1975: Boot Hill

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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Despite the analogy that roleplaying is like the games of cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians that we played as children, it is surprising that there are so few roleplaying games in either genre or that so few of these roleplaying games have been popular. Indeed, it would not be until the publication of Gangster! by Fantasy Games Unlimited (in 1979 that the hobby would have its first ‘cops and robbers’ (or cops and gangsters) roleplaying, whereas the first cowboys and Indians roleplaying game appeared in 1975, the year following the release of Dungeon & Dragons. There have been several Wild West roleplaying games published since, many of them, well-researched, well-designed roleplaying games, but few have been truly popular and when they were, it was with a big dash of horror. Boot Hill was the third roleplaying game to be published by TSR, Inc. Designed by Brian Blume and E. Gary Gygax, it was subtitled, ‘Rules for “Wild West” Gunfights and Campaigns with Miniature Figures on a Man-to-Man Scale’. That it does not say ‘roleplaying game’ is indicative of the nascent hobby into which it was released. The idea of roleplaying as a pastime in a shared world was new; many early titles that the hobby calls roleplaying games today had their roots in wargames and were seen as an adjunct to that hobby, rather than the separate thing they would evolve into; and the term ‘roleplaying game’ had yet to be defined. Boot Hill definitely had its roots in wargaming as its subtitle suggests, but was there more to it than that?

Unlike most wargames, the play of Boot Hill focuses upon the single figure, or ‘character’, each one controlled by a different player to recreate gun fights, barroom brawls, and other situations synonymous with the Wild West. The action is meant to be inspired by both history and Hollywood—both film and television. To that end, the book includes two scenarios, both historically based. One is the ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ and the other is the ‘Battle of Coffeyville’. However, Boot Hill be played in a number of ways. One is as simple gunfights or shootouts, which are more akin to a traditional wargame, but played at a skirmish level with single figures. Another is as a freeform in which the players have roles assigned to them—represented by the figures—and they attempt actions that are appropriate to those roles. It is made clear that none of these ways to play require a Referee, the players being expected to resolve any rules difficulties between themselves. However, it is suggested that a “…[R]eferee is nice to have for some games…” Of course, a Referee can adjudicate the rules and she can also set-up the town for the freeform style of play and assign roles to the players. Boot Hill definitely makes clear that the game can be played using 25 mm or 30 mm scale figures, but advises strongly that the plastic figures from Airfix are not suitable as they are difficult to paint!

A Player Character in Boot Hill has four abilities. These are Speed, Personal Bravery, and Personal Accuracy, which are rated as percentiles, whilst Strength is rated between eight and twenty. To determine their values, percentile dice are rolled for each with results of seventy or below receiving a small bonus to the result. Personal Accuracy is rolled twice, once for thrown weapons and once for fired weapons. The process is very quick.

Nellie ‘Whip’ Woodard

Speed 65 (Very Quick)

Personal Bravery 64 (Above Average)

Personal Accuracy (Fired Weapons) 68 (Fair)

Personal Accuracy (Thrown Weapons) 98 (Crack Shot)

Strength 13 (Average)

The rules for Boot Hill are written as a wargame. Movement and range are measured in inches and the rules very much focus on combat. The outcome of a gunfight begins by determining who has the ‘First Shot’. Who can shoot first is determined by individual Speed ratings, weapon speeds, surprise, movement, and wounds suffered, as well as if a gunfighter is drawing two guns or shooting from the hip. Then, the chance To Hit is determined. This has a base value of 50% which is modified by the range, movement of the firer and the target, Personal Accuracy, Personal Bravery, Wounds suffered, and Personal Experience, that is, the number of gunfights that the induvial has been. Surviving a lot of gunfights gets a shooter a big bonus!

If the attack is successful, two means of determining damage and wounds suffered are provided. The ‘Fast Hit Location Method’ determines if the gunfighter has suffered a light or serious wound, or is dead—and there is a 15% chance of the latter happening! The second uses the ‘Exact Hit Location Chart’ and requires two rolls. Once to determine where a bullet has hit the target and the severity of the wound. Again, there is a chance that a bullet will kill the target straightaway, from 10% for a hit to the shoulder to 60% for a hit to head! Otherwise, damage reduces a character’s Strength, rendering him unconscious if reduced to zero, and slows his movement.

The brawling rules are simpler, but not quite as clearly explained. Instead of determining who has the ‘First Shot’, the players determine who gets to try and land the ‘First Blow’. The faster brawler gets to throw two punches or grapple, whilst the defender gets to defend himself by punching or grappling in return. The brawling rules allow for weapon use, though knives and cutting weapons use the tables for determining damage in gunfights. Blunt weapons simply do slightly more damage. Results can be a miss with no second punch, glancing blow, blocked, jab, hook, and so on.

The ‘Advanced Rules’ cover simultaneous, hidden, and vehicle movement, and options such as firing during movement and firing at horses. Minor character morale covers the response of everyone other than a player’s character and includes both cavalry and Indians. There is a list of ‘Miscellaneous Characters’, from Town Marshals and Deputies to Merchants, Clerks, and Saloon Girls. There is light guidance too, on setting up a town, suggesting what might be found within its boundaries, as a Mexican or Chinese quarter, and that the interiors of buildings should be mapped out as well as exteriors.

Optional rules suggest alternative rules for determining the ‘First Shot’, being a ‘Sharpshooter’ if the character has a very high Personal Accuracy, stunning attacks, the effects of intoxication, dynamite and possible injuries from dynamite, misfires, Gatling guns, and cannons. Particular attention is paid to the gambler, meaning that the actions of a character beyond combat is actually covered in Boot Hill. The gambler has a percentage score for his ability to manipulate cards and avoid being caught cheating. Gambling is handled by straight percentile rolls, highest roll winning, the gambler having a bonus. If a gambler wins too often, his fellow cardplayers get a chance to determine if he has cheated. The campaign rules expand play beyond the typical frontier town with rules for mapping, rules for posses, and tracking.

Perhaps the most attention in Boot Hill is paid to the two scenarios, ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ and ‘Battle of Coffeyville’, which are given in the Appendices. This includes historical background, set-up, and stats for the various characters involved. Both come with rough maps of their locations. It is suggested that these can played over and over, perhaps a hallmark of a wargame rather than roleplaying game. Rounding out the appendices is a list of prices and wages as well as sample town map.

Physically, Boot Hill is plainly laid out, though readable. The artwork is scruffy and the maps are rudimentary.

Boot Hill is both more than a set of wargames miniatures rules and less than a roleplaying game. Its emphasis upon single characters, and their capacity for growth and the capacity for doing things other than gunfighting and brawling, if implicit rather explicit—except for the gambling rules, push it towards roleplaying, but the deadliness of the combat system and emphasis upon combat is definitely more akin to a wargame. What it is more akin to is a ‘Braunstein’, a wargame with players taking individual roles in a Napoleonic Germany, and then developed by David Wesely in the late sixties and later developed by Duane Jenkins into a Wild West ‘Braunstein’ set in the fictional, ‘Brownstone Texas’. This suggests that Boot Hill has the capacity for roleplaying and to be a roleplaying game, but it is very much reliant upon the Game Master and players to do that rather than the game itself encourage them to do so. Boot Hill has always been included in the canon of roleplaying games, but where the later editions of the game—published in 1979 and 1990—do qualify and count as roleplaying games, it can be strongly argued that its original, first edition version barely qualifies as a roleplaying game.