Owl Hoot Trail: out for pre-orders!

Piratecat

Sesquipedalian
Hey, my game's out for pre-order -- please tell your friends! Owl Hoot Trail, by Clinton R. Nixon and Kevin Kulp (Piratecat), with remarkable assistance by Matthew Breen (Hypersmurf). It's a 136-page, 6″x9″ book that sells for $19.95 US. It's rules-lite d20ish fantasy-western, with steam-punk and some horror mixed in. But mostly it's ridiculous amounts of fun.

Pre-order! http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=11883

Blog post about the game: http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=11880
 

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Kewl! Kev, could you give us a 3-point "unique selling point"? What's totally awesome about it?

Love the cover, BTW. Who was that?

300-pixel-cover.png
 


Rich Longmore did the art, and I love how it came out -- not all white guys, incredibly stylish, and tons of flavor.

The book uses extremely slimmed-down slow-advancement d20 mechanics. Three stats and five skills, each of which interacts. Combat's pretty damn deadly, with an injury table that may leave you gutshot and thrashing on the ground in addition to just taking hit point damage. There are traditional western classes -- gunslinger, marshal (inspired by the paladin), ruffian, scout, and the like -- and more fantasy/steampunk classes. Mentalists and preachers trigger their powers by expending hit points, and shamans and gadgeteers recharge burnt-out powers by spending money.

Races are old west versions of classic fantasy races. Characters can be greenhorns from the city, or natives. It's up to the player whether native means "from a native tribe" or "from a small shack in the middle of nowhere."

The result is a really fun, compact rule set that works well for a fantasy-western. The adventure I wrote for it (They Rode For Perdition) takes up about half the book, and it's a glorious sprawling sandbox on the western frontier with a secret that's about to turn very horrible very quickly. I don't think I've ever had that much fun writing an adventure before.
 



It's just occurred to me that I've never played a Western game - not even Deadlands. I did have a Western-themed area in a 2E D&D game years ago, though. It's definitely a genre that can provide some rich stories!
 

Attached at this link is a gorgeous full-size character sheet done by [MENTION=1656]Hypersmurf[/MENTION]. The book has it split in two since it's a 6x9" book. For filled-out sheets, Clinton posted some; they aren't pretty, but they do the trick.

EDIT: weird. Looks like that link won't work if you aren't on G+. Try following this link to the post, then look for Clinton's link in the comments. https://plus.google.com/u/0/113078386420515441545/posts/etatXKZCaqJ

Stuff I love about the game?

I've never before worked on a game where the mechanics and the setting are so integrated. The three stats are GRIT, DRAW and WITS; the five skills are Amity, Learning, Toughness, Wilderness and Wile. Need to stagger out of the desert half-dead with the blazing sun at your back? That's a Wilderness + GRIT check. Want to bluff someone at cards when your hand is a pair of threes? Wile + WITS.

Better, the classes are better adapted for a fantasy western than I ever thought I'd manage. Preachers tote the word of the All-Mighty the way others tote their pistols, sapping the will of wrong-doers by rebuking them with scripture. Gadgeteers may be clever engineers or insane inventors, but their powers (mostly based on d20 spells) -- horseless freightwagon, crank-operated electroprod, pyromatic explosion -- are determined by their inventions. Gunslingers always have the option of facing down a foe in a formal duel, one that will likely result in the death of the slower gunslinger. Let's hope that's not the PC. But hey, death is a constant threat in the old west, and new characters are fast and easy to make.

You get the idea. Morrus, I love old west games; crossing them over with fantasy could have been a little precious for my taste. I think we managed to avoid that nicely.
 

Preordered. I like all sorts of Western history, books & movies. I've been a sucker for Western games since Boot Hill through Deadlands and into Spellslinger d20. I even have a first printing of Aces & Eights. I am intrigued by the included adventure in Owl Hoot Trail, and am looking forward to reading it.
 

Sounds great! How does damage work beyond the usual hit points? That is, what makes guns so deadly? Do hit points go up as characters level up?
 

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