Here’s an early look at a hack I’m working on; Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky.

Here’s an early look at a hack I’m working on; Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky.

Here’s an early look at a hack I’m working on; Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky.

It’s another western hack (!); inspired by Stefan Struck’s weird west Fistful of Darkness, I wanted to try my hand at something less weird west and more postmodern/revisionist. Touchstones would be Cormac McCarthy, Dead Man, There Will Be Blood, Deadwood, Tarantino’s westerns to some extent, the party dynamic of Bone Tomahawk (not the “bad guys” or the racism though thanks) and some of the aesthetic of Red Dead Redemption.

Greed, gangs, and a coming storm…

Any feedback welcome!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tAWQiuD7QY-0Uz8BG6MFE-napDSIH8Pm/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tAWQiuD7QY-0Uz8BG6MFE-napDSIH8Pm/view

23 thoughts on “Here’s an early look at a hack I’m working on; Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky.”

  4. Blake Hutchins Thanks! That’s exactly what I was going for.

    Mark Wiand Very much so – the title of the hack is an intentional homage to the sub-title of Blood Meridian (“The Evening Redness in the West”).

  7. Read the playbooks and I like them. As I don’t have the full info a have to guess regarding some points but this looks good. Good job, cutting it down to 8 playbooks. As you know I have a serious “too-many-playbooks”-problem. Good to see that we won’t meet in the same support group 🙂

    Some questions

    – What kind of “runs” to you want to play?

    – What about Attune? At first I though it’s out but then came the last playbook and it’s in again. What do you plan to do with it?

    – Will there be crews?

    – “Belly Through the Brush: […] you gain +1 to the roll if you […]”. +1 to the result rolled? Our should that be +1 effect or +1d?

    – I like the idea that the veteran will start with 1 trauma, so they start with two special ability or is the first fixed?

    – Will there be cohorts in your game? The abilities seem to focus on non-cohort effects…?

    – What is “Role”?

    BTW GURPS Old West may be a good inspiration for your game regarding background and historical facts.

  9. I have to say you did a great job of setting up the titles of the perks to evoke the spirit of the playbook and the game. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

  11. I am also interested in how you are using “role.” I’m working on a Skies of Fire comic book hack (diesel punk on zeppelins) and we are also using a role “ability” so that we don’t have to force specific character playbooks into ship functions (e.g. you can be an ace biplane pilot and an airship gunner, while the diplomat is a great airship helmsman and the scoundrel also happens to be a good bosun.

  14. Stefan Struck Thanks for taking time to go through it, appreciate it!

    – What kind of “runs” do you want to play?

    Like Blades, this is a game about criminals – so the scores will be similar; robbery, murder, shoot-outs for turf, stealing blackmail material to get control of a mining claim, running a rival out of town so you get a monopoly on your trade – that kind of thing. The difference will be the “coming storm”; there’ll be a mechanism to reflect the inexorable advance of “civilization”; law, the army, and powerful industrialists all start growing in Tier over time as the telegraph comes, railway tracks are laid, etc etc.

    – What about Attune? At first I though it’s out but then came the last playbook and it’s in again. What do you plan to do with it?

    This is something I want to playtest, but even though this isn’t a weird west hack I still want some aspect of the mythical, spiritual, and even slightly supernatural. Like in Dogs in the Vineyard (another inspiration) this should always have plausible deniability, but it does work. You attune when you use a divining rod, when you pray, when you look for signs in the clouds, when you read the emotions in a room, when you try to reach the hearts of a whole crowd with a sermon.

    – Will there be crews?

    Yes! These will be gangs. I’m still working through them but I’ve got Hired Guns (killers and bounty hunters), Desperados (stagecoach robbery etc), the Faithful (I might cut this one, but basically a religious group), the Concern (entrepreneurs and capitalists), and Revolutionaries (a gang with a political goal).

    – “Belly Through the Brush: […] you gain +1 to the roll if you […]”. +1 to the result rolled? Our should that be +1 effect or +1d?

    Yeah that should be +1d, good catch.

    – I like the idea that the veteran will start with 1 trauma, so they start with two special ability or is the first fixed?

    The first is fixed – they always get Gone Through the Mill.

    – Will there be cohorts in your game? The abilities seem to focus on non-cohort effects…?

    There will be cohorts – the Veteran gets an ability that deals with leading cohorts in battle.

    – What is “Role”?

    I haven’t worked through all the detail yet, but it’s something like Roles in Night Witches. I was also guided by a discussion in Tips at the Table where Austin Walker talked a little bit about the difference between mechanical roles (tank, healer, etc) and group dynamic roles (the leader, the hot-shot, the thinker, etc). I want to encourage players to think about both these aspects, and be free to choose a group role independent of their playbook. Any playbook can be the Big Shot, any playbook can be a Misanthrope, etc etc. At the moment it’s just an XP trigger, but I might give them each a special ability too (I’m thinking something like they each get a very particular kind of free flashback relevant to their role).

    I’ll check out Gurps Old West, thanks for the tip.

  15. Garrett Fitzgerald hey thanks, appreciate it.

    Franco bianchini I believe one of the backer levels on the kickstarter came with source files, but I made these ones from scratch in Adobe Illustrator.

    Eric Brunsell I’m still working through the details, but see my reply to Stefan above. Have you looked into Night Witches? It’s also about pilots and it’s where I got the idea of Roles – it works well there.

  16. Tim Denee for our Skies of Fire (w. Ray Chou and Kerby Lambert ) hack, each role has one special ability at character creation related to airship operation.

  18. Beautiful layout, nice items list and I like how you move the Actions.

    Personal (humble) suggestion,

    Perspicacity can be rename in something cooler like, Sharpness.

    I like the mark “not a white man” very self explanatory.

    Are you still working on Bit Underhive?

  19. Stefano Borri Hey thanks! I actually like the 19th century clunkiness of ‘perspicacity’, but I’ll definitely consider something snappier.

    Also, glad you noticed the ‘not a white man’ thing and that it feels intuitive – I’ve actually got some mechanics to go along with it.

    I’m not currently working on BitUnderhive, no – I haven’t had a chance to play it myself so I don’t have any playtest notes, and it feels like a bit of a waste of time putting too much more effort into an IP that can never fly above the radar. Also, I think there’s already enough there to run a necromunda game if someone were so inclined?

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