Shadows of Brimstone – Making a Good Game Great (or close to
it, maybe)
Shadows of Brimstone is a good game.
Wait. Let me rephrase
that.
Shadows of Brimstone is an OK game that has a lot of really
cool stuff in it.
I love all of the things
in this game. SoB has a lot going for it in terms of plastic and cardboard.
It’s got tons of loot, treasure, special items, tiles, creatures, monsters,
heroes, demons, tokens, and cards. It might possibly have more stuff than a
fully expanded Arkham Horror. I can’t say for certain if this is true, but if
it’s not its really close (and as a bonus, all of the cards are full size!).
I also love the theme – the weird west is one of my favorite
settings, and a great sub-genre of fiction (look for a future article on Weird
West Lit). SoB’s theme, along with all the things in all the boxes, goes a long
way to getting my imagination all fired up, ready and willing to send my posse
of lawmen and outlaws on wild adventures.
Unfortunately, the game itself is only OK. All of this stuff
deserves to be in a better game. Now, this isn’t a full review - that will come
later. This brief article will detail some of the house rules I use, rules that
I think make SoB a much better game, rules that make SoB an almost-great game.
I don’t think it’s there yet, but it could be soon, with a little more work.
By the way, I won’t be mentioning the Hexcrawl fan-made
campaign system here, at least not in any detail. It goes without saying that
the Hexcrawl campaign is a must have for SoB, and I’ll touch more on that at a
later time.
Advanced Exploration
Exploration in SoB is pointless. Because of the way the
Exploration tokens work, you will always simply be exploring in a straight
line. There is never a reason to choose one exit over another. This simple
Advanced Exploration system takes the system from Warhammer Quest and applies
it here (seeing as how SoB is pretty much a re-themed WHQ, I’m surprised this
wasn’t already implemented).
When a branching path is reached:
1. Divide Encounter tokens evenly
among the available exits, dealing from the bottom and creating new stacks of
tokens, a stack for each exit.
2. Pick which path you want to
explore.
3. If the route picked does not
complete the quest, Backtracking occurs.
4. Backtracking is different than
normal exploration.
5. The party Backtracks towards the
first tile with an unexplored exit, moving from tile to tile, not space to
space. It’s probably easiest to simply remove all heroes from the board during
Backtracking.
6. No rolling for darkness during Backtracking.
7. On each tile moved onto while
Backtracking, roll a D6. On a 1, the party is ambushed – draw threat as normal.
Set party up as close to the center of the tile as possible.
8. Resume normal rules for movement
and Darkness once the tile with an unexplored exit is entered, thus ending the
Backtracking.
Advance Hero Actions
This is a way to spice up your turns, add a little more in
terms of choice to your game.
1. Move up to 4 spaces and roll for
grit, or roll to move/grit – your choice.
2. Choose from one of the following:
a. Run – move an additional 4 spaces,
or up to your agility score
b. Aim – forfeit all movement above
(don’t roll for grit) – this allows you to reroll any/all attack dice on your
next attack.
c. Throw/pick up an item. You can
throw a one-handed item to another hero. That hero can catch the item as long
as they have one hand free. Throw using dynamite rules. Range on throwing is
STR +3.
d. Search / Scavenge / Look through
door – normal rules
e. Attack – normal rules
f. Push / Pull – still working on
rules for this option. You should be able to push aka Kick enemies into holes,
or physically manhandle enemies. Haven’t fully developed this yet.
g. Capture – I think the rules for
this are stated in the Hexcrawl campaign.
These advance actions give you a little more to do in order
to help make the turns more dynamic.
That’s all for now. There will be more SoB stuff in the
future, that’s a promise.
