Quote from: Benoist;557687So, I want to take a(nother) serious look at Boot Hill. How does it work?

2e? Six attributes for characters - Speed, Gun Accuracy, Throwing Accuracy (knives, lariats, whiskey bottles), Bravery, Strength, and Experience. Speed, Bravery, and the weapon speed determine your speed and who shoots first in a round; Accuracy, Bravery, and Experience determine if you hit anything.

Experience is measured in gunfights survived.

The basic gunfight rules are fast and deadly. There are three kinds of wounds: light, serious, and mortal. One shot, one kill. Head wounds are fatal 60% of the time. There are advanced and optional rules which increases the complexity of gunfighting, such as trading shots, sniping, &c. Wounds make you slower and less accurate so there's a death spiral.

The campaign rules are mostly advice, though they do cover stuff like how far and fast you can ride (depends on the quality of your horse), gambling, tracking, what you get paid for your job. Oh, and dynamite and Gatling guns, 'cause, y'know, DYNAMITE and GATLING GUNS.

Quote from: Benoist;557687Is it similar to OD&D in terms of weight and detail of the rules?

The basic, advanced, and optional rules together cover about ten or twelve pages. The campaign rules are a half-dozen more.

Quote from: Benoist;557687Do I need miniatures to play it?

You could do it without, but I always use either the counters or metal minis on the grid.

Long story short: the analogy that someone drew upthread with Chainmail is apt. That said, Dave Arneson and friends seemed to have a damn good time playing with Chainmail.

2e Boot Hill remains one of my favorite roleplaying games. I ran it last year at the SoCal MiniCon and I would gladly run it again as a campaign if the opportunity presented itself.

I don't remember 2e very well but it sounds as though 3e is more RPG-ish than minis-gamey (and released about 10 years after 2e).

I've also read that 3e includes and updates the contents of several of TSR's old magazine articles that were done for 2e.

You can certainly use 3e's combat system for shootouts using minis, though minis are not required (as stated in the "what you need to play this game" section).

3e has a double-sided pull-out which has area and town maps on it. The town map is overlaid with a grid which was useful with the 1:72 scale western figures that we had.

BTW 3e is a book only, not a boxed set.

I love Aces & Eights but like the OP recognize that its just too fiddly.  I wish they'd done a proper simpler version of it.

RPGPundit

I don't know much about Boot hill, but I think what you really want is Spell Jammer, I could hardly imagine anything more perfect for gritty western action.

Quote from: Gib;558346I don't know much about Boot hill, but I think what you really want is Spell Jammer, I could hardly imagine anything more perfect for gritty western action.

except for the magic deer sheriff of blue rose. . .

I played campaigns using the 1st edition rules, and would highly recommend giving it a try if you can track down a copy.

It's important to remember that D&D did not emerge from a vacuum. At the time it developed, 'skirmish wargaming' was hugely popular. In the UK, the Old West Skirmish rules predated D&D, and contained many elements that would later evolve in D&D into tabletop role-playing as we know it today. 'Wargames Newsletter', a semi-pro wargames magazine that EGG contributed too and certainly read, included several articles about the Old West Skirmish rules. At about the same time, TSR put out Boot Hill, which was similar in scope and concept to the Old West Skirmish rules.

In my own game group, we skirmish wargamed before we role-played. In our skirmish wargames we each had a character that represented us in the campaign, and who grew in skill as the campaign progressed. We would take it in turns to come up with a story that linked our last game to the next one, creative an ongoing narrative to the campaign. Sometimes this would lead to small off-shoot games that weren't skirmish wargames as such, but were important as part of the background story. For example, I can remember one session where we played poker (in real life), and then used the game rules to resolve the gunfight that happened when one of the players was caught cheating.

When OD&D turned up, it was a natural transition from our skirmish wargames, and we loved it straight away.  Elements of D&D leached into our skirmish games, and vice-versa. It was a blast!

Anyway, if you want to get a feel for what was going on in the wargames hobby, and the kind of game that was being played that D&D grew out from, then 1st edition Boot Hill is the way to go (or, even better, the Old West Skirmish Wargame rules – we used an unholy amalgam of the two). The later editions of Boot Hill are fine, but by then the rules had changed to become 'just another rpg', IMO, anyway.

I played campaigns using the 1st edition rules, and would highly recommend giving it a try if you can track down a copy.

It's important to remember that D&D did not emerge from a vacuum. At the time it developed, 'skirmish wargaming' was hugely popular. In the UK, the Old West Skirmish rules predated D&D, and contained many elements that would later evolve in D&D into tabletop role-playing as we know it today. 'Wargames Newsletter', a semi-pro wargames magazine that EGG contributed too and certainly read, included several articles about the Old West Skirmish rules. At about the same time, TSR put out Boot Hill, which was similar in scope and concept to the Old West Skirmish rules.

In my own game group, we skirmish wargamed before we role-played. In our skirmish wargames we each had a character that represented us in the campaign, and who grew in skill as the campaign progressed. We would take it in turns to come up with a story that linked our last game to the next one, creative an ongoing narrative to the campaign. Sometimes this would lead to small off-shoot games that weren't skirmish wargames as such, but were important as part of the background story. For example, I can remember one session where we played poker (in real life), and then used the game rules to resolve the gunfight that happened when one of the players was caught cheating.

When OD&D turned up, it was a natural transition from our skirmish wargames, and we loved it straight away.  Elements of D&D leached into our skirmish games, and vice-versa. It was a blast!

Anyway, if you want to get a feel for what was going on in the wargames hobby, and the kind of game that was being played that D&D grew out from, then 1st edition Boot Hill is the way to go (or, even better, the Old West Skirmish Wargame rules – we used an unholy amalgam of the two). The later editions of Boot Hill are fine, but by then the rules had changed to become 'just another rpg', IMO, anyway.

Quote from: Glazer;558385Anyway, if you want to get a feel for what was going on in the wargames hobby, and the kind of game that was being played that D&D grew out from, then 1st edition Boot Hill is the way to go (or, even better, the Old West Skirmish Wargame rules – we used an unholy amalgam of the two). The later editions of Boot Hill are fine, but by then the rules had changed to become 'just another rpg', IMO, anyway.

Are you referring to this game?  Written by no less than the unparalleled Col Lou Zocchi?

Quote from: StormBringer;558447Are you referring to this game?  Written by no less than the unparalleled Col Lou Zocchi?

I am, but Lou Zocchi was neither the writter nor (as listed in your link) the publisher. The rules were written and published by Mike Blake, Ian Colwill and Steve Curtis. I assume they were distibuted in the USA by Lou Zocchi.

As an aside, the rulebook shown in your link is a later edition of the game. The first version came out a few years earlier.

Quote from: Glazer;558455I am, but Lou Zocchi was neither the writter nor (as listed in your link) the publisher. The rules were written and published by Mike Blake, Ian Colwill and Steve Curtis. I assume they were distibuted in the USA by Lou Zocchi.

As an aside, the rulebook shown in your link is a later edition of the game. The first version came out a few years earlier.

You are correct, sir! I misread that.  The presentation style on BGG could use a bit of work.  It does indeed list the three individuals you mention as the designers.

I'll add my recommendation for the old "skirmish wargame" version of Boot Hill.   It was my go-to Western game for YEARS. I had the 2nd edition-- the boxed set from the late 70s/early 80s:



It covered in detail the combat stuff, and anything else we needed (character backgrounds, non-combat skills, etc.) we handled in an almost diceless fashion.   It was great.

Proved to me that it was possible, with the right players, to run a lengthy, enjoyable campaign game with only a 36-page rulebook.

Man, lots of great suggestions and POVs for me to chew on. Thanks for the feedback, it's really useful. It sounds to me like I'll have to track down both 1e and 2e Boot Hill at least, and have a look at the Skirmish game Glazer talked about.

Awesome.

Quote from: RPGPundit;558300I love Aces & Eights but like the OP recognize that its just too fiddly.  I wish they'd done a proper simpler version of it.

RPGPundit

Agreed. I really like the game, but it's just too much for what I have in mind.

Quote from: Gib;558346I don't know much about Boot hill, but I think what you really want is Spell Jammer, I could hardly imagine anything more perfect for gritty western action.

I have the Spelljammer boxed set and love it. Played some really gonzo games with it back in the day, and would do it again any time. It's really one of my favorite "out there" D&D settings, as a matter of fact.

Actually I played tons of BH 2e back inthe early 80's. It is the perfect game for middle-school boys. All we did was rob, betray and murder one another.

Quote from: Gib;558484Actually I played tons of BH 2e back inthe early 80's. It is the perfect game for middle-school boys. All we did was rob, betray and murder one another.

sounds like a fair number of our traveller games back in the 80s/90s

I know that up-thread I said I mostly thought of Boot Hill as a scenario/skirmish game, but thinking about it in terms of Traveller I can see how it would work for a campaign, too.