Dinosaur Cowboys – Tabletop Skirmish Game

I got my first real playtest of the new skirmish focused changes tonight. It was a BLAST. I played my previously mentioned Drylands United Cattle Company against Kirk Peterson’s Hunting Expedition. I’ll get to that battle report soon, including a ton of pictures and a blow by blow account of the fast playing 6 turns.

Anyways I made a list of some of the issues that cropped up. Below is that list, with a bold asterick besides items I’ve already fixed:

• Add spot for Special Abilities for weapons on Posse sheet? Currently have to know the weapon or cram it into the name.
• * Fill out all of RMC chart, since Savage might need to go from 9 to 8.
• * Fleeing while Mounted (free Dismount, then flee backwards, can still do Action Phase, dinosaur can continue as normal)
• Remove Movement modifier to hit? How does it work if the enemy hasn’t Activated yet and you shoot him? Also makes it really tough to hit on base 8 RMC
• * Make melee adjacent only, since 1″ away is tough to judge with some dinosaur models
• * Clarify dismounting during melee (provokes Snap Attack, again if you move away), aka dismount first before melee!
• * Clarify face changing during melee doesn’t provoke Snap Attack
• Roll for initiative / activation for every entity, instead of once per turn?
• Make winning initiative mean going first and last?
• Simultaneous action? When killed go face down, but can still act (if haven’t already) and remove at end of turn?

My biggest question that arose from this list is the last point: simultaneous action or not. Currently the game plays un-simultaneously, and I tend to want to keep it that way. What this means is that if you shoot an un-Activated enemy and take them out of action, then that person can’t shoot back or act or anything. Simultaneous would mean if you take someone out of action you put them face down, but they can still Activate (if they haven’t that turn already), and then are “killed” (removed from the table) at the end of the turn.
The reason for this is sometimes the activating order with uneven numbers means two or three people can shoot at a single target before it can shoot back.

My other possible change would be around Initiative and Activation. I found uneven numbers make figuring the Activation order really tedious, especially if someone dies mid-turn and you need to figure it out again. An alternative is a D12 rolloff (similar to initiative) for every single Activation, and this continues until nothing is left to Activate and then the turn is over as normal. Basically whoever wins the rolloff Activates someone. This could mean, with luck, you activate 2 or 3 (or even 4+) people in a row. It also adds an element of chaos and uncertainty to the game, since who knows when you’ll get to go next. I think if I did this way I’d probably go to simultaneous action as well.

I didn’t have the rules printed, but I had them up on the laptop. I didn’t really need to use them though. Having the ranged modifiers table handy would have helped though, since I basically played the game without accounting for Movement (+1 RMC)…but this actually wasn’t a big deal. There was already enough movement going on, but that might have been since Kirk’s Posse was mostly melee oriented. The -1 Damage while in Cover sure was great though, since -1 Damage is a pretty big deal in the grand scheme of things.

So yeah, it’s almost like I need more playtesting :) It’s also almost like I need to eat dinner instead of playing another game, hehe.

(PS: I totally add a Blunderbuss, which is like a hobo Bazooka. 1A-5D-1×1 with Explosion)

Been a While
First of all, way to (yet again) drop off the face of the earth for a while. I was going to say for a year, but really it was just winter that I went away. Dinosaur Cowboys is often on my mind, and I’m slowly working away at the skirmish changes.

Recent Motivation
As to my current motivation for posting, you have Advanced Heroquest to thank for that. I play D&D Encounters fairly regularly, but wanted a lighter RPG for some of my friends. Advanced Heroquest was actually my first game, and I played it a ton and added a bunch of wild, custom rules way back.

But while browsing through that rulebook today I was reminiscing about Dinosaur Cowboys (this project has been going on for so long that I can reminisce about it!), because who doesn’t love rolling a handful of D12s? I think subconsciously I may have been trying to mirror the AHQ D12 mechanism…that and get away from the rash of D20 style games.

Possible Mechanic
Anyways related to all this (yes, I am getting to a point eventually…I used to be far less likely to ramble on): Exploding Dice. In the case of AHQ, critical hits while wounding Explode. What is Exploding? Well, the basic mechanic is described here.

How would it apply to Dinosaur Cowboys? Instead of a Critical Hit (unmodified roll of 12 on any of your Attacks) counting as 2 Hits, you would instead count it as 1 Hit and re-roll the dice (“explode” it), whereby the second Exploded roll could hit. Plus, in rare cases, that second roll could ALSO Explode, wherein you’d get a THIRD roll.

There are plenty of discussions on whether this mechanic is good or not. Normally it’s used with D6s instead of D12s, so that’s a factor. But in my view, and in the case of this game, it boils down to:

• Non-Exploding (current mechanic): Faster and guaranteed extra damage from Criticals
• Exploding: Statistically less likely to do much more on Critical Hits, but every so often it would be terrific

Arguably that was a pointless list, and this post has gone on for far too long for such a simple choice. I might leave the mechanic as is, but maybe have Exploding Dice as a variant, or at least playtest it and see.

Hopeful Playtest
Speaking of playtests, I’d like to print out two blank Posse sheets, pretty much randomly fill them in, and then give the current rules a shot. I did this way back when I was originally designing the game, but since the document is so formatted now it’s harder to make drastic changes like going from an RPG to a skirmish game.

Anyways I do fluctuate in my interest in the genre of this game, but I certainly am always a fan of the rules I’ve done so far, and definitely want to get a finished system around that. The base Attack/Damage/Critical/Reload system is great in my opinion, it’s more just the extra rules around it that take forever (like “How to Create a Posse”, “List of Traits”, etc.).

You know how I’ve said Dinosaur Cowboys is a roleplaying skirmish game? That’s fairly true in the sense that the split is 50/50. What I’m interested in doing though is revamping the game to be 10/90 in favor of skirmish. So rejoice, this blog will get some new life breathed into it as I plug away at some major rule revisions.

If you want to hear some brainstorming details, keep reading…

Know what I like best about Dinosaur Cowboys? The combat rules. I like XD12+Y damage with Zx1 chance to need to reload. It’s a simple and elegant system and translates marvelously to both ranged and melee. I also liked the background information, western / prehistoric theme, and the ol’ questing / travelling split. I waffled on Dinomounts for a while, but I think the end result of adding bonuses is a good approach. I might playtest D6s instead of D12s as a main dice, because if I’m going for a more dedicated skirmish game I think D6s are easier for people to get into. Less options for Armor Rating though.

So how do I want to revamp it all? Well, I’d like to continue to shift the focus along the “hero” and “sidekick” idea. I liked this approach, but found the mass of sheets eventually cumbersome. What I’d prefer to do is have a Mordheim style “roster” warband sheet that represents a 1-6 person “posse”. The main leader, called a “boss”, would have a slightly larger statline (in terms of information available). Using the existing rules consider them to be able to take the Active and Boost Traits, whereas “sidekicks” (everyone else) could only take Passive (to reduce bookkeeping, since Passive just gives straight up bonuses).
Experience and loot would be tracked as a posse, instead of individually. In addition the boss would be the “front man” and would have stats associated with skills and diplomacy, whereas everyone else would be combat oriented. Dinomounts would fit in as another sidekick. They could either fight on their own or be mounted before or during combat. I’m going to keep a similar approach to them of having base melee attacks and their own hitpoints, and then granting a bonus to anyone who is riding them. Then an enemy can continue to shoot at the Dinosaur itself or at the rider.

Allegiances (aka factions) will be another new change…or at least providing stat differences will be the change. There will be Duster, Neotechnoist, Savage, and Bandit. What this allows is your posse to be made up of multiple Allegiances, and each one provides slight benefits and drawbacks to flavor that sidekick. Dusters are tougher (+hitpoints) but slower. Neotechnoists are better with guns (+damage?) but weaker. Savages are faster (+move) but…something…weaker as well maybe? Bandits are generic and have no benefits or shortcomings.

So yeah, 1 boss, 0-4 sidekicks, and 1 Dinosaur. Heck I might just drop the term “Dinomount” entirely. I’ll need to really compress the statlines so that all 6 can fit on a single page, but I think that should be doable. The main concern are weapons, especially multiple weapons per person. I might change ranges to be simpler, for example they just have a single Range stat instead of 3 X-Y values. The given Range is medium (no bonuses or penalties). Half that is Short (+1 Attack) and double that is Long (-1 Attack). Or maybe put weapons onto standardized cards, but that becomes more bookkeeping again.

For “dying” I really like the Stun/Out of Action approach of Mordheim and a similar Flesh Wound approach of Necromunda. I don’t think I want to follow that exactly, so there will still be a specific numbers of hitpoints. Those numbers may just be a bit lower than now. Perhaps low enough to track with markers or tokens instead of pencil, since again – bookkeeping. Ideally a fight could be done in 30 minutes or so, which means 80+ hp monstrosities will be going away in general. But yeah, once a unit is at <= 0hp they are Downed (or whatever term). They can't do anything, but can be helped by a friendly unit who grants them +hp. A unit who was Downed may suffer permanent effects afterwards…or…something. I'm not sure what to do as a penalty. The whole Injury table from Mordheim is a bit too many rolls, especially when the skirmishes and results need to be fast. Each fight shouldn't be as big an event as a Mordheim match. Maybe the Downed person has to take a penalty to some skill for the next fight. Like "Crippled" would be -1 Movement or something.

I think I’ll change Break Tests and that whole mess. I like the idea of the Flee/Stunned (although I’m going to call it “Shaken”), and I think I’ll apply it to people as well as dinosaurs (currently the only affected type). If a model loses half it’s total hitpoints in between their turn, they need to make a Break Test at the start of their turn. If they fail with an odd number, they Flee, otherwise they’re Shaken just for that turn. I’m going to make it so Flee means they can’t move, and Shaken means they can’t shoot…maybe. Or maybe I’ll just have them run away for that turn, instead of the split (aka more complexity). I think this feature will be called Shellshock or Massive Damage or something, and will tend to make opponents focus fire on big targets to try to make them run.

On the "minor changes" front I'm likely going to add a bonus if healing is applied by someone else (the idea being they aren't in shock while wrapping a blood soaked arm). This would facilitate a "medic" style sidekick who would carry the healing and try to boost allies that way.
I’m also going to boost the baseline Armor Rating to lean towards 6. That way an unarmored target has a 50/50 chance to be hit. A “standard” or common AR would probably be 8. This is mainly because the last few times I played the base AR meant getting hit a TON was common…and at that point why even roll the dice ya know?

I am also toying with the idea of moving from defensive rolling to offensive rolling. What that means is instead of rolling >= AR, you would try to roll >= shooter’s skill. There would be a similar skill for melee. The upside of this is people can improve beyond just getting better weapons. However armor would need to be refactored, for which I have four ideas. Either I remove it entirely (plausible since cowboys don’t exactly tool up in bullet proof vests), I make it a saving throw (ala Mordheim, aaaaagain), I make it damage reducing, or I make it modify the enemies to-hit roll. I think playtesting is in order for that, but yeah, I was thinking of more numbers sidekicks could increase (beyond hitpoints) to reflect their growing skill.
The downside of “offensive rolling” is stats can look confusing. For example say you have a Ranged Skill of 7. Well, that sounds pretty good, except that you wouldn’t want to roll >= 7 to hit on a D12. Instead you would need to subtract 7 FROM 12 to get 5, and that’s the target number. Think of that like Ballistic Skill in Warhammer 40k, or THAC0 in older D&D versions. The other approach is to make Ranged Skill 5 to begin with, and need >= 5 to hit. The downside is LOWER Ranged Skill becomes better. Perhaps the solution is in the naming, so instead of Ranged Skill it would be Miss Chance or Ranged Fault Factor or something similar to denote that lower is BETTER.

I'll need to work out a "points system" so that other posses can be matched up against the player. Encounters would probably be similar to how they are now, like you could still fight a solo feral dinosaur or a pair of ruffians, but the option for a straight up 6vs6 match is available. So basically what I started heading into with the "Hired Dusters" idea.

I might also revamp the “you go, I go” approach to combat if 6 characters are involved per side. A more likely approach would be Activation based, so that you activate a single piece, then your opponent does, and so on until none are left. This helps stop really long turns, but adds a bit of tracking to remember who has moved or not.

So yeah, between the skirmishes there still can be RPG elements in terms of getting jobs, travelling, exploring and so on (instead of just one preset skirmish after another). But I think the game really needed to choose a focus, instead of trying to split evenly. The existing big stack of sheets for 6+ people is cumbersome, and doesn't provide many benefits.

I think I'll start by mocking up the Posse Roster and making related changes from there. The core rules should stay pretty similar though, I figure.

Well I ended up being one of “those guys” that gets fired up about an idea, creates a blog, and then lets it stagnate. I’m still alive and still regularly check for comments and views, it’s just that, well, there isn’t much more to finish about the game. This is a problem with the simpler skirmish style rules because I can finish them relatively fast and don’t like to add needless complexity just for the sake of keeping blog posts going.

So if you don’t hear from me again on here, don’t think I’ve abandoned the blog (unless it’s you know, 15 years in the future or something). Still comment and email ideas to me, and if I’m ever struck with some new mechanism I can add to the game without bogging it down I’ll definitely let everyone know.

But otherwise I’d say take version 0.5 as the final set of Dinosaur Cowboys rules. All I really need to do is make a big list of enemies, but the game is fully playable without that. I could also bump up the version number since 0.5 is far far too low for how polished and playtested the game is.

I just thought I’d drop in and at least have the decency to write this post for anyone who wanders in and says “Oh great he hasn’t posted since dinosaurs were FIRST around”. And yes, I do want to end on that cheesy joke!

I don’t know how something so CRITICAL could have escaped me for so long, but I totally forgot to have Dynamite as a grenade type. Sticks of dynamite are classic cowboy after all, considering even Clint Eastwood used them at one point or another.

So I’ve remedied this situation by replicating the stats of the Boom and Kaboom grenade and calling them Stick of Dynamite and Bundle of Dynamite.

Phew!

I haven’t made any progress on a big book of enemies, and haven’t even had a chance to play Dinosaur Cowboys this week. Next week looks quieter, so far, which means I can hopefully get a campaign summary or detailed battle report posted here (with pictures) to give everyone an idea of how the game plays.

But yeah, minor polish here and there on the rules, but things will tend to slow down considering the core structure of the game (and every supporting document besides enemies) is complete.

Thursday’s Game
My game yesterday was fun. My friend had previously tried to double cross a travelling Neotechnoist merchant and his guard, which resulted in a close call with death-by-hanging thanks to a town sheriff. After some bandits broke in and won the fight against the townsfolk, my friend decided to join up with them. He took his share of the loot and equipment, and then headed south to go to a “Thickskull” nest to get himself a Dinomount.

After getting attacked by an adult Ripper him and another new bandit member were sent to explore the Ripper nest. The entrance caved in during an attack, and him and the bandit groupie continued deeper in the cave. Eventually he swam down an underwater tunnel that surfaced in a vine covered chamber. In a home built amongst the vines was an old man who had been there for 5 years. Some chatter back and forth and eventually it’s shown that the man killed his colleagues and tried to make a staircase from their bones to escape through a hole in the top of a chamber nearby. They fought and my friend killed the double barreled shotgun wielding old man by using grenades.

When he escaped out of the cave he decided to double cross the bandits. I don’t get what his deal is with double crossing everyone, but it makes for a dull game because he can’t do any “canned” missions like “Go here for X dollars, do this for Y dollars”. Instead he’s pretty much on the run all the time for being a jerk to people, and now he had screwed both the law abiding citizens of New Mexico, as well as the menacing bandit element.

He tried to make a run to Albuquerque to catch a 400 mile Flapper ride to Utah, but was caught outside the city by 3 newbie bandits, 2 full bandits, a bandit sergeant, and their Horned Dinomount. After dispatching the newbies he played cat and mouse for a bit, but eventually the combined firepower of the others brought him down and killed him.

His next character idea is someone who starts in Washington, and gathers enough supplies to make it to Canada (British Columbia specifically). Out of all of the USA he has to choose to go north to Canada, ugh.

Rules Thoughts
Anyways the system held up well again, and the Traits added a lot to it. I’m still having some trouble balancing AR vs Attacks, but I think that’s because he never really stopped running long enough to buy better armor with all his money. Having a total AR of 3 basically means you take a lot of damage…a lot a lot. But then again if he had gotten a Dinomount instead of trying to shoot everyone 10 seconds after meeting them, his AR wouldn’t be so awful. Apologies if I sound frustrated, haha.

In terms of the rules I’ve polished and refined them a bit more, and will continue to do so as I do more play testing and real games. Getting pretty close to done now, besides the zillions of enemies I want to make. I also might update the History a bit to include a note about Canada, and maybe how Alaska is considered an untouched paradise or something (sort of like Shell Beach in Dark City or the island lands in Mad Max or flat out land in Waterworld [yeah, I just referenced that movie in a serious context, so what?!]).

Update
I’ve completed the section about Canada and Alaska by adding a simple paragraph to the History section (under the “Eruption Day” header), duplicated below:

To the north Canada was covered in ash and eventually emptied as unprepared citizens escaped the cold by fleeing south. The country remains forsaken and abandoned, covered in blowing snow and choking ash and ruled by dangerous creatures. Rumors persist that Alaska endures untouched by the eruption's devastation; a veritable paradise for those brave enough to explore northwards.

Thoughts from Yesterday
Well my first “real” game (ie: not just playtesting alone) went well yesterday. I was the GM and my friend played a Duster who started in New Mexico. He shot up most of the people he met which resulted in him being knocked out and captured by bandits, and then after escaping getting captured AGAIN and almost hung by angry townsfolk and Neotechnoists. Good times.

The game held up very well. It would have been nice to have some Traits done, but even without the added variety and options of those there was plenty to do in combat. I also would have liked some printed enemy sheets, since I sometimes had to fill them in as I went.

I had a bit of a “woa, wait a second” moment when I considered the possibility that Dinomounts don’t actually add anything to the game. Heresy, I know. Well, maybe what I should say is the Damage Tracks on Dinomounts don’t add much to the game. Maybe it would be better to just have Dinomounts add a flat +HP bonus. That sort of makes them just like pieces of equipment you wear to boost stats, instead of a separate entity.
But I worry that the whole reason I put Damage Tracks in was because I loved it so much in Silent Death, which they are based off. The whole degrading movement and armor as you go SEEMS like a fun idea…but is it really in practice?
So if I took out Damage Tracks and did make Dinomounts glorified +MV, +AR, +HP pieces of equipment, where would that leave the feel of the game? Well…almost too simple. Maybe I’d have to add in crouch and prone to make up for it, or something extra to give the player more choice than “move and shoot”.
I guess once I get a few Dinocards done up and integrate them into the game I can see how it plays. I guess I just find the foot combat so much fun already that I don’t know if extra steps and tracking will add much to the game.

Also I might want to change how AR works. Right now people get shot, a lot. With 2 AR as the base and 3 pretty much standard for the first two levels, you’re left taking a lot of hits. But I had to keep AR relatively low in preparation for a person getting a Dinomount (which normally boosts AR). What I might do to solve this problem is make base, unmounted AR higher (ie: 3 default, 4 or 5 common for low levels, which is 6 if you’re in cover which is a nice chance to dodge) and then put a cap on the bonus from Dinomounts. Like they would have “+2 AR max 6” or something, so if you don’t have much armor you still get some bonus from the Dinomount, otherwise not really. Anyways, think of that possible mechanic similar to the max Dex bonus in D&D, or something along those lines.
That is a further reason to just remove Damage Tracks, since why would you care about losing AR from your Dinomount when you’re already at their max cap?
Another possibility with this is to make base AR higher, but start having movement penalties right away, so you can be either heavily armored and slow, or lightly armored and fast. Hmm, that might restrict characters too much though.
Who knew I’d actually have problems with armor though?! Normally that’s an easy thing to solve, but I guess I just set the base too low to begin with.

Anyways…

Radio Silence
Well Christmas is approaching, and I’m taking next week off work, so don’t expect many posts from me. I hope to get Traits done and start filling in some enemy sheets, but yeah I’ll likely get too busy with family obligations to write much here. So if there isn’t a post until the new year, you’ll know why!