From the
Dracula's America Facebook Players Page, by the books' author Jonathan Haythornthwaite (aka
Fenrir here on LAF):
DRACULA'S AMERICA: SHADOWS OF THE WEST
HOW IT PLAYS!
• Dracula's America is a 'modular' rules-set- you can either play it as a traditional Old West skirmish game, or introduce the weirder elements such as supernatural creatures and Arcane Powers as you wish.
• It is designed to be played on an area between 2'x2' and 4'x4', and caters for 2-8 players; with a typical 8-Turn game lasting around 45 minutes to an hour or so.
• Posses for one-off games can be built in one of two ways- the simple WYSIWYG driven 'basic' system, or the more involved 'advanced' system that uses points (or in our case, Dollars) that allows you to really customise your models.
• You can also link games together to form a Campaign, with models upgrading their weapons and equipment and earning Experience to improve their abilities or learn new Skills- they can also suffer Lasting Injuries, and have Encounters between games!
• The game uses 6, 8 and 10-sided Dice- Novice models use D6s, Veterans use D8s and Heroes use D10s- and each player additionally needs a deck of ordinary playing cards.
• The Action Phase is where models get to act, and revolves around drawing a Hand of cards equal to half the number of models you have in play- each player then secretly chooses a card. Once everyone has chosen, they reveal their cards- the highest value card gets to Activate, followed by the next highest, and so on. Black cards always trump red cards! Once all players have had an Activation, the process is repeated until all models have been Activated and the Phase ends.
This system adds resource management and bluffing skills to the proceedings!
• When it is your Activation, you may either Activate one model and perform 2 Actions with it, or two different models and perform 1 Action with each of them. Models can Move, Shoot, Fight, go on Lookout, or Cast Arcane Powers when Activated.
• Movement is simple, but dynamic- models can vault fences, clamber up walls, run along rooftops and leap through windows- as such, the game plays best with a tactically interesting and varied terrain layout...
• All in-game Tests (including attacks) are made by rolling either 1 or 3 Dice to start with, depending on circumstances. Situational modifiers will add or subtract Dice from this 'pool', so good tactical positioning of your models will be rewarded. Each Die scoring a 5 or better is a Success, with the total Successes determining how well you did at that task.
Models that are successfully attacked must make a Save- if this is failed, the margin of failure determines whether they are Shaken, Downed, or if they fall Casualty. Downed models may have a chance of recovering later on, but until then can do nothing except crawl or be dragged to safety by a comrade.
• Dracula's America was designed to be flexible, easy to learn, and to reward narrative play- with extra rules covering innocent bystanders, dynamite and riding horses- basically if it's appeared in a Western (or Horror!) movie, it's likely that you will also see it in Dracula's America!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/DraculasAmerica/ 
Welcome, Guest. Please 
April 27, 2024, 04:57:43 PM
