player characters are summoned upstairs to meet Underhay, under the guise of legal business, sets the entire conflict in motion. I can easily picture this sequence playing out in countless Westerns. The corrupt land baron confronts the heroes, demands they either leave town or surrender what he wants, they refuse, and from that moment on everyone knows the final confrontation is only a matter of time.

As an aside, by the time 3rd Edition Boot Hill arrived in 1990, my high school gaming group was barely playing AD&D anymore, let alone TSR's other games. We still occasionally broke out Marvel Super Heroes of Twilight 2000, but that was about it.

In a sense, Boot Hill never really entered my gaming orbit. I cannot remember anyone in my high school group owning it, much less suggesting that we actually play it.

Next up
In my queue to review in the not too distant future is review of the elusive BH5- Range War!

I say elusive as it has been eluding me on eBay (its not worth $75 dollars folks) I should take comfort some wags on Amazon think people are going to pay $400 for it...

Lastly, in order, to date here are my reviews of Boot Hill materials
Boot Hill itself
BH1- Mad Mesa
BH2- The Lost Conquistador Mine
BH3- Bullets and Balllots

On a completely personal note I bid a fond farewell to Eli Wallach who starred in incredible westerns like "The Good, The Bad, the Ugly" and "The Magnificent Seven" to name but a few.

Boot Hill BH3 Bullets and Ballots – Classic TSR Old West Module

Is that Brian Blume and Gary Gygax on the cover?

The next Boot Hill  module up for review is BH3: Bullets and Ballots. This should come as no surprise if you've been reading the blog. And you have been reading, right?

Unlike the first two modules, BH3 is almost a mini-campaign in a single booklet, though nowhere near the scope of BH4- Burned Brush Wells or BH5: Range War! It takes the players on a very different ride than either of its predecessors and explores a subject that few RPG adventures have ever attempted. Rather than hunting for treasure or tracking down outlaws, the players become involved in a local election and can potentially influence its outcome. I'm hard pressed to think of another RPG module, especially one from the early 1980s, that centered on electoral politics.

Written by David James Ritchie, the module expands on material from the Boot Hill boxed set by returning to Promise City and greatly enlarging the map and descriptions of the town. The events take place shortly after those in Tombstone, Arizona, following the famous Battle of the OK Corral. At 32 pages, BH3 is a standard TSR module, yet it manages to pack in a surprising amount of material. With the expanded treatment of Promise City, the Game Master is given a well-developed home base should the players decide to settle there.

The Story

The premise is that Promise City is every bit as lawless as Cochise County, Arizona, during the height of the cattle wars. Familiar historical figures, including Johnny Behan, Billy Breakenridge, Ike Clanton, and "Buckskin" Frank Leslie, are mentioned throughout the setting. In total, the module details roughly 300 NPCs, giving Promise City one of the largest casts of characters found in any Boot Hill product.

The central conflict revolves around the struggle between the Law and Order faction, representing the town's respectable citizens, and the Cowboys, who have no intention of surrendering their influence. With elections approaching, both sides are determined to win by whatever means necessary. The offices up for grabs include mayor, city council, and town marshal, making the stakes considerably higher than a simple local dispute.

The campaign unfolds over a twelve-week period, providing the players with plenty to do. They can run for office themselves or throw their support behind one of the competing factions. Public opinion shifts from week to week based on campaign events, speeches, newspaper editorials, rumors, financial contributions, and, naturally, the occasional murder. After all, this is the Old West.

The mechanics supporting the election are surprisingly robust. Players can funnel money into campaigns, spread rumors, publish broadsheets, and deliver speeches in an effort to sway public sentiment. The Civic Association, representing the current administration, can also use its influence to hinder the Cowboys' efforts. Should the violence spiral out of control and too many candidates wind up dead, the Governor may eventually dispatch the Arizona Rangers or even call in the U.S. Army to restore order. It is a clever way of showing that there are consequences if the town descends into outright chaos.

When election day finally arrives, the outcome depends entirely on how events unfolded over the previous twelve weeks. There is no predetermined winner, and that is perhaps the module's greatest strength. Different groups can experience entirely different results each time they play.

Like the earlier Boot Hill modules, the final pages include several short scenarios that can either be inserted into the campaign or played independently. I particularly enjoyed the obvious nods to classic Western films with titles such as Hang 'em High and Once Upon a Time in the West.

That is certainly one way to win an election...

The Art

The artwork is something of a mixed bag. Some pieces are excellent, while others leave me scratching my head. More than the previous modules, BH3 indulges in TSR's habit of inserting inside jokes throughout the book. I enjoy a good bit of irreverent humor as much as anyone, but here it sometimes feels excessive.

One example is "Zebadiah Cook" on page 16. The illustration appears to be by Jim Holloway. Normally I enjoy Holloway's slightly exaggerated, humorous style, even in Dungeons & Dragons, but for whatever reason it does not quite fit the tone of this module.

The front cover continues the hand-tooled leather motif of the earlier Boot Hill adventures, but the characters themselves were apparently modeled after TSR staffers Jim Roslof, Jeff Easley, Jim Holloway, and Larry Elmore (they look like Brian Blume and Gary Gygax in the middle and left to me). I have no objection to inside jokes, yet this cover simply does not resonate with me. In fact, I like the module in spite of the cover rather than because of it. It is almost the opposite of N2: The Forest Oracle, where I love the cover but find the adventure itself rather disappointing (to say the very least). The back cover, featuring Mongo Bailey, likewise aims for humor but never quite lands for me.

Much like BH1 and BH2, BH3 demonstrates just how experimental the Boot Hill line really was. The more of these modules I read, the more convinced I become that the series lacked a consistent direction. Either there was no one steering the line with a long-term vision, or support arrived only sporadically as TSR found time and resources to devote to it. Given that the company's creative energy was increasingly focused on Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, I suspect it was probably a combination of both.

Despite my criticisms, I genuinely like BH3. It does require a group willing to embrace politics, intrigue, and social maneuvering rather than constant gunfights, but that change of pace is part of its appeal. Not every Boot Hill adventure needs to end in a shootout at high noon, and Bullets and Ballots proves the game could successfully explore other aspects of life in the Old West.

Solid 3.5 out of 5 stars. 

Let me know your thoughts on this rather unusual module. 

 

Boot Hill BH2 Lost Conquistador Mine – Classic TSR Old West Module

  

BH2: Lost Conquistador Mine, as the title suggests, is the second Boot Hill module in TSR's line for its miniatures and role-playing Western game. It was written by David Cook and Tom Moldvay, which is pretty impressive when you stop and think about it. Here you have the future principal designer of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition working alongside the editor of the Moldvay Basic Dungeons & Dragons set on the same adventure.

As noted on the frontispiece, the adventure was originally written as a tournament module for GenCon XIII in 1980. Two years later it was revised and published for general release. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but like its Dungeons & Dragons cousins, the A1-A4 tournament series, it still shows signs of its origins. I've discussed this both here and elsewhere on the web. Tournament adventures are not inherently flawed, but they often reveal the constraints of what they were originally designed to accomplish. I could be off base in this case, however, as BH2 lacks the scoring system found in the A-series modules.

Right from the cover, I love the graphic design. Like BH1, Lost Conquistador Mine perfectly captures the feel of an Old West RPG. The hand-tooled leather motif evokes saddles, holsters, and cowboy boots, immediately putting the reader in the right frame of mind. The module follows TSR's standard 32-page format, and the interior artwork is equally strong. Jeff Easley, Jim Holloway, and Bill Willingham provide most of the illustrations, and the quality shows.

The introduction is fairly lengthy and assumes the referee is new to the game, which is not a bad approach. It also establishes the adventure's timeframe as 1868, meaning not every iconic firearm of the Old West is available. I actually like this restriction because it helps reinforce the historical setting.

Before the adventure even begins, however, the referee is presented with another batch of rules additions. Like BH1, there are noticeable gaps in the core Boot Hill rules that the module attempts to fill. This time we get rules covering vigilantes, NPC reactions, crime and punishment, overland travel, dangerous animals, night fighting, telescopic sights, and bronc busting. That is quite a list. As I mentioned in my review of BH1, if someone collected all of the supplemental rules from the first three Boot Hill modules into a single document, it would go a long way toward completing the game. I know I sound like a broken record, but while I think 1st and 2nd Edition Boot Hill have an excellent foundation, they clearly needed more development as role-playing games.

The next section introduces the town of Dead Mule, detailing its buildings and inhabitants. Like BH1, a number of smaller encounters can occur before the players ever reach the main objective, the Lost Conquistador Mine. The buildings themselves receive their own keyed descriptions, making the town feel reasonably complete.

The adventure hook is a variation on the classic "a man walks into a bar with a job." In this case, the man is an aging prospector named Dutch Jack, who dies after leaving his possessions, including a map to the Lost Conquistador Mine, to the player characters. In some ways it reminds me of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" where the dying Confederate soldier sets Blondie and Tuco on the trail of the buried Confederate gold. From there, the adventure shifts into overland travel, with the partially decipherable map serving as both a navigation challenge and a way to expand the adventure.

My biggest reservation involves the wilderness portion of the module. The keyed encounters often feel disconnected from one another once the players leave town. I am not entirely sure whether this is a weakness of the adventure or simply a challenge inherent to the Western genre. In BH2, many of the encounters feel isolated rather than contributing to a larger narrative.

If you are trying to emulate a classic Western, the various scenes should generally reinforce one another. A good example from another TSR game is O2- Blade of Vengeance for Basic D&D. That module succeeds because each encounter builds toward the climax. I sometimes wonder whether a Boot Hill adventure structured in a similar fashion would have been stronger. Here, we have a mixture of fixed wilderness encounters and broader wilderness scenarios that function much like the town encounters. Part of me likes the flexibility, while another part thinks it creates unnecessary confusion. Even after rereading the module, I am still undecided.

The Crazed Prospector attacks!

Eventually, the players reach the eponymous Lost Conquistador Mine, where they explore a series of relatively small caves rather than a sprawling mining complex. I will not spoil the surprises for anyone who has not read the adventure, but this section occupies only a small portion of the module. And yes, just as you would expect, there is gold waiting at the end.

Of special note is the hedging on the supernatural by the authors. I don't fault them for a real-world explanation for the ghost of the conquistador. At the time there was some that did not like their RPG genres mixed together and over two decades before Deadlands came out. 

Overall, I like BH2, but I cannot quite give it more than 3.5 out of 5 stars. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the adventure, but the Lost Conquistador Mine itself turns out to be a surprisingly small part of the overall module. In reality, it is more a collection of caves than an actual mine. BH2 illustrates a criticism I have heard for years. The designers often seemed uncertain how to structure Western adventures when they could not simply send the players into the local "monster hotel." It also demonstrates how difficult it is to make a cave-based finale compelling in a Western setting. You can only rely on mountain lions and bears so many times, and BH2 uses both.

Ironically, this is about as close as the TSR Boot Hill line comes to a traditional dungeon crawl, at least until BH5: Range War!, which I have yet to track down. Like BH1, it serves as an excellent introductory adventure for both new referees and new players.

In the end, I do recommend BH2, particularly if you are running the Promise City campaign, as Dead Mule fits nicely into that setting. Like a real gold mine, the adventure contains worthwhile nuggets, but you have to put in a little work to uncover them.

As an aside, I have been remarkably fortunate picking up these modules on eBay. Most have cost me between $5 and $10, and nearly all have been in excellent condition, with very little staple rust and few, if any, blemishes.

What are your thoughts on Boot Hill BH2 Lost Conquistador Mine?

Click here for my next Boot Hill review: BH3- Bullets and Ballots.

Boot Hill BH1 Mad Mesa Review – Classic TSR Old West Module

 

Cover art by Bill Willingham

Boot Hill modules were something of a mixed bag. This is especially true when you consider that BH1 through BH5 spanned two different editions between 1981 and 1984. Granted, the structural differences between 1st and 2nd Edition are minor, but it’s still worth noting. Five modules in three years, with one being a Gen Con tournament module (BH2), is not a stellar track record. Of course, D&D was exploding for TSR at the time, so they rightly focused on their biggest seller. Can’t fault them for that.

As I’ve covered before, Boot Hill is one hell of a game. It was one of the very first RPGs ever written and was designed by Brian Blume and Gary Gygax.

Back to the modules: I’ll be reviewing all five:

• BH1 Mad Mesa 
• BH2 Lost Conquistador Mine
• BH3 Ballots and Bullets
• BH4 Burned Bush Wells
• BH5 Range War! 

Right now I have the first three and just finished reading through BH3.

First off, I’m a big fan of the graphical presentation of the first three modules. They have that tooled-leather look, and my favorite old-school TSR artist, Bill Willingham, did the cover. Anytime you get Willingham and two-gun action, it’s going to be good. There are also several of his interior pieces, which is even better. Everything about the look screams Old West, mission accomplished. The early covers also remind me strongly of the excellent Time-Life Series "The Old West series (which I finally completed!).

I even like some of the Jeff Dee and Erol Otus pieces here. Dee’s sense of motion is excellent. The inside cover has a map of the town of Mad Mesa, and the back cover features the Mesa Gazette. In general, there is a lot of art inside the module, especially for an early RPG product. Contrast this with A2- Secret of the Slavers Stockade which sparse in comparison but is around the same length.

Interior art by Bill Willingham

BH1: Mad Mesa

BH1 is a collaboration between Jerry Epperson and Tom Moldvay (of Basic Set fame). At 32 pages it’s a standard-length module for the era. Like many TSR products of the time, it includes a large solo-play section using “choose your own adventure” style rules. Before that, it adds new rules, something all Boot Hill products do. This can’t be overstated: the core 1st and 2nd Edition Boot Hill rules are incredibly sparse, skeletal is how I often describe it. Mad Mesa nicely fleshes out law & order and NPC reactions.

The solo-play premise is straightforward: Your character is riding at dusk looking for a place to spend the night when shots ring out. From there you follow numbered entries until the tale ends. It’s a quick way to learn the system and gives the referee (they weren’t called GMs yet) a chance to practice without players.

The multi-player section builds on the solo material and uses the central NPC “Uncle Zeke” (related to one of the PCs) to kick things off. This works well because in Western RPGs, NPC interactions matter far more than in fantasy games. Western adventures are driven more by character drama than by monsters in funny suits. BH1 gives the referee a bare-bones plot and plenty of encounters to expand upon.

The Kane-Russell Cattle War could easily stretch for months or years of game time. Many of the hooks can lead to glorious gunfights and TNT-flinging, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’ve only recently gotten deeper into Western RPGs, but Mad Mesa would work great as a Village of Hommlet or Keep on the Borderlands -style introductory module. The town setting keeps the scope manageable even with a large cast of NPCs. From there the referee can expand outward as the players get comfortable.

If I ran it, I’d set it in a slightly “mythical” Old West rather than strictly historical. I’m not talking full Weird West, but modern Western RPGs often lean too hard on “six-guns and sorcery” because pure roleplay-driven adventures are harder to structure than dungeon crawls.

Even more Bill Willingham art!

Final Verdict: Out of 5 stars I give BH1: Mad Mesa a 3.5. There are no real flaws, but it also lacks deep, standout hooks. Like the core Boot Hill rules, it relies heavily on the referee’s skill to bring it to life. At its heart, Boot Hill feels closer to Chainmail than to D&D. In summary: I like it, it looks great, and it’s a useful module, just not a barn burner.

I should add that my next review might be Western City RPG before I tackle BH2, as I’ve also been reading through the Mongoose/Redbrick Western RPG I received as a gift. It’s a neat system, but I’m not sure I’d run it. More on that later.

What are your thoughts on BH1- Mad Mesa? 

Boot Hill RPG – Fast, Deadly, and Perfect for Old West Campaigns

 

 

There are some great role-playing games out there that I’ve known about for years but never played, and this is about one of them. Boot Hill written by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume was one of TSR's first games released.

Anyone remember those “Gateway to Adventure” advertisements that came in the D&D boxed sets? In my case, mine came via one of my Christmas gifts in 1982 from an aunt: the Moldvay boxed set of Dungeons and Dragons Basic. The box and the advertisement are long since gone (I still have the rules), but the memory of looking through them still lingers on, sort of like looking through Sears and JC Penney catalogs as a kid to look at the toys.

I would pour over it, looking at all the cool ads for games from TSR in addition to D&D, the blurbs Gangbusters, Gamma World, Boot Hill and Top Secret. Out of them, I only played Gamma World a bit, as we mainly focused on D&D and AD&D as kids.

A few weeks ago I was thinking of that old ad and I started thinking about Boot Hil. Out of all of those old games, the only one I never read through was Boot Hill. So I got a set of rules and was surprised by two main things as I read them: 1) the combat system (rightly) is deadly, and 2) the system is rules-lite and more spartan than OD&D.

As I get older, crunchier systems fall by the wayside as gaming time is a finite commodity at this stage of my life. While Aces & Eights (see below) and Deadlands are interesting (and I like the Savage Worlds rules), I’m less inclined to invest in them, mainly from a time perspective.

Boot Hill, on the other hand, is fast and furious and has a lot of possibilities. (Yes, I know that’s what

"One bad-ass movie."

Savage Worlds says, but I’m not talking about that rule set right now!) The other interesting aspect is that because the rules are only 34 pages, the possibilities are wide open. 

The rules themselves are deadly, be warned. Characters are no where near as robust as they might be in other RPG systems. Firearms deal some impressive damage relative to the durability of the characters.

While there are modules for Boot Hill which I'll cover in future posts the might not be needed. For source material there is more than a person could ever hope to read or watch in their lifetime when it comes to Westerns.

For my own part, I’m slowly collecting the Time-Life Book series from the 70s/80s, The Old West. There are 26 volumes, so I have a long way to go, but there are many more sources. For further inspiration there are movies, movies, and more movies.

Owing to the fact that I was born in the early 1970s, I’m not as big a fan of the serial westerns or 30s–50s stuff. I’ll probably get there, but I’m more in the mold of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, A Few Dollars More, Fist Full of Dollars, Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Ride and of course Unforgiven. I’m also partial to Dances with Wolves, Tombstone and Open Range. I’m also partial to Dances with Wolves, Tombstone, and Open Range. For classics, John Wayne is okay (True Grit), but the likes of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in westerns appeal to me more.

On the subject of great Westerns, Tombstone that has way too many great scenes to count but this one in particular is epic:

So in reality, what more could you ask for from a Western RPG? Boot Hill is a fast and light system for gunfights and a very open rule set that you can combine with AD&D as needed. Some people dislike the 1st/2nd Edition rules, saying that there isn’t much for campaign play. They’re right, there isn’t, and that’s the beauty of it. The way I look at it, the more open the better, and it’s not like there is no material on the American Old West, as I mentioned above.

For me, if I run a game of Boot Hill I’d modify the skills from 3rd Edition for use in 1st/2nd, after that the sky is the limit. Think of the great Western films: most of the action is against factions, against people and their interactions. So it takes a different mindset to play because it’s not “open door, kill monster, take treasure.” Sure, you could do that and it’s probably not a bad idea for training wheels at the start. But after a while it gets more episodic.

Where I differ is that the times I’ve seen or read about people mixing the two genres it’s usually AD&D with some Boot Hill. Imagine a campaign of Boot Hill with a minimal amount of AD&D, or none at all. If I ran a game of Boot Hill, that’s what I’d aim for.

I also read about a great house rule for Boot Hill on a forum (forget which one, might be the ODD Boards): if your character dies you have to go to the kitchen and roll up a new one. If you get him completed before the action is over, you can reenter the same gunfight! Sounds like FPS players will like this as a “respawn.”

In closing, Boot Hill looks like a great system. It’s also cool to see that TSR’s advertisement worked on me, 30 years after the fact!

As a side note, there are places to discuss Boot Hill on the web, like the ODD Boards.

As noted above, for those who don’t know (or must be aware of), Aces & Eights has a hidden meaning for the title of their game. When Wild Bill Hickok was shot and killed in Deadwood, South Dakota in 1876, he was playing five-card draw poker. In his hand were the two black aces and the two black eights, forever known from that point on as a “Dead Man’s Hand.”

There are differing opinions on whether or not this is true, along with what the exact cards he had in his hand when he was shot and killed in Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota Territory, on August 2, 1876.

To close, Boot Hill is a fine game. The word I've used over the years is "skeletal" in terms of the rules being very bare bones.

 

What are your thoughts on the Boot Hill? 

 

NOTE: and excellent resource can be found here for nearly all of the Boot Hill products from TSR.