My name is Carlo, I’m from Canada, and I’m in my early thirties. I started developing rules and getting into RPGs during elementary. This was because I was too young to learn and fully understand the actual rules for games like Advanced Heroquest, so I’d just make them up instead. I eventually got in to D&D, as well as Battletech, Car Wars, Warhammer 40,000, Silent Death, Android Netrunner, etc. I’ve continued the hobby into adulthood, even if I have more rulesets than I’d ever play, and more figures than I could ever paint.
For a while I was starting to develop fairly realistic rulesets, at the cost of needless complexity. Then after playing a few mainstream board games, I decided to try my hand at a simpler game. Now I’m trying to merge the “easy to learn” element with the “boy, that was a great simulation!”, and have created Dinosaur Cowboys as a result. The game returns to my roots of fast paced combat, some fun dice rolling (my favorite of D12s), and customizable posses to allow players to skirmish head to head in under an hour.
The appeal of dinosaurs is fairly global, as numerous comic books and novels (and even the rare movie) has shown. The basic idea for the game came to me when I thought “Hey, a wild west story could be fun, but instead of horses everyone rides dinosaurs!” Inspired and always eager to craft more rules, I started brainstorming ideas. Eventually after much testing, editing, and reworks I finished the v1.0 release of the rules. After a further two years of playing the game, I slowly tweaked it enough to warrant v2.0. You can always grab the latest rules from here.
To get an idea of what is important or interesting to read on the blog, or to see inspirational movies, stories, and images concerning dinosaurs, check out the What to Read section. If you’re having trouble designing a Posse with pen-and-paper be sure to check out The Saloon online posse designer.
I’m always interested to hear of battle reports using the rules, or any ideas, questions, or feedback! You can comment here or email me at carlo@dinosaurcowboys.com.
See some other games and projects by me on my centralized blog
http://horizongamesblog.wordpress.com/
Dinosaur Cowboys by Carlo G is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Dinosaur Cowboys - Tabletop Skirmish Game 
December 4, 2009 at 8:17 AM
I love the idea of a Dinosaurs and Cowboys themed game. There’s just something about it that strikes a chord with any man with hair on his chest. Then you throw lasers into the mix and you know you have a good recipe! I salute you.
March 31, 2010 at 11:38 AM
Yes, this is a fantastic idea for a game! If I may be so bold as to suggest adding some cool visuals to your site–I think that would really create some interest for your game.
I’ll be following–ciao!
July 31, 2011 at 2:41 AM
Great setting and game idea, especially as toy dinos are so cheap. The rules look good. As my post apocalyptic game setting has dinos I will be giving these rules a go when time allows. I hope you mind but I put a link up to your rules on the Post Apocalyptic wargames forum as some of those guys may like your setting/rules. Also as I am the moderator over there, please feel free to post up any game reports or updates.
August 2, 2011 at 11:07 AM
Thanks for the compliment, I’m really happy with how the game is shaping up. Do you have a link to the forum you posted it on, maybe I can register there and chat with people. I appreciate the note though as I’m always happy to get more interest in Dinosaur Cowboys churned up!
October 4, 2011 at 10:34 PM
This sounds like an awesome idea for a game.
I’ll be reading through these rules shortly.
October 5, 2011 at 10:48 PM
Glad that you like it! Definitely give the rules a look and let me know what you think, as I’m always up for feedback.
April 24, 2014 at 2:48 PM
Hello, I am curious about this game. The objective is to kill dinosaurs or kill posses? Also I got confused by the maps posted in this page. What are the meaning of all that building, coins and building? By the way, Would you mind make a video of how to play it? It looks fun but confusing, I love boardgames and I want to try this one.
April 26, 2014 at 6:11 AM
Hi Rogner, thanks for the interest. The game has two or more posses fighting each other, and each posse can have their own dinosaur as a “gang member”. The simplest objective is to just kill off the other posse, but other objectives (like capturing a point) can be chosen.
Also keep in mind this is more of a tabletop wargame than a traditional boardgame, as in you’ll need to make the play space of terrain yourself, as compared to getting all the components in a single box.
If you find the content here a bit confusing don’t worry, there is a set of Quickdraw Rules that has all the posse design and choices made for you. You can find these under the Rules page.
I don’t have a video of gameplay, although eventually I’d love to make one. There are many written reports of games at least which could help, found under Game Sessions.
February 9, 2015 at 8:39 PM
Man, I have GOT to find a group to play this with! This is just fifteen sorts of awesome and I enjoy reading these fun sessions. Thanks for sharing it all with us nerds! :)
And seeing as how we are both fans of cowboys and dinosaurs together, this might be up your alley. :) http://eccentriccowboy.blogspot.com/2015/02/primal-frontier-hunter-from-red-hills.html
February 10, 2015 at 10:37 AM
I hope you can! I certainly enjoy the game, even if I’m biased towards it. Let me know if you run into any issues or have questions.
I really like the look of your Primal Frontier story collection. I did a few short stories for the Dinosaur Cowboys universe for Nanowrimo, although clearly not at the same level or quality (https://dinosaurcowboys.com/category/fiction/). I’ll make a note to do a feature blog post in the future on your work, if you don’t mind, since it fits in perfectly with what I write about here!
February 10, 2015 at 11:23 AM
Heh, there’s biased, and then there’s “What kind of soulless human being wouldn’t want to play a game with cowboys and dinosaurs?” ;) But if I think up any questions I’ll be sure to give a hollar! :D
Thank you very much, I’m glad you like the look of it! And are you kidding? I’d be honored to be featured here! That would make my day! :D
And I’ll be sure to take a gander at your writing too. I’d be more than happy to help out if you happen to want promotion or advice, although seeing your view count, I doubt you need any assistance from a small timer like me. XD
February 10, 2015 at 10:45 AM
btw I like your post on “which gun for dinosaur hunting”. In this game I’ve styled lever-actions to be long range focused (although I do love my real life Browning BL-22 plinker), and have the “Bronto Gun” be more of a dedicated dinosaur hunter (think of it like an 500 Nitro Express Elephant Gun of old). Nice to see we’re on a similar page though!
March 6, 2015 at 10:35 AM
Just wanted to let you know I featured your story like I mentioned a bit ago:
https://dinosaurcowboys.com/2015/03/06/primal-frontier-a-story-that-fits-right-in/
Also like I said in the post, if you get a plain PDF or non-Kindle version (like an epub or something) available I’d buy it.