DYNAMITE

These rules are totally unofficial, and are not endorsed by Bryan Ansell who hasn't even seen some of them. They are just suggestions by various players. (Any comments in blue italics are mine.)

DYNAMITE RULES by Walter O'Hara (Burke, VA. USA)

It wouldn't be the Wild West if dynamite didn't come into play every once in a while. In the real West, dynamite wasn't used as much as it is in the movies (if at all), but since it does add to the flavour of the game, rules for the use of dynamite are included here.

Dynamite is deployed by the stick. These are the prerequisites for Dynamite:

Dynamite Prerequisites

The character deploying dynamite must have a finite amount of sticks indicated on his card. Once they are used, he cannot use any more.

The character deploying dynamite must NOT be engaged in Melee Combat at the time of use.

The Player (the real person) must have some Scatter dice (or a method of determining scatter) and and explosion marker handy.

You will need a few things to make these dynamite procedures work: 1 or more scatter dice (Games Workshop makes an excellent set that I use) which have arrows on 4 sides and bullseye reticules on the other two, 1 or more distance dice, a special BOOM card for your fate deck (these are required, the rest is optional) maybe a bead or a marker to show the impact point, and some red and white cotton balls in case a building catches fire as a result of the blast.

Dynamite Lobbing Procedure:

Dynamite is usually lobbed by the person using it. The procedure is as follows:

Find a Detonation Point: Eyeball distance from thrower to target. Literally, estimate the range in inches. This estimated range may never exceed 18" for single sticks, 16" for bundles. Place a red bead on the table where you think that point is. Then, measure the distance you estimated. Move the marker to that point. If your eyeball estimate is more than 18"/16" in reality, then the marker is placed at exactly 18"/16" from the throwing figure. If you are DEAD ACCURATE (defined as having eyeballed it down to within 1 inch), make a note of this to the referee.

Check for Scatter or Bounce: Roll 1 GW scatter dice and 1d6 distance dice. If you get a target symbol, the explosion will go off at the marker you placed. If you get an arrow, check the 1d6. Move the marker in the direction of the arrow for that many inches. If you get BOTH 6 on the distance dice AND a target symbol on the scatter dice, your dynamite bounces! What fun! Basically, roll twice from your aiming marker with the scatter and distance dice, and place the marker wherever this procedure lands it. If the forces of probability conspire to give you the same combination of 6 and a target symbol a second time in a row, then the marker stays where it is. If you were DEAD ACCURATE in your range guess, then halve the distance die results for every scatter or bounce result.

Determine when the Explosion Happens: Take the top three cards off of the fate deck. Add the "BOOM" card into the stack of three. Shuffle them thoroughly and place them on top of the Fate deck. The explosion will go off when the BOOM card is drawn.

Last Chance Saving Throw: If the stick or bundle lands within 2" of a character, that character has the option of throwing the stick or bundle back, if the character has not performed an action yet during the turn. Roll a 1d6:

1-3: You get the throw off

4-6: You have a disarming experience (it blows up in your hand, roll 3 times on the damage table and take an automatic serious wound, knocked down result in the arm carrying the stick--the arm is useless for the rest of the game)

For the return lob, simply roll the GW scatter dice and 3d6 and check for bounce.

Other modifiers to the Dynamite Lob: If a figure has suffered a serious wound to his "good arm", the estimated distance is halved. That works out like this: If the Dynamite Kid got winged seriously by a pistol shot, and he is attempting to lob a stick of dynamite, he first eyeballs the distance. It looks like 16 inches to him. He throws the stick. The marker moves NOT to 16 inches, but to 8.

DRUNK or DERANGED characters suffer a 1/2 distance penalty, as above.

Explosions: When the explosion occurs, many things happen.

What happens to people when dynamite goes off:

If a character is within 4" of a stick when it goes off, he takes damage. Roll three times on the damage table per explosion.

Personal damage Modifiers:

If the character is behind light cover (wooden obstacles such as barrels, fences, or a tree, a rock, etc.), then take 1 roll back.

If the character is in heavier cover (in a building, wood, adobe or stone) take 2 rolls back.

A character taking damage from dynamite is dazed and knocked down requiring a turn to recover.

What happens to buildings when dynamite goes off: If a building, wood, stone or adobe, is within 6" of a blast from a stick of dynamite, roll 1d6. If you roll 1-3 on that roll, that edge of the building collapses. Place white cotton balls around that edge of the building to demonstrate that it has collapsed. On a 4-6, the building stands firm. If the building is made of wood, place a mix of red and white cotton balls, to indicate the building is on fire. The white cotton balls indicate SMOKE. The smoke will last three turns, unless the building is on fire. Smoke is a hindrance to LOS.

PLACING (Not Lobbing) Dynamite on purpose

Sometimes you want to PLACE dynamite in a certain location to get a certain result (i.e., blowing a safe, breaking your pard out of jail, etc.) Placing Dynamite counts as 1 movement dice for lighting the fuse. The sequence works like so: the player rolls three movement die. The first die is used to move to the place where the dynamite is to be placed. The second movement die is used to actually place the dynamite. The third die is used to run away. The whole sequence counts as one action. NOTE: if the character is using dynamite to bust a pard out of the pokey, the jailbird is assumed to be hiding as far away from the explosion as possible, with as much light cover as possible, when the explosion goes off. This is a common sense freebie.

A word about the scatter dice and some different scatter methods

If you don't wish to purchase a Games Workshop scatter dice (they are somewhat pricey at approximately 3 dollars for a pack of 5) you can make your own by either purchasing a blank die and writing a series of arrows on it.

Draw an arrow for straight ahead, one that slants right and upward, one that slants left and upward, one that slants left and downward and one that slants right and downward (The position of the arrows is entirely relative since the Chaos factor of rolling the dice plays into the result). Naturally, draw a bullseye reticule on the remaining side. You can even paint over the pips on a standard 1d6 and save even more money, but this looks a bit off.

Variant A) The Scatter Table using a regular 1d6

Alternatively, you can create a simple scatter table for rolling a 1d6 on, like this:

1 Left

2 Right

3 Forward

4 Back

5 Hit

6 Hit

I think this limits your range of possibilities, however, and I don't recommend it. There are a number of random number generator methods you could use to create the scattering effect (percentile dice, spinner tables, etc.), but I think an actual arrow pointing to the direction the dynamite actually goes is the most visually effective.

Variant B) the Brian Ansell method

I sent my Dynamite rules to Brian Ansell, the author of the Rules With No Name. He sent me this very elegant scatter method. Roll a red and a black die, just as if you would for a shotgun. (I hope I get this right!) Subtract (or add) one die from the other to get the actual distance of the scatter. Then look at the actual angle formed from the red die to the black one. THAT is the physical direction of the scatter! Elegant, no? I find the range estimation method, boom card, bounce, etc. listed above all work well incorporating this methodology. So don't bother getting Games Workshop scatter dice if you don't have to.

Weapons Budgets and Dynamite

I start all my games off with a Weapons Budget. Each player gets $50 to spend, and then I price out weapons accordingly (pistols $25, rifles $40, etc.). In this fashion, a character can outfit himself with a variety of weapons within a realistic framework and not be a walking arsenal. I strongly recommend this practice. If you are using dynamite, make each stick expensive! The historical item was rare enough-- to give a single player a crate full of the stuff would unbalance the game terribly.

Matt Little (Overland Park, KS, USA)

I had a couple thoughts on your Dynamite rules:

1) What would you think of throwing in an "instability" factor for any character carrying dynamite? In other words, for every turn that the character is holding the dynamite, you'd have to roll a 1d6 to determine if it exploded prematurely. So, instead of making explosives really expensive to obtain, the expense might be in the risk of serious injury from packing leaky dynamite! Could also have a "dud" roll when the character goes to use it. Maybe another 1d6 roll to determine whether the cracker is a dud. Just a thought.

2) Instead of scatter dice, could you not just make a directional diagram for a 6-sided die where 1=N,2=NE,3=E..., etc. Seems easy enough rather than going to the expense of the specialized dice.

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