First up, The Haunted West was an auto-buy for me, like stumbling across a long forgotten Attack Wing faction set at a good price, or a classic lens in a boot sale for pocket lint.
Diversity, inclusion, historical accuracy and pulpy cool with comic book graphics, kinda sums up the experience.
It was D100 “modern”, even with layers and options. It is sumptuous, comprehensive, engaging (all those pages absorbed at such a busy time), it is a work of historical importance (well, for the market it is serving, who may not be looking for some truth, but get it). It is a true “seminal work” in its genre.
This one book manages to provide the gamer with a deep history of the true west, not the Saturday afternoon serial or even the “hard” west of more recently work (The Thicket comes to mind), with several game style options to use, all while fulfilling the “everything you need in one book” promise.
Why the heading?
Ok, I have two small issues with it, one practical, the other less easily explained so bare with.
First up, it is massive, I feel too big to be one book and I also feel, and this goes to below, that it is too much information for one book to hold in a game-practical sense.
The two book idea can be seen as a money grab, but the reality is, there is a “critical mass” to these things and even games quick to brag about their “all in one” accomplishment like 13th Age, adopt the two book model eventually (13th Age 2e).
I have several larger books in my collection and they all share one thing in common, they tend to sit (flat) on a shelf, with me reluctant to handle them too often or loan them out and/or, I have a duplicate, sacrifice copy (WHFRPG 4e, another one that could have been two).
I assume the single book idea was to reduce costs and that does make it an expensive bargain buy for a huge 800 page tome. It is cheap for what it is, effectively three Call of Cthulhu books in one for the cost of two, but if you are a player only or just want to take it somewhere to read on the train. Not gonna happen.
I bought the physical book, then I bought the pdf for the only reason I ever do (outside of it being free with the paper copy), which is to save the physical copy from damage.
The physical is kept for table use, the pdf for my own absorption, that admittedly did help with spot reading (….. on the train).
If the book was split into two, maybe a players book with char-gen and needed history intertwined and the core rules of the game in the back, then a separate Balladeers source book with the monsters, deeper and unusual history, special rules and exceptions and other GM stuff.
The Player book could also serve as a history and general reading text.
Another advantage of the PDF is, I can print out a “players” copy of just what I want them to see.
Apart from anything else, the sheer range of weirdness and theming is harder to keep focussed on if the players have access to all the book, all the time.
You may want a mundane world, or one with a single or rare strangeness as an exception, or a full Weird West approach, but that is for the Balladeer to decide. For me, I want a mostly mundane world (strange enough for most) with a hint of real or imagined supernatural. This is close to reality and just the right tone.
The West was a superstitious place, let’s assume most is imaginary, some not…...
The second issue would also be helped by splitting the books, but for another reason.
The Haunted West is up-front and unapologetic about its desire to right the historical inaccuracies of the past, so much so that it places race front and centre, almost shaming the players into an affirmative action policy of diversity.
The reality is, white people were only a relatively small and later part of the Wests long and epic history. Most cowboys were Mexican, many soldiers were black, the huge Asian population was mostly sidelined and gender was more fluid than even in later periods.
If a group wanted to have an all white character group for example, maybe a family of European settlers or an organisation that was only ever historically represented by white people, not as hijacked by 1950’s popular culture, then they may find that the game pushes back, or at least their conscience does.
This is your cast of characters, every race and gender and some real surprises await.
This is as it should be, but it is as obvious as the reverse being true.
If the game book was split into two, still massive tomes, or maybe even a three book set, with the setting with all its truth telling as a third book (saleable as a historical work on its own), then the Balladeer and players could choose their play style, their “vibe” with a greater sense of freedom, because as is, even that is a little confusing.
On one hand you have a pulpy, weird west D100 TTRPG with all the trimmings. Aliens, Euro-horrors, legendary beasties, mundane nasties, Asian and African myths, even an alternate history and I guess with little effort Cthulhu could drop by if wanted. It reads like a grown up version of Savage Worlds Deadlands (a game I have owned but never really gelled with), the game I had been looking for to fill that gap.
On the other hand you have a Burns style hard-history documentary work with hundreds of sobering facts dropped in your lap.
Maybe the movie Sinners is closest to covering the pulp meets horror with historical clarity vibe.
Possibly the need to keep it in one book came from a fear that gamers would simply reject or neglect the serious bits, but the fact is, they still can and many will to access the pulpy goodness, they just need to stump up for this encyclopaedic work to do so.
I will never regret purchasing a TTRPG like this. It is all things good in the RPG world, that as I have written even recently is tending to hand us games on a platter that are threatening to nullify free form imagination. I would though and this really goes against the grain, possibly recommend this in pdf form or a bundle, simply for the logistics of it all.
This adheres to old school gaming, meaning imagination first, system constraint second, while empowering that older style with newer system ideas and even has, if you feel you need it, a new age PbtA hack in the back.
The book is currently out of stock with the creator. Maybe time to look at either a split or maybe a Players book option?
Regardless, it’s great value and a great read (in either form).