The Fort Griffin Echo - Volume 1, Number 1

[Geoff]

Welcome to the rebirth of the Fort Griffin Echo. Originally published from 1879 to 1882, the Fort Griffin Echo was a fine example of a frontier newspaper. Although it didn’t stay in circulation for a terribly long period of time, its demise had less to do with the quality of its journalism, and more with the death of its hometown. We here at Dog House Rules hope to continue the proud tradition of this once great American newspaper. As with many of yesteryear’s papers, the Echo’s publishing schedule will be irregular, determined by the events of the day rather than an arbitrary daily or weekly deadline.

Contents - Volume 1, Number 1

* The Way it Was - The first of a series of honest-to-goodness real news stories unearthed by the Echo editors—stories that give a taste of the real life on the Frontier.
* Black Hat/White Hat - Law and order is a mighty likely theme in Western role playing, so Christopher S. Warner has rounded up a fictional posse inspired by the real events from the “The Way it Was” story.
* Weapon Report: In a recurring column, DHR’s resident scientist, Bradley W. Hindman, offers optional rules for weapon misfires and a look at some special weapons.
* Council Fires: The Comanche - Geoff Spakes offers loads of information about the masters of the plains, the Comanche, including the first prestige classes explicitly designed for Sidewinder: Recoiled.
* Cinema Styles: Eye-talian Style - T.L. Gregory and Mr. Hindman serve up some knee-slapping “Eye-talian” style campaign flavor. Get ready to bust a gut.

 

[Max]

Sidewinder: Recoiled is the excellent western role playing game from Dog House Rules (DHR), using the d20 Modern rules. They have launched The Fort Griffin Echo (FGE) to provide additional information, optional rules, and other interesting western information. According to the information on their forums, there will be three or four issues of the FGE per year although the schedule will be irregular. The first issue is free. To date, they have not announced pricing for future issues.

The Fort Griffin Echo is laid out somewhat like the old newspaper it is based upon. There are five articles and one editorial, along with "advertisements" pulled from the pages of yester-year. The old ads can be quite humorous, and may remind you of the spam you get in your email. "Dr. Pareira's Great Italian Remedy -- For the certain and speedy cure of diseases of a private nature ... It has never failed ..." Yep, there was spam even in the old West. The adds are mostly small, and so do not cut down on the useful gaming information much at all.

Page 1 is an introduction, that explains what the old FGE was and what the new FGE has within its pages.

Page 2 is an editorial, in which the editor explains why Fort Griffin was chosen, over other more famous western towns such as Tombstone or Dodge.

The Weapon Report is found on pages 3-5. This regular column will bring in optional rules and additional weapon stats, over and above what is found in the Recoiled rules. This column includes optional misfire rules and two new weapons that use them. For those who like to have detailed misfire rules, this column will be very useful. They have extensive options to choose from.

Council Fires brings to life the Comanche, on pages 6 through 23. One often repeated criticism of the Sidewinder: Recoiled rules is they do not have much information about the various Indian tribes that lived throughout the west. Of course, there are so many Indian cultures to choose from, that doing any of them justice in a book already huge by PDF standards would have been difficult. The Council Fires column is the answer to those calls. There is a timeline of major events in the history of the Comanche, and details on the tribal organization and culture. Also included are two Prestige Classes specifically for the Comanche, personal information and stats for two famous Comanche chiefs, and stats for ordinary and heroic Comanche NPC's. Reportedly there will be a new Indian tribe detailed in each FGE.

The Way It Was provides a reprint of an actual news article, detailing a robbery and murder that occurred in 1881. The short article provides some insight into the life in the old west. The DHR gang has taken it a step further in White Hats/Black Hats, and taken the people from the news story and created backgrounds and stats for them so you can use them as NPC's in a Recoiled game. There are eight NPC's presented, some heroic and some ordinary. This issue details good guys, the next issue will detail some kind of outlaw gang.

The final gaming section is called Cinema Styles. This is a lighthearted look at western movies, and some of the feats & equipment that must have existed for those movie cowboys to survive. These are darn funny, I must say. From the "Offscreen Reloading" feat (you can reload as a free action as long as no one is looking), to The Man With No Name's "Poncho of Protection", they are all good for a laugh or two.

Lastly, we have the obligatory 2 pages of OGC and OGL legal stuff. The final page is a wanted poster.

Overall, the writing in the FGE is clear and easy to follow. The information provided begins to fill some gaps that existed in the base Recoiled rules. Future information about Indian tribes and weapons will be especially nice. I've given the FGE a 4/5, as not all of the articles will be useful to everyone. Although all the articles are well written and interesting to read some may not want misfire rules, others may not be running a game in Texas and so the Comanche information won't come into play in their game. However, considering this initial issue is free it is a "must download" for anyone playing Recoiled, or just interested in the Old West.

 

[Scott]

A key factor in the success of any RPG is the quality of its supporting products. The Fort Griffin Echo is Dog House Rules' first follow-up to their Sidewinder: Recoiled d20 Modern-based western game and, judging by it, Recoiled's future is bright.

The Echo is projected as an ongoing series of "newspapers," published irregularly 3-4 times per year. Each issue is expected to be about 32 pages long; the cost of future issues has not been announced. In the time-onored tradition of free sample newspapers, this first issue is available as a free download from the Dog House Rules site and is 36 pages long.

The layout of the Echo is very nice: two text columns per page, with sidebars and tables boxed and shaded for easy identification. A dozen or so illustrations are scattered throughout, including two maps and two black and white photographs. A number of advertisements, reprinted from period sources, add a much-appreciated touch of old west flavor.

The contents are equally impressive. The cover page explains The Fort Griffin Echo's past as a real newspaper (in north central Texas) and briefly outlines the contents of this issue. The editorial, on the next page, explains the designers' decision to use Fort Griffin rather than another, better known, locale. The rest of the issue consists of five articles, all of which are billed as the first installment of continuing columns.

The first column, The Weapon Report, offers an optional rule for firearm misfires. The system presented here hearkens back to the misfire rule in Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures, but greatly expands and, in my opinion, improves on it. Any roll of a natural 1 with a firearm is a misfire, with the results of a Concentration skill check determining the exact consequences--anything from a dud round to the weapon exploding. There are modifiers for the type and age of the firearm, how well it has been maintained, even current weather conditions. Most of the modifiers for a given weapon can be calculated in advance, so misfire checks needn't be time-consuming. There are also rules for clearing jammed guns. I usually resist options that add more die-rolling to combat, but a bit of play-testing convinced me this option is worth using. The column concludes with game stats for a new weapon, the Colt Ring-Lever Rifle.

One of Sidewinder: Recoiled's few weak spots is a lack of information about the tribal nations of the old west. The Fort Griffin Echo addresses this lack with the next column, Council Fires. This first installment looks at the Comanche. Coverage includes a short history of the tribe, tribal organization, lifestyles, way of war, language, appearance, and religion, with a pair of tribal legends detailed. A small map showing the territory the Comanche ranged is included, as is a timeline of 19th century events. I'm not aware of any other western RPG covering one tribe so extensively. A nice touch is the inclusion of references to give the interested reader a starting point for further research.

That's just part of the goodies in this column, however. As useful as the cultural information is, most players and GMs will be looking for crunchy bits, too. They'll find them here. The first prestige classes for Sidewinder: Recoiled, the Comanche Parabio (or chief) and the Comanche Rider, are presented here. I haven't had the opportunity to play=test these, but both classes look sound, and should serve as good examples for home-brewed prestige classes. Also here are brief biographies of two historical Comanche, Quanah Parker and Ten Bears, with game statistics at different levels included. Rounding out this section are game stats for Ordinary and Heroic Comanche NPCs of various levels.

The Way It Was, the third column, reprints articles from real old west newpapers. In this case, it's the story of a robbery and murder in Graham, Texas, in June 1881. The story, first of a series of three related articles, provides period flavor as well as potential plot ideas. There's a small map to help place the locales mentioned. A larger, more detailed version of this same map is available as a free download in the Snakebites section of DHR's site. The other two articles in the series will apparently be in the next two installments of the Echo.

The next section is White Hat / Black Hat, a column designed to present fictional NPCs from both sides of the law. This first installment offers a sheriff and his posse, each with full game statistics and a short write-up. Two are heroic; six are ordinaries. Although designed for the Fort Griffin area, these characters could be relocated just about anywhere with minor changes to thier bios. What Judge can't use a ready-made posse from time to time? The next issue of the
Echo promises some black hats for this posse to chase.

Humor, especially tongue-in-cheek humor, is part of the western genre. Cinema Styles, the final column in this issue of the Echo, captures this perfectly with Sidewinder: Eye-talian Style. I don't want to give anything away, but no one who's seen a spaghetti western should miss these two pages of feats and equipment.

Overall, the Echo's writing is very good, and the editing is excellent--well above the RPG industry standard. I didn't like a couple of the illustrations used, but that's just a matter of taste. A product of this kind, by its eclectic nature, will likely include material that any given gamer won't need. As it happens, I found every part of this first issue useful, bt not everyone will. Balanced against that, however, is the availability of this issue as a free download.

With Sidewinder: Recoiled, the Dog House Rules gang set the quality bar pretty high for themselves. With this first issue of the Fort Griffin Echo, they've cleared the bar again.