Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

Well after some more tweaking, balances, and editing I am releasing Dinosaur Cowboys v1.2. Hooray!
Get the Dinosaur Cowboys Rulebook v1.2 here.

Version 1.2 Rules Changes
In terms of changes here are the highlights, straight from the Subversion commit log. The biggest change was around the stats of the dinosaurs, plus the two new classes (Terror and Fin), plus some new weapons.
– Increase Wrangler trait damage to +2 per stage for Lasso
– Renamed Aimed Shot to Placed Shot and made Aimed Shot now hit at -1 RMC
– Switched the Advancing a Posse and Statistic Improvement Cost pages
– Changed mx HP from 50 to 40
– Reduced Needler weapon cost from 400 to 250
– Added Spine Blade (Motor Blade equivalent)
– Added Skinning Knife as an alternative for Machete, and renamed Knife to Hunting Knife
– Reduced Armored HP from 22 to 20, and Plated from 24 to 23. Going to stop poking at them now
– Changed the Panic MV header to PMV in the dinosaur list to better match how the roster sheet and other abbreviations are used.
– A bunch of dinosaur changes. First of all King was moved to a new class, and the old version was renamed Terror. A new Fin dinosaur was added. A bunch of stats were modified as well, mainly HP and MV adjustments to balance everyone.
– Renamed the Game Master (GM) to the Sheriff to add a bit more flavor
– Added an Aimed Shot variant rule, made a note of recommended variant rules, re-added the brainstorming variant rules.
– Added a new rule for multiplayer games where each entity gets +2 HP per player beyond 2, to increase survivability against more enemies.
– Also added a combined image of the common weapons to the Weapon Description section.
– Cleaned up the table of contents to remove some superflous items
– Clarified some of the combat modifiers since there was a description for Crossfire but not Cover or Elevation
– Renamed the Movement Phase to Maneuver Phase, since the Action Phase isn’t called the RMC Phase, so the Movement/Maneuver Phase shouldn’t be named after a stat too. The downside is it’s tougher to spell.
– Cleaned up Charge wording
– Cleaned up Activating an Entity and the Uneven Activation example since they were written a long time ago
– In the Falling Damage example removed the specific 4 inch distance of the knockback, since it’s confusing when we just want to focus on the 3 inch fall

Version 1.2 Saloon Changes
Also The Saloon received a bunch of bugfixes which I’m really happy with, plus of course all the v1.2 changes were ported into it.
– Added an asterick after a weapon name if it has a special ability. Also added the Spine Blade (Motor Blade equivalent)
– Fixed a really annoying bug around Bonus RMC trait, where it would miscalculate the IP cost
– Fixed a silly mistake where the wrong ‘I’ was being cut because I did indexOf instead of lastIndexOf, so something like ‘Inspiring Shot I’ would cut the first ‘I’ instead of the proper stage ‘I’
– Glaring remote url load error where the 4th member would be ignored (used < instead of <= in the loop)
– Changed the PDF export so excess weapons (over 2) are listed in the inventory instead of being lost to the ether
– Lots of changes around Traits. Previously some of the non-stat Passive traits weren't being applied, such as Clear Sight which modifies ranges of weapons. This actually ended up being a bit of a hassle because we needed to clone the Weapon object, manage string based range brackets, etc.
– Improved some title text for weapons and the allegiance/breed
– Ensured we have an author in the field
– Put version number in intro message

Next Step
As before I don’t have any drastic plans for the rulebook. Maybe some tweaking and formatting and editing here and there, but as I promised with v1.0 the core mechanics will stay the same. I’ve been thinking of adding some items that have more of an in-game effect, like a Bugle or Trumpet that let’s a non-character use the Yeehaw! ability. Maybe various types of alcohol that can be used like drugs in other games to provide bonuses for a turn.
One goal I do have is to make a standalone campaign module for Dinosaur Cowboys, complete with Hexographer maps, scenarios for each location, general plot twists, etc. That might be more of a pipe dream than a goal, but I could see it being fun and adding a lot of value to the game.