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jay@vanishingtowerpress.com

Saturday, February 12

Return of Wester USR, rules-lite roleplaying in the Wild, Wild West

Since I am blessed with the Adobe suite of media products I've been dipping back in the old Vanishing Tower Press catalogue and redoing some old classics. Today I dug out Western USR, rules-lite roleplaying in the Wild, Wild West and reformatted the old PDF. This is now once again available for sale at DriveThruRPG. So no big whup there. The big WHUP is I also created the files needed to release a hardcover copy of the publication. Yessir-ree-bob this fast and bloody spaghetti western work is now a 36 page black and white book. It even has some new art from the public domain to make the book more attractive. Come hell or high water the printing press at DriveThru looks like it swallowed my files correctly for this POD version.

There is an original adventure in the works for the game, Broke Down in Bug Town, but it is going to take some time to finish. I'm writing it in the spirit of the original TSR Top Secret adventure which came with the original box set. Operation something something, Code Name:Pisces. The reason it is going to take some time is it will be much more coherent than its inspirational source was, but contain the same denseness of NPCs and cross-purpose conflicts which littered the old TSR game. It will need a map of Bug Town proper and some nice wilderness movement charts. Stats for horses, buffaloes, rattlesnakes, Wendigos, etc. will be included. A rather sprawling package to complement the tight set of rules. 

Western USR is a customized version of (U)nbelievably (S)imple (R)oleplaying written by Scott Malthouse. The additional chrome added which you will not find in the base rules are more elaborate combat rules and an additional attribute, Speed, to make the thrill of a showdown and fast draw gun-fighting action possible. Now keep in mind, while the rule book contains a complete playable game (you can make a character in no more than ten minutes) it does not contain much setting material. Rules-lite roleplaying products are just that, light on setting content because it is assumed the Saloon Keeper has a good idea on what kind of western campaign they want to run. 

But if you want to blow holy-hell out of each other at high noon then this slim volume more than delivers the goods! Find the PDF version here, and stay tuned for the announcement when the POD proof has been approved and released for purchase.
 

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