High Noon at Midnight is a genre supplement for the Cypher System,
first seen in Numenera in 2013. Published by Monte Cook Games as
part of the Knights of Dust and Neon project on Backerkit, it is inspired by the films Cowboys & Aliens, Wild
Wild West, and Back to the Future III, television series such as The Adventures
of Brisco County, Jr., West World, and Firefly, comic books like Jonah Hex and
Preacher, and even roleplaying games such as Deadlands.
It is interesting to see the inclusion of Deadlands mentioned in the list of
inspirational reading and watching for High Noon at Midnight, since it is from
a rival publisher and it is the obvious roleplaying game when anyone ever
thinks of the term, ‘Weird West’. After all, Deadlands was the first to really coin the term—right in its very subtitle—and it has
dominated the genre ever since it was published in 1996. So, the obvious
question is, “Why even look at High Noon at Midnight when Deadlands is not only
easily available, but also richly supported?” The simple answer is, ‘setting
versus tools’. Deadlands is a genuinely great, genre defining, and iconic
roleplaying game, it is its own thing and its own setting. High Noon at Midnight is not that, but rather offers the tools and means for the Game Master
to create and run games in a weird west setting of her own devising. It can do magic,
horror, advanced and even alien technology, steampunk, time travel, and so on
in the way that the Game Master wants rather than is given. This is not to say
that either option of tools versus setting is better or worse than the other,
but rather that they offer different choices.
After some explanation of what High Noon at Midnight is, that it is a non-historical
treatment of the period and the genre, combined weird, and what that Weird West
could be through various other different media, the supplement really begins
looking at the tools that the Game Master is going to need to create her own weird
west. This includes borrowing from different sources, such as Deadwood or the James
Bond films, creating a brand new series based on alternate history, and keeping
a setting mostly historically accurate, whilst still being weird. It explores
the classic themes of the Wild West, or Old West, genres, such as justice, vengeance,
redemption, freedom, and survival, as well as weird themes like magic, magic
versus technology, and horror. Throughout there are pointers and suggestions, and
tables of options, and this continues throughout much of the book. For example,
the ‘Weird West Game World’ table suggests ‘West Mars’, a “[S]parsley settled Martian
frontier, six-shooters fire laser rounds, water is as valuable as gold, and
terraforming gangs fight for primacy.” and ‘Camelot Gunslingers’ with “Law-sworn
knights with long rifles pursue outlaw wizards, despot dragons, and malign fey
beings.” Furter tables suggest inflection points when the West changed, how
pervasive the Weird is, what the Player Characters do, and lots of plots seeds.
The Game Master is free to pick or roll on these tables, or simply use them as
inspiration.
The Game Master advice suggests that ‘A little Weird goes a long
way’, but gives a lot of Weird for her to choose from. Instead of horses, the
Player Characters might be riding water buffalo, lions, ostriches, or even stegosauruses,
or ogres, griffons, or hellfire steeds, or jet packs, hover cycles, or
motorcycles. There is discussion to, of other forms of travel, including train
and aerial travel, and supported by lists of Intrusions—the means by which the
Game Master can challenge a Player Character, make a situation more
interesting, and the Player Character can earn Experience Points—that the Game
Master can use. Options are suggested in terms of what groups might be
operating in the weird west, including the law, outlaws, and indigenous groups.
Traditional groups include US Marshals and train-robbing gangs, but added to
this are weird west groups. For example, a weird version of the Secret Service might
use advanced technology or magic to protect the president and other important
people from assassination or harm, let alone protect the currency, whilst the
Pinkerton Rail Agency which rides five rail cars to protect the railways, he
Dawn Rangers, who wear grave-stone shaped badges inscribed with RIP and are
known for their arrogance, hunt the undead, and the Skinless Six, outlaws who messed
with the wrong treasure and now hunt and gamble for new skins! Guidance on the
role of the Native Nations and including the indigenous peoples is also given. There
is also a lengthy section on locations in the wild west, from uncanny saloons,
alchemist’s shops, and uncanny jails to the Badlands, prairies, and mines, all
also uncanny, which provides the Game Master with some great places to set her weird
west campaign.
Optional rules in High Noon at Midnight enable the Game Master
to run Poker games with multiple NPCs as well as the Player Characters,
including handling player versus character skill (necessary since not everyone
plays Poker and it is not as commonly played outside of the USA) and resolving
a game with dice rather than dice. The Hands of Fate actually adds a Poker
mechanic to play, each player drawing a personal Hand of Fate, consisting of
two cards, at the beginning of each game day. These cards can be combined with community
Hand of Fate cards for various effects. For example, a Straight Flush earns the
Player Character a point of Experience, whilst a Full House replaces any roll
of the twenty-sided die with a roll of twenty. This enforces the wild (or weird)
west feel, but the Game Master can go even further by replacing the need to
roll a twenty-sided die to determine the outcome of a situation with a deck of
cards. The two do complement each other, but do make play more complex and outcomes
less obvious in comparison to the standard Cypher System.
As well as curses and the benefits of telling tall tales, High Noon at Midnight adds several Paranormal Vices that the Player Characters or NPCs can suffer. These
are similar to curses, but provide both benefits and banes. Every time a Player
Character uses one of the abilities associated with the Paranormal Vice, a
Connection roll is made. If a one is rolled, the Connection is made with the Paranormal
cause behind the vice and the Player Character suffers an associated Repercussion.
The range also increases from one to one to two, and so on, each time the
Connection is made, until it reaches six and the Player Character is overcome
with the Paranormal Vice. For example, the Drinking Paranormal Vice grants Inebriate
abilities of ‘Deadeye’, ‘Hair-Trigger Reflexes’, ‘Iron Liver’, ‘Mean Drunk’,
and ‘Unflinching’, which might require a Player Character to throw back a drink
or two, but Repercussions might be that the Player Character goes ‘Blind in One
Eye’ or suffer ‘Retching Summons’ in which he vomits up a pile of gelatinous goo
that animates into a horrid thing! Other Paranormal Vices are gambling and
swindling, which either case, gives advantages, but not without dangers of
their own.
Threats include environmental ones alongside a bestiary of new creatures and a
list of entries from the Cypher Bestiary,
which are given abbreviated descriptions in this genre supplement. Old NPCs
from the Cypher Bestiary include Gunfighters, whilst the new here include Alchemist,
Hex Gunner, and Forgeborn golem. New creatures include the Death Binder, alchemists
risen from the dead who invest their souls in the bullets in their Soul Pistols,
which have devastating effects, but if the sixth and final shot is fired, so is
the Death Binder, so they use their Alchemical Pistol instead; Frostwalkers—compacted
snow over amalgams of bone, antlers, limbs, and heads of men and animals who
died in the cold; and the Hollowed Ranger, a travelling portal to ‘elsewhere’, formed
from an innocent gunned down in cold blood and dumped into a shallow grave, and
returned to wreak vengeance on all and everyone!
In terms of character options High Noon at Midnight suggests
ways in which classic Wild West characters can be created by adhering to the
standard format that the Cypher System uses describe and encapsulate a Player
Character. This is “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is
the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that
defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what
the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Fast Warrior Who
Needs No Weapons” or “I am a Clever Adept Who Commands Mental Powers”. Thus, a
Lawman could be a Speaker with a combat flavour and a Swindler or Gambler could
be an Explorer with a stealth flavour. Seven standard Descriptors and two Species
Descriptors are added. The standard Descriptors are Grizzled, Laconic, Slick,
Trailblazing, Trigger-Happy, Unforgiving, and Wily, whilst the Species
Descriptors are Forgeborn and Risen. The Forgeborn is a figure of metal,
reanimated flesh, or similar, often constructed by alchemists as guards, but
since been emancipated or lost the desire to keep the alchemist safe. The
Forgeborn is tough, but slow, hard to damage, but difficult to repair and knows
its own kind well. The Risen has returned from the grave, bearing the sigil of
a demon, tougher and able to comeback from the dead again, though not as supple
and animals hate him.
Similarly, High Noon at Midnight provides
new Foci as well as suggesting those suitable from the Cypher System. The new
ones consist of ‘Blazes Paths’ (in the wilderness), ‘Collects Bounties’, ‘Gambles
it All Away’, ‘Hits the Saloon’, ‘Rides Like the Wind’, ‘Spits Fire and Lead’,
and ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’. ‘Spits Fire and Lead’ combines a love of fire
(and possibly brimstone) with gunfighting, whilst with ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’,
the Player Character has a supernatural connection to venomous snakes and
applies that to his unarmed combat.
There is a full list of equipment in High Noon at Midnight,
but more importantly it explains how Cyphers—the means by which the Cypher System awards Player Character one-time bonuses, whether potions or scrolls,
software, luck, divine favour, or influence—can be brought into the Weird West
genre of High Noon at Midnight. In this setting, there is no one way to handle
Cyphers, but it depends how weird the Weird West that the Game Master wants to
create and run actually is. Cyphers can either be Subtle, perhaps good fortune,
inspiration, an occult or alien concept, a blessing, an ear worm, or the like,
or Manifest, such as an alchemical potion, a clockwork device, a demonic
scroll, and so on. A Weird West setting can use one or the other or a mix, and it
is suggested that there is a geographical limit of Cyphers, Manifest Cyphers
being harder to find in more remote locations rather than civilised ones. It
also adds Power Words for one of the settings in the supplement as a memetic
means of presenting Cyphers both Subtle and Manifest, and describes a range of
different Cyphers, including a wide range of alchemical rounds and slugs, and
Weird West Artifacts, such as the ‘Deck of Second Chances’, ‘Demon Pistol’, ‘Philosopher
Gun’, and ‘Shadow Duster’. In fact, there are more Weird West Artifacts given
than there are new Cyphers.
High Noon at Midnight details one setting, ‘The Ghost Range’. This is a Weird
West setting, but not a historical one. Magic pervades The Ghost Range and
demons, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures stalk its Badlands and beyond,
whilst Dustfalls occur at night and can be predicted with some accuracy according
to the almanacs owned by certain alchemists. Such Dustfalls are of Stardust,
sometimes used as currency, but is mostly used by alchemists in their
concoctions and designs. Where exactly Stardust originates and what it is, is
the subject of much speculation, but prospectors go out of a night in search of
it, knowing that its presence keeps demons away, though there is the danger of
becoming mesmerised in an active Dustfall. In millennia past, two mysterious
races, the Ilu and the Nihilal, warred with each other, and the Ilu left behind
hollow cavities in the earth containing strange devices, weapons of war, and
even prisoners still held captive. These are known as ‘Proscribed Zones’, and
whilst access to them is not strictly prohibited, the indigenous peoples who on
the range and beyond, even on the Moon, advise against it.
Midnight is the only city on the Ghost Range, notably home to the Trail’s End Cantina,
where demons, vampires, and other supernatural creatures can be seen as long as
they adhere to the Ghost Accords, which keeps them from being attacked. The
city is nicely detailed as are the Outer Range and Otherlands which lie beyond
its outskirts. In the latter can be found the Moon upon which can be seen a
tribe of natives living there and the town of Perdition, populated by demons
hiding behind a façade and which stands on Hell’s doorstep. Worse is the Tomb
Moon, which rarely shares the same sky and never the same orbit, its appearance
sparking off an outbreak of undead activity.
‘The Ghost Range’ setting is further supported by three full
scenarios and two Cypher Shorts. They include being formed into a posse and
investigating a shootout outside the premises of Midnight’s preeminent
alchemist and following the trail out of the city in search of the outlaws responsible;
getting involved in a poker tournament at the Trail’s End Cantina and
investigating a treasure map; and even travel to the Tomb Moon to prevent a notorious
warlock from bringing about the end of the world! The two Cypher Shorts are
within the genre, but more generic in nature, though they could easily be used
in ‘The Ghost Range’. One sees an undead outlaw return from the grave for
revenge against the Player Characters, whilst the other casts the Player
Characters as outlaws attempting to rob a train. Both Cypher Shorts could also
be run as one-shots or even demonstration scenarios.
Overall, ‘The Ghost Range’ provides High Noon at Midnight with a detailed
example of a non-historical Weird West setting. It is an intriguingly different
setting that enables the exploration of the genre without of the potential
controversies of a more historically based setting. Now whilst ‘The Ghost
Range’ setting is well supported with plenty of detail and three decent
scenarios, it does mean that there is no space given to other possible
settings, so that High Noon at Midnight does not fully showcase the genre with
examples as fully as it could have done. This does not mean that it does not
suggest other possibilities, in fact, it suggests a lot of them through its many
tables of prompts and ideas, but it does not develop them. As a consequence, High Noon at Midnight explores some of the genres associated with the Weird West
genre better than others. These are horror and magic, both closely associated
with the Weird West genre, whereas steampunk, Science Fiction, time travel, and
so on, do not get as much attention. Although ‘The Ghost Range’ is done well, this
is nevertheless disappointing and it would be interesting to see these other associated
genres given their due in an anthology of settings for the Weird West.
Physically, High Noon at Midnight is very well presented. It
is also well written and the artwork and cartography are both excellent.
High Noon at Midnight does showcase the potential of its
genre in a well realised and supported setting in the form of ‘The Ghost Range’,
but not quite as fully as it could have done. Nevertheless, High Noon at Midnight is a solid introduction to the Weird West genre and its potential with
lots and lots of ideas.
