Pyramid Pick
Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier -- A Roleplaying Game
Published by Kenzer & Co
Designed by Jolly R. Blackburn, Brian Jelke, Steve Johansson, David Kenzer, Jennifer Kenzer, & Mark Plemmons
Illustrated by Frederic Remington & Charles Russell with Bob Burke, Steven Cumming, Brendon & Brian Fraim, Bev Shideler, George Vrbanic, & Craig Zipse
402-page full-color hardcover; $59.99
The Origins award-winning Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier -- A Roleplaying Game is as irredeemably old fashioned and complex an RPG as you are going to find on the shelves of your local gaming store. It is not an RPG of the Wild West but of the Old West, inspired by the classic period art of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell. Although it is set in an alternative history of frontier America, its treatment of the genre is as straight shooting as you can imagine. In other words, this is no Deadlands Reloaded, no Wizards & Gunslingers, no Spellslinger. Further, Aces & Eights is not only an RPG, but it can be played as a miniatures skirmish game that the RPG builds upon. All of this comes packaged in an incredibly sturdy and richly illustrated hardback that weighs in at over four pounds.
The game is old fashioned and complex in that it uses not one rule set for the whole game, but one for each aspect of the game and setting. It requires not just the standard polyhedral panoply, but also -- in a nod to more contemporary trends -- poker chips and a poker deck. Miniatures and a large-scale hex map are . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: August 1, 2008
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