A Fistful Of Dice (One-Page d6 Cowboy Game)

[Drakeknight]

You know, I was aware of Ye Old West, I just hadn't read it before now. Now that I have read it, it sort of looks like I ripped it off, but didn't want to pony up the cash for fancy dice or spent more than an afternoon on the rules.

My original intention was to hit closer to Liar's Dice, since I knew poker had already been done. In light of this, I will work on an expanded, revised, second edition, hopefully pushing it more towards Liar's Dice and a more individual identity. Just in my off-time, though, as there is a bigger, potentially more interesting, and less rip-off-looking project I'm working on that you'll get to have a look at at some point in the near future.

Also, yeah, I think I'm gonna go with pairs instead of doubles. Sounds more Westerny. When I think about it, doubles is probably a result of my Englishness. I never realised my psyche was so aggressively English.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I did not mean to sound as if I was accusing you of plagiarism - I just thought it was an interesting game with some similarities. For example, I'm also reluctant to play it due to a lack of poker dice.

I'm pretty sure I've seen a wild west game played with a poker deck, and I've got my own based on revolvers (one to five plus an empty chamber), and the old "Boot Hill" was percentile. Perhaps the focus of new western rules shouldn't be on some dice gimmick, but should instead find some other system or trait to focus on.

For example - trust as resource/roll. You need X people for a posse, or Y compatriots to pull off that train job without a hitch. Or a cowboy game where cows are an actual part of play, say struggling with the environment of the range to get the most bulls to market.

While I don't know much about the history of South America, I know they have their own "" cowboy culture that is very underrepresented in views of the 1800s zeitgeist.

Anyway, similarity in dice systems isn't really a problem (you can't copyright those, by the way), its a matter of setting expression that makes it unique. I'm fine with the dice as they are (if with different terminology), just bring out a bit more unique western flavor.

[Drakeknight]

I didn't think you were accusing me, worry not. I merely noted the similarities myself. The aim of the revisions are to 1. Make it more Western-focused, 2. Make it more unique, and 3. Add some stuff.

[Rob Lang]

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Speaking of Englishmen - the US Wild West Period coincides almost exactly with the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 to 1901). Now, the isles had run out of frontier well before this point, but that doesn't mean the tales of the west in pulp fiction and the newly emerging novel (The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 was published in 1826, a sequel in 1840) didn't entrance the people.

So you could frame the game as young Dickensian Street Urchins (Trademark Pending) pretending to be cowboys in the streets of white-chapel (we're gonna rassel up this outlaw jack now...), or perhaps fine gentlemen discussing it over snifters of brandy in the parlor. Or a fine Brit who finds himself on the frontier, a group of Irishmen looking for work in the new world, or Beaumont-Addams and Webly Revolvers in the Wild West Africa. The spreading of railroads in India also has some similarities.