The Nerd's RPG Variety Cast, er, Blog

Last week I introduced the idea of doing a solo skirmish war-game campaign using Two Hour Wargames’ Six Gun Sound – Blaze of Glory rules and we generated our “Star”, Tombstone Tom. Tom is a gunfighter from Arizona who is currently cooling his heels at a trading post in Canada. It is the spring of 1875, time to see if there is any work for Tom here in the Great White North. 

I rolled a 4 on the Help Wanted table against my Rep and Pass 1d6, someone with Tom’s “talents” might prove useful. Let’s see what kind of job is being offered. Now we roll 1d6 plus 1 for the settlement level, on the Opportunity table. 2+1 gives us three so the job is for a Ranger. Tom has to make a choice. Take the Ranger job for the coming year, Drifting, or becoming an Outlaw. After spending the winter up here Tom is ready to get back down to the States so he will Drift. That means he moves one local (there is a point crawl type map of the west included with the game) and checks for an encounter. He will move to the Washington Territory which has a settlement level of 4. Now I roll one die to check for an encounter, if it is 4 or less there is one. 3! Rolling again on the Gunfighter Drifting Table we once again roll a 3 which is a Gunfight! Nothing like starting the game off with a bang!

Rolling a 4 than a 6 followed by a 5 we see that this is a gunfight with more than two characters involved spread out over two sides. We also know this will happen out of town on the trail. Our goal in a Gunfight is “to drive off the enemy whether through casualties or threat of force.” 

We need to see how many characters are on Tom’s side, I roll 1d6 and get a 5. Then we roll on the How Many of Them are There table, 2d6 for a 6 which tells us the forces are equal so 6 total opponents. Let’s roll on the Gunfight Opponents table to see what their forces consist of. Interesting, they have a Ranger, an Outlaw, and four Gunfighters. 

The book tells us the deployment for this type of Gunfight, GF-2, is for the characters to square off at a distance equal to the shortest effective range of all the character’s involved. After that I rolled for the disposition of our mounts and found that they are unsaddled and picketed at the center of the table edge furthest from the opposing faction. 

I think I’ll say this ambush is happening at the end of the day and Tom’s outfit is just sitting down for supper. The other side will ride in and as soon as they are close draw their weapons! 

The book tells us that the Washington Territory is Rough Terrain which is defined as: Countryside contains features that reduce movement such as gullies (1), washes (1-2), and small ridges (1-3). No more than 1/3 of the table is flat. Possibly a river (1) running from one edge to the opposite side. With one (1-4) or two (5) fords crossing river. In addition the book tells us that in Rough Terrain movement reduced to half speed through area. Visibility is also reduced when inside. To 12” in day and 6” at night. Provides both obscuring and bulletproof cover.

Before we set up the battlefield we better find out who Tom’s five companions are.

I’m going to say Tom just hooked up with a group that was traveling south so we’ll roll on the Just Passing Through table to determine who is in his outfit. 

1, 1 Bounty hunter

1, 2 Bounty hunter

3, 5 Greenhorn

5, 4 Prospector

5, 3 Mountain Man

So after rolling on some more tables we get the following:

Bounty Hunter 1 & 2 both have Reputations (Rep) 4 Toughness 4 Sand 4 a pistol and a repeating carbine. 1 is Slow subtract 2” from move and 2 is a Knife Fighter. We’ll call them Ed and Fred. 

The Greenhorn has Rep 3 Toughness 4 Sand 3 a pistol and a repeating carbine. Swimmer, we’ll call him Alexander.

The Prospector has Rep 2 Toughness 2 Sand 3 a shotgun. Touched in the Head roll 1d6 when active, roll Rep or less and behave normal otherwise remain in place, we’ll call him Bill.   

And finally the Mountain Man has Rep 4 Toughness 4 San 4 and Muzzleloading Rifle. Staggering Drunk -1d6” when moving and may only use 1d6 when testing to move fast,

we’ll call him Jeremiah. 

Fred and Bill are veterans but the rest are not.

Ed’s horse is Quality 3, Bills is Quality 5, the others are Quality 4.

Now let’s flesh out the opposition. 

Ranger Rep 5 Toughness 5 Sand 5 armed with a pistol and a trapdoor carbine. Sickly counts as 1 less Rep when making After the Battle Recovery Checks

Outlaw Rep 3 Toughness 3 Sand 3 armed with a pistol. Touched in the Head roll 1d6 when active, roll Rep or less and behave normal otherwise remain in place.

Gunfighter 1 Rep 4 Toughness 3 Sand 4 armed with a pistol. Gun Shy will only roll 1d6 when taking a Received Fire test.

Gunfighter 2 Rep 5 Toughness 4 Sand 5 armed with a pistol and repeating carbine. Swimmer.

Gunfighter 3 Rep 5 Toughness 4 Sand 4 armed with a pistol. Touched in the Head roll 1d6 when active, roll Rep or less and behave normal otherwise remain in place.

Gunfighter 4 Rep 4 Toughness 4 Sand 4 armed with a pistol. Knife Fighter. 

All but Gunfighter 3 & 4 are veterans. This matters for the Ranger as it let’s him use the longer effective range of the trapdoor carbine. 

All the opposing team’s mounts are Quality 4. 

This doesn’t look good for Tom and his outfit, I wonder why the Ranger is with these others? I wonder if Tom and his traveling companions will live long enough to find out? 

Now that we have both sides let’s build the map placing our forces 3” apart (the shortest effective of any of the characters involved.)

MAP

I think that is everything and the stage is set for the first encounter of this campaign. Join me next week as we play it out. Until then be excellent to each other!

Welcome back to the blog! I hope your week has been going well, mine certainly has. I know I am supposed to have some sample rooms from the first two levels of my Gygax75 Challenge this week but I have hit a wall there. I will eventually get in the mood to create those but for now I figure it is better to be productive so instead of spinning my wheels on that I am going to present you with the first post of a new solo campaign.

Today I am going to share a new campaign I have started in one of my favorite genres, the western, with one of my favorite skirmish rule systems, the Two Hour Wargames Chain Reaction system. We’ll be using the campaign rules from Six Gun Sound – Blaze of Glory. I hope you enjoy reading alone as much as I did playing.

The first thing I had to do is choose which sort of campaign to play, the opinions are Cowboy, Gunfighter, Marshal, Outlaw, Ranger, or Sheriff. Let’s go with a Gunfighter. The time frame of the campaign will be from the spring of 1875 through the winter of 1885. 

Now that we know what and when let’s find out who our gunfighter is! A player character in this system is called a “Star” because they are treated differently than the other characters who are called “Hands.” Stars have three important advantages, The “Larger Than Life” rule, the “Cheating Death” rule, and finally the “Free Will” rule. Some more important “Hands” may be able to use some of these. 

“Larger Than Life” means a character can’t be killed by anyone with a lower Reputation (or Rep) than theirs.  

“Cheating Death” means if a character with equal or higher Rep would kill a character they can invoke this to remove themselves from the scene without dying.

Invoking either of the above will cause mechanical penalties for the character. 

“Free Will” will not cause the character any mechanic repercussions and is the most powerful ability given to a “Star.” It allows the character to choose the result of a reaction test instead of rolling for it. The importance of this will become apparent as the game goes on. 

A character is defined by the following stats:

Profession: Their job
Veteran: If they served in the American Civil War

Reputation: A combination of training, skill and experience

Toughness: A combination of physical toughness and willpower or grit

Sand: Coolness under fire or ability to handle stress

Weapon: This is a miniature skirmish war-game after all

So let’s build our character for this campaign. There is a table to roll on to see what our starting stats are for a Gunfighter, first we roll to see if they are a veteran, 4 so no, not a veteran. Next we roll for the other stats, 5 so our character looks like this:

Profession: Gunfighter
Veteran: No

Reputation: 5

Toughness: 5

Sand: 5

Weapon: Pistol and Repeating Carbine but for scenarios that start in town just the pistol

Now we will determine their attributes and skills, they get one for each point of Rep at 3 or higher, so we will start with three of them. 

I am going to draw on randomly, you use a deck of playing cards for this, and choose the other two.

7 of Hearts, Tradesman – Townsfolk with expertise in chosen field. +1 to Rep for any occupation related Challenge. Apparently this was prior to the career as a gunfighter. 

Born Leader – Adds 1d6 to all Reaction tests except for the In Sight test. Any friendly character within 4” of him will react as he does.

Crack Shot – +1 to die score when firing.

Now we roll on the Life and Times on time for each point of Rep

1) Old family friend has hideout or “home”. No chance of being ambushed when a capture Encounter is generated in any one locale of choice. This is in addition to your own “home”.

2) Reputation as “Trail Boss”. Character will have one less Encounter during a Cattle Drive.

3) Have exceptional Quality 5 horse. 

4) Old family friend has hideout or “home”. This was rolled again but it stands to figure an experienced gunfighter might have multiple friends.

5) Have reputation for gunplay. When in any locale of your choice, and no Encounter is generated for his profession, test again. If an Encounter is called for it is automatically a Gunfight (GF-1). 

Because of the experience as a “Trail Boss” we will say his trade will have been with animals, perhaps as a teamster. 

Now we need to determine our character’s “home” or birthplace. There’s a table for that and we get:

Arizona

Time to come up with a name and see who our traveling companions are! I think we’ll call our gunfighter Tombstone Tom. I rolled a 6 (-3) for traveling companions so that gives Tom three brothers or good friends that he can depend on. Rolling we see that two are Gunfighters and one is a Marshal. Now I need to decide if any or all start with Tom or at different locations. If they don’t start with him they can be called for at the start any of season except for winter. The advantage of these three is that:

The last brother standing will not leave the table without his fallen brothers. At this point he is not subject to Runaway results and while in the act of moving to pick up a fallen brother is not subject to Duck Back results.

An Outlaw’s brothers will never challenge him for leadership of the gang.

If they are in the same location you could substitute one or more of them for one or more members of your outfit. 

I’m going to say that they are not with me. One, Tad, is Tom’s actual brother in Tombstone, Arizona. The other two are friends. Michael, the gunfighter, will currently be in Dodge City, Kansas, and Bob, the marshal, will be in Eureka, Nevada.

OK, last thing to do is randomly determine where we are going to start. At a trading post in Canada! Interesting. So in the Spring of 1875 we have:

Tombstone Tom, originally from Tombstone, Arizona currently at a trading post in Canada.

Profession: Gunfighter
Veteran: No

Reputation: 5

Toughness: 5

Sand: 5

Weapon: Pistol and Repeating Carbine, in town just the pistol

Tom has an exceptional Quality 5 horse

Former Teamster +1 to Rep for any occupation related Challenge.  

Born Leader – Adds 1d6 to all Reaction tests except for the In Sight test. Any friendly character within 4” of him will react as he does.

Crack Shot – +1 to die score when firing.

Tom’s brother Tad, another gunfighter, is still back home in Tombstone, Arizona.

Bob, his old marshal friend has a “home” in Eureka, Nevada. No chance of being ambushed when a capture Encounter is generated in Eureka. This is in addition to your own “home”.

Michael, a old gunfighter friend has hideout or “home” in Dodge City, Kansas. No chance of being ambushed when a capture Encounter is generated in Dodge City. This is in addition to your own “home”.

Tom has a reputation as “Trail Boss”. Character will have one less Encounter during a Cattle Drive.

Tom has reputation for gunplay. When in any locale of your choice, and no Encounter is generated for his profession, test again. If an Encounter is called for it is automatically a Gunfight (GF-1). 

Next week we’ll get started, until that time be excellent to each other!