Product Description

Welcome to the Weird West! The year is 1879, but the history is not our own. The guns of the Civil War are silent thanks to a tense cease fire between North and South. California is shattered by the Great Quake of '68, a new superfuel called ghost rock is revealed in the flooded channels and buried in the cliff faces that loom above. Powerful Rail Barons strive to be the first to complete a transcontinental railroad, and the Great Rail Wars exact a bloody toll on an American frontier divided between not only the Union and Confederacy, but the Sioux Nation, the Mormon state of Deseret, and the Independent Commonwealth of California. Amid the chaos, fortunes can be made by those bold enough to make their way West. These brave souls have more than plain old human violence to contend with. Something's going on in the West, something downright nasty. Fear stalks the land like a hungry beast, and abominations from man's myths and nightmares haunt the High Plains. Legends tell of ancient and powerful beings that thrive on the fear created by these horrific creatures. All around, the night grows darker and the shadows grow longer as evil twists the land. Arrayed against the forces of darkness are the heroes of the Weird West: Grim gunslingers, spell slinging hucksters, brilliant mad scientists, and wizened Indian shamans stake their souls and fortunes on the battle against the evils of the frontier, and often lay down their very lives for the cause of righteousness and light. And sometimes, death is not the end. Back in the Saddle! Deadlands: The Weird West returns, with the popular Savage Worlds game engine under the hood. Within these pages, you'll find all the rules you need to build a posse of heroes, and all the dirt the Marshal (that's the game master, partner) needs to bury 'em. We've also got a whirlwind tour of the Weird West, complete with a whole passel of nasty varmints and critters to vex adventurous souls. If your posse's the ambitious t

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139149 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-22
• Released on: 2006-05-22
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Awesome
The world of Deadlands returns in this gorgeous 256 page volume. All that's needed to play is this book, and the Savage Worlds core rulebook.

It's a GM's dream come true. A game that generated a decades worth of material, over fifty or so supplements, boiled down to one user-freindly tome made for years of play. It's also ideal for new players, with it's self contained background and streamlined rules.

And the background is so friggin' cool.

Imagine a spaghetti western brimming with arcane magic, steampunk tech, post civil war strife, and tons of monsters, demons, and undead running around. Players take the role of gunslingers, Texas Rangers, shadowy agents, Indian shamans, card playing sorcers, and preachers that can smite with the fire of heaven. All this with a tounge in cheek, overly violent, Sergio Leone meets Sam Riami feel.

Stop reading now, and just buy it. And don't balk at the price, because you'll get enough background to easily cover three or for supplements for lesser games. Get it, you won't be sorry...

Reloaded and Rearmed
I have been playing Deadlands since it first launched and I own, in print, just about every deadlands book to come out. This is re-launch of the game with a new rules set that is slimmer and faster than pervious versions of the game, making it faster and more story intensive than prior versions of the game.

To be fair the older version has much more story content than this version of the game, if you need details on a particular part of the country there is piles of details you can use if you just go looking. My point on the story is that with lighter rules the stories you are telling tend to be more intensive and engaging. The older rules system was very complicated to learn, once you learned how to run the game it was much more intuitive but it never quite became invisiable. At the time games were experementing with differant types of systems, for example L5R intorduced a roll and keep system that was differant than anything else around at the time. Deadlands original system had you asiging dice types and then rolling a certain number based on traits or skills (wording in the first edition was a little confusing) and then keeping the highest. It also used Cards for initive and chips for damage mitigation as well as experience.

Savage Worlds refined the system dropping the extra dice for skills and traits. Before you would roll 3d12 for shooting, now you roll d12 to shoot. Combat resolution was refined by giving players only one card for initive instead of a dice roll and then multiple cards. Chips were dropped in favor of Bennies that do much of the same thing.

With Deadlands the chips are back adding back the poker flavor of the system. Metaphysics also re-intorduces the Poker hand for spell resolution, other than that the game is very similar in feel to previous editions while keeping most of the feel of Savage Worlds.

In short the game reinvents itself in the relm of Savage Worlds very effectively, old and new players will find much in common with this system. The writing remains effective, easily conveying the feel of the era. A great game all round.

What was old is new again!
A relaunch of the Classic Deadlands:the Weird West roleplaying game, Deadlands: Reloaded updates the timeline to 1879 and converts the mechanics to Pinnacle's Savage Worlds rules. Note that the Savage Worlds rulebook is needed to play the game.

Reloaded manages to bring in everything cool that built and supported the feel of Classic Deadlands with the faster and more Game Master friendly mechanics of Savage Worlds. This includes card based Huckster magic, hangin' rules and a new card based deuling system that really brings in some suspense for those showdowns at high noon.

Perfect for the fan of Westerns, Horror and/or Zombies, Deadlands: Reloaded derseves a spot on every serious gamer's shelf.