Gangbusters: TSR's Best Game You Never Played

 

“Gangbusters? What now?” I hear some of you (younger) gamers ask.

Believe it or not, there was a time before Grand Theft Auto, before Vice City, and before the immortal line, “… here we go again.” A time when games about gangsters doing gangster things didn’t require consoles, modded skins, or five-star wanted levels.

True story.

And beyond that true story sits an incredible game.

Before all that, there was a brief, but brilliant, epoch in tabletop gaming history when TSR (yes, that TSR, the company behind Dungeons & Dragons) published a slew of games that weren’t about elves, dungeons, or beholders. One of the brightest gems in that overlooked crown was a little game called Gangbusters.

Let me tell you about it.

The Forgotten Classic

One kick-ass game

Released in 1982 and designed by Rick Krebs, Gangbusters is one of the finest games TSR ever produced. A crime-and-corruption sandbox set in the roaring 1920s and ’30s, it offered players a world of Prohibition, tommy guns, crooked cops, backroom deals, and political ambition.

Think The Untouchables, but on your table.
Think Boardwalk Empire, decades before it existed.

At a lean 64 pages, the rules are elegant, tight, and; frankly—better than a lot of what came out of TSR at the time. While Dungeons & Dragons (in all its forms) was soaking up the spotlight and the dollars, Gangbusters quietly delivered a complete, flavorful, and intelligently designed role-playing experience.

And then?

It vanished.

Not because it was bad. Far from it.

It vanished in the whirlwind of TSR’s own making;a company rising fast, flying too close to the sun, and eventually burning itself out in palace intrigue that would’ve made Hamlet roll his eyes. In that mad scramble to expand, monetize, and outproduce the competition, Gangbusters got lost in the shuffle.

A casualty of success.
Like a corpse in a back-alley gutter in Lakefront City.

And that’s a damn shame.

Not Just Nostalgia

You can find deep dives elsewhere: YouTube retrospectives, blog series, forum threads, even posts from Rick Krebs himself. That’s not what this piece is about.

This is about design.

More specifically: intentional design.

Gangbusters knew exactly what it was and never flinched. It didn’t try to be all things to all people. It wasn’t built to chase trends or contort itself into whatever TSR thought would sell more boxed sets that quarter.

It was clear.
It was focused.
And it was un-apologetically about one thing: Living, thriving, or dying in a world of 1920s crime and corruption.

With decades of hindsight. After wading through countless bloated systems since, I appreciate that clarity more than ever.

Why It Matters Now

There’s something special about a game that knows exactly what it is and leans into it, hard.

Gangbusters didn’t apologize for its tone, its scope, or its play style. It carved out a corner of the RPG landscape and said:

“Here’s your world. Bootleg or bust.”

And in an era of sprawling mega-corebooks, endless supplements, and hyper-optimized character builds, there’s a refreshing honesty in that approach. It’s one I didn’t always appreciate when I was younger.

I do now.

So if you’ve never cracked the cover on Gangbusters, maybe it’s time. You might be surprised what treasures are buried in those 64 pages.

Not everything old is outdated.

Some things were just ahead of their time.

Played it? Just Read it? Admired it from afar? Let me know in the comments. 

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 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?