For those who like to visualize their dinosaurs, I finally found a good coherent set of dinosaur silhouettes. A fellow named Daniel Zadorozny made a wingding set of dinosaur images, and these were also turned into plain images on some sites. The set was missing the Fin (Dimetrodon) and Thickskull (Pachycephalosaurus) dinosaurs so I had to whip up my own silhouettes from those. The Thickskull is actually based on the stock image of the Papo toy.
So yeah I could revise the dinosaur list to include these images and I think it looks really cool. This new list will be in the v1.4 rules (…whenever those are released) so you have that to look forward to!
The font I used is (punnily enough) called Ding-o-saurs. You can download it from dafont.com or I made a Mediafire mirror. WordPress doesn’t allow uploading of TTF or ZIP files so I couldn’t just link from here. Anyway it’s a cool set, totally impractical yet totally neato.
I also got the Pony Express image added to the rulebook. The style doesn’t quite match the “old real world photo” look I had gone for before, but heck, it’s just too cool to leave out! Plus it ends up fitting pretty well into the “A Movement is Born” section talking about Dusters in the beginning history text.
Stylish dinosaur list with silhouettes
September 13, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboySome Freebooter Miniatures
September 10, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboySteampunk-ish Miniatures
I found two really cool Steampunk style figures from a German company called Freebooter Miniatures. There is Doc Taranto who I think is great as a kind of mad scientist Neotechnoist. And then Dixie Dynamite who is a bit unrealistic but still makes a fun swashbuckler style cowboy. Definitely not the usual fair, and a bit more stylized in general, but still pretty cool! Click for the full size.
What I Have Been Up To
Anyway the blog has been silent for the past few weeks, and will continue to be that way until October. I’m busy travelling at the moment so I haven’t been back to the kitchen table for some wargaming or painting. Which is too bad since I wouldn’t mind trying out my new cowboy figures and getting back to rolling some dice.
Otherwise I did a minor fix to The Saloon around remotely loading invalid posses. Previously if you tried to load a posse that came up invalid (such as having less than 0 Improvement Points remaining) the app would just error out and not load the posse. However this became a problem when trying to load some posses created with older versions of the Dinosaur Cowboys rules. For example The Herd Mothers, a neat posse idea, but they have -6 IP under the v1.3 rules.
So the fix is to instead display a popup (should be cross browser compatible, but maybe not) which warns the user that the posse they tried to load is invalid. But then it still loads it. This is great for at least seeing the posse, or maybe trying to change it to be valid against the latest rules.
Finally painting (actual cowboys) again
August 8, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyWell after far, far too long using my old figures and collecting many unpainted cowboys I finally sat down and cranked out two figures. Both are from the Chronoscope line from Reaper Miniatures. They aren’t “heroic scale” like Games Workshop so all the weapons look realistically sized for once. The Chronoscope line has a TON of great figures and movie parodies and stuff.
The thumbnails are a bit grainy so I recommend clicking for the full size. Also the matte protective spray I use is TERRIBLE. I think it settled too much since my last painting night and now sprays on a fine white fluff sort of like grainy snow. Really annoying and it’s especially noticeable in the solo shots below. I used to have a great protective spray but it ran out, and I’ve been trying various brands ever since. Still no luck recreating that thin, even matte covering.
Anyways here they are:
The cowboy with two machine gun pistols is based off the character Tallahasse in the movie Zombieland. I went with an orange shirt to brighten him up, since I find it’s very easy to fall in a rut of “brown + green + black” for a figure. I tried for a worn look on the jean knees and upper thighs, gave him a cool bowler sporting jacket, and went for subdued black + metal drybrush guns.
Then we have Preacher Pike, who I’ve had mostly painted for a while now, aside from finishing up the stand. Pretty simple look for him and he’d be great as a double in a Cthulhu game. I went for a more ornate bright silver hand shotgun, simple but dashing red shirt, and a worn look to his outstretched book. In hindsight I probably should have painted the facial features, but that’s easy to say when the figure is blown up to large size in the picture.
After these I have a khaki wearing safari explorer, a Victorian era British rifleman, a Clint Eastwood “Man With No Name” imitation, a space sheriff, and a few more good ones just waiting to be used on the table.
Force Fields and Ropes
August 1, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyJust knocking around some variant ideas.
The first and simplest is additional rules for Ropes and Ladders. Basically if a rope or ladder is by a cliff face then a character doesn’t need to use double movement to climb (much like the “Climber” Trait). This would allow for some fun scenario scenery with ladders, or just bonus special abilities for some purchasable equipment. Hemp Rope and Micro Rope would fit in this case, and could be slung down a cliff from the top by a character in their Action Phase (to help anyone following them). If they have a Grappling Hook then they could throw the rope up from the base of the cliff in their Action Phase.
This gets back to my earlier idea of having equipment with additional special rules. Like instruments that inspire, or drinks/drugs that boost stats, etc.
The second idea is Shields, not in a “buckler on the arm” sense but more like an Force Field. Or Energy Shield, or Force Shield, or Power Field, or any of the other terms I could use. I think I’d stick with Force Field since that’s kind of pulpy sounding. There are two ideas how these would look, either a personal shield generator that surrounds the person in a globe or a thin layer of shielding, or the “modern buckler” idea of a holdable energy shield. Basically either of these (I would have loved to have found better pictures but I didn’t have much luck!):
Holding: 
Globe: 
The rules would be simple. Force Fields would have a Power and Frequency rating. Power would be a number of D12s to roll, Frequency would be an X+ value. Any Power rolls greater than or equal to the Frequency would negate 1 point of incoming damage. If the number of Critical Hits on the attack exceeds the Power rating the Force Field is overloaded and cannot be used for just that attack.
For example:
Peter is equipped with a Small Force Field and is fired at by Hank with an 80kW Six-Shooter. Hank hits for 4 damage. Peter rolls 3D12 for his Power, hoping for 6+. He gets a 10, 8, and 4, so two successes. That means the incoming damage is reduced from 4 to 2.
If Hank instead got lucky and rolled 8, 12, 12, 12, the 3 Criticals would overload the Power rating of 3, so the Force Field would not take effect. Peter would take his 7 damage.
Simple enough. I would make several such items with varying Power and Frequency ratings. A very basic Force Field would probably be Power 1, Frequency 8+. There are a couple of other options too, such as only having Force Fields block weapons with an “Energy” type. Or even Force Fields for each type of damage. Maybe Kinetic Fields for “Projectile” and “Grenade” types. There could be extra Traits to support this, or new weapon types with a “Piercing” or “Forcebreaker” special property that helps reduce the effectiveness of shields.
Although more complex (ie: additional rolling and tracking) I think these are a pretty neat idea. I had mentioned a while back wanting to play a robot/android invasion and I might use these Force Field rules for the invaders.
Battle Report: Hills and Passes
July 27, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyEncounter Overview
Background: I had two goals when I setup this game: use a lot of hills, and use my new cacti models. So I placed terrain and road sections to make the table look like an abandoned stretch of dusty highway. Think “The Loneliest Road in America” Highway 50 in Nevada as it cuts through a pass.
There were some secondary goals around this game as well. I wanted to try a couple Variant Rules, since normally I play vanilla Dinosaur Cowboys. I also wanted to use higher IP and ND values to make more powerful posses.
The posses I ended up with are a travelling group of performers, artists, and vagabonds named Maudlin Travelling Band. They would be wandering the road scavenging for supplies and looking for towns to entertain. The other posse was the exact opposite, a tough gang of bandits and raiders who generally go to towns to kill and steal. They were called, aptly enough, The Dirty Dogs.
This battle report was using the v1.3 rules, so Neotechnoists got a bit of a buff with their new Allegiance benefit.
Also I’ve tried trimming down the level of detail I go into for each turn. So no more specifics on who rolled what, instead I’ll try to give a general summary of each turn. One of these days I’d really like to get a battle report map going.
Posse Resources: Each posse had 2,000 Neodollars and 200 Improvement Points and 6 Traits to allocate.
Variant Rules: Dual Wield and Last Man Standing.
Special Rules: +1 MV if a move starts on the road. This bonus applies for BOTH Standard Move and Running or Charging, so it’s possible to get +2 MV just by Standard Move + Run on your turn.
Posse: Maudlin Travelling Band: 1/2000 IP, 0/2000 ND, 6/6 Traits
I figured the Maudlin Travelling Band would hail from an imaginary small town called Maudlin, and be lead by a father and daughter. They would be general survivors and drifters so the Bandit allegiance worked best. Along the way they picked up Thurn, a Duster, who is a rougher cattle hand who grew tired of life on the ranch and now is training up his gimmicks and tricks for the road. Markus is another Duster, and happens to be in love with Ozie. Her father Gerg pretends to not notice, but there is definitely friction as a result. The Savage Wildgrass is sort of a novelty item in some smaller, backwater towns, so he completes the troupe. And Tarnation is their Ripper dinosaur, because what travelling act wouldn’t have a dinosaur?!
Now that I had some general background I needed to fill in their stats and equipment. With $2,000 and 200 IP there was plenty of high end gear to go around. Ozie got a Handcannon (terrific short range pistol) and Kaboom Grenades, mainly since I don’t use grenades nearly enough. Gerg was the melee man with a Twin Lance, and he would start the game mounted on Tarnation to complete the “knight in the wild west” image he portrays on stage. Thurn and Markus got a pretty standard set of gear with some pistols and a Light Repeater. It’s hard to not match Wildgrass’ classic Necromunda figure so I had to give him a Double Barrel Shotgun. A Flail completed his gear, and the Savage Allegiance movement boost meant he could try to advance alongside Gerg and Tarnation.
I was aiming for a denied flank setup. Markus would hold down one side of the road alone, since his gun had good range. The other side would have everyone else in a big clump. Ozie and Thurn would try to advance together since their weapons had similar range. Wildgrass would parallel Gerg but also provide some melee support in the middle if needed. He could leverage the road to boost his speed to try to pace Tarnation. And Gerg would go for the long side flank, rushing ahead on Tarnation as fast as possible to shut down any backline shooters.
Ozie Tumaneng (Bandit Leader)
MV 4, AR 0, RMC 5, MMC 8, BRV 7, HP 12, Speed Reload, Bonus RMC. Kaboom Grenades, Handcannon, Small IRP.
Gerg Tumaneng (Bandit)
MV 5, AR 2, RMC 8, MMC 7, BRV 6, HP 12, Inspiring Shot. 80kW Six-Shooter, Twin Lance, Wood Armor.
Thurn (Duster)
MV 3, AR 0, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 15, Bonus HP. Heavy Pistol, 100kW Six-Shooter.
Markus (Duster)
MV 3, AR 1, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 12, Go For the Eyes. Light Repeater, Small IRP.
Wildgrass (Savage)
MV 5, AR 2, RMC 8, MMC 7, BRV 6, HP 10, Get Up!. Double Barrel Shotgun, Flail, Wood Armor.
Tarnation (Untrained Ripper Dinosaur)
MV 7, PMV D8, AR 0, MMC 7, DIS 5, HP 12.
Posse: The Dirty Dogs: 3/200 IP, 0/2000 ND, 6/6 Traits
I opted for a big, expensive dinosaur at the core of the posse. Something about the King (T-Rex) dinosaur always seems perfect for a marauding gang of raiders. I can just imagine the fear it would strike into villagers and mere peasants. So yeah, Kalgin the King dinosaur was chosen. A slew of Traits helped ensure he could survive the long trek across the table. I hesitated mounting anyone on him since his towering height makes a rider an easy target.
Anyways in terms of backstory for the human members I went with the tried and true “corrupted Neotechnoists”. Ruger and Ximenez would both be fallen Neotechnoists, perhaps dabbling in drug running and other nefarious pursuits. Two silent henchmen completed the posse, in this case Falcon Hand (sounds like a cheesy 80s super villain) who was a Duster, and The Gray Shadow who was a sniper Bandit.
In terms of gear a crude Assault Rifle seemed perfect for Ruger. It matched the figure very well and I like the juxtaposition (woa getting fancy) of an advanced civilization still using gunpowder based firearms. Ximenez went for a Sawed Off Shotgun to continue the “brutal weapons” trend.
Since one of the Variant Rules we’re using is Dual Wielding (+1A when using 2 small weapons of the same type) and Falcon Hand’s figure had two pistols, I decided he’d naturally have two 200kW Six-Shooters, hitting at 5A-2D. The Gray Shadow got a Twin Rifle for sniping and a simple 80kW Six-Shooter sidearm for enemies inside the minimum range. The “Both Barrels” feature of the Twin Rifle is nice, especially for early shots to make enemies dive for cover. A few Traits and some scraps of armor completed the posse.
My strategy was simple and mostly dictated by the terrain. The road looked to be a death zone of crossfire and no cover, so I’d split my force and advance through the hills on either side. Kalgin, Ximenez, and Falcon Hand would go on one side since they were slightly shorter ranged and could support the dinosaur well. Ruger and The Gray Shadow would be on the other. I figured Ruger might eventually cross the road while The Gray Shadow hung back in support, but we’ll see. Hopefully Kalgin could make it to melee and tear up some foes.
Ruger (Neotechnoist Leader)
MV 4, AR 3, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 7, HP 10, Neck Shot. Assault Rifle, Clay Armor, Medium IRP.
Ximenez (Neotechnoist)
MV 4, AR 2, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 12. Sawed Off Shotgun, 80kW Six-Shooter, Cloth Armor, Medium IRP.
Falcon Hand (Duster)
MV 4, AR 3, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 10, Inspiring Shot. 200kW Six-Shooter, 200kW Six-Shooter, Bone Armor, Medium IRP.
The Gray Shadow (Bandit)
MV 4, AR 1, RMC 5, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 10, Try Again. 200kW Twin Rifle, 80kW Six-Shooter.
Kalgin (Feral King Dinosaur)
MV 6, PMV D6, AR 2, MMC 4, DIS 8, HP 27, Bonus HP, Runner, Turtle.
The Table and Deployment
Deployment: Up to 8″ from the narrow table edge. The Dirty Dogs deployed first towards the kitchen (left side of the table) followed by Maudlin Travelling Band on the right.
The Dirty Dogs: Looking from my table edge Kalgin is to the right opposite Markus. Falcon Hand and Ximenez beside, with Ruger and The Gray Shadow to the left.
Maudlin Travelling Band: Looking from my table edge Markus is on the left all alone. Everyone else is piled on the hill to the right. Gerg started mounted on Tarnation.
Turn 1 – Forward, March!
As usual Turn 1 was fairly simple with everyone advancing and re-positioning after the deployment. No guns were in range yet but soon would be. Some folks Ran, some just walked. The only real surprises were Wildgrass moving onto the road behind a pile of rocks and a cactus. Ruger matched him except couldn’t find any cover, and didn’t quite make it to the cracked pavement. Gerg and Tarnation flanked to their right, and Kalgin ran along his right, both trying to stay in the cover of the hills. The road would be faster, but good luck blocking line of sight on that highway of death.
Turn 2 – Open Fire!
Kalgin powered ahead, his long strides and useful Runner trait bringing him closer and closer to Markus. Seeing this Wildgrass continued down across the road and into some rubble to bring some fire (and his flail) onto Kalgin. Ozie dropped from the hill and followed in Wildgrass’ footsteps, basically swinging the Maudlin Travelling Band’s focus from their right flank to their left. Thurn continued up the hilltop, cresting and giving him a commanding view of the upcoming firefight. Gerg also continued his flank, reaching the valley between the hill his friends occupied and the menacing mound manned by The Gray Shadow. Ruger and Ximenez simply marched up the road, confident in the lacking range of their enemies. Falcon Hand started hand-over-hand climbing the towering hill in front of him, hoping to get a shot on Gerg or Tarnation.With a shouted command and eager pointing, Ruger ordered The Gray Shadow to open fire on Gerg. His Twin Rifle blasted the approaching enemy for 4 damage. Markus’ weapon chattered to life as bolts of energy peppered the T-Rexes hide. Kalgin took 3 damage from the assault and Markus repositioned himself higher up the hill, trying to get out of reach of the incoming dinosaur.
Turn 3 – This Way and That Way
The Dirty Dogs won the first Activation, and immediately rushed Kalgin towards Wildgrass. The mighty dinosaurs fell just short by an inch or so from getting into melee. Markus uses his “Go For the Eyes” trait and unloads point blank onto Kalgin for 8 damage, which adds a Panic token. The fire continues to pour into the dinosaur, this time Ozie with her Handcannon. Her shot goes wide and she has to Reload, but activates Yeehaw! to allow a re-roll. The shot still misses but isn’t a 1, so at least she doesn’t have to Reload anymore.
Across the field The Gray Shadow uses the “Both Barrels” feature of his rifle on Gerg, since the mounted dinosaur is rapidly approaching. The hit is deadly and does 8 damage to Gerg which kills him! The downside of unloading his gun in one massive blast is The Gray Shadow now needs to Reload. Ruger continues up the road, finally getting into range of a foe. He fires at the exposed form of Wildgrass and hits for a measly 2 damage. Wildgrass keeps his attention locked on the T-Rex, and uses “Both Barrels” of his shotgun for a brutal 8 damage. This adds another Panic token, so Kalgin certainly won’t be rushing anywhere soon. The final attack is from Thurn who blasts Ruger through a tree for 4 damage.Quite the turn!
Turn 4 – Torn to Shreds
Markus starts the turn with another powerful shot at Kalgin, this time hitting for 6 from his mountainous perch. The dinosaur responds by trying to reach Ozie. The Panic Movement roll is 3″, so the T-Rex has to settle for Running to reach Ozie. It activates the Turtle trait which should spare him for another turn.
Ximenez moves directly up the middle of the road, firing shell after shell into Wildgrass as he advances. The Savage is hit for 7 damage but doesn’t Flee. Instead he moves into melee with Kalgin, but his wildly swinging Flail misses the hunkered down dinosaur.Seeing his sniper pressed by the Ripper, Ruger spins and fires at Tarnation, hitting for 7 damage which adds a Panic token.
Ozie holsters her Handcannon and grabs a Kaboom Grenade. Flipping the switch she hurls the massive bomb at Ximenez. The weapon connects and hits the poor Neotechnoist for 8 damage. The big Explosion (4″ radius) showers the nearby Kalgin with hot shrapnel for an additional 7 damage. A terrific attack since the radius damage didn’t have to roll against Kalgin’s impressive Armor (due to the Turtle Trait). After all this Ximenez fails his Bravery test and is Fleeing, naturally.
Seeing the enemy starting to break Thurn keeps the pressure on. He fires at Ximenez and hits for 6 damage which kills the man just as he is about to run away. Return fire echoes from the distant hill as The Gray Shadow unloads into Tarnation with his revolver, hitting for 4 damage which brings the Ripper down to 1 HP left! The dinosaur slowly chugs forward and almost reaches the devastating sniper.
Turn 5 – Down With Dinosaurs
This turned out to be a deadly turn for any non-humans on the board. Wildgrass started the butchering by smashing Kalgin with his Flail for 5 damage, which killed the limping beast. The Gray Shadow responded in kind by firing his Six-Shooter into Tarnation again, doing 2 damage which killed the Ripper. Unlike the Flail though his revolver needed to Reload after the fusillade of shots. The Gray Shadow was now holding two empty weapons.
The grand shootout in the middle continued, and now without the dinosaurs it had become a straight up street fight. Markus fired at Falcon Hand from the edge of the cliff, hitting for 4 damage. Falcon Hand moved forward and returned fire hitting Markus for 7 damage which caused the upstart to Flee.Ruger continued pumping shots into Wildgrass until the Savage was dead. Thurn tried to bring down the enemy leader but missed all his shots against Ruger. Ozie had more luck. Using her Speed Reload trait to quickly grab another grenade she lobbed the ticking bomb at Ruger, hitting him for 6 damage which killed the leader. This caused both Falcon Hand and The Gray Shadow to Flee.
At this point with two wounded and Fleeing humans left against three enemies, The Dirty Dogs resigned the field. End of game with a Maudlin Travelling Band victory!
After Action Report
The Dirty Dogs: So like true “dogs” we ran from the fight with our tails between our legs. Losing Kalgin right at the start of Turn 5 really sealed the deal. He didn’t even get to snap anyone in half :( At least their dinosaur was equally futile. Deploying along the narrow table edges so the melee folks have EXTRA far to run sure hurts sometimes. Anyways having both my survivors Flee after Ruger bit the dust soon after really hurt a ton. I maybe could have done some damage with The Gray Shadow as the enemy approached to kill him, but with all the hills and only a few inches of range superiority that advantage wouldn’t have lasted long. Still a terrific game!
Maudlin Travelling Band: Victory through surrender, my favorite kind for my hippie travellin’ gang. The game went pretty well overall, although half of it was just pouring fire into Kalgin, staying out of his reach, and hoping for the best. My flank to The Gray Shadow didn’t work quite as well as I hoped, although it did succeed in locking him down and emptying both his weapons. Some great surviving (aka luck) by Wildgrass in the middle. Ozie was a champ with her Kaboom Grenade trick to start the focus fire that killed Ximenez. All in all no one stood out as too weak or useless to me, aside from maybe Thurn who could have been a bit more focused and a bit less committed to his high ground position.
Complete Turn Log
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What I’ve Been Up To
July 19, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyAs you may have noticed I haven’t been posting as much. Generally I’ve been busy with socializing, playing a couple other tabletop games, and plenty of computering. I did get a Dinosaur Cowboys battle in a couple days ago and I hope to have the pictures and report posted soon (Update: battle report posted). I got to use my new model cacti for it and the plastic Litko tokens looked as great as ever (it was only their second outing).
The Pony Express with Dinosaurs
July 3, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyThe Pony Express always evokes the imagination and pioneer spirit, even though it was only around for a year or so and ran a huge deficit. But the idea of lone riders blazing across the plains, scorching deserts, and high alpine peaks sticks with people. Some readers might have heard of the old Pony Express newspaper ad that famously declared “Orphans preferred”.
Well I recently posted a Photoshop request to turn that poster into a Dinosaur Cowboy themed image. I had some great help and here is the finished product!
And some of the raw images used, which are also great even without the thematic poster:
I’m going to see about working the modified poster into the rulebook somewhere, maybe around the overland travel section.
Scenarios I need to play
June 15, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyI have a gap between work travel coming up, and I am trying to brainstorm some fun ideas for scenarios instead of the standard “setup and kill” game I tend towards. Ideas are welcome for what you’d like to see! With luck I can play a game sometime next week and hopefully post a battle report full of pictures soon after.
– Civil War battle with the same posse on both sides
– Robot invasion with special rules for shields (Armor reduces damage maybe?)
– Rescue mission with patrolling enemies, or stop a hanging of an ally
– Start with half the posse unarmed in a saloon for a bar fight scenario
– Board with high cliffs and a central valley, lots of climbing
– Board with a tunnel sublevel (Space Hulk tiles) representing a mine?
– Board with packed city terrain with rules for jumping roof to roof, and all posses start above the ground
I think I’ll whip up some extra rules for combat at night, since I think that would suit some of the scenarios (Bar Fight and Rescue mainly).
Some high res Dinotopia art
June 5, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyI’ve mentioned Dinotopia before, and although it’s not cowboy related it certainly has dinosaurs co-existing with humans. The setting is fantastic and really sparks the childhood imagination. I found a couple of high resolution pictures of Dinotopia art so I thought I’d share:
Definitely click on them for full size!
Futility of renaming Hitpoints
May 30, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy
Renaming Hitpoints?
In the interest of making the game terminology more immersive and fitting to the setting, I had considered renaming Hitpoints to Grit. And then I thought back, way back, to some of my games I made in high school. One was called Twilight (cut me some slack this was before the vampire movies) and was about a frozen planet where humanity lived underground and could only survive on the freezing surface by regularly taking stimulants. It was built as an RPG and had a pretty standard approach for the time, including a series of attributes for each character.
Now in my youthful edginess I tried to get away from the standard D&D statline, so I renamed Dexterity to Agility. Similarly the equivalent of Constitution became Endurance. I think I even went as far as daringly renaming Hitpoints to Life.
In theory this was neat as the statline looked more unique. What happened in practice? Everyone just mistakenly called Agility “Dexterity” instead, because that was so ingrained with the people I gamed with. Now you might think this is specific to my gaming group, and it may very well be, but in reality I think a lot of players gravitate to the terminology they are most familiar with. Even if they did eventually call Agility by its proper name, I can imagine they’d describe it as “like Dexterity in D&D”. It’s like players are mentally stuck in a rut and default to something known and comfortable if threatened with new ideas or terms.
So instead of trying to forcefully add unique terms to Dinosaur Cowboys I’ll just stick with what I (and my players) know best. Hitpoints will be Hitpoints, and anyone from console gamers to hardcore pen-and-paper players will be able to understand and relate to them. It makes the game feel more familiar, which helps for teaching and remembering it. Plus I hate the idea of being unique for the sake of being unique.
Fad of Alternatives to Hitpoints
Speaking about Hitpoints, I also want to talk about the current designer fascination with alternatives to Hitpoints. Go ahead and Google it to see what I mean. The main complaint stems from the idea that Hitpoints are too abstract, why can a high level fighter take more damage than a peasant, they don’t reflect damage well, performance doesn’t degrade, it’s a binary state of alive and 100% or dead, waa waa boo hoo.
Now I’ve been guilty of this in the past, so I can’t fault the idea too much.
Generally I think two outcomes happen when people try to move away from Hitpoints. Designers either call Hitpoints something else and abstract the numerical element with “Light, Moderate, Severe” wounds that have their own scaling system. Or they try to do a damage track of sorts that degrades performance as an entity takes damage, and end up with a death spiral (generally “…suffering an initial failure makes the second failure more likely, which makes the third even more likely and so on. There is virtually no escape from a death spiral once it’s begun.”).
Personally I love Hitpoints. They are familiar and easy to track and record in low quantities (like the base of 8 HP in Dinosaur Cowboys). They may confuse players as to what exactly Hitpoints represent, but I’ve never seen a player actually complain about that. Heck Movement/Speed doesn’t do the best job of simulating what a character is doing either, but no one minds that (ie: is the character running that whole time? Is it the distance they cover in what frame of time?)
Anyways Hitpoints certainly aren’t going anywhere in this game, except down as your Neotechnoist exposed in the open has laser fire poured into him.
Ideas About Playtesting
The discussions I’m about to link are old hat to a lot of game designers, but I figured they still provide an interesting read.
First of all a great post about the downsides of playtesting. It’s a bit strongly worded by some folks standards, but I think it targets a big demographic at sites like The Forge, especially the bit about playtesting endlessly. Ben Lehman: Playtesting: Stop.
Next up is a counterpoint that has a terrific quote I want to focus on afterwards. First of all the article. Playtesting & The Designer as Expert.
And the quote:
“Talk to playtesters to find out problems, but ignore their solutions. Talk to other designers to work out solutions, but ignore their problems.”
As a programmer I really related to this comment, but really hadn’t been following the advice. In terms of computer programming you would perform a user test, but you certainly don’t ask the user how to fix a problem that is identified. And yet game designers often do exactly that when getting feedback from playtesters. I’m guilty of this in relation to a lot of my forum posts. The biggest problem I feel it leads to is rules fragmentation, where you take a fix from a player or two that doesn’t fit in with your theme or goals, and before you know it your nice, clean ruleset is a mess. And then people go “Well, I guess I need more playtesting” and it spirals from there.
Anyways interesting stuff that is worth considering, instead of just going with the status quo. Either way the theory and practice of game design sure is a cool topic.
Space T-Rex Dinosaur!
May 27, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyDinosaurs in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaace:
(I’d recommend clicking to see the full-size, but I’m sure you have already)
I think it’s safe to count this one another humor break.
Collection of great conversions
May 23, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyI had mentioned Hexxenhammer way, way, WAY back in a 2009 post (how time flies!) for his great cowboys riding dinosaur conversion. He pointed me to his Flickr set of “Weird West” images, and I thought since they are getting on 2-3 years old I would mirror them here in case the gallery dies. So from his Weird West set here are some great conversions that make me jealous:
Some late news: 100kW real world laser
May 21, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyLate Laser
Well I never said I’d have much in the way of breaking news related to dinosaurs or cowboys, but heck in this case I’m only behind three years! The exciting news is a group called Northrop Grumman created a 100kW laser (related Wired article).
The basic idea is to combine smaller 15kW modules that look like this:
…into a big apparatus that looks like this (pictured is the 100kW laser):
The importance of this laser is that 100kW is generally considered the lowest “military grade” energy level for directed energy weapons. So it might not be small enough for a revolver yet, but hey that’s what 273 years of development is for (aka until 2285, the start of the playable Dinosaur Cowboys timeline). They are already hard at work with the Firestrike ruggedizing system, so all they need are some high density batteries to use as bullets and we’re set.
The man who started it all was of course Theodore Maiman, since he created the first operational laser back in the 1960s. I think people were still capitalizing LASER and common folk knew what the acronym stood for, before all the “death ray” stuff in sci-fi popularized the idea.
Just a note on the image at the top, which is the official sign for lasers. I’d love to make a little 28mm version for the tabletop, or paint it onto the barrel of a big gun on a figure or something.
Late Weapon
Now if you want a more weaponized look to your sci-fi weapons there is the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response Rifle, which is a terrible backronym for PHASR. The news around this is even further back as we’re looking at 2005 (a dark time when everyone made “set PHASR to stun” jokes). The PHASR looks like something out of Halo and could maybe be passed off as a High Burst Rifle on the exterior shape alone:
Late Music
And now for a bit of a musical interlude, and also a look into the past (only back to 2006 in this case) here is Knights of Cydonia by Muse, which happens to feature a rocking beat, 1980s style mock movie, robots, and cowboys with laser pistols.
Rulebook v1.3 Released!
May 18, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboyWell here we are again for another point release, in this case v1.3! It feels close on the heels of v1.2 but that’s because I haven’t been posting as much, since it’s actually been two months since a release.
Get the Dinosaur Cowboys Rulebook v1.3 here.
Version 1.3 Rules Changes
The main reason for this new version was to get the Neotechnoist allegiance fixed (as mentioned), and also to fix a Saloon bug around Dusters. There are some other changes so check out the list:
– Added $10 Neotechnoist Wealth Refund on first weapon purchase as a bonus of the Allegiance, to balance with the other three. Also moved the version number up to 1.3 from 1.2
– Removed a lot of items from the table of contents to streamline its size. Might have gone too far though.
– Clarified Snap Attack to ensure it’s obvious that a melee weapon needs to be equipped to make a Snap Attack
– Minor reword around Facing to better clarify that if the attacker isn’t facing their target at the start of their Action Phase, they’d have to spend their Maneuver Phase to turn
– Reordered the combat modifiers table (also on the QRS) to be more readable and easier to follow a process, instead of a hodgepodge of modifiers.
– Another slight touchup of the Charge wording
– More minor editing, especially around the later sections that don’t get as much reading. Discipline, Variant Rules, etc.
– Made the close combat / melee combat writing consistent
– Minor change to remove a note about cauterizing
Version 1.3 Saloon Changes
As with every release The Saloon was updated to use the latest rules, and also had a few bugfixes of its own:
– Factored in the Neotechnoist Wealth Refund for their first weapon purchase, and also remembered it for remote url loading
– Added a Save to Text option that will export the Posse in a consistent plain text format, useful for battle reports or posting directly to forums.
– Fixed three main bugs. First of all a Leader decreasing their BRV from 7 to 6 rewards no IP, as compared to the previous of +6. Also now a Duster costs 10 IP to change from MV 3 to 4, instead of the previous incorrect 5 IP. Finally a remote loaded posse will have their stat flags mirrored so that flags like hasIncreasedArmor will still apply, which stops an AR 1 character from increasing their AR to 2
– Changed the recent posse list to have a scheduled executor that will check the posses.txt file for changes and re-load the recent list in memory. This is necessary in case I want to make changes manually to the file (like deleting a junk posse someone created) but don’t want to have to restart the app. Also we now write the posses.txt file on every new addition, instead of just on shutdown
– Cleaned up the validation of a posse to ensure a name and author are always present both when saving and when loading, and the general logic has been compressed into a single method
Next Up
I still have the general idea of writing a basic campaign for players to try out some linked, story driven battles. I’ll also keep on keepin’ on with my battle reports and post those when I can. As usual more minor editing and fixes are always in my mind. I wouldn’t mind getting someone to update the rulebook formatting to be more professional instead of a plain black-and-white document.
Three more thematic wallpapers
May 16, 2012 — Dinosaur CowboySome more inspiration for various locations in the Dinosaur Cowboys world:
From:
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details/2936/past_rains.html
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details/2938/skippers_canyon.html
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details/2896/ranch_house.html
For the left image I could imagine the great desert canyon as the southern wastes, perhaps Arizona or New Mexico. The middle image looks like a perfect northern setting for a battle, maybe one of the Dakotas. And the right image with the run down truck and town seems common and global enough to be seen anywhere outside The Wall, albeit lacking a bit of overgrown vegetation.
Horizon Games (main blog)- Online adaptation of Road Trip! dice game
- Road Trip! – solo dice placement game
- Distant Adventures v1.0 release!
- Distant Adventures v0.9 after feedback
- Distant Adventures v0.8 preview
- Progress on Distant Adventures
- I bought my dream dice
- Distant Adventures – new RPG for remote play
- My “Fishing Day” web game
- My “Treasure Hunt” web game
Dinosaur Cowboys - Tabletop Skirmish Game 