Product Description
This book contains everything you need to play Deadlands: the Weird West. We've included 22 archetypes to get you started, as well as a quick tour of the Weird West - and some clues about how your heroes can best grind the forces of darkness under your cowboy boots! Make sure at least one hombre in your posse has the Marshal's Handbook as well! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

It's a bound PDF.
The following should not be taken as a knock against Deadlands or the quality of the game itself. Deadlands is a great RPG, lots of fun, and the content of the books is wonderful.

But, the book Amazon will sell you is a bound PDF (the other reviews must be from fans of the RPG who did not buy it from Amazon, or bought it when the book was still in print). This is, to the best of my knowledge, the same thing you'd get if you bought it from the game's publisher, Pinnacle. IT IS NOT THE ORIGINAL HARDCOVER. This version has pixelated images, a soft cover, low quality paper, and no color.

So, if you just want the game, this is perfectly fine, but if you want the original printing, look elsewhere.

Deadlands the Weird West Revised
Far better than the d20 version of this game (and I happen to like d20). This version of the game makes good use of the poker game and poker chips mechanics that makes it feel like Deadlands instead of some generic weird tales game that happens to be set in the old West.

For my money, this is the best version of Deadlands out there.

Great system, a couple of problems.
Love the game.The story is as compelling as RPGs get.Technically, it covers two hundred years, two solar systems and two eras.The villians-Stone, Raven Hellstromme, the Whateleys are all fascinating villians.The two problems are as follows:First spellcasting and inventing are far too dangerous and less effective than one would hope.Hucksters too often failed to cast a spell or would suffer a critical failure.Priests quickly loose their faith.Shamen run out of areas to scar.Second, since it is such a large story it it expensive to get it all.

If you like westerns, horror or games, this series is a must
The Weird West Player's Guide is the firstin a series of role-playing game books set in a twisted alternate take on the American West, circa 1877. In order to play the game, this book and its companion, The Weird West Marshal's Handbook are required, though there are many, many other products available to enhance the experience.

From a reader's point of view, the books offer an entertaining look at what might have been, but thankfully did not come to pass in the years following the U.S. Civil War. The book is written in an evocative, cheerfully irreverent style that goes down easily, and the mixture of historical events and speculative fiction makes a compelling settingwhich interested gamers can explore and even expand upon.

For those unfamilliar with the genre, role-playing is a hobby not unlike amateur theatre or watching a movie, except that the players are active participants in the drama as it unfolds, each taking the part of one of the heroes of the piece, under the direction of an arbiter, or Marshal, a role which can itself be tremendously rewarding.

My only regret concerning the Deadlands line (of which this book is the flagship product) is that I didn't get into it sooner. It is cleverly designed, its mechanics wonderfully redolent of the frontier myths popularized by the likes of Clint Eastwood, yet eminently playable.

Parents, role-playing is a wonderful pastime for children, ages twelve and up. It encourages literacy, creative thinking, free expression and sociability. Furthermore, characters in a Deadlands saga are heroes, and are encouraged to act as such. Games like this are far more wholesome than the majority of the video games currently on the market, and teach valuable life skills without being obvious about it.

Fellow gamers, give Deadlans a try.I guarantee you won't regret it.

Finally, the people at Pinnacle Entertainment (publishers of this book) are very responsive to reader questions and comments, and go out of their way to make playing Deadlands a memorable experience.Their contact information is in the book, and I urge you to let them know whatyou think of their work.

"Spagetti Western with Meat"
"The year is 1877, but the history is not our own.The Civil War drags on, stalled by horrific occurences neither the United States nor the Confederacy want the public to know about."

Thus begins the introduction on the back over of the Player's Guide to a setting full of cowboys, indians, gamblers, preachers, and assorted other mysterious beings.

This game provides a rich setting that even the nongamers can enjoy simply by reading the text.I have rarely seen a book that is written in such a format.The background section takes the form of a newspaper titled "The Tombstone Epitaph," a paper of the period.The basic character types are clearly defined here and a rudimentary set of powers is given.In order to get more complete information other supplemental books will need to be purchased, but that is par for the RP industry.

All you need as a player is this book, possibly a deck of cards, and some dice.That's it.The Marshal (GM) will have other responsibilities but that's it for you pardner.

I would strongly recommend this game as it can be run like a Clint Eastwood or John Wayne movie or more like Brisco County Jr.The possibilities are limitless.

BTW, one vast improvement of this versionover the 2nd edition books is that this book has an index.Believe me this makes a world of difference. ... Read more

Product Description
Temple of Rec Stalek is an adventure for Torg: Roleplaying the Possibility Wars. You need the boxed game to play. Adventure is for veteran characters. Many of the situations and adventure ideas can be incorporated into other game systems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wherever u-go, mi-go
As a CTHULHU player, I was interested in DEADLANDS as a sort-of Cthulhu-out-West game.Not that one is a subset of the other, but you can imagine the 2 games interfacing well in that time and place.As I read more of the Deadlands universe, the more impressed I was with the setting by itself.It has its own flavor of gritty cosmic horror which I find quite amenable.

So what do you do with 2 complementary flavors?You smoosh 'em together!

I find the Deadlands dime-novel format to be quite, er, novel.The adventure is in a small paperback the size of a cheap novel.The first half is a story set in the Weird West; in this case (ADIOS, A-MI-GO), the protagonists are familiar faces from the Deadlnads series, along with an interloper from CALL OF CTHULHU.Plus a scientific expedition from the Fungi from Yuggoth.The story does a nice job of adding flavor to the mechanical presentation of the adventure in the second half of the book.There is also a "third-half" of the book that gives conversion rules between Deadlands and Cthulhu.

The adventure looks as if it would be pretty tough for Deadlands characters.Cthulhu PCs would be lucky to just survive the encounter while the novel seems to assume that the characters will actually do some fightin'.I'm just glad that the interloper wasn't carrying the Necronomicon.

Anyway, it was a cute little adventure and got my attention better than a standard module would have. ... Read more

Product Description
Wild Boys Adventures is a historical fiction serial that follows the life of James Tyler as he confronts the dangers of the 1860s Wild West. Illustrated. 28 pages. ... Read more

Product Description
The Hell on Earth worldbook gives you the details on all the things we hinted at in the core rulebook. Within these pages, you'll find out what really happened in the Last War, discover the fate of the Maze and the Cult of Lost Angels, and learn all the inner secrets of the Combine. Players will also find a host of new Archetypes, character options, Edges, Hindrances, and abilities! This is a must-have for any player or Marshal in the Wasted West. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

How The West Was Undone.
This book is absolutely essential for "Deadlands: Hell on Earth."As was the case with the Weird West before they divided the books into Marshall's and Player's books, the rule book gives you the "Why," "When," and "How" of the Wasted West, and this book gives you the "Who," "Where," and "What." The Posse section of the book gives some detail about what's left of the world west of the Mississippi (Brief hint: Do NOT try to go Back East!) and informs us of some of the changes in the world now that things that were hushed rumors in the time of the Weird West are common knowledge.Highly recommended.After all, this is Act Two of Three, Brainer.And you won't be able to tell the players without a program. ... Read more

Product Description
Dead Lands Players Guide bound in Full Leather. ... Read more

Product Description
The book is organized to enable students to master the conventional rubrics of the subject, while probing the deeper issues of legal method, public policy, and political organizations that surround disputes over doctrine. Contains an introduction to administrative law; the legislative connection; executive supervision of agency action; administrative adjudication and rule making; government acquisition and disclosure; suits to review administrative action; damage actions against the federal government and its officers; and beneficiary enforcement of public law. ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Tommy Mont, Russ Huesman, Joe Morrison, Shane Montgomery, Bill Oliver, Frank Thomas, Tommy West, Theo Young, Buddy Nix, Johnny Spiegel, David Merritt, Bradford Banta, Harold Drew, Rodney Allison, Scrappy Moore. Excerpt:Bill "Brother" Oliver Bill "Brother" Oliver is a former American football player and coach. He served as a head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 1980 1983. He is best known as a defensive coordinator at both the University of Alabama and at Auburn University , the latter where he also served as interim head coach in 1998. Oliver attended the University of Alabama , where he played for Bear Bryant from 1959 1961 as a defensive back . After coaching for high schools in Alabama , Oliver joined Auburn as a secondary coach in 1966 under coach Ralph Jordan . Oliver remained at Auburn until 1970, when he left for the same position at Alabama. In 1980, Oliver became head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga , a position he held until 1983. Oliver was the defensive coordinator for the Memphis Showboats of the United States Football League in 1984 and 1985, and then coached the secondary at Clemson University . In 1990, Gene Stallings hired Oliver as a secondary coach at Alabama and promoted him to defensive coordinator in 1993. Alabama's athletic director , Hootie Ingram promised that Oliver would succeed Stallings as head coach, but Ingram was fired in 1995 when the program faced NCAA sanctions. In 1996, Oliver accepted a position as Auburn's defensive coordinator, which he held until 1998. After Terry Bowden resigned, Oliver served as interim head coach and was a candidate for the permanent position. After Auburn hired Tommy Tuberville , Oliver retired from coaching football. Head coaching record Year: Team: Overall: Conference: S... ... Read more

Product Description
Shane, a stranger the Starretts take into their home in Wyoming in 1889, becomes involved in a feud between the cattle ranger and the local homesteaders. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (105)

Shane: the man of mystery
Shane was a great book and I really enjoyed it very much. This book had a lot of symbolism in it. Moreover, I did this book as my book report and I really liked it a lot and I had a great time reading it. It was a compelling story for the reason that it had great characters and great plot as well. Finally, I feel that everyone from the ages of 12-adult would enjoy reading this book.Before you read this book or purchase it, you should learn a little about the old west and the styles back then.

Shane
Absolutely beautiful.I have read it twice and will reread.I have seen the movie several times.There is absolutely no one that could play the part but Alan Ladd.If you know Alan Ladd, and as you read the book, you will realize that Shane was written for this great actor.This book just has everything meant for a good western.However, as much as I like westerns and realize how proud these Western men are, I did not like the ending.I wanted Joe Starrett to go after Shane and make sure his wound was tended to.But, in the great scheme of things I realize that it really doesn't matter.Shane did what he was intended to do and then he sailed off into the sunset.God Bless Shane and Jack Schaefer.You can find out what type of a man wrote this book and it is too bad we never got to know him any better.We all missed out on this great man's life, but, he left us Shane and this was important.

A Great American Novel
I find most Westerns boring.I've lost track of the times I've read this book.

Short, beautifully written, and absolutely dead on in every respect, this is THE classic treatment of one of the great themes of American literature -- the reluctant warrior, trying to outrun his violent past, but in the end forced to fight once more.Told through the eyes of a young boy many years later, it's just about perfect.

Just go read it.

one of my favorite books of my life
i read this in 1949 at the age of 7.i have never gotten over the simple moving hard reality of this book."it's not you i want shane, it's starrett" ... "what you want and what you'll get are two different things, wilson."


and earlier, when chris went up against shane with a partner who backed out, "what's wrong, do you know him?", "no one can say that, I'm leaving, that's all."

so a man can grow up straight inside as a man should. ... this language has made an indelible impression on me my whole life.and i am, as my friend says, " a bed wetting liberal democrat"!

i just recommend you read the book first rather than watch themovie.but afterwards the movie is pretty special too, particularly the role of the child.

the thing i noticed as a kid was that in the book the lead character shane was a martial arts specialist who just dismantled the cowboys he fought, while the movie character was just a slug it out hollywood amateurof the standard species,i knew even then a man alone could not win a fight against odds without training. i confirmed that in my high school basketball days against teenaged thugs.

this is a simplistic, pre- clint eastwood type movie and book (compare it to pale rider to see where clint borrowed from this one), but it is hard to resist.and of course it features one of the most memorable performances of jack palance's career.In pale rider it takes stockburn and a half dozen deputies to approach the menace of palance alone.

(The disappointed reviews from some teen agers here who found the book too complex, detailed, boring, or otherwise difficult are really sobering.Apparently even the comic books we read in the 1940's [count of monte cristo, les miserables, ...] would have been over these kids' heads. But to be fair, the only required reading i ever enjoyed was by dostoevsky and dickens.And four stars is not criticism here, I mean Don Quixote only gets 5 stars, and maybe alan mendelsohn the boy from mars.)

A small classic
Not sure how, but I read the book before I saw the movie, a long time ago. The book was profoundly moving to me, but I never read it again until the other day, when I saw it in a used book store for 25 cents, many years later. Well, its just as meaningful as ever now, and maybe even more so. Told by the son Bob, an adult now but looking back on his experience, it mixes a youngster's awe and naivete with a grown-up's perspective and understanding of subtlety.

Very short (119 pages) and concise, it gives us a symbolic, archetypal, mythic hero in a realistic setting. Shane is too good to be true, but that's how a young boy would see him. He's a combination of a Christ-figure and a great warrior as well as a hardworking, able ranch-hand. Extremely competent and sure of himself in any setting, he seems superhuman to the wide-eyed Bob. His mother Marian likes Shane no less, and in fact falls in love with him, a fact that Bob's father Joe accepts because he too admires and respects Shane and loves Marian so much that he wants her to be happy whatever she chooses. But Shane is far too noble to take advantage of the situation because he loves the Starretts no less than they love him.

Shane himself is deliberately kept as mysterious as possible, but we get hints here and there about his past. One good example is his treatment of Chris, Fletcher's cowhand. Shane is clearly seeing a reminder from his own past when he looks at Chris and is as kind to him as possible under the circumstances. He had no doubt started out as a good man but probably became very much like Stark Wilson, the hired gun, and been repulsed by his own actions, finally ending up at the Starretts' ranch very much in need of redemption. The family's acceptance and love deeply impresses him and finally leaves him with no choice but to sacrifice himself for them. All this despite the situation being the ideal set-up for him - all he has to do is let Joe go to town and get killed by Wilson and he will have everything he covets. Joe actually makes it clear that he wants Marian and Shane to be happy together and consummate their feelings for each other after he's dead, and Bob would certainly accept Shane as a father in that case.

But Shane is a very complex, albeit shadowy figure and so he steps in for Joe and faces Wilson - and he's the only man who can. This book is also deceptively complicated and is about lots of things, not just homesteaders standing up to a cruel cattle baron. Its about honor and courage and integrity and different kinds of love and is seen through the hero-worshipping eyes of a young boy. The movie was great, too, but in a different way. Alan Ladd was too Roy Rogers-ish for me in his physical appearance (nothing against Roy, that's for sure); he just lacked some of the darkness and moral ambiguity that I pictured in Shane when he first arrives in the book. Ladd looked more like a trick-shot artist from a traveling Wild West show than a sinister gunfighter. Don't forget, on the very first page of the book he rides up to a fork in the road - the left branch leads to Fletcher's ranch and the right to the homesteaders, and he thinks it over before making his choice. But there's no question that Ladd did a fantastic job in his own style and its a classic western film - maybe the best ever. I just imagined Shane as being very much like the Jack Palance character, only heartsick and ashamed of what he had become and anxious for another chance, which the Starrett family gave to him so freely and unconditionally.

Anyway, this book is a small gem that packs a lot of different themes into a short, seemingly simple tale. I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm a grown man and it still makes me cry.

... Read more

Product Description
The book is organized to enable students to master the conventional rubrics of the subject, while probing the deeper issues of legal method, public policy, and political organizations that surround disputes over doctrine. Contains an introduction to administrative law; the legislative connection; executive supervision of agency action; administrative adjudication and rule making; government acquisition and disclosure; suits to review administrative action; damage actions against the federal government and its officers; and beneficiary enforcement of public law. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pretty Average Casebook
It's a typical casebook.Some are sprinkled with neat insights, tidbits of knowledge, or commentary that reads a little like a novel.This one really isn't.It is purely functional, on a topic that doesn't lend itself to much excitement. ... Read more