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

I’ve rewritten the Turn and Combat section to be even slimmer and more elegant. The main change was adding a “Ranged Miss Chance” (RMC) and “Melee Miss Chance” (MMC) that are used as a base to-hit number. There are a couple of modifiers to this number, mostly around range, cover, and armor. But basically you need to roll greater than or equal to the final modified RMC/MMC to hit the target, then damage is calculated as before.
I’ll need to rework the armor list, since AR is a plus bonus instead of a flat value. For example a Vectran Vest would be +2 AR, which means a firer with a base RMC of 5 would need a 7+ to hit (5+2 = 7). I like having the Miss Chance where you still need to roll above some number, and also having a lower score makes sense, instead of something like a flat “Ranged Skill” where you need to calculate the to-hit value by doing subtraction (such as Max Ranged Skill – Current Ranged Skill = target number to hit).

I also made the Fear Test rules. Now a Fear Test is taken when an entity suffers damage greater than or equal to half their starting Hitpoint value. So if they had 10 HP, any attack that does >= 5 would trigger a Fear Test. Failing means they Flee away from the closest enemy at the start of their turn.

And I’ve done a preliminary mockup of the Posse Roster sheet, which you can download or view below. Basically 6 shrunken stat blocks combined on a single page. I REALLY like how the grayed out images in the background of each stat turned out, since I think it adds a little variety and spice to an otherwise boring line of stats.

Posse Sheet: ODT | PDF | View Online

Anyways I do have one concern with all these changes. I’m starting to feel like I’m just re-inventing a Games Workshop based game, but with D12s instead of D6s. I guess because of the whole to-hit mechanism being based on some stat (RMC could be Ballistic Skill, and MMC could be Weapon Skill)…but then again that’s a preeeetty common idea in games.

I’m going to try to get a playtest of two Posses this week, so we’ll see how that works. For now I’m going to work with alternating activation rules, so you move a single figure, then the enemy does, and so on. We’ll see if this approach makes it into the final rules.

A week of no playing can sure turn into a month of silence easily, especially with a few days of travel here and there thrown in to disrupt my schedule.

Minor Rule Updates
Anyways I did some very minor rule tweaks, but figured I should mention them here before I get to the meat of the post:

• Swapped the name of Boost and Passive Traits so Passive are static, always applied bonuses while Boost are once per combat abilities.
• Added a “Deficient Weapon” section detailing damaged guns with reduced stats, such as prefixes like Old, Rusty, Dented. This is useful for keeping enemy weapons consistent.
• Reduced Machete damage to 3 (from 4) to balance against the Hammer. Raised the price of the Hammer from $100 to $120.
• Added Trait Strain Weapon II (+4 Damage) instead of just one tier.
• Dinotype Diet changed from ‘V’ for Vegetarian to ‘H’ for Herbivore, to match ‘C’ for Carnivore. Thrilling!

Like I said, mostly minor!

BGG
The rules got a bit of exposure thanks to the BoardGameGeek forum thread I posted a while back. I figure once I finalize the rules I’ll add my game to their database, since that’d be cool to have and be able to look back on. Plus as I take more gameplay pictures I can put them up there.

Hired Dusters
Now for the main task I just completed. I was motivated to look closer at the game from a skirmish angle (compared to a standard RPG approach) because of the possibility of a one-off game tomorrow. I remembered how smoothly the Bandits vs Town battle went in a previous game, even with a lot of combatants, and thought it might be neat to have a similar one time game.
I thought I could give each player (me and two other people) a set amount of money. They would generate a Level 4 character plus choose a Dinomount (balanced against the other choices, since currently there is no “ranking” to the strength of Dinomounts). Then a separate pool of money would be spent on hirelings, which would be simple NPC Dusters they can move and fight with in a skirmish style scenario.
So yeah, I generated stat sheets for 9 types of level 2 Hired Dusters with a variety of strengths, abilities, and weapons. The final list ended up being: Hired Duelists, Cattleguards, Riflemen, Archers, Hatchetmen, Grenadiers, Berserkers, Sluggers, and Survivors.

Anyways here is the stats document for them, in the usual OpenDocument and PDF format:

• ODT
• PDF
• View Online

I’m kind of excited at this idea, and also how easily the game molds itself to skirmish scenarios. I figure we could try a straight out pitched battle, or perhaps a capture the flag type scenario where teams have to run unhatched dinosaur eggs back to their base or something.

I think I need to add a few clarification notes to the rules, or some kind of “shorthand tricks” section. This would be necessary for stuff like tracking HP with dice beside the figure and just using a single sheet for each batch of NPCs. Or basic gameplay methods I use, but don’t really record anywhere.
Plus I was looking on the USA Library site for old (circa 1900s) images of cowboys and the west that I can insert into the rulebook to make it look a little more professional. I have trouble with advanced layout and styling in general though, so most of my rules end up being plain white documents with masses of paragraphs.

But yeah, even if I don’t get a game in tomorrow (…basically letting my friends choose what they want to play) I’ll still try to do a battle report sometime this weekend (Sunday likely). I think I’ll be more motivated to do that since I now have some definite sheets to choose from.

Easier Viewing of Documents
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier, but I’ve now updated the Latest Rules section with a “View Online” option that opens the PDF right in your browser thanks to Google Docs Viewer. I figure this’ll help for people who want to just glance at the rules without having to download them all. But yeah, going forward all future PDF documents (if there are anymore!) will have a similar link.

Well I figure it’s time for an update. As usual the weekend filled up with non-Dinosaur Cowboy related activities, but I still got the Sidekick sheet done before, and then did some rule formatting earlier today. My TODO list is looking pleasingly small now, with the big leftover sections summed up as “Traits, Dinocards, Enemies”. Here’s the actual document I’m tracking from:

Rules.odt
- Finish Traits
- Finish Dinomount section

General
- Make Enemy cards
- Make Dinocards
- Make example jobs / campaign?

I am having a playtest with someone else on Thursday, and am going to try to get a short game in before then (maybe tonight or tomorrow). Dinocards and the Dinomount section in the rules are my next priority, as well as some basic Enemies. I’ve still been stewing over Traits, and that list will probably be the last thing I put in.

And now for the latest version of all the documents I’ve been working on, again in ODT or PDF format:

Rules: ODT | PDF

Items (Weapons, Armor, Equipment): ODT | PDF

Character Sheet: ODT | PDF

Sidekick / Enemy Sheet: ODT | PDF

I’ve had less to brainstorm and think about as less sections remain overall, so that’s why the post frequency has slowed down. Now I mostly am nose-to-the-grindstone working away at the rules and hammering out the actual implementation instead of just thinking about the mechanics.

Hooray so exciting seeing the project come together!