Star Wars campaign that never was. Shoot first like Han Solo!

Above is a cover for an imaginary Han Solo novel that I ran into on Boing Boing,of all places. Its just art, not a real novel. Sorry to get your hopes up.
Its by Phil Noto, whose work I like, though he does tend to give women overly narrow hips.
Anyway, The image sparked my memory and I went rooting through the old game idea folders to retreive the bones of a Star Wars campaign that never quite jelled.
We, the game gang, had West End Games Star Wars RPG, and the idea was to have an campaign with a large number of characters whose lives mostly overlapped, but didn't always. This was probably 88, just after the WEG Star Wars came out.

I was going to trade off game mastering with one of the guys so that we could both play in the same campaign. We'd alternate games or go two for two or something along those lines as we both wanted to play, but somebody had to GM. The other players could with either of us GMing as we'd have multiple game directions running concurrently.

The game was to be sort of Star Wars meets A-Team plus "Caper" movie, with some Western themes thrown in. The party was to be a crew of rejects, rat bastards, whak-Os, and failed criminals, rebellion friendly but not active members of it.

Thrown together by fate, or maybe the Force, they find the battered hull of an old Republic era Intruder class torpedo boat and decide to make a career out of sucker punching the Empire.
The first few games would have centered on scrounging, stealing, trading for, or otherwise aquiring the parts and equipment to make the old boat functional. Then it would have been on to smuggling, piracy, bushwacking and otherwise sticking their thumbs in the eye of the Empire whenever possible.



Above and below are a couple of the sketches we worked up concerning the general design of the Intruder torpedo boat class.

The bottom drawing has a scout walker standing near the bow for scale. Also a speeder bike, a guy, and an R2 unit.



My character was an Imperial deserter, a renegade storm trooper named Izayah yaegr. (This was before storm troopers were clones, of course.)

In my character background I wrote, "A member of the Nova Demons swoop gang in his youth, Izayah joined the Empire after his wing of the demons was destroyed. His career as a storm trooper ended when he deserted after causing the death of an officer in a bizarre practical joke. Since he's been a smuggler, a gunman, and a real thorn in the ass of authority. Izayah will do just about anything to stick it too the Empire."

Izayah had one, intermittant and unreliable Force power, an inhumanly fast speed draw. Once per day he could roll to attempt it. It didn't guarantee a hit, but it did, if successful, give him the first shot regardless of the circumstances.

This game never did happen. I think mostly because we had a hard time trying to figure out how to apply WEG's rules to our AD&D gaming sensibilities. The WEG rules make some story driven assumptions about the game that were a bad fit for us.
We didn't realize that at the time, it just felt off somehow.

We started on an house rule adaptation, but it took too long, and enthusiasm flagged.

Is there a limbo, do you think, for campaigns that never happened?

Also, HAN SOLO SHOOTS FIRST!

Blogger fumbles again. I'm gonna make them roll on the self inflicted damage chart.

Now I can't post comments on my own blog. I can comment on other blogs, and others can comment on my blog, but when I try to comment, I get stuck in this repeating loop of signing in, over and over.

Blogger says they're aware of the problem and are working on a fix.

This happening to anyone else?

Also, I wanted to say regarding the comments to my Stargate Universe post, I agree, Blueskreem. I hated the kinos and the communication stones too. The stones just became a crutch for the writers. They used them to write teeny drama on earth instead of sci-fi in space. The kinos just became another excuse for the shaky cam.

And Timeshadows, I would love to read whatever you have to say about Universe. Also, I thought Todd the Wraith was the single best antagonist on SGA. I always like those episodes where the SGA team is forced to work with Todd against their better judgement.

I figured we'd be sympatico on SGU, Dr Rotwang!

And Brutorz Bill, me too.

Stargate is dead. Long live Stargate!

The last episode of Stargate Universe season 2, also the final episode of the series, aired a couple weeks ago, and while I had no great love for the show, I was not pleased by its demise.

This is mostly because I thought it still might have been possible to turn the show around, and because when it went, it took with it any chance of new movies or another series for the foreseeable future.

Stargate as a whole constitutes a mythos that rivals that of Star Trek in its breadth and detail. Universe, however, deliberately eschewed the majority of the elements which made its predecessors, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, so successful, and paid the price for it. In our current economic situation, it may have been a franchise killer in so doing.

Universe started hemorrhaging viewers early on, and just never recovered. This is directly the fault of the show runners and writers. With Stargate Universe they wanted a darker, grimmer stargate, more edgy, story driven instead of episodic, a character drama with a cast of flawed characters who, “weren’t supposed to be here”.

The problem with this approach is that ultimately, it’s not the writers who decide what is and is not “Stargate”, or any other show for that matter, it’s the fans. If this show had been launched without any connection to Stargate, it might have survived longer. Maybe even grown its own fan base. Making it a part of the Stargate story, however, brings with it preexisting expectations about what a Stargate show will be like. Universe did not deliver on these expectations, but brought an entirely different theme and feel that the majority of fan-voters felt were just not Stargatey enough.

I’m one of those who weren’t very pleased with the show. I think it was a showcase for just about everything that’s wrong with contemporary Science Fiction. Still I watched most of the episodes because I wanted it to get better, I wanted the writers to have a chance to recover from their hubris and listen to what the fans and ratings were telling them, and it was the only Stargate in town after all, sorta.

There were things I liked about the show very much. Ironically, the things I really liked about the show only magnified the contrast with the things I really didn’t like.



I really liked the Destiny, the Ancient starship the show was built around. The shape of the ship was based on a gate chevron, greatly elongated. The show was shot with such dim lighting that it’s hard to actually see the details of the model, and that’s a shame. I lightened the image of the Destiny here by 50% just so I could actually see the ship itself.
Now you can see the stepped levels of the hull, and the proto-Egypto-Ancient styling of the swooped command Ziggurat which supports the bridge. It’s an elegant design that conveys a sense of ancientness by its form. I actually felt bad for Destiny, a ship that awesome being trapped in a show that bad.

I liked the effects in general, especially the gauzy corona which envelopes the ship when Destiny employs its Faster-than-Light drive but remains in real space, rather than diving into hyperspace.

I also like the first generation stargate on board the Destiny. The entire ring of the gate spins in its base rather than having an inner track with locking chevrons like the SG-1 era gates. I think it looks a bit Deco/Art Modern. Much cooler than the lite-bright gates of the Pegasus galaxy in Stargate Atlantis.

I liked the back-story as well. Some uncertain millions of years ago, the Ancients built and launched Destiny to investigate a message or signal that they had discovered embedded in the cosmic background radiation which permeates the universe. A message apparently sent from very near to the beginning of time. A fleet of autonomous gate seeding ships preceded Destiny, manufacturing and placing stargates on appropriate worlds from galaxy to galaxy across the universe so that as Destiny followed, the Ancient crew could investigate and resupply.

That is a huge, romantic, classic science fiction notion. It’s the sort of theme that drives the great works of science fiction, the quest to discover the great unknown, the desire to know the universe. It’s also the kind of thing that you just don’t often encounter in modern sci-fi writing.

I really like the Ancients, or rather; I really like the original SG-1 era conception of the Ancients as the first technologically/spiritually advanced human race. The super advanced lost race is another theme of classic and pulp science fiction that later was mostly discarded by writers in favor of the ancient aliens idea.
I find the super aliens thing a little boring. It’s too easy to attribute to them whatever a writer needs without any real consideration. The idea that there have been multiple evolutions of humanity on earth pulls at my imagination much more.

Consider the changes humanity has experienced in the paltry few thousands of years we have recorded history for today. What might the Ancients have considered, attempted and experienced in millions of years? What insights might civilizations that cover eons have arrived at? Tackling the big questions of life, the universe, and everything is what Science Fiction was born to do.
That, and saving space-babes from bug-eyed monsters with a ray gun.
The best sci-fi does both at the same time.

Unfortunately, the Ancients became less interesting later in the series, and with Atlantis. The writers made them just another super alien race from another galaxy with the whole Ori story line in the last two, regrettable seasons of SG-1. And Stargate Atlantis managed to make them more and more mundane and less magnificent with every appearance and reference.

Exploding tumor device anyone?



What I didn’t like about Universe.

I hate the cinematography. I loathe reality-tv shaky camera with a white hot fire. Pan left, pan right, zoom in, zoom out, focus, unfocus, refocus, half screen, this irritates the crap out of me. The steady-cam was invented for a reason folks. Camera gimmicks are there to distract you from the fact that there is no writing going on.

The inevitable musical montage scene. This is another gimmick to fill in for a lack of good writing or dialogue. I like a good music video as much as the next guy, but in a tv show there has to be a good reason for it. You just can’t do it every single episode and not look like you’re phoning it in. Also, using the pop music of the day rather than an appropriate instrumental severely dates the show.

Shaky cam and Maroon 5 are going to be the mullet and saxophones albatross around this shows neck a few years down the road.

What I disliked the most, however, was the characters themselves. As with the regurgitated Battlestar Galactica, I was unsympathetic to their plight because they were all such terrible people.

Science fiction is escapism and there is nothing wrong with that. The thing we are attempting to escape, or ascend from is the mundane world with its unending stream of small, mean problems. All the crap we have to deal with on a daily basis. Science fiction allows us to consider the greater possibilities, to dream of the awesome.


Stargate Universe, with the exception of Nicholas Rush, was completely populated by just the sort of petty, small, unimaginative people that I want to escape from in science fiction. You can have a few such characters, in fact they are needed to contrast and compare with the protagonists, but when every character is one of, “the wrong people”, I just can’t care what happens to the feckless disfunctionistas.

Now Rush wasn’t a likeable character or a cookie cutter good person or standard issue sci-fi hero either, but he was complex, subtle, and had motivations that were above and beyond the run of the mill. Rush was the only character who displayed awe at the ancient purpose of the Destiny. The only character who grasped the greater meaning of Destiny’s mission. He wasn’t quite amoral, and certainly not the “evil scientist”, but obviously gave greater weight to understanding than to the needs of the rest of humanity.

However, because there was no other characters in the cast remotely as complex or interesting as Rush, or anyone with principles to balance Rush’s all consuming craving for knowledge at any cost, there wasn’t any tension or direction to the show. There was no counterweight character of sufficient gravitas to balance Rush. When he, or Destiny itself weren’t on the screen, watching the rest of the cast interact was like sitting in a Wallmart and observing the dysfunction pass by.

I don’t want these people in my science fiction. I have to deal with them every day in real life.

By contrast, the cosmic grandeur of the Destiny, and the quest of the Ancients to understand the meaning of the signal from the beginning of time made the characters of Stargate Universe seem all that much more petty and small and unworthy to be on that ship.

In the final episode, the crew has to go into stasis to conserve power while the Destiny crosses the void between galaxies in order to avoid an enemy they cannot out fight. Kid slacker genius Eli volunteers to be the odd man out and stay awake to pilot Destiny and try and fix the last stasis tube for himself.

There is a last musical montage, which actually works well since it’s a simple piano piece and not whiny alt-rock, and a final shot with Eli standing on the observation deck watching space fly by as Destiny shifts into its faster than light drive.
Destiny vanishes into the distant void of extra galactic space with its crew frozen in time.

I thought this was the best possible ending for the show, all things considered. The idea of that ancient vessel continuing its journey of millions of years in silence towards an unknown destiny, with its crew in unchanging sleep, possibly for thousands of years to come, is perfectly in sync with the classic science fiction of mighty ideas I love. The greater Stargate mythos is itself in stasis for the foreseeable future and I’m alright with that.

The possibilities are again endless.

Did every one manage to Save VS Blog-Fumble?

I don't seem to have lost anything here, but some of the art blogs I like seem to have lost a post or two.

how about you guys?

Run! Blordels' turned into a... What the Gax is that,anyway!

It's a Yragnereian Panathrope!

The inexplicable whimsies and enigmatic follies of the mighty Zagig are of course known to all who work or dabble in the Art. Only a very few, however, suspect the true depth of the arch mage’s inquiry into the hidden nature of the Oerth’s arcane aetherosphere and the ways in which it may be manipulated.

Before his disappearance, and unsupposed by most, Zagig had set into motion an unknown number of personal experiments, schemes, plots, and fancies fully capable of continuing to their respective ends without the direct supervision of the mad mage of Greyhawk.

Among them is a spell-like work of magic which even now propagates itself by its own volition hither and yon across the flanaess, though it is unrecognized for what it is. This self sufficient eldritch construction may have been meant to be a curse, or perhaps a jest, or else it may serve some other, as yet unseen greater purpose.

Whatever the reason for the Pananthropic Glamour, though it may bring glee to Zagig the Mad, wherever he may be, it is no humorous matter to those it visits itself upon.

A person or character who contracts, (or is cursed, or blessed), by the Pananthropic Glamour undergoes transformations into random forms either at certain times or which are triggered by certain circumstances. A person so afflicted is known as a Yragernerian Panathrope by the handful of wizards and sages who recognize the handiwork of Zagig the Inexplicable.

Though superficially the Glamour seems akin to lycanthropy or other such were-beast transformations, its effects are far more reaching and unpredictable.

The form which the victim takes is determined randomly at each transformation by rolling upon the random monster encounter table most applicable to the immediate environs. The person so “blessed by Zagig” completely becomes the creature chosen by chance, and will act in a manner appropriate to the monster he has become.

The victim may be overcome by the magic and transform at certain times, monthly, seasonally, annually, or other. Alternatively, the magic may be triggered by a given event. Such an event may be hearing the scream of a horse, a dog crossing the victim’s path, in the presence of wooden shoes, if the victim drinks beer, eats a muffin, takes a bath, takes off his hat, looks directly at the moon, stubs his toe, etc..

The triggering event need have no reasonable connection to the transformation. Somewhat like a taboo, or a geas, it is a forbidden occurrence which will invoke the power of the glamour and bring about a transformation. The triggering event should be chosen by the Dungeon Master and should have a reasonable chance of occurring at least once per game, if the Panathropic Glamour is contracted by a player character.

The duration of the transformation is also variable and follows no clear logic. The monster form may persist until sundown, sunup, lunch time, the next rain, the next holiday, until a joke is told, until the monster is struck by a pillow, the setting of the moon, until invited to tea, etc… This may be determined randomly from a prepared list of random events, or by DM fiat.

What exactly draws the glamour to an individual is unclear, though it appears to have at least a component of karmic justice, or possibly comeuppance for those who jeer at fate.

Also, persons who commit alignment violations in the presence of a carrier of the Glamour must save vs. spell or contract the magic themselves.

Due to the changing and chaotic nature of the Glamour, it may also be passed to others in various ways which depend upon the changes in each manifestation of the magic. Each victim of the glamour may pass the spell curse in a different manner. Such as by biting, slapping, kissing, spitting, making love, sneezing, laughing at, farting, sharing wine, etc. There need be no logical connection between the action which imparts the glamour and the nature of the glamour itself.

Such is the will of Zagig. He is the Egg-man, He is the Walrus! Koo-koo-katchoo!

A monster, and a magic item for the Weird West.

Monsters are very rare in the Weird West, it just happens that PCs run into them more often than most folks. People keep to their towns and settlements for the most part; it’s the brave, the desperate, and the touched who dare the open range, the mountains and the deserts by their lonesome.

Likewise, items of a supernatural nature are exceeding rare. Powerful objects of the Art are always singular in nature. Minor arcane items are also very rare, but may possibly be replicated. PCs aren’t likely to be able to do this however.




Gundog, (hell hound of the weird west)

Frequency : Very Rare
No. Appearing : 1 or 1d6
Armor Class : 4
Move : 12”, 120’ per round
Hit Dice : 3-8
% in Lair : 10%
Treasure Type : C
No. of Attacks : 1
Damage/Attack : 1d10, (bite)
Special Attack : muzzle blast, damage as shotgun 1d10, or grape-shot 4d6, depending upon hit dice
Special Defenses : only takes half damage from gunpowder weapons
Magic Resistance : Standard
Intelligence : Low to Average, cunning
Alignment : Enigmatic Evil
Size : M to L
Psionic Ability : Nil

Legends say the Gundog haunts old battlefields or the sites of massacres. A great, black hound with iron teeth and burning ember eyes, the beast is wreathed in acrid gun smoke and leaves behind it paw prints which char the earth.

When the creature appears, its size and power seem to change to match the scale of the carnage which took place at the site. Where only a few were killed, the gundog has appeared but little larger than a wolf. At places where great battles have occurred, and many died by the gun, tales have it the beast grows to nearly the size of a horse.

It is unclear whether the Gundog is a single, immortal monster, or a type of creature of which there may be many. Conflicting tales are told of the Gundog. It is also unknown if it, or they, are supernatural in origin, or some sort of aberration.

Though in all tales the Gundog is a malevolent killer, it seems to choose its adversaries by the strength of the threat they may pose. A Gundog the size of a pony is said to have appeared with a roar like cannon fire the night after the battle of Shealho. It killed most of a cavalry patrol before vanishing, but completely ignored a group of refugees passing by.
The Gundog which appeared on the Dead man’s leg of the Chislem Trail paid no heed to a dozen cow punchers and instead went straight for Lightening Caleb Booker the infamous gunman. Lightening emptied both sixguns into the dog before it reached him and it disappeared in a cloud of brimstone. Or so they say.

In addition to the bite of its terrible jaws, the Gundog may employ its Muzzle Blast up to six times per combat. This is a sudden roaring bark which also discharges red hot shot as though a shotgun had fired from within the dog’s throat. The muzzle blast bark has the same range and effect as an actual shot gun. In larger accounts of the Gundog this weapon is equal in range and effect to grape shot fired from a cannon.



Somewhere, out there, maybe in a ramshackle ghost town or a ruined ranch house, is a battered cartridge box containing the Demon Bone Bullets of Father Callaghan.
The story goes, the Father, an easterner and city-slicker were’t all that strong in the faith himself, till circumstances found him sharing a stage coach with the fearsome Ezra Crumb.
Crumb, called by them who know as, “Ezra the Ghoul Scalper”, regaled the Father with many hair-raising tales of his encounters with the unnatural. Callaghan, more a man of science than a child of God, believed none of it. Though Ezra’s air of firm assurance and vivid powers of description caused him some unease as the night ride went on.

Ezra, as it turns out, were’t just traveling that night. He was a-hunting a diabolic thing called the Buckthorn Fiend. The wind had told Turning Cloud the Shaman that the fiend would come to the coach with the dark of the moon, and Ezra Crumb meant to see it got its trip back to hell.

When, round about midnight, the horses screamed and a yard of spiny black demon arm, plated in armor like a scorpion, came a-groping through the window, Father Callaghan found his faith real quick.

Though the coach was torn to flinders, the horses and both the driver and side man killed horribly, Crumb and Father Callaghan survived that desperate fight beneath the cold prairie stars. The Buckthorn Fiend was banished to the pit, its skull transfixed by the sainted iron of Crumb’s Arkansas toothpick, and from its bones the good Father fashioned 24 bullets of .52 caliber for the Sharps rifle.

Callaghan died in agony some few months later, poisoned by inhaling the demon bone dust kicked up by crafting the cartridges. Ezra Crumb is known to have expended some of the rounds in subsequent adventuring, but how many is unknown.

Each of the Demon Bone Bullets acts as a weapon of slaying. A successful hit with one is always a killshot. In addition, the bullets can hit creatures which otherwise are unharmed by mortal weaponry.
There is a 1 in 20 chance of a misfire each time one of these infernal cartridges is fired. Anyone who may find the old ammo box containing the bullets is advised to employ them with care. It is unlikely the demon bone is any less lethal than it was and a misfire could possibly throw deadly powder into the face of the rifleman.

Only an early model Sharps rifle is able to fire the Demon Bone Bullets.
****************

I've had very little time or creative mojo lately. There's a lot of stuff competing for my energy this spring. I've got images and feelings roiling around in my mind, game wise, but not enough time to spend on pulling them together. It'll come around eventually.

Here at O.G.G.A., we post no monster before its time.

Also, I think I'm going to get myself one of those reproduction Colt model 1860 army revolvers.

Torch & Sixgun; Weird West Adventure Via AD&D.

Imagine an adventuring party consisting of Josey Wales, Rooster Cogburn, Brisco County jr, James West, and Jonah Hex, daring black mesas riddled with undead-haunted mines, lost and buried cities of the ancients, ghost towns, goblin infested badlands, cruel black mountains, and pitiless miles of open range, driven by the remorseless ecstasy of gold.

Starting from a base of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons standard rule set, with the following modifications. Rules default to AD&D in all cases not specifically altered.

Initiative may be either individual or group based depending upon circumstances. If the party is alert and moving as a group, then standard AD&D initiative determination applies. If the party is dispersed somewhat, engaged in various tasks, not immediately expecting attack, but not surprised, initiative is determined individually. Each character, npc, and monster involved rolls 1D20 + Dexterity bonus to determine order of actions.

Player Character armor class, (difficulty to hit), is determined by class, level and dexterity bonus if applicable, rather than by physical armor worn. Nothing bullet proof can be worn for any length of time, so little armor is used in the weird west. Each character class has a base AC bonus, this bonus increases with level to reflect the character’s accumulated experience in avoiding gettin’ shot.

The chance to hit with a gun at short range is determined by the AD&D melee combat charts. Almost all gun battles will occur at distances of less than twenty feet between combatants, so the majority of gun fights will be rolled for as “short range”. Medium and Long range shooting is modified by weapon type and character class. Non Fighter classes incur penalties when shooting at medium and long range targets.

Firearms are bolt action, single action, double action, lever action, or pump action, plus break open shotguns. Only Fighter Class characters can fire multiple shots per round. This is determined by the AD&D fighter’s level/attacks per round. Level 1-6, one shot/attack per round, level 7-12, three shots/attacks every two rounds, level 13 and up, two shots/attacks per round.

Firearm stats.

Derringer type pocket pistols do 1D4 dmg, +1 to hit at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Full-size handguns do 1D8 dmg, +1 to hit at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Shotguns do 1D10 dmg, +2 to hit at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Sawed off shotguns do 1D8 dmg, +1 to hit at Short/melee range, +0 at Medium range, +0 at Long range

Long guns/shoulder arms do 2D8 dmg, +2 to hit at Medium range, +1 at Long range

Dynamite sticks do 6D6 dmg, a save for half damage is possible if detonation is at least 10’ distant.

All melee weapons do damage per AD&D rules.


When gunfire damage is rolled after a successful hit, maximum damage indicates a kill shot, instant death. This applies to monsters, NPCs, and Player Characters alike. Characters, NPCs, and monsters above third level and/or three hit dice may attempt to Save vs. Death against a kill shot. Those who succeed take damage only and are not killed. Unique supernatural Monsters of the Abomination class, certain sorts of undead, and creatures with 11 or above hit dice are also immune from death by kill shot.

Classes include the Fighter, the Thinker, the Manipulator, and the No-Account. These classes are very broad archetypes just as are the AD&D classes.

Character generation follows AD&D rules. Character stats remain the same.

The Fighter

The fighter primarily makes his way in the world with his fists and his gun. Current and former military men of any sort, cowboys, roustabouts, athletes, brawlers, any person who is generally more disposed towards physical action over cerebral consideration, will fall under the “Fighter” category.

The T&S fighter has the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D fighter. They attack on the AD&D fighter melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D fighter progression. They roll 1D10 per level for hit points, and also roll saving throws as AD&D fighters. Any sort of weapon is usable by fighters.

Torch & Sixgun fighters operate with the following alterations.

Fighters start with a base armor class of 8. This number drops by one for each experience level gained up to, and including the sixth. Thereafter, by one for every two levels gained.

A fighter may have a natural talent for a particular type of weapon. This gains him a +1 to hit with that type of weapon only. This bonus is very specific, as example, a pistol, not all guns, a saber, and not all melee weapons.

A fighter may make a called shot at third level and above. A called shot can only be taken when the fighter has time to line it up, such as with surprise or initiative, and not during melee or in melee range. A successful called shot is not necessarily a kill shot. It merely indicates the fighter hit exactly what he was aiming at. Damage is rolled normally and a kill shot may or may not result. Secondary results of the hit are for the DM to decide.

A fighter with a constitution score of 15 or above has got grit. This means that the fighter’s Hit Point Adjustment bonus may be subtracted from damage the character takes, in addition to adding to his hit point total. The grit bonus may not be applied to a kill shot that would have slain a character otherwise.

Yeh git shot in the face, son, an yer still gonna be stone daid.



The Thinker

The thinker primarily makes his way in the world with his mind. Scientists, engineers, doctors, scholars and academics, as well as sorcerers and preachers, any type of person who is generally more disposed to forethought and mental solutions over immediate physical action belongs to the Thinker character class.

The T&S thinker has generally the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D magic-user. They attack on the magic-user melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D magic-user progression. They roll 1D6 per level for hit points, and roll saving throws as AD&D magic-users.

A thinker starts with a base armor class of 10. This number drops by one for every level up to and including the fifth. Thereafter the thinker’s AC improves by one step for every two levels of experience.

A thinker class character may familiarize himself with one weapon for every three levels of experience. A thinker may attempt to use any weapon, however, he suffers a -3 to hit penalty with any weapon he is not familiar with. A familiar weapon may be employed without penalty.

A thinker possesses the abilities of a Sage, as defined in the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide under expert hirelings, pg 31.

Added to this rule set for Player Character thinkers, the character’s Intelligence score carries a bonus that increases the number of minor fields of study the thinker has expertise in. An Intelligence score of 15 adds +1 minor field, 16 adds +2, 17 adds +3, 18 adds +4.


The Manipulator

The manipulator primarily makes his way in the world by influencing others to gain his ends. Gamblers, hucksters, snake oil salesmen, Politians, saloon girls, fancy-dans, merchants and traders all fall within the manipulator class. Any person who prefers to maneuver others into serving his ends rather than directly acting himself falls under the manipulator character class.

The manipulator has generally the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D cleric. They attack on the AD&D cleric melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D cleric level progression. They roll 1D8 per level for hit points, and save as AD&D clerics. A manipulator starts with a base armor class of 9. This number drops by one for every level up to and including the fifth. Thereafter the manipulator’s AC improves by one step for every two levels of experience.

A manipulator must have a Wisdom score of at least 10. A manipulator may use pistols and handguns without penalty. Long guns, shot guns and heavy weapons incur a -3 to hit penalty.

A manipulator is capable of slick talking. This operates in a manner similar to the AD&D magic-user spell “suggestion”. By slick talking, the manipulator can often convince a listener of the wisdom of following a course of action that may or may not be the best idea for the listener, but will certainly benefit the manipulator. The object of a manipulator’s power of persuasion must save vs. spell or fall for the manipulator’s spiel.

If the manipulator’s target possesses a Wisdom score bonus, it is applied to the saving throw.

A person who is slick talked into a course of action that then turns out badly for the manipulator’s target, that person gains a +4 bonus against future attempts at slick talking.

If a manipulator attempts to slick talk a crowd, (a group of 5 or more), the crowd saves as its lowest level or hit die member. This is why Politian is a preferred avocation for the manipulator.

When engaging in games of chance where misdirection is a factor, the manipulator is at an advantage in being able to roll twice and choose the better number in any situation where the dice determine an in-game out come. This applies to in-game betting and gambling.



The No-Account

The no-account primarily makes his way in the world by leaching off of others and avoiding work himself. Thieves of all sorts, lay-a-bouts, hangers-on, drifters, shiftless shirkers, rustlers and claim-jumpers, any person who habitually appropriates the wealth of others without direct conflict falls under the no-account character class.

The no-account has generally the same class requirements and advantages as the AD&D thief. They attack on the AD&D thief melee chart. They gain levels according to the AD&D thief level progression. They roll 1D6 per level for hit points, and save as AD&D thieves. The no-account starts with a base armor class of 9. This number drops by one for every level up to and including the fifth. Thereafter the no-account’s AC improves by one step for every two levels of experience.

Somewhat ironically, in their pursuit of gain without the need of honest work, no-accounts often develop specialized skills. A no-account rolls 1D8 at character creation to determine how many of the AD&D thief skills he possesses. Then rolls again to determine which skills he knows. 1-Pick Pockets, 2-Open Locks, 3-Find/Remove Traps, 4-Move Silently, 5-Hide in Shadows, 6-Hear Noise, 7-Climb Walls, 8-Read Languages. These skills are administered according to AD&D rules.

All character classes are guidelines and subject to alteration to satisfy player needs for particular PC designs. Any abilities, bonuses or penalties given as a result will deviate minimally from the standard.



Once upon a time, in the Ancient West. Setting description.

No back history, no timeline, no specific date the campaign starts on. The game is meant to exist in a sort of Western Mythic Now. So, any event, technology, story, history, or person, fictional or otherwise, who exists at any point in a time frame from 1840-1900, can appear in the Weird West.

The campaign map covers all of North America between the Appalachians and the Rockies. That the rest of the world may be out there may be implied by inference due to the presence of people from other parts of the world. They are there, however, to fill various character roles traditional in westerns. The campaign won’t leave the West.

Magic items are always singular, or else extremely rare. As an example, consider the Ace of Winchesters from Hitman #16, (Garth Ennis & John McCrea), a rifle, “fashioned of halo-steel and hades-gems, bound with ivory of saints, designed to blast the very life from fiends…”.

Supernatural weapons and items will be unique and usually meant to serve a certain purpose. They will also have a severely limited number of uses before they are burned out.

Hit point recovery will also follow AD&D standard. One hit point restored per day of rest, four weeks rest returns hit points to maximum regardless.

Henchmen and hirelings become Sidekicks and Hired Hands.

New and altered AD&D monsters for Torch & Sixgun.

Unique dragons via the dragon generator, (which I’m considering updating)

The Painted Unicorn. I have this idea of an appaloosa unicorn roaming the Great Plains. No one who has ever taken a life can approach it unnoticed.

Yigs, Yig-sons. The yuan-ti reskinned as remnants of an ancient race of serpent men. From their hidden city beneath the Cerulean Mountain, the Yigs send out their most human like members to infiltrate human towns in order to bring back slaves, sacrifices, and… food.

Spirits of Place. Watering hole weirds, sand storm devils, ill winds, avalanche gremlins, etc…

Non standard undead. The Sundown Wailers, The Wagon Train, The Mountain Man.

Degenerate Ancients. In hidden cities and lost valleys. Malignant survivors of lost civilizations.

Badland Goblins. Fused with Quickling stats. Spare, boney, blindingly fast, and mercilessly cruel. “If them goblins gets aholt ah yeh, they’ll string you up by yurh thumbs and skin yeh with their teeth, boy!”

The Damned Stallion. Outside of Laerdin, there’s miles of black prairie. Apparently burned by fire years ago, it never regrows and yet the charred grass never crumbles away. The locals say a great bronze colored stallion courses the black prairie and that those who die out there, must ride the stallion to Hell.

And of course, a steady stream of regular old conniving, black hearted, rat-bastard scum.

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This is my start on a bolt-on house rule set for weird western adventure on an AD&D platform. I watched The Outlaw Josey Wales a couple weeks ago, and then just kept running into westerns on TV. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, El Dorado, High Plains Drifter, Open Range, Unforgiven. The really good westerns. I kept smelling mental gunsmoke and hearing the rutch of boots on dirty pine plank floors. Also, a couple of the guys at the part time job are into cowboy shooting and western reenactment. They have a lot to say about horses and shooting. The Wild West themes just sort of sank down and melded with the AD&D dungeoneering ethos I look at rpgs through.

I think I want something gritty and dangerous. I expect PCs to die fairly often. I’ll come up with something for army surgeons, folk remedies, country doctors and such, but I don’t think I’ll have any sort of commonly available “healing”, magic or otherwise.

I’m a bit leery of the degree to which the weird western tale has been infused with contemporary steampunk these days. I want stone cold gunslingers and horrific monsters in this campaign. No wacky inventions, steam robots, crazy professors or airships. I love Victorian era and classic science fiction, I cut my mind’s eye teeth on it, but the reimagining of it in steampunk has reached the point where it’s become self-referential and incorporated way too many modern attitudes. It’s disconnected from its source material to the point of caricature. Steampunk has become WOTC Jules Verne.

I want The Man with No Name with a cigar in his teeth in a desperate gun battle with blasphemous gibbering things in a maze of black tunnels beneath an ancient mesa.

I reckon I’ll whittle on this here rule set a mite bit longer, see what shapes up.