Western Hero: The High Noon Showdown

[ghost-angel]

Classic bit in Westerns. I jumped in on a session of Deadlands Hero, and naturally made Joe (aka The Man With No Name, Clint Eastwood in A Fistful Of Dollars).

 

This being Deadlands, and that being a western (with Zombies!), naturally the idea of how to do a showdown came up.

 

The GM, gummibear on the boards when he thinks to post, came up with a set of rules, I tossed back some changes, we chewed over it, wrote 'em down and tried 'em out. Once. It was completely one sided due to me rolled spectacularly well and him rolling spectacularly badly. We're looking forward to trying it again.

 

Here's the rules, comments welcome.

 

The Standoff has four parts. The initial squaring off, the twitch, the draw, the shot.

 

Squaring Off:

The two gunslingers have decided on a dual, they're sizing each other up, squinting menacingly, etc...

PRE Attack vs PRE Attack. The -2D6 for being in combat do not apply, other modifiers might (recently gunning down a barbershop full of thugs, reputations, whatever the GM feels is appropriate for each side).

The winner gets an Edge: take the difference of the two PRE Attacks, for every 2 points the winner gets a +1 Bonus in the Twitch.

 

The Twitch or Reflex:

The two gunslingers are standing the street, eying each other now, hands at the ready, fingers twitching, trying to get the drop on the other guy by out nerving him.

DEX Roll vs DEX Roll. Lightning Reflexes, if they apply to all actions or Gunfights specifically add to DEX for purposes of determining your DEX Roll, Skill levels apply normally. The Bonus from Squaring Off applies like Skill Levels, assuming the two didn't tie one gunslinger should have at least a +1 from Squaring Off.

The winner gets the Drop: take the difference between the two rolls, for every two points the winner gets a +1 Bonus in The Draw.

 

The Draw:

They draw their guns to fire.

Fast Draw vs Fast Draw. If one gunslinger does not have Fast Draw they make a DEX Roll at -2.

The winner gets off an Aimed Shot: take the difference between the two rolls, for every two points the winner gets a +1 OCV in The Shot.

Note: If you FAIL (not lose the roll off, but roll over your Skill Roll) the Fast Draw or DEX Roll you get a -1 OCV for every point you fail by. If you Fail by 4 Or More you don't even draw your pistol. If you fail spectacularly (GM discretion) you may actually fire the gun in the holster (and hit your own leg or foot).

 

The Shot:

Both fighters fire their weapons.

Determine OCV with the bonus from The Draw, Skill Levels etc.

Note: In the movies one gunslinger invariably misses completely. It was on the original idea that only the winner of the The Draw fired their gun, but that didn't seem dramatic or dangerous enough. So we decided to go with both gunslingers firing.

 

As I said, we tried it once. It worked well, but was lop sided due to the way the rolls ended up (I rolled under 12 for all four phases and the GM couldn't roll below a 14). So we'll have to test it out again to see how it works without such disparate rolls.

 

We have rules for Yellowing Out (diving off to the side, dropping out after the Square Off or during the Twitch, etc), but didn't put those to work and haven't tested them.

 

I'm thinking of introducing the idea of using either Sleight Of Hand or Feint (see Ultimate Skill) in the Twitch instead of opposed DEX Rolls, but the idea was that anyone (trained or otherwise) could try and out nerve the other guy.

 

Any thoughts? comments? ideas? Feel free to try the rules out yourselves and post some feedback.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Western Hero: The High Noon Showdown

 

Ahhh Westerns. Cool. And just when I misplaced my Gun soundtrack.

 

I presume it went faster in the game than I'm reading it?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Western Hero: The High Noon Showdown

 

Between describing the scene and the first time running through the rules it took maybe 5 minutes.

 

It wasn't meant to be super fast, as Squaring Off and the Twitch is a good opportunity to get some descriptive roleplaying in.

 

But it wasn't slow by any means.