Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

I realized that in my Posse creation posts I’ve kind of (incorrectly) assumed the subprocess of creating a character was clear. Well, a post on DakkaDakka helped show me that the section is only 100% clear to me because I wrote the rules. When I try to read it through anonymous, first-time-player eyes I can see a few issues. The main one is that the actual spending of IP is kind of buried and convoluted. Plus the page with the actual IP costs isn’t labelled very well, so it’s just this random page full of charts.

So what I did was re-arrange and clarify that section. Now Creating a Character is basically choosing a name and Allegiance. Spending IP is done under Step 4 of the Creating a Posse process, and the charts are labelled better. What I might end up doing is just combining the two sections, since the whole back and forth between Posse and Character is confusing and seems slightly unnecessary now.

Anyways I also made a Creating a Character Example that steps through filling in the sheet for someone. I thought I’d replicate that section below so everyone can see how you make a member of the Posse.

Creating a Character Example

This example will demonstrate the process to create a character. Included is choosing and applying the Allegiance, improving statistics, selecting a Trait, and buying equipment.

Name: We name our character “Quidel”, and he’ll be the Leader of our new Posse. Since he’s a Leader he automatically gets +2 HP and +1 BRV, which means his starting statistics are:

MV 4, AR 0, RMC 8, MMC 8, BRV 7 (6+1), HP 10 (8+2)

Allegiance: Quidel grew up in Nevada and only knows the hardship of life outside The Wall. Therefore his Allegiance will be Duster. This means he has an additional +2 HP, but -1 MV. His statistics are now:

MV 3 (4-1), AR 0, RMC 8, MMC 8, BRV 7, HP 12 (10+2)

Statistics: The plan for Quidel is to advance across the field firing his ranged weapons before closing into melee. Therefore he’ll be passably trained in shooting and close combat without being overly specialized in either.
The first statistic to improve is Ranged Miss Chance. We’re improving from 8 to 7, which costs 10 IP (as shown in the table above).
Increasing his Melee Miss Chance from 8 to 7 is a similar cost of 10 IP. His statistics are now:

MV 3, AR 0, RMC 7 (8-1), MMC 7 (8-1), BRV 7, HP 12

Since he’s our Leader some additional survivability would help. To this end we purchase +3 HP. At 6 IP per +1 HP, we’ve spent an additional 18 IP. We’ll also give him a base Armor of 1 for 10 IP. His final statistics are:

MV 3, AR 1 (0+1), RMC 7, MMC 7, BRV 7, HP 15 (12+3)

Traits: Let’s decide to allocate a Trait to Quidel. In this case we’ll choose “Berskerer”, a solid Active Trait option that gives +2 Melee Attacks once per encounter.

Equipment: Finally we need to equip Quidel. A basic gun will do to start, so we check out the Ranged Energy Weapons list and decide on the 80KW Six Shooter (4A-0D) for $10. It’s cheap and relatively effective.
However Quidel deserves a better melee weapon, so $60 is spent on a Spear (4A-3D).
To maintain the survivability theme we’ll buy him a suit of Cloth Armor (AR 1) for $50, which increases his total AR to 2.
Finally we’ll give him a Small IRP for $10, which can be used to restore D6 HP.

In total we spent 48 IP and $130 to create this character:
Quidel - Duster Leader
MV 3, AR 2, RMC 7, MMC 7, BRV 7, HP 15, Berserker
80KW Six-Shooter, Spear, Cloth Armor, Small IRP