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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khur" data-source="post: 2010374" data-attributes="member: 5583">Harkening back to Boot Hill, and sharing shelf space with such worthies as GURPS Old West and Deadlands, Sidewinder is a d20 game based solidly on life in the American frontier. With this book and the Player's Handbook, anyone can play a campaign set in the Old West using familiar rules. But, Sidewinder provides this and so much more. So strap on your shootin' iron and put on your spurs, it's time to see what makes Sidewinder tick.The thing that struck me first about Sidewinder was how quietly it sits on the shelf. The cover just isn't grabbing. It's done to resemble a leather-bound book with a gold plate displaying the title. Now if it were a hardback with faux leather and gold foil, that'd be a different story. Having seen the images used in Citizen Games' advertising for the game, however, I wondered why they didn't use more vintage photography to draw attention. As it is, Sidewinder might go overlooked by the casual browser, and that'd be that gamer's loss.Sidewinder is worth the investment just as sheer entertainment. Co-authored by famous buffalo hunter, gunfighter, lawman, and writer, William Barclay "Bat" Masterson, Sidewinder is the best read I've had in a d20 book. For those of you who don't know, Bat was a real man who lived and fought in the West, only to die of a heart attack as a sports journalist in Manhattan. Some of his exploits, along with his recollections of friends, such as Wyatt Earp, are presented in the pages of Sidewinder, as they appeared in Human Life magazine in the early 1900s. More authentic stories of the West one cannot find, and adding this material was a brilliant stroke from Citizen Games' team.That team also chose a style of writing within the Western theme that makes even the driest of game mechanics enjoyable. The DM is called the Judge, hit points are grit, and Hit Dice are Grit Dice. The flavor continues throughout the work, such as a line from the feat Tough Hombre that reads, "You keep fighting even when your boots are full of your own blood." I could almost hear the Western accent, and I laughed out loud. That was just one of many such moments during my time with Sidewinder.The mechanics I mentioned are sound too, raising Sidewinder above many other works. The authors must have labored hard to make everything fit into d20, and they succeeded. A unique system of gun combat, including trick shots and misfires, makes shootouts fun, but no matter how much grit your PC has, gun fighting is deadly in Sidewinder, so beware. You can also blow another cowpoke (or your own) up with dynamite or good ol' nitro. Wagon chases, Gatling guns, and nag horses are all here along with rules for quack doctors, snakeoil salesmen, and getting "all liquored up". Yep, a character can get into all sorts of trouble, no matter what his or her profession.As for those professions, the character classes are unique to Sidewinder, and they're excellent. Player classes include such notables as the hard-drinking and gambling Maverick, the trailblazing Scout, and the rough-and-ready Wrangler. Prestige classes consist of cowboy-movie icons like the Desperado, Bounty Hunter, and Lawman. NPCs come from the ranks of Greenhorns, Hunters, Settlers, and Soldiers. Newness isn't all these classes have; the way they're implemented is different and exciting too. Sidewinder classes make brilliant use of the "middle" saving throw progression (+9 at 20th level) found in d20 Modern (and its predecessor Shadow Chasers, from the magazine Polyhedron). The player classes don't get set class abilities at each level, but instead can choose from a list of abilities and feats, limited only by the level of the character. Ingenious, I say. Every character is thus a singular individual, despite similar class choices. Characters are made more unique by the "background pack" they get at 1st-level, in which they receive a maximum number of grit points, and a number of skill points, as if they had gained one level of an NPC class. Since the benefits of the NPC classes seem balanced with one another, this serves to make 1st-level characters a little tougher, and a bit more skilled than normal folk.Sidewinder has a lot of new skills, and novel ways to use core d20 skills. My favorite innovation is Speak Language; language is a ranked skill in Sidewinder, as is literacy. Having always chafed at the language rules in D&D, this was a welcome change to me. Skills like Gamble, Gun Play, and Fast Draw add color to the game, and are worthy additions. A couple of the "new" skills really seem to fall under the purview of new uses for old skills, however. As an example, Trailblaze, while aptly named, is certainly part of Wilderness Lore. Yet, this is a small point of contention in an otherwise finely crafted set of competencies.Of course, talents can make or break characters in a d20 game, thus the quality of feats is important. Sidewinder's new feats are top notch, making its version of the Old West both heroic and real. The rules presented make clear how to use core feats, and adds no few to the list of potential abilities. They're balanced well, and most are so useful cow punchers will have a hard time choosin' one from t'other. Of course, some D&D feats have no place in Sidewinder, especially the ones related to magic, since there's no magic in this version of the West. Perhaps a future supplement will touch on Indian shamanism, but that's pure hope and speculation.Speaking of the aboriginal heroes and villains of America, I was disappointed that Sidewinder didn't include more about the natives of the Great Plains and elsewhere. Unlike the other material in the book, there isn't even enough on Native Americans to fuel more research on the subject. It also seems strange to include a token Indian prestige class (the Brave), yet little else. Further, despite an early disclaimer about the dated views, some of the true-life material that refers to Indians is edited for modern political correctness. I think this is unfortunate, because readers deserve to know what the atmosphere of the American frontier was like. There was plenty of ugliness there, as even the movies and books in Sidewinder's own bibliography show.That bibliography, however, is an extraordinary resource. While the history of Sidewinder is rich in the storytelling vein, it is a bit one sided, since the reader gets most of the direct information from Mr. Masterson, and his friend Alfred H. Lewis. This isn't a fault, I loved it, but the resources listed in the bibliography will help Judges and players get more of a feel for the diversity of the genre. It even records competing (and vintage) roleplaying games. More valuable still, are the synopses of many movies set in the West. Even if one doesn't see the movies listed, the blurbs describing them can serve as adventure seeds.Citizen Games didn't leave it at that, though. There's a whole chapter dedicated specifically to six story hooks (at least one of which is reminiscent of an old TV show I recall vaguely). For your gaming dollar you also get two full adventures, one for 1st-level cowpokes, and another for 2nd- or 3rd-lvel hombres. The former has so many disparate and cliché encounters that it comes off as contrived, but the latter is pretty remarkable. Further, Sidewinder contains plenty of sample characters (though, sadly, no famous ones, except Bat), a glossary of authentic terms, a vintage map of the western U.S., a postal rate poster, and a timeline. If that weren't enough, Dodge City, a cowtown whose name is up there with the likes of Tombstone, is presented as a campaign setting--and a great one at that.What's more is the majority of Sidewinder is Open Game Content. That fact leaves me hoping to see a number of support products for the line done by Citizen Games, as well as others. Adventures should be less of a hassle to write than those set in fantasy worlds, because there's no magic as a wild card (yet). Further, the West has no shortage of inspiration and rich history, leaving a lot of room for wide ranging development.With all the gushing I've been doing, you might think Sidewinder isn't flawed. Well, it is, but only slightly. The editing is first rate, but a few of the errors (sure to end up in errata) make for some possible rules misunderstandings. Further, though Gold Rush Games' Mark Arsenault did a decent job on laying out most of the book, the hierarchy on some pages leads to confusion as to which passages are related to one another, like a colon between two paragraphs that leads to a sidebar on another page. The tendency to copyfit by changing text size and tracking is worrisome, though Sidewinder is not even close to White Wolf products in the use of this questionable technique. I liked the art, but not when images were reused (more than once).If only the crew at Citizen could have afforded slightly higher quality for the printing. It's okay as is, but the paper and ink combination results in smudges here and there. I'd also like to have seen a limited edition Sidewinder hardback. Then again, I live in a fantasy world where game companies that cater to small markets can afford such things. Ah well, I hope Sidewinder does as well by Citizen Games as it deserves.I thoroughly enjoyed Sidewinder. Even though I plan on playing it as presented, some of the material will certainly get ported to my other campaigns, even fantasy ones. By virtue of its bar-raising execution and unprecedented amount of Open Game Content (besides Green Ronin products), Sidewinder is worth your time and money even if you never play it specifically. So, saddle up, ride over to your local purveyor of games, and get Sidewinder. It's a "dilly" of a game.(4.5, nudged to 5, A)This review was originally written for <a href="http://www.unitedplaytest.com/gamingfrontiers/index.html" target="_blank">Gaming Frontiers</a> on 11/16/02.</blockquote>

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