I think the solution to the game’s handling time and weird flatness issues is, as with most things, Otherkind dice. Injecting an additional degree of player choice into the mix makes the math a little flighty, so more playtesting is in order. It will definitely be more fun to shuffle the dice around, and decide whether to slam down more patent medicine or leave it alone. Here’s a mockup of the character sheet, just for fun.
I had Joe and Remi over to playtest Cowboys With Big Hearts last night, and I was walking them through cowboy generation, when they both looked up at me expectantly.
“So who are you playing?” Joe asked.
And we all laughed after I explained that the game had a GM.
(The Death Brothers were a pair of eyepatch-wearing goth gunfighters with a large family and an army of henchmen, including Mexican bad-men in black sombreros, a concept I find terrifying. The big reveal at the end was that the orphans were actually their children, and Joe’s guy was mercilessly gunned down when his enlarged, rheumatic heart made it impossible for him to even lift his gun. Remi played a syphilitic whose nickname was “fuck-stick”. It was fun and informative.)
I just handed off the diagram sketches to our artist for Fiasco and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. I asked him to choose his own playset bits for #2 and #3, so that’ll be fun. #4 is the situation laid down in the replay.
It’s getting swampy down here in North Carolina, and it seemed like it was time for a game design challenge! Check it out and enter your best little game – I dare you!
So why would a bunch of pox-ridden, busted up wrecks be going on one last epic ride across the desert? What could compel a posse of diseased rejects on death’s front porch to strap on pistols and play the hero?
A stranger.
You don’t even know her last name. She was sick, sicker than you all, and she came to Sunny Slope a widow with three kids in tow. She didn’t have anything and you helped her out as best you could. You promised her you’d look after Nelly, Keeton, and Baby Dot. Keep ‘em safe. You all swore to it, in front of the widow, God, each other. You watched her die at peace. Those kids are orphans now, and bad as you are, you are all they got.
And then the Death Brothers rode in to Sunny Slope and took ‘em. One, two, three. You were sleeping at the time.
So go on, then! Saddle up, you swole-hearted sons of bitches. Rattle your daggs. The Death Brothers’ got a day’s lead, heading for Mexico, and you’re going to get those orphans back if it’s the last thing you do. Which it will be.