Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

Thursday’s Game
My game yesterday was fun. My friend had previously tried to double cross a travelling Neotechnoist merchant and his guard, which resulted in a close call with death-by-hanging thanks to a town sheriff. After some bandits broke in and won the fight against the townsfolk, my friend decided to join up with them. He took his share of the loot and equipment, and then headed south to go to a “Thickskull” nest to get himself a Dinomount.

After getting attacked by an adult Ripper him and another new bandit member were sent to explore the Ripper nest. The entrance caved in during an attack, and him and the bandit groupie continued deeper in the cave. Eventually he swam down an underwater tunnel that surfaced in a vine covered chamber. In a home built amongst the vines was an old man who had been there for 5 years. Some chatter back and forth and eventually it’s shown that the man killed his colleagues and tried to make a staircase from their bones to escape through a hole in the top of a chamber nearby. They fought and my friend killed the double barreled shotgun wielding old man by using grenades.

When he escaped out of the cave he decided to double cross the bandits. I don’t get what his deal is with double crossing everyone, but it makes for a dull game because he can’t do any “canned” missions like “Go here for X dollars, do this for Y dollars”. Instead he’s pretty much on the run all the time for being a jerk to people, and now he had screwed both the law abiding citizens of New Mexico, as well as the menacing bandit element.

He tried to make a run to Albuquerque to catch a 400 mile Flapper ride to Utah, but was caught outside the city by 3 newbie bandits, 2 full bandits, a bandit sergeant, and their Horned Dinomount. After dispatching the newbies he played cat and mouse for a bit, but eventually the combined firepower of the others brought him down and killed him.

His next character idea is someone who starts in Washington, and gathers enough supplies to make it to Canada (British Columbia specifically). Out of all of the USA he has to choose to go north to Canada, ugh.

Rules Thoughts
Anyways the system held up well again, and the Traits added a lot to it. I’m still having some trouble balancing AR vs Attacks, but I think that’s because he never really stopped running long enough to buy better armor with all his money. Having a total AR of 3 basically means you take a lot of damage…a lot a lot. But then again if he had gotten a Dinomount instead of trying to shoot everyone 10 seconds after meeting them, his AR wouldn’t be so awful. Apologies if I sound frustrated, haha.

In terms of the rules I’ve polished and refined them a bit more, and will continue to do so as I do more play testing and real games. Getting pretty close to done now, besides the zillions of enemies I want to make. I also might update the History a bit to include a note about Canada, and maybe how Alaska is considered an untouched paradise or something (sort of like Shell Beach in Dark City or the island lands in Mad Max or flat out land in Waterworld [yeah, I just referenced that movie in a serious context, so what?!]).

Update
I’ve completed the section about Canada and Alaska by adding a simple paragraph to the History section (under the “Eruption Day” header), duplicated below:

To the north Canada was covered in ash and eventually emptied as unprepared citizens escaped the cold by fleeing south. The country remains forsaken and abandoned, covered in blowing snow and choking ash and ruled by dangerous creatures. Rumors persist that Alaska endures untouched by the eruption's devastation; a veritable paradise for those brave enough to explore northwards.