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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gothmog" data-source="post: 4021319" data-attributes="member: 317">I'm a longtime Deadlands fan- I picked it up in 1996, and have been a devoted player and GM for it ever since.Deadlands is basically the American Old West, but with supernatural events thrown in liberally.  The Civil War is still raging in the 1870s, although both sides have reached a stalemate.  The Souix Nations have successfully resisted integration by the USA and CSA, and are their own power, and the small Mormon nation of Deseret houses many of the world's mad scientists.  Four versions of the game were produced: Deadlands Classic (1996-2002 or so), Deadlands d20 (2002-2003), GURPS Deadlands, and Savage Worlds Deadlands Reloaded (2005-now).  I've never tried the GURPS Deadlands version, so I can't say much about it.  Deadlands Classic is a wonderful game and system- it used poker chips, cards (both for initiative and hexslinging), and dice.  Classic had 40 or so books come out for it over its run, and I own and have read every one of them- there isn't a stinker in the bunch.  The only downside to Classic is that its hard to find books for it (PDFs are still available).  I ran 4 campaigns over the years with Deadlands Classic (probably about 200 adventures total), and we always had a blast with it.Then there was D20 Deadlands, which took everything cool, interesting, and unique about Deadlands, and got rid of it for the blandness of D20- basically turning it into D&D with some Deadlands themes.  I never ran D20 Deadlands, but I played it a few times with a guy who refused to play or run anything but D20 stuff, and D20 Deadlands is a pale mockery of Deadlands Classic.  It loses all the flavor, charm, and cool bits of Deadlands Classic to the rules drudgery of D20.  It plays like D&D with guns, and classes that are renamed and slightly tweaked versions of existing D&D classes.  Even the same spells are taken out of the PHB, which is completely the wrong feel for magic in Deadlands.  The suckage of D20 Deadlands is immense.  You'll see a lot of Deadlands D20 stuff sitting on used bookshelves of gamestores- because it sucks.  Avoid it at all costs.Savage Worlds Deadlands is just as fun as the Classic version, but the rules are easier to manage and it has much quicker prep time.  SW is a streamlined, but still highly customizable version of the Classic Deadlands rules, but SW can be applied to any genre or type of game- its truly a universal system.  Preptime for a SW game is about 1/10th that of a D20 game, it also plays faster and smoother, focusing on action and the adventure rather than rules mastery.  I love SW- its become my group's system of choice for whatever game we play.  We've used SW for Deadlands Reloaded, a home conversion of Deadlands: Hell on Earth (post apocalyptic), Call of Cthulhu, pulp adventure, psychological/supernatural horror (kinda like Silent Hill or Kult), Pirates of the Spanish Main, Star Wars, Fading Suns, Soloman Kane, hard sci-fi (more like Transhuman Space), and so on.  Deadlands Reloaded is basically a reincarnated version of Deadlands Classic, with all the cool bits still there, and most importantly, it got its soul back!  I've run about 20 adventures using SW Deadlands Reloaded, and its every bit as fun to play as Classic, the books are easier to find, and the Savage Worlds core book is only $10 now!  Can't beat that.So my advice is either dig up some copies of Deadlands Classic, or give Savage Worlds a try for Deadlands.  You won't be sorry.</blockquote>

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