Gunslinger Question

I am pleased to report that I have finally obtained a copy of Avalon Hill's Gunslinger. I am really eager to put this game through its paces and was really surprised that the difficulty was not that bad.

That being said, I do have a rules question.

Some scenarios have moneybags in them and give you victory points for them. My question is how do you pick up these moneybags, what action cards do you use with them, where do you carry them, and how many can you carry and still wield a weapon?

Draw and Cock 3 is the card you use. Holster it like a weapon to stow it. Last time I played one of those scenarios it was grim - one person got all the cash because everyone else was dead.

It's not a _hard_ game, and I always enjoy it. But the ergonomics of character setup and inventory absolutely suck ass. You can spend 10 minutes getting your character set up only to catch a shotgun blast in the chest on Turn 1. What it really needs is a makeover where the weapons and player info are on cards all their own, and you just mix and match them. Grab the character card and gun cards you need, a fistful of counters, and go nuts.

Alan Moon has a thread on BGG where he's slagging the action system for being too complicated. He's full of shit in that case - that's the best part.

Are you kidding me? The action system is _amazing_. The mechanics are a little clunky but the effect is incredible. I swear that Richard Hamblen _had_ to have been inspired by watching Sam Peckinpah films in coming up with this system, particularly THE WILD BUNCH. The way it creates simultaneous, dare I say cross cut, action is astounding. And when it's all over you can recount pretty much blow-by-blow everything that happened.

It's _not_ hard, and it's _not_ complicated. It's very easy, it's just that usability and player-friendliness weren't so high back then.

Thanks. That's what I thought just wanted to verify.

I agree that the action system is great! In fact, I read somewhere where someone suggested using that system with a medieval version. I think that is a fantastic idea!

The action system really works here and it is what sets the game apart from Worthington games Cowboys game which is just too simple. If Moon thinks that action system is too complex it is just proof that he has had an overdose of the children's game, "Ticket to Ride"

He was one of the initial Gunslinger playtesters way back when at AH, and got to see it before the chrome. But the chrome basically _makes_ that game. Strip that off and you end up with rock-paper-scissors or something.

The funny thing is, in the same list he talks about Circus Maximus, and how much he _loved_ that. And while I like CM too, it definitely doesn't flow like Gunslinger does.

Threadjack: there's some guys that bring a really nice miniatures setup to various conventions to play Circus Maximus on, but they dicked with the rules and basically fucked up the game. "Too much combat in the old rules, we streamlined it." Are you shitting me? If I wanted to play Formula De I'd play Formula De; I want carnage when I play Circus Maximus.

It ain't CIRCUS MAXIMUS if there's an actual winner that finishes the race.

It too has a really high level of granular detail...not much in gaming beats grabbing a guy's whip and then whipping his eye out later on with it.

That game is kind of a mess though, very old fashioned and a little too clumsy in terms of the die rolling mechanics. Who cares, it's a great one.

The last few times I played Circus Maximus one guy just acted as GM. You can get away with just familiarizing new players with the way movement works and tell them what they can ram or whip as they go by. It doesn't make the charts work any more smoothly, but it does kind of hide some of the ugliness.

the*mad*gamer wrote:

Some scenarios have moneybags in them and give you victory points for them. My question is how do you pick up these moneybags, what action cards do you use with them, where do you carry them, and how many can you carry and still wield a weapon?

Don't go for the money bags! They're a trap.

The latest issue of Fire & Movement has a historical variant featuring John Wesley Hardin [the gunslinger, not the semi-socialist folk singer] and some historical scenarios.

Lemme know if anyone is interested in checking these out.

On an off-note, in the last month, I've picked up 3 issues of F&M at random at a local shop where old mags seem to go to die [though still at full MSRP] and they've featured this cool load of Gunslinger scenarios, an Up Front! expansion with half-tracks and a Pvt. Blutarski! [Polish infantry, of course] card; and a substantial Kingmaker historical variant that actually adds *all* of the Houses who were vying for power at the time, as well as a new freakin' map [downloadable from the F&M website] for that game.

I'd never paid much attention to F&M as I always thought it was just a poorly edited house organ for Decision Games. While the poorly edited part continues to be completely true, has it *always* had such groovy Avalon Hill content?

I've been checking this one out online, but was disappointed in its limited availability. It does look interesting, and complicated enough to still be engaging and fun.

I am extremely sick of "streamlined" games, that just end up being too simple or scripted. I like chrome, combat, dice and chaos!

Count Orlok wrote:

I've been checking this one out online, but was disappointed in its limited availability. It does look interesting, and complicated enough to still be engaging and fun.

I am extremely sick of "streamlined" games, that just end up being too simple or scripted. I like chrome, combat, dice and chaos!

Gunslinger gets unfairly panned for complexity. Someone on BGG once cited its rulebook length as a benchmark for overly complex games [same guy also called Memoir '44, "ASL Lite"--which, I guess, would make Ticket to Ride an 18xx game], but basic rules are all of 12-pages or so long. It does get a bit complicated once you get into the later scenarios with lots of gunslingers in crowded spaces [cover, rugs, items to throw around, and the like], but it still isn't all that bad IMO.

You might want to give ebay a look right around now for this one; the market is so soft that lots of previously-expensive games are going for a song [e.g., the copy of Blood Royale I just spotted that went for $27--this was a game that as of 4 months ago, and for most of the last 2 years, was pulling $80-150 every time it came up].

Dogmatix wrote:

On an off-note, in the last month, I've picked up 3 issues of F&M at random at a local shop where old mags seem to go to die [though still at full MSRP] and they've featured this cool load of Gunslinger scenarios, an Up Front! expansion with half-tracks and a Pvt. Blutarski! [Polish infantry, of course] card;

I'd be interested in what these two articles (Gunslinger, Up Front) are about in detail.

I'd never paid much attention to F&M as I always thought it was just a poorly edited house organ for Decision Games. While the poorly edited part continues to be completely true, has it *always* had such groovy Avalon Hill content?

I have only three F&M mags, but I think their older mags (132 and earlier) are more useful, because the reviews are longer. After that they concentrate on components too much; like one reviewer describes the lack of two dice as the only negative in a particular game (whose name I forget). Still, I guess every magazine includes a few variants (or house rules) for at least one game. The recent surge of AH coverage might be coincidental though, I certainly don't think this is meant to draw in new readers, because it would be better to write about newer games for this purpose.