Boot Hill 1st Edition - Session 2

More insight into an abandoned game system

I will stick with just the highlights for this blog post. Mexican Bandit Leader El Pauncho remains at large.

Faction Leaders’ Play by Post

I recruited three players this week to be faction leaders. I still could use several more. Faction leaders will place weekly orders after receiving a briefing about the current situation, the personality (if I already generated it), and perhaps clarifying what resources (men, money, and equipment) belong to the faction. For now we have:

• Hoot - Captain William “Iron Bill” Morrison, US Cavalry, Ft. Esperanza
• The_RyujinLP - Sanus Gordon, Mulligan County Sheriff, New Mexico Territory
• fafast - Jake “Dead-Eye” Stevens, Town Marshall, Dead End Junction

I have plenty of openings left if playing in an Old West role playing game is of interest.

The Junction City Post

Since we are in 1:1 time, I am making a habit of creating one to two stories for the “Junction City” newspaper. Here is what it looked like for week 1.

Additional Rules

Boot Hill 1st edition is lacking several rules. That is unsurprising since there is a 2nd edition. What is more interesting is that there were five published modules for Boot Hill (BH1 - 5). Additional mechanics are buried in these modules. A lot of the mechanics aren’t covered in the 2nd edition rules. We discovered a few more while playing this morning:

• Undertaking - BH 3, p. 9; BH4, p. 10 “The economy burial is $20.00”
• Surprise - BH 1, p. 2 “For random encounters, roll 1d6 for each character in the encounter (including the player character). A roll of 1 indicates that the character is surprised (a -5 modifier on speed).”
• Chance Encounter, In Town - BH 1, p. 2 “[C]heck to see if a chance encounter occurs by rolling 1d10. Only if a 1 is rolled is there a chance encounter.” This applies to solo play.
• Starting Cash - BH 1, p. 3 - If the character is new, he or she should begin the adventure with $150 to spend on equipment, but must buy tack and a horse. Furthermore, “[a]t least $10 should remain unspent so that the character does not arrive in town broke.”
• Healing - BH 1, p. 2 “Brawling wounds heal at a rate of one point per hour of rest, while non-brawling wounds heal at one point per week of rest (providing such wounds have been treated by a doctor). Multiple wounds heal at the same time , so no wound takes longer than seven weeks to heal. Penalties due to wounds are no longer in effect after the wounds are more than 50% healed.”
• Doctoring - BH 1, p. 11 “The doctor is reasonably efficient. There is a 20% chance that you regain 1-3 STR points immediately due to his ministrations, a 70% chance that you regain no STR points, though your wounds are properly bandaged, and a 10% chance that while treating you he makes a mistake and you lose an additional 1-3 STR points before your wounds are bandaged.” Brawling wounds do not require a Doctor’s attention. But if a player “does not treat [his] non-brawling wounds, there is a 10% chance [he will] eventually die from a light wound, a 30% chance [he will] eventually die from a serious wound, and a 50% chance [he will] eventually die if [he] received so many non-brawling wounds that he passed out.
• Stealth - BH 1, p. 12 entry 106 “Roll 1d6. If you roll 1-2 [you succeed]. If you roll 3-6 [you have been detected].”

Outdoor Survival Redux

Two of my players have convinced me to go all in on Outdoor Survival, instead of hiding a Referee’s map and only using Outdoor Survival for encounters, food and water tracking, and rates of movement. Instead, we shall now display the entire map and use all of the rules on the appropriate green scenario card (Lost, Rescue, Pursue, Search, Survival). I set up the board and livestream this morning, however, since there were only two of us on the call, we abandoned this plan. We will try it when more people are, hopefully, online next weekend.

Duo Adventuring

Since only me and hatlessAsh were online, I pitched Ash on using module BH1’s solo adventure for this morning’s session. Ash only has a single character - Fast Frank. I quickly rolled up “Dusty” McCrae to ride shotgun with him. Again, I used my technique for quickly equipping my character.

Dusty and Frank hitched the train from Dead End Junction down to Bad Mesa in El Dorado County (still Arizona Territory). We arrived at night time and began our exploration at the far eastern end of Main Street. At the Lazy A Hotel we were able to get a late dinner / early breakfast, some coffee, and a lot of information about the town. Seems there is a “cattle war” between the “Russell faction” and the “Kane faction.” Deciding to explore upstairs, we were forced to register with the clerk and pay $1 for a single 24 hour stay. Finding nothing of note, we went on across the street to the General Store. There was definitely noise coming from the rear of the building. We moseyed around and at first thought it was the blacksmith (still hard at work even this late at night). But in actuality we found that Mr. Jackson had unfortunately gotten shut out of his own establishment. We left him in peace to break back into his own store and headed into the Saloon.

Gambling

The Saloon was the highlight of the evening. Over the last week Fast Frank had replaced Big Mike as the bartender in Dead End Junction and also filled in as a Faro dealer. Now, Fast Frank was ready to try moving from professional dealer to professional gambler. But since he had spent most of his cash on a fast draw revolver, Dusty had to stake him $50 so he could sit down at the poker table.

[Ref: What followed, was a lot of percentile dice rolling. Interestingly enough, the module has a way to play actual poker and give advantages to gamblers. I highly encourage you to read the rules in BH 1, pp. 13-14 entry 123. It makes you wonder if Gary Gygax called up his play-testers and said “Boot Hill game Friday night, bring your dice and fifty bucks!”]

There were four players at the table. One of them, Hezekiah Kane, is a known gunslinger that we had been warned about at the restaurant. Fast Frank was not intimidated. He played several hands winning $40, losing $10, winning $40, losing $10, winning $40, and winning $40 again (the second time in a row). Frank pushed back from the table after winning $140 ($50 of which belonged to Hezekiah Kane).

While Frank purchased a bottle of whiskey from the bar, Dusty tried his hand at the roulette wheel but for far lower stakes of just a few dollars at a time. After 8 spins of the wheel he was up $4 and called it quits.

Luck Runs Dry

We headed down the street to the Bar-K Stable. Hearing voices within, we tried to creep inside. Unfortunately, the roll went against us and we ended up in a brawl with five of the Kane faction’s men. Frank went for his knife while Dusty pulled out his cavalry sword. One of the men, Alex, was fast as Lightening the same as Dusty and they were equally matched. Frank was quicker than the rest. After several rounds of blows and grappling, Frank managed to stab enough holes in Bob for him to pass out. He also killed Charlie with another well placed thrust of the knife. Dusty was not as fortunate. He barely wounded Alex. Meanwhile Dutch and Elvis got their licks in. Eventually it was too much. Dusty was knocked out first and Frank fell not long thereafter.
[Ref: Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent. The brawl began without the exchange of pleasantries.]

Reprieve

Awaking the next morning in Doc Smith’s office, we were paid a visit by Ezekiel Kane. He passed on an ominous warning: “I hear Denver is nice this time of the year. Some people, on the other hand, recommend Phoenix for their health. There’s an old saying I’ve heard: travel broadens the mind. If you don’t have a horse, the stage leaves at dawn, and the train leaves at noon.” Without needed any further prompting, both of us took the train back to Dead End Junction.

Call to Action

If you’d like to be part of the hunt for El Pauncho in Gila County, Arizona Territory, just leave a comment below, find me on X, or on Discord. Regular players meet very early Saturday morning. Faction leaders play by post once per week.

---

Originally published on Substack on July 26, 2025.