[DEPRECATED] A Fistful of Darkness: Weird West Hack (Beta)

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Imaging a world with the magic and mystery of the frontier: wide open plains of the Old Wild West in all its beauty and madness, where violence and sacrifice dominate every single day. Now add the Hellstone rush, underground mayhem in mines and brand new sciences and machines. Don’t forget immigration, injustice, vigilante justice, outlaws, gunslingers, slick talkers and setting suns. This all in the face of an impending doom: Demons and the four riders bringing the end of the world as you know it. How do you make it to the top of this powder keg, which side will you take in the impending war and how much will your soul suffer? Let’s play to find out!

The hack is in Beta state, playtesters more than welcome. Download for free, here.

[JDTillinghast (Daniel)]

I ran a session of this from Alpha 3 a while back. I had a good time and the Weird West fan in my crew absolutely loved it. Nice to see it moving into beta now. I’ve been looking forward to watching this game keeping taking shape.

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

This is very cool. Thanks for making my day. Yes, Beta is up now because enough feedback from playtesting came in to be confident about this next state. In the text the change is not that big.
I keep on playtesting but to be honest I’m not sure what the next step will be. Maybe start the full book, maybe adding more tables/oracles. Right now, I’m working on Wonderdraft custom assets for the maps (as a mean of procrastination)

So, feedback is welcome: What is missing from the game, what should be more clear. Do you need something else? Is there a playbook I could delete from the game?
I’m having a hard time finding a posse willing to play Hellstone Scavengers, so maybe this is a playbook which won’t make it. Your chance to make it into the game (including playtest credits)!

[JDTillinghast (Daniel)]

Oh dang, the Scavengers were maybe my favourite, since they’re so different from the core Blades crew types (because scavenging outside the city is such a terrible idea in Akoros). In fact, when I started running my game in Skovlan, I thought about adapting your crew for use in the setting and offering it to my group if they wanted to change. In other words, if you need playtesters, and can wait a bit until I finish my course this summer, I’d love to be involved. Sorry I can’t commit before then though.

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Great to hear that and no problem regarding time. I know that myself and I won’t go away

[shadowpuppet (Ryan (he/him/his))]

I’ve run one session of a playtest with this so far, and will be running a second session (our first session of actually playing instead of character/crew/map creation) next Friday. So far the group is all pretty excited about it! I’ll get you my feedback from the first session ASAP, @monkeyEcho – things have been a little hectic, and I keep putting off e-mailing you back about it. Sorry!

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

@shadowpuppet Hey, no problem! I’m glad you/your group likes the game and gives it a try. I’m curious about which playbooks you use and what is great/working or bad/hindering. If you need something, let me know, I’m happy to help.

[Antifinity (Ian Hart)]

This is a really clever effect, do you mind if I do something similar for my own hack?
“SNAKEOIL MIRACLES: When you assist or engage in a
group action with someone, they may also ignore one harm penalty.”

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Sure, go ahead. Funny thing is that in my playtests no one wanted to play “The Gentle Touch” yet. Maybe I’ll see this ability in action some day.

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Re-posting some art which from and beyond the current text. Mainly to get myself into the right mood to finish that book. We’ll see how this work out.

A Night in the Swamp

Additional Art by Galen Pejeau

[Tubal]

The art here looks really good, and I had a look in the downloads too. A+. The clock designs are very clever but the most interesting thing must be the world (map) building section

[JDTillinghast (Daniel)]

All the art is cool. A Night in the Swamp is cool as Hell.

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Now, also on itch.io:
https://monkeyecho.itch.io/a-fistful-of-darkness

Hope that you have fun with my game.

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Have a nice cup of DOOOOOM

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Working on art for the final book.
“The Forest”

Yep, going crazy with procreate brushes

[GPejeau (Assembly Requisite)]

That is beautiful work!

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Thanks a lot. Highly appreciated

[monkeyEcho (Stefan Struck)]

Working on the book, listening to Hard West soundtrack, creating some full page art. Just to let you know that I did not give up.

[Gavin_Moore (Gavin42)]

I just ran across your game yesterday after working on my own Weird West hack for Blades for a couple of days (I wasn’t smart enough to check the Forged in the Dark site before I started).

I was very disappointed by how fantastic your hack is (I hoped it wouldn’t be so good so that I could continue working on mine) and after talking with my group yesterday I’m very excited to run your beta for them (after our Scum and Villainy season wraps up). We wondered if there is a timeline for a physical copy’s release?

The only thing I’m planning to change for our beta is rules that I altered for my players to use a Poker deck instead of dice. If you are interested in those as optional rules let me know and I can share my Google drive folder.

Thanks so much for this game, it’s truly inspired.

[Sully5443]

I’m not the OP… but I for one would like to see some optional poker deck rules for this BitD hack! I generally prefer using dice- but it would be too thematic to not at least give it a look!