Boot Hill (role-playing game)

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Boot Hill is a western role-playing game designed by Brian Blume and Gary Gygax. It was TSR's second role-playing game, not long after Dungeons and Dragons.

System

Boot Hill has been both praised and criticised for focusing on gunfighting. The first edition was specifically marketed as a miniatures combat game, but even in the later editions, most of the rules are combat resolution, with relatively little setting or social interaction rules. Combat could be short and deadly, with death often coming from a single gunshot. Boot Hill had no character levels per se, but attributes could be raised over time, and in no game of TSR do player characters truly have an advantage over non-player characters in strict observation of the rules. There were also no non-human enemies, or alignment rules, as in "Dungeons and Dragons", making the difference between the "good guys" and "bad guys" a matter of interpretation or choice.

It was one of the first games to only (or mostly) use ten-sided dice, either summed, such as 2d10 for characteristics, or as percentile dice, for skill resolution.

Publications

• 1st edition, printed in 1975, 34 pages, no ISBN.
• 2nd edition, printed in 1979, ISBN 0394518756.
• 3rd edition, printed in 1990, ISBN 0880389761.

Boot Hill 2nd edition was supported by a referee's screen and five 32 page adventure modules:

• Referee's Screen and Mini-Module, ISBN 0394525906.
• Mad Mesa (BH1), printed in 1981, ISBN 0935696717, and 1982, ISBN 0394527054. Written to be playable solitaire, as a gamebook, or as a multiplayer module.
• Lost Conquistador Mine (BH2), printed in 1982, ISBN 0394525949.
• Ballots and Bullets (BH3), 1982, ISBN 0394530675.
• Burned Bush Wells (BH4), 1984, ISBN 0394534662.
• Range War! (BH5), 1984, ISBN 0880381051.

TSR also released a three-figure pack of gunslinger miniatures for Boot Hill. [link]

See also

• Boot Hill - the Wild West cemetery, original meaning of the term

References

• Pope, Thomas. [The Stuff of Legends - TSR: Boot Hill]

External links

• [Boot Hill - TSR's Wild West RPG] Krakow RPGs has a complete bibliography with cover photos.
• [Boot Hill, 2nd Edition] - Review from the Museum of Roleplaying Games.
• [Ride, Cowboy, Ride - The Forgotten Boot Hill] - Review from GameGrene
• [Boot Hill] - Demian's Gamebook Web Page, mostly on the solitaire module, Mad Mesa.

 

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