It looks like a concept art website had a thread with several pictures of dinosaurs, cowboys, zombies, and aliens. Pretty much just a mishmash of craziness, but there were some really cool pictures. The main thread is http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=228945 and one focused more on unmounted zombie dinosaurs is at http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=179273.
Anyway here are the highlights in my opinion:
Just getting silly at this point!
In case you haven’t had the luxury of visiting the vast desert scrub in the southern US, I thought a thematic picture would help inspire players. I can really imagine a lone cowboy riding their dinosaur mount through these rocky passes. Camping under the stars, avoiding bandits and gigantic carnivores, keeping their laser pistols holstered but ready.
From: http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details/2868/red_rock_in_the_winter_sun.html
Speaking of pictures that spur the imagination I finally picked up Dinotopia (well, I actually got it for my birthday). I got the 20th anniversary hardcover version and it’s super nice and just chock full of terrific pictures backed by a whimsical storyline. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants a unique “coffee table book” or who is interested in the genre of humanity interacting with prehistoric life:
I sure do like the brief but very interesting time of the Pony Express. Such a simple and low tech way to transfer messages, but at the same time exciting. Anyways I found a great, flavorful map of the old Pony Express route. Sure would be fun to play a Pony Express campaign in Dinosaur Cowboys!
(Click for the full 4400px size!)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pony_Express_Map_William_Henry_Jackson.jpg
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.
So far the posses you’ve seen are built in a fairly standard, natural way. They have a reasonable story behind them, a good variety of weapons and roles and mix of dinosaurs.
But what about if we threw all that to the wind and tried to built super extreme posses that stretch every rule and are so drastically different from the norm?
Well…we’d probably get something like this:
Longneck (or Titan) in a $1,000 ND / 100 IP Posse
The Longneck (MV 5, PMV D6, AR 2, MMC 5, DIS 10, HP 37, 10A-1D) is considered the king of the herbivores. Heck anything that can grab vegetation nine meters off the ground is deserving of that title in my opinion. But in Dinosaur Cowboys it’s normally considered a later game purchase, considering it costs $1,000 and a standard posse begins with exactly that much money.
But with the Leader and first member being free to recruit, a posse could technically have two humans with no weapons and a Longneck. Crazy? Maybe. But it’s exactly what The Herd Mothers do. With plenty of IP to go around each member could be improved to a fairly solid point, with 12 HP a piece, 1 AR, and MV 6. They’ll be focusing on Brawl attacks (Punch, Kick, Shove, Trip), which won’t do a ton of damage but could disrupt enemy forces. For example each member could Trip an enemy to apply Stopped, so then the slightly slower Longneck could get into combat and stomp them into the dirt. Or perform a Shove and use the 2″ Knockback to send enemies into combat.
Another feature to remember is that every human gets a Rope Lasso for free, so someone could mount the Longneck and use the 1-6″ range to apply Stopped to a nearby enemy just in time for the Longneck to barrel into combat. The Leader could be the rider and use his “Get Up!” trait to heal the Longneck when the going gets rough.
Anyways the alternative build is to have a Titan in a $1,000 ND / 100 IP posse. Pretty much the same idea but slightly different traits, and of course, the best carnivore instead of the best herbivore. I call them The Pack Fathers.
Two Super Soldiers
The next posse takes the idea of extremely well trained and well armed members to the extreme. Instead of settling for a few good guns and statistics, this posse dumps all the IP and ND into two members, with the third (mandatory to meet Posse composition minimums) basically being dead weight.
I made the two “super soldiers” as Neotechnoists, as I could see them being from a dark sect inside The Wall that experiment heavily with human improvement, drug stimulants, etc. Perhaps they have even skewed their views into worshiping dinosaurs, and tried to alter their appearance to match with drastic implants and body modifications. Their third member, a Savage weakling, could represent a sacrifice they keep for the dinosaurs.
Anyways I call this posse the Supersoldier Legion, and here’s a quick glance at their basic statistics: MV 5, AR 4, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 7, HP 15. The best part of that statline (besides the ridiculously high HP) is the 4 AR, thanks to expensive $300 Mesh Armor. That should hopefully give each super soldier terrific survivability, as we’ve seen with the Armored dinosaur in the past. They are wielding a Light Repeater and Heavy Pistol, which are both good weapons in their own right.
Oh and of course The Sacrifice (the low stat Savage who weakened himself to free up IP for the super soldiers) has this for a laughable statline: MV 1, AR 0, RMC 9, MMC 8, BRV 2, HP 1. Haha.
Veteran 400 IP Posse
I had put a reasonable cap on IP at 400, which corresponds to $4,000 ND and 13 Traits. But I decided to actually build a Posse with those stats and see what kind of awesome weapons and equipment I could come up with. The result is The Deadly Half Dozen who had a Titan dinosaur, the full 5 members rife with Grenade Launchers, 1MW Scoped Rifles, etc. I think this Posse might expose a slight problem where Hitpoints become too low and damage outdistances what each target can absorb. I mean someone with RMC 4 and 1A-10D 27″ range rifle is going to hurt, a lot.
I think in the future I’ll give two 400 IP Posses a shot and see what kind of chaos ensues.
Conclusion
Anyways those were just a few of the extreme and different Posses I could build within the limitations of the rules. Interesting to try to take each concept to the max and see if it breaks the build process.
So as you’ve seen from my battle report pictures I currently use a set of wooden discs, hearts, and stars to mark the figures with various status effects, like Moved, Fleeing, Panic, etc. Yesterday’s report had some good examples of these. Well I was thinking of improving the existing tokens a bit, like painting the Fleeing/Panic hearts red, the Reload stars yellow, and writing “Moved” and “Moved & Acted” on the round circles after painting them some color (probably blue).
And then I remembered Litko (after feebly searching for “Lithko” for far too long). They have a huge selection of plastic tokens. I had looked at them in the past for torpedoes for Silent Death, but never ended up buying anything.
Anyway they have the terrific option of ordering custom tokens. You can choose the plastic color and type (opaque, transparent, etc.) and shape (star, round, etc.) and then have custom text written on them (up to 12 characters long). The price is great too, as you can get 10 custom text tokens for $6.99 + shipping (which looked pretty cheap up to the frozen Canadian north).
So I thought I’d link and show some of the tokens and markers I’d be interested in getting. First of all the premade tokens:
So for Acted I think I would use “Circle” in Fluorescent Blue with the text “Acted” on it. Then for Moved & Acted I’d still use Fluorescent Blue but with the “Circle Arrow” shape, since the embedded arrow would help visually clue players into the fact that movement was involved. I think to be on the safe side I’d get 20 of each.
Conclusion
So these look like a terrific option to really class up the look of my games. I’ll be placing an order sometime this week I think, and I’ll be sure to post some pictures of the tokens in use once they arrive.
Encounter Overview and Posses
Well the four player game yesterday went really well and was tons of fun. I had previously shown the table layout, but it looked even more prehistoric once my friend brought over some extra jungle trees. This was using the v1.2 rules (especially the dinosaur changes) and we played from 8:30pm or so until 10:45pm, mainly thanks to the usual socializing and time spent considering moves.
Everyone chose Posses and we rolled for setup position. The Posses involved were Hope’s Wardens in the top left, The Death Snakes (but with a Terror instead of a King) in the top right by the cabin, Drylands United Cattle Company (but with a Ripper instead of a Runner) in the bottom left (played by me), and Tribe of the Blood Pact in the bottom right. We all setup within 4″ of our deploy location, and the locations were evenly spaced from each other.
Objectives
The two objectives were a Laser Tower (middle left) with 5A-1D and a max range of 19″, and a Cannon (middle right) with 1A-5D 2″ Explosion and a min range of 4″ and max range of 14″. Whoever had the most characters (dinosaurs didn’t count) within 6″ of either weapon could fire it as their Action Phase. Multiple people could fire it, and if the number of characters was tied both teams could fire it. The Cannon ended up getting a ton of use (but not a ton of hits…) whereas the left side mostly had better equipped characters shooting at each other. Also whoever “captured” more objectives would technically win the game by the end. Really though the weapons were placed to try to stop people from hunkering down and avoiding combat.
Skirmish Pictures
Here are a slew of pictures from the game!:
General Recap
Anyways the Drylands Posse split their forces with their dinosaur and Dallas going left, and Quidel and Trista going right. Hope’s Warden kept Glowstar with his Autoshotgun mounted on their Ducky dinosaur and they flanked to meet Drylands dinosaur, while the other members edged towards the gun. The Death Snakes held back their sniper Ice and sent everyone else forward, tending to shoot the Cannon more than their actual guns. Their dinosaur got into melee combat early on with Tribe of the Blood Pact. Speaking of the Tribe of the Blood Pact posse they focused mostly on the Death Snakes, except for sending their Pike armed Illit’taex member left to meet up with the Spear armed Quidel in a fight to the death.
Eventually the Hope’s Wardens player had to head home a bit early (after killing the Drylands dinosaur and losing one of their own number). So we just removed their forces. Then the game became more of a “pick on Tribe of the Blood Pact’s freaking brutal Armored dinosaur”. Basically just pouring fire from Ice and Trista into the Armored dinosaur until it dropped dead.
After Tribe of the Blood Pact was eliminated we called the game. Quidel for Drylands was technically the closest to the turret, but The Death Snakes might have had Drylands if the fight went on. They hadn’t been hurt at all (besides losing their dinosaur) and were in pretty good shape still. Trista and Dallas for Drylands were fine, but Quidel was down to 2 HP so it likely would have ended as a 3vs2 fight, and perhaps eventual victory for The Death Snakes.
The game was lots of fun and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The rotating activation still worked well with 4 players, as did the bonus +4 HP (+2 HP per player beyond two) since it meant characters could actually reach combat and fight a bit.
The Question of the “Armored” Dinosaur
So as with the last battle using the Armored dinosaur, the feeling came up of “Is 4 AR too powerful?”. There were two characters in the whole match with RMC 6, and even then it was base 10+ to hit. Throw on In Melee and Moved penalties and you’re needing 12s to hit. On top of that the Armored dinosaur was the Feral Breed so his HP was at +2, with an additional +4 for the four player game. But even with all of that the dinosaur wasn’t smashingly effective. Sure the 3A-3D attack hurt a bit and it locked down a few people in melee, but not any more so than the Terror (or even the Ducky).
As it stands (with v1.2) the Armored statistics have been nerfed and look like:
Armored (Large Herbivore): MV 3, PMV D4, AR 4, MMC 7, DIS 5, HP 22, 3A-3D, $500
I want to avoid the Armored being the best and only choice for the $500 dinosaurs, and at the same time I don’t want to nerf it so badly that no one will ever use it. As a ponderously slow tank it is terrific, since it draws (and survives) a lot of fire, slowly wanders around the field, and generally just distracts the enemy from the rest of your team.
But at the same time it’s a bit…dull to fight against? Missing with most of your shots is terribly annoying and frustrating, and moods rapidly change from “Wow he’s a tough one!” to “Ugh won’t he just die already?”.
If I drop the DIS from 5 to 4 the dinosaur is basically stuck going D4″ an Activation because it will be fairly easy to Panic. I could raise the price slightly, especially when you consider an AR 4 suit for humans is $500 on it’s own. I might end up doing that, and also creating or changing a carnivore dinosaur to be in the $600 range as well.
Anyways that was the only real question to come out of the game. That and trying to indicate special abilities of a weapon somewhere on the Posse roster. I might just put a star (*) beside weapons that do something cool, and then that will hint to players to check the rulebook for what feature it has. I had thought about adding a “Special Ability” column to the weapon statline, but there really isn’t space (plus I don’t want to touch the sheet after this much time).
I thought I’d share some of the new terrain I got, as well as the four player game setup that I’ll be hosting later today.
All this terrain is just basic stuff from a pet store for aquariums. I find it’s pretty obviously for fish unless it’s mixed in with standard terrain, in which case it just spices up the table and gives it a jungle feel. I especially like the sabertooth skeleton because it’s such a perfect fit.
I also have a wooden cabin that I just finished spray painting today, but it was drying while I was taking photos so those will have to wait. Anyways I won’t be doing a turn-by-turn battle report for the game, but I should have a general summary and some (awesome?!) photos to share. I’m going to try a different camera too so hopefully they won’t be too blurry.
Here are the entries for my little Dino Storm Closed Beta Key Contest, in order received. As I mentioned in the original contest the idea was to send in the best Dinosaur Cowboys related tabletop pictures or artwork. Unfortunately I thought there would be more overlap between computer folks and tabletop people, since all the entries were just found on the internet. All it would have taken for someone to really sweep the contest is an original picture of some figures and a dinosaur, but alas!
Paul
The first entry was from Paul, who came up with some art from what looks like Dino Riders:
Yawar
Then Yawar who took some Dino Storm screenshots and concept art (in fact I had posted similar concept art in the original contest):
Ferran
And finally Ferran, who grabbed what looks like forum signature avatars.
The Winner Is…
After some consideration and deliberation the winner is Yawar! I’ve emailed him the closed beta key and hope he will enjoy Dino Storm.
Anyways back to your regularly scheduled tabletop programming after this. I’m playing a 4-person game of Dinosaur Cowboys tomorrow so that will be thrilling.
I’ve been making some minor changes to the current rules, and as I’ve mentioned in the past this will eventually result in a v1.2 release of the Dinosaur Cowboys rulebook. The most recent change was adding two new classes of Dinosaurs, a $400 herbivore (to match the Raptor) called “Fin” (aka Dimetrodon). The second big class change was reworking King to be Tyrannosaurus specific, and cost $700 (to match the Horned dinosaur which also costs $700), and then I made the old King class into “Terror” and had it focus on the Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, etc. So basically more options for the “in between” priced dinosaurs.
I also added a note to the start of the Dinosaurs section in the rulebook stating how totally scientifically inaccurate everything around the dinosaurs are. I made the tough choice a while back to not try to be too accurate in my representations of dinosaurs, I went for the popular culture view of the main ones instead of getting into nitty gritty differences. I think for a game with cowboys and lasers it should be fine though :) But yeah, the Dimetrodon especially highlighted this since it’s not even a dinosaur! Haha, yeah.
Anyways I also made a bunch of other stat tweaks, so let me talk about them below in detail, and then show you how the new Dinosaur List looks!
Plated HP 28 to 24, Armored HP 26 to 22, Armored MV 4 to 3, Horned HP 24 to 26: Basically tweaking the $500 herbivores to be a bit fairer. Previously Armored was clearly the best choice because that AR 4 just DOMINATES. Now he’s a bit weaker to compensate for that.
King (now Terror) HP 24 to 20: With the “nerfs” to the herbivores I thought the King (now named Terror) needed to be reduced a bit. I figured changing any of his other stats would give him a different feel, so I opted for reducing the HP.
Ducky HP 17 to 18: With the new Fin class and a close look at the Ducky vs the Raptor I thought he needed a slight boost, so +1 HP it was. I mean his DIS 3 is already crippling enough, but what can you expect for $300!
Ripper HP 11 to 12: This boost was done to differentiate the Ripper a bit more from the Runner. Previously the comparison looked fair on paper, but in practice the Runner’s MV 10 is a significant advantage, similar to how the Armored looked fine until you really start thinking about AR 4.
Raptor attack from 2A-4D to 1A-6D: I changed this to make the Raptor act similar to the other carnivorous dinosaurs, with one single attack that does a lot of damage. I really think that helps distinguish their style from the herbivores. I visual it as the herbivores stomping and slamming the target, whereas the carnivores go for the neck in a powerful bite or claw.
Thickskull HP 18 to 21, MV 7 to 8, DIS 7 to 6, MMC 7 to 6: I needed to make Thickskull a viable $500 alternative, and still give him a unique feel. Due to his smaller size I figured making him an “advanced Runner” (aka slower but buffer) would be an interesting approach. So he got a few more HP, a bit more MV, better MMC, and slightly worse DIS.
Renamed King to Terror and made a new $700 carnivore and Fin ($400) class: I wanted a $400 Herbivore and a $700 Carnivore so an option was available for each price bracket, so these guys were created. I had a tough choice finding a way to split King and Terror, but focusing on the Tyrannosaurus a bit more doesn’t seem like a particularly unpopular choice.
And here is the list from the upcoming v1.2 rulebook. Eventually The Saloon will reflect these changes as well, and have the new classes. I imagine once I actually release v1.2 I’ll do that, since there is no point having new rules that are different than the PDF.
So as you can see some minor tweaks, and some exciting new additions. I don’t think anything of these changes really modify how the game is played, which is great because at this point (really since v1.0) I just want to make minor tweaks and improvements, and save anything drastic for a Variant Rule.
Website News
In other news my recent posts about Dino Storm have really helped traffic (some of which came from Facebook, which makes me consider making a Facebook page for Dinosaur Cowboys sometime in the future?). Most importantly today beat my all time record for “Views Today” with 193 (previous record was 132), and best of all my total views broke 10,000 late last night! Hooray! Thanks to everyone for their support and interest in the game, I’m happy to report that this blog is now dominating the search results for “dinosaur cowboy”, which makes me quite happy!
Yesterday I saddled up with the Dino Storm closed beta. Remember that you can still get my single extra key by emailing me (dinosaur.cowboys@gmail.com) a cool picture of your Dinosaur Cowboys tabletop game or related artwork. Anyways enough shilling.
Everything in my mini-review below is slightly colored by the fact that I am on crappy slow internet and a crappy slow laptop at the moment. I’m on a business trip so I’m basically stuck with 40mbps wireless hotel internet. Because of that I’ll hold off making any judgements on laggyness until I can get home.
Anyways Dino Storm is written in Java, so my browser plugin took a bit to download all the necessary files, then I was good to go. I was first presented with the simple character creation screen, wherein I could choose my name, various colored shirts and hats and so on. No stat choices to be made at the moment, so everyone plays pretty much the same at this point.
After getting into the game I could up the graphics to my native resolution which helped improve the look of the game. I scaled down all the screenshots here though, but originally they were at 1680×1050.
Anyways the music was starting to repeat at this point, so I was looking forward to hitting the open plains. The desert/plains look very immersive with cacti and struggling shrubbery everywhere. Plenty of old buildings too. Following your current quest is simple since you can highlight the path in blue dino footprints.
As for controls, they were actually my favorite part of the game. In a sense they were “sluggish”, but that was intentional to give you a feel of actually steering a mount. Your dinosaur doesn’t turn on a dime, and hitting the left arrow key will have a slight delay before the dinosaur responds. Think of it like driving a big boat or slow city bus. I found making minor adjustments to my heading were easier if I rotated the camera since that seemed to shift where my rider was going.
Anyways I wandered after the blue footprints, which was pretty obvious since the map was tunneling my forward (at least at this point). Eventually they lead to Sue Hunt, riding a Ducky and eager for me to kill 10 Entelodons. In other words, prehistoric boars. There they were, majestically grazing in the field in a giant pack.
Before I go further keep in mind I haven’t played many 3D browser games. My MMO experience is limited to heavy Guild Wars for a few years (still some of the best party based fantasy PVP). And also keep in mind that I want to like Dino Storm. But seriously, BOARS? The joke of “Kill 10 Boars” has been an MMO staple since even before the Southpark World of Warcraft episode. And this is the devs best chance to grab the players and show them how cool and innovative the game can be. And yet there I was in 2012 killing 10 Entelodon’s in a field.
As for combat, well, you can see I have a little quickbar at the bottom of the screen. The first two abilities drain my blue bar (stamina?) a tiny bit and seem to do a tiny bit of extra damage. Combat is initiated by left clicking on the target, the clicking on “Attack” from the single option menu. Yep. Your cowboy will start shooting his gun, which unfortunately sounds and looks like some kind of gunpowder based weapon instead of the promised lasers. Maybe that’s an upgrade later. Anyways I’m not sure what the underlying mechanics or math are like, or whether moving helps make you harder to hit, or anything like that. But it basically seemed like the enemies health bar went down and eventually they died.
At first I tried strafing and sprinting in circles, until I realized I was still taking the same amount of damage but my dinosaur wasn’t able to attack since he was on the move. So after the first boar my strategy became “left click and wait for the boar to die”. I’d stay in place and once an enemy was close enough the dino would automatically bite attack, which helped add damage.
Certainly not the most compelling approach, but honestly mounted anything is super hard to do well. A similar problem happened in the game Auto Assault, which had cars with guns. Either you have turrets that auto aim, in which case moving can help a bit, or you make the player manually move. Dino Storm went for auto aim, so your cowboy swivels in his saddle to keep shooting, and you basically don’t have to do anything. Maybe they’ll add some abilities later so that I can at least mash 1-2-3 on my keyboard.
After decimating some boars I eventually got a level up. Hooray me! You have to painstakingly click to pick up the experience, which shows as floating sheriff badges. I’m not sure what the idea was with making experience a physical item, or taking 2-3 seconds to pick it up (there is a progress bar), but it gets annoying quickly.
Anyways most of the text wasn’t internationalized yet so I just got placeholders like “$profile.district”, which made learning anything about my character or dinosaur a bit hard.
They also have some achievements, but again the text was missing so I couldn’t figure out most of them, besides the one that wanted me to kill 999 Entelodons.
Anyways after leveling up I noticed the “Gold Coins” approach Dino Storm is going to do to make money. Keep in mind all these games need to support the devs and servers somehow, and in this case it looks like real world money can be translated into Gold Coins, which can then be translated into really awesome in game stuff. My test character started with 120 Gold Coins, which seemed like quite a few. Of course they still have non-real world related money in the game (called Dino Dollars) that is used for purchasing some items.
But Gold Coins can get you terrifically overpowered features like a whole new level up (which I did to get from level 2 to 3). You can also speed up research (more on that in a second) and buy some more elite items. I imagine the fancier dinosaurs will cost Gold Coins. I also imagine a person could just grind for all this stuff and never actually buy Gold Coins, but maybe I’m mistaken.
Another option to get Gold Coins is to complete surveys, which I would imagine give the devs some kind of kickback. For example completing a “US Auto Insurance survey” (pictured in the screenshot) would net you 397 Gold.
Anyways this whole approach left a sour taste in my mouth, so I wandered off to find another task in the game to keep me interested. Karl Nelson wanted to talk to me, so I asked him what was up. Deliver 5 fish. I think I took six quests during my first day of playing and every single one had a 0/X item count, be it killing things or delivering things. So yeah, Point A to Point B “Fedex” style quests, something I mistakenly thought the world had left behind with Baldur’s Gate 1.
After a while I got a chance to do a few upgrades. The approach to this is interesting and reminds me of Eve Online. You basically “start” the upgrade and it takes a preset amount of time (which can be sped up using Gold Coins). For example to upgrade my Kinetic Enhancer (which helped boost my damage a bit) it took around 5 minutes.
Another upgrade was “evolving” my dinosaur. This made him slightly bigger and gave him spikes along his head, and I assume better stats in the game. I think the idea is to have four or five of these evolution stages to each dinosaur, and goodness knows how many ridable dinosaurs in the final game.
Now so far it might seem like I’m being a bit negative of the game. Unfortunately I think I just had too high of expectations and was out of touch with what are (probably?) pretty standard features/limitations of browser based games. Dino Storm does have a neat feel to it, and the cowboys riding dinosaurs really do look cool. But it doesn’t excite a person or make them want to come back for more. Normally a look at the world map will spark my interest, but even that seemed kind of…lacking? Back to Auto Assault, I remember opening THAT world map and being excited to explore and drive around. And unfortunately Dino Storm just didn’t grab me.
I did have a few fun moments. When I fought some of the larger beasts and was forcing my mount to sprint away it did a good job of capturing what I think this type of genre would feel like. Exciting chase scenes! Daring shoot outs! And so on.
Of course this is just a closed beta, and as you can see from some of the screenshots the game is still in a very early stage (it felt late alpha to me). I’m going to keep abreast of the developments in Dino Storm, but the bar has certainly been lowered and I don’t expect to play it much even when the final game comes out. And yes it is “just” a browser game, but so is Spiral Knights and they did a terrific job of grabbing a player and throwing them into interesting combat right off the bat, plus a playable/workable money model.
Anyways I hope that gave you an idea of how the game looks and feels at the moment. I expect lots of cleanup and improvements to happen rapidly as user feedback comes in, but for the day after the closed beta servers opened it’s a pretty good idea of how Dino Storm is. Anyways, time to hit the dusty trail for now.
And if you need more of cowboys with laser guns riding dinosaurs, why not check out my tabletop game on this very website. First take a look at how it plays and then grab the free PDF rulebook. You’ll be fighting your toy dinosaurs against miniatures in no time!
Well the Dino Storm closed beta went live today. I’m in the process of loading it up.
In case you missed your chance at a key I have an extra one that I’d love to give away through a simple contest. Just email me the coolest Dinosaur Cowboys picture you can make, be it from a tabletop game or art related. A huge preference will be given to new images that you personally make, as compared to just digging something up on the internet. I imagine there won’t be many entries so give it a shot.
Send all pictures to dinosaur.cowboys@gmail.com. At the end of the week the person who sends the picture I like the most will get my extra beta key.
The contest is now over. See the results!
And if you’re interested in seeing what the game is like, be sure to check out my review from my first day of playing.
While doing my usual reading of various forums I came across a western skirmish game called Blackwater Gulch. It doesn’t delve into the “weird west” (like Malifaux) but stays pretty historically accurate in terms of weapons and professions of the old wild west. The author has done a terrific job with the layout of the rulebook and has just started selling his own miniatures which I think is rather inspiring for amateur designers everywhere. Previously he used the Black Scorpion Tombstone line (which I’ve mentioned previously). The rules for Blackwater Gulch are free to download as a PDF (once you register and login) so that’s good, since it’s hard to gamble on a tabletop game without seeing what it’s like first. The author also has an interesting approach of selling hardcover copies through lulu.com, an on-demand print service.
As for the game I read over the rules and it feels similar to Mordheim or Necromunda. The designer mentions he’s played Games Workshop games for quite a few years, and you can definitely see the influence. The game is D6 based with similar gang sizes to a Dinosaur Cowboys posse. The core combat resolution is done by determining a Target Number (base 4, can be modified by range, target moving too much, etc.) and then rolling various D6s based on the attacker’s Ranged Combat statistic. Then the target gets to defend themselves by also rolling some D6s. It seems like the success based rolling would be quicker for resolving shooting compared to Warhammer 40,000.
Several neat mechanics like “Leader’s Luck” (similar to Yeehaw!) that allows additional dice to be used from a preset pool. I find the Skills (aka Traits) to be a bit lacking (mostly in the number available). The other issue I found was the scale for improving statistics is fully equal, so bumping up Ranged Combat (which is a hugely useful skill) is comparable to improving something less necessary like Strength. Which means most characters would probably end up pretty similarly improving Ranged Combat as much as they could. Anyways overall it seems like a nice light game that would play quickly and deadly, since most characters can die after a single gunshot.
I’ll be interested in seeing where the author takes the game, and eventually I might have to pick up some of the figures as I know he plans to expand the line.
Hitpoints in Big Games
So I’m trying to organize a 4 person game of Dinosaur Cowboys, which would be incredibly fun. It would also be the first match I’ve played with more than 2 people total.
I think the rules will hold up just fine. Activation was written from the start with larger games in mind, so besides having to re-roll a few ties (or use a larger dice to avoid that) it will work okay. Posse building, combat, etc. should translate well into a 4 person game.
The only concern I have is one small facet: Hitpoints. You see the base 8 HP sounds great, until you have two more players shooting at you. If you look at my past games you can see a few cowboys that met an untimely end in a single attack or shot, and that was just against one player.
Regardless of whether this game gets off the ground, I’m going to add a note (probably in the Standalone Game section) about multiplayer battles along the lines of:
For each additional player beyond two add +2 HP to every entity in your posse (for example +6 HP for a 5 player game).
In other words with 4 total players a basic member would start with 12 HP instead of 8 HP. This should make for a bit more of a tactical game since everything will live longer, and doesn’t throw off IP costs since HP is on a flat cost scale.
Speaking of multiplayer battles I was thinking a fun objective would be a series of dinosaur eggs around the map and a big, unaligned T-Rex in the middle. Whoever holds the most dinosaur eggs can vaguely control the T-Rex. As usual an objective that does something beneficial will actually motivate players to capture it, similar to what I did with the fight for the cannon.
Variant Rules – Shooting Position and Aimed Shot
Currently the combat modifiers table has 10 entries: Armor, In Melee, Short Range, Long Range, Movement, Cover, Crossfire, Elevation, and Charge. Sounds like a lot eh? Well in practice it isn’t, since you basically check range and the target’s armor and roll to attack.
What I struggled with when I first wrote the rules was whether to include Crouch and Prone as alternative shooting stances. In the end I decided it would add too much additional complexity, especially with tracking who is in what stance. But a recent sampling of the classic Jagged Alliance 2 game (thanks to the v1.13 mod) made me reconsider it as a Variant Rule.
Also along that line of thought is the idea of an Aimed Shot. Basically you don’t Move at all and declare you’re using an Aimed Shot, which then gives some positive effect.
The problem with both of these Variant Rules is I don’t want to just have them modify RMC. Crouch -1 RMC, Prone -2 RMC, Aimed Shot -1 RMC is simple enough, I guess. But it’s also extremely bland.
What I think I’d do instead is leverage Critical Hits, similar to how Surprise Hit is handled (when shooting at a targets back you get a Critical Hit on 10+ instead of 12). Perhaps Aimed Shot could reduce the Critical Hit chance by a further 1. So just doing an Aimed Shot would mean you Critical on 11+. Aimed Shot from behind (Surprise Hit) would be 9+ to Critical. Crouch could be a further 1 and Prone would be 2. So Prone (+2), Aimed Shot (+1), Surprise Hit (+2) would be 7+ to Critical!
Anyways I think I’ll leave Crouch and Prone out for now, but I’m going to add Aimed Shot in there.
Other News
Anyways I’ve been doing some further edits and clarifications of the rules. Not changing any core mechanics or anything, instead just editing or cleaning up certain aspects that might be confusing. I find revisiting the rules after an extensive break helps since I can look at them with fresh eyes, and then see how some sections can be confusing.
I also want to add the old images of weapons into the rules somewhere (probably before the description section).
Then the above changes around multiplayer games and Aimed Shot. Basically what I’m saying is I’ll probably have a v1.2 release sometime in the distant future.
Encounter Overview
Well this battle report took a while to get written up. The game took place back near the end of December, but I was tired of formatting these and hassling with the pictures so I let them sit for a while. Anyways it’s here now! The match was quite a bit of fun because of how much the central road changed the flow of combat.
I stuck to the smaller table, this time using a 3 foot square of terrain with 5″ deployment zones in the wilderness opposite the central road. I put up some blocking terrain near the middle to help give a “trench” feel of one posse having to charge out of cover and across the big gap.
The deadly posses involved were The Sunset Riders, which used a dedicated mounted member on a super fast Plains Runner (MV 12). The other posse were The Death Snakes, a smaller but extensively equipped posse with a deadly assassin leader. Who would win?
Note on images, all of them are clickable and will open the image at the full size. Apologies for any blurriness, my old camera is still having some issues.
Posse: The Death Snakes: 1/100 IP, 0/1000 ND, 2/3 Traits (not sure what happened there!)
My goal for the posse was to have a team of hard hitting, vicious combatants who could fight on their own. No weak links here. The Neotechnoist Leader named Ice (reminiscing of the TV show Gladiators) exemplified this with good AR and HP, deadly RMC, and a terrific 400kW Lever-Action rifle for sniping. I gave him the Knee Shot trait since enemies will undoubtedly move, and the +3 Damage from it would mean at least 8 damage if the rifle hit, and upwards of 10 before factoring in criticals. That’s good news for single shotting some basic enemies. Next up was Kallas who used a Double Barrel Shotgun and the Speed Reload trait to hopefully fire Both Barrels in a row with deadly effect. He’d be a bit shorter range, but again AR 1 and HP 12 should see him across the street. Jordana was next (you can thank the TV show Chuck for that one, since it had Jordana Brewster on it for a bit). I gave her a heavy 300kW Six-Shooter, which does a respectable 4A-3D and would be deadly if she used Fan the Hammer. Similar stats for her as Kallas, since I had IP to spare with only 3 humans. My dinosaur choice was made simply because I hadn’t tried the Allosaurus out in combat yet, and it’s such a dynamic toy that I wanted to give it a shot. So I made a Plains King Dinosaur named Klahr, who continued the “deadly weapon” idea with his 1A-7D Bite.
For strategy I imagined Kallas riding Klahr to bring his shotgun into combat faster. Jordana would head up the center, and Ice would snipe from the side. I didn’t expect Jordana to hold the entire enemy force by herself, but if I could focus fire all my attacks on a single target I had lots of confidence I would make one enemy drop per turn.
Ice (Neotechnoist Leader)
MV 4, AR 1, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 7, HP 10, Knee Shot I. 400kW Lever-Action Rifle.
Kallas (Duster)
MV 3, AR 1, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 12, Speed Reload. Double Barrel Shotgun, Whiskey Drop.
Jordana (Duster)
MV 3, AR 1, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 5, HP 12. 300kW Six-Shooter, Whiskey Drop.
Klahr (Plains King Dinosaur)
MV 6, PMV D6, AR 2, MMC 6, DIS 7, HP 24.
Posse: The Sunset Riders: 1/100 IP, 0/1000 ND, 3/3 Traits
The focus of my posse was a lightning fast dinosaur with a deadly close combat rider, then a basic sniper leader and two cheap members that would form a simple firebase. First up was “Old Jim”, my Neotechnoist Leader who uses a deadly 400kW Lever-Action rifle. I also gave him the Rapid Fire trait to help make sure that 4D from the rifle lands on target. With an RMC of 6 he’d basically hang to one side and shoot at enemies crossing the road. Next up was my dinosaur and rider, named Limefly (after an old fast Battletech mech) and The Man in Black respectively. I tried a new approach of reducing the rider’s Movement to 1, which gave me some bonus IP to play with but would also mean he’d never dismount the dinosaur. Let’s just hope the ride never gets shot out from under him! I beefed up his HP and gave him a Motor Blade which is a nice versatile close combat weapon. His goal would be to hang on the flank opposite Old Jim and counter charge anyone coming across the road. Then came the twins, who were cheap members with cheap 100kW Six-Shooters. They’d bulk up the center and either defensively hold ground or advance across the road, depending on how the enemies looked. I used ancient Warhammer 40,000 Sisters of Battle figures for them, and then had tons of trouble remembering who was who once the bullets starting flying, haha.
Old Jim (Neotechnoist Leader)
MV 4, AR 0, RMC 6, MMC 8, BRV 7, HP 8, Rapid Fire I. 400kW Lever-Action Rifle, Small IRP.
The Man in Black (Duster)
MV 1, AR 1, RMC 8, MMC 6, BRV 6, HP 13, Bonus HP I. Motor Blade.
Cardella (Bandit)
MV 4, AR 1, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 6, HP 10. 100kW Six-Shooter
Kina (Bandit)
MV 4, AR 1, RMC 7, MMC 8, BRV 5, HP 10. 100kW Six-Shooter
Limefly (Plains Runner Dinosaur)
MV 12, PMV D10, AR 0, MMC 9, DIS 4, HP 10, Bonus MV I.
Deployment
For the roll off to decide table edges The Sunset Riders got the right side (west) and The Death Snakes got the left side (east). The Death Snakes had to setup first. As mentioned the deployment zone was 5″ from each table edge. There was no objective for the game, since the street would inspire enough strategy without artificial goals.
Death: My setup didn’t have a lot of depth or trickery to it, so I wasn’t worried about going first. As planned I put Jordana right in the middle behind the tall, line of sight blocking hill. She’d either advance with Klahr or summit the hill and provide covering fire. Speaking of Klahr I put Kallas on his back and the two of them were slightly north of Jordana, just beside the tall hill. They would be my spearhead, and what better weapon to break the enemy lines than a shotgun? Heck if it’s savage enough to make World War 1 Germans protest about it, it’s probably still fine for rushing an enemy position. Finally Ice hung out on the right side, just to provide some support for that flank in case The Sunset Riders aimed that way. His long range would mean basically full coverage of the street.
Sunset: Seeing a fresh, unhurt and unhurried force arrayed before me is always intimidating. Luckily I outnumbered The Death Snakes, but they sure sounded better equipped. First of all I placed Old Jim, and I decided to put him to the north (my right flank), since I honestly didn’t want to get into a shooting match with Ice (he had better AR and HP). Plus I could start laying down a withering hail of fire against Klahr, since I figured the dinosaur would be quick to advance. Unlike my little Limefly he couldn’t hide behind any hill on the board, so I imagine he’d be deep into the road in no time. Anyways then the twins were put in front of the thin, tall hill slightly back from the main hill adjacent to the road. Sorry for the poor description, but I thought it was necessary since the pictures don’t have much context. I put the Man in Black and Limefly behind that same thin hill, since I wanted to hop him cover to cover and then hopefully charge a flank or counter charge Klahr.
Sunset: I was a bit worried that Cardella would be outranged by Ice if the flank came to a shootout, so I moved her to the right to add some extra cover between the two.
cover at the southern tip of the hill. Next turn he will be able to Run a massive 12+6″ and reach Ice in melee! I finished my turn by moving Kina to the base of the tall hill, since she had to climb up the stepping stone along the way. I was at medium range of Klahr, so I snapped off a shot. Another lucky roll with 1 critical for 3 measly damage.
Death: With the cowardly Limefly burrowing even further behind the hill I left Ice for now and focused on getting Klahr into melee before he had to weather another round of fire. I moved him directly forward towards Cardella, then rolled to Charge the 3″ to reach her. I rolled enough movement and could reach Cardella, and Klahr viciously went to work on her, hitting with his 1 attack for 8 damage. Cardella passed her Bravery test, goodness knows how!
Sunset: Kina couldn’t handle Jordana (and maybe Ice, depending on how he moved) alone, so she ducked back down the hill to the stepping stone. This put her into a Crossfire with Klahr, who was also at short range. She grabbed her revolver and held the trigger and Fanned the Hammer, which gave her a total of 6+2 attacks (thanks Crossfire!) at 9+. She only hit 3 times for a total of 4 damage. The upside is it knocked Khalr 2″ backwards (well, sideways), although he was still in melee with Cardella. Kina will need to Reload though since Fan the Hammer empties the gun (plus I rolled a 1, so it was worth Fanning the Hammer!).
3c. Death wins Activation
Death: I knew Klahr didn’t have much time left, so I handled him first. Instead of Charging I took a longer move route into combat with Cardella to get out of the numerous Crossfires. Then of course I had to miss with his attack on Cardella. At least it was just 1 Attack compared to Old Jim’s 7 that he missed, haha.
4c. Sunset wins Activation
Death: I didn’t expect Kallas to last long that close to so many enemy troops, so he got busy killin’. I used Both Barrels at medium range against Old Jim, rolling 4 Attacks. Kallas hit with 3 (2 of which were criticals) for a massive 10 damage, which killed Old Jim outright! Now that’s an entrance. The Man in Black and Kina both Flee as a result of their Leader being killed.
7a. Sunset wins Activation
8a. Death wins ActivationTurn 9 – Not Over Yet
9a. Death wins Activation
Death: Calmly Ice lifted his rifle to kill Kina, needing only a 7+ to hit. Maybe the wind changed, or maybe a solar flare interfered with his vision, but he missed with everything! Looks like this is going to overtime, haha. Next Jordana Ran up the tall hill to be face to face with Kina, although not quite in melee combat.
Sunset: Intent on showing the cocky Jordana what happened to the last person at short range, Kina Fanned the Hammer for 4 hits (1 of which was a critical) for 6 damage, which causes Jordana to Flee! Kina moved back down the hill to deny Ice his shot.
NOTE: I forgot about the 2″ Knockback with Fan the Hammer, which would have sent Jordana sailing off the cliff
After Action Report
Death: Pulled out a victory! That was such a tense back and forth battle. When Klahr died I’ll admit I had my doubts, but then Kallas swung it back by killing Old Jim, and subsequently dying soon after in melee with Limefly, but then his killer died, and so on. Definitely could have gone either way at a lot of points. During the game I felt that I didn’t use Ice nearly enough. I was too nervous to move him closer, but as soon as Old Jim was dead I could have been owning the long distances. Instead I had to spend (waste!) turns running him forward. Otherwise everything worked okay. Klahr did well in bringing Kallas into combat, and doing a bit of damage to boot. It’s always a toss up between being the aggressor and just playing defensive. I did take more fire than I would have just sitting in my “hill bunker” as The Sunset Riders did, but at the same time I got to dictate the flow of the game whereas my opponent just had to react to my moves. Anyways all in all I felt the Posse did a solid job, and the high cost weapons paid off very well. I can only imagine what would have happened if Kina didn’t have a cheap knockaround gun but a REAL weapon.
Sunset: Ugh how could I forget the 2″ Knockback on Kina’s Fan the Hammer against Jordana near the end there?! Not saying that was my biggest mistake, but it certainly is the freshest. I think wimping out with Limefly hurt me. He did okay in the backlines once Klahr arrived, but that was more due to The Death Snakes inability to kill Limefly than my own tactical genius. If I had committed him earlier I might have slowed Klahr before he (and Kallas!) really reached my lines. I guess I can’t be too much to blame since he Fled after taking a shot from Ice, so I had to react to that. Anyways everyone did okay. I would have liked Old Jim to survive longer, but who could have foreseen that much damage at once? I’m waffling on whether the twins were a worthwhile investment, since their 100kW Six-Shooters were hitting reliably (and Fan the Hammer + Crossfire rocked!) but they didn’t do a ton of damage, and certainly seemed like an easy “threat” to ignore.
Complete Turn Log
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Horizon Games (main blog)
Dinosaur Cowboys - Tabletop Skirmish Game 