Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
Authors: Shane Lacy Hensley and Matthew Cutter
Year: 2010
Pages: Player’s Handbook – 128 pages; Marshall’s Handbook – 160 pages
Retail Price: Player’s Handbook softcover $19.99 w/ PDF; PDF $9.99 – Marshall’s Handbook softcover $29.99 w/ PDF; PDF $9.99.
Dark camp meets horror meets steampunk meets the old west. Got it? Good! Deadlands took the RPG world by storm when it originally hit the scene back in 1996. The system and setting were really different from what was available on store shelves and in turn sold extremely well and went on to win numerous awards. Sadly, as with many roleplaying games which hit one out of the park in their first plate appearance, Deadlands arrival was followed by a massive wave of supplemental material which flooded the market.
While the setting and overall meta plot were awesome, eventually the game became nearly unplayable due to the horrific amount of never edning rules bloat and the system collapsed under its own weight; no one likes to interrupt a session to search multiple volumes in order to find an obscure rule or spend hours continually rolling dice to resolve a single combat against multiple foes. For many gamers it looked as if Deadlands had had its day in the spotlight only to now ride off into the sunset of gaming history. Yet, just before it was time to cue the end credits, the Savage Worlds generic rules set came galloping in on a white horse to rescue the franchise with Deadlands: Reloaded.
Deadlands: Reloaded kept much of the cool alternate history weird west setting intact while streamlining, or completely replacing, many of the mechanics in order to facilitate fast and furious gameplay. Now your grifters, hucksters, law dogs, mad scientists, and shaman could focus on adventuring fun rather than facing a long, down-time filled slog. Yee-haw! The 1879 setting amid an ongoing cold war between the Union and Confederacy in a monster and magic infested old west really is the selling point of Deadlands and the Reloaded edition allows you to go hog wild in that excellent sandbox.
Since Deadlands has been around for over two decades there’s also loads of adventures available and those for the original system can easily be ported over to the Savage Worlds rules. You will need the Savage World core book utilize any of these sourcebooks. I’ll also mention if the weird west isn’t your bag of tricks (or maybe I should say bag of ghost rock) you can also give the equally interesting Deadlands: Hell on Earth Reloaded a look. Hell on Earth is set in a post apocalyptic future derived from the Deadlands western timeline.
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