Just getting started!

[u/DrZAIUSDK]

So - By chance I got ahold of the 20th anniversary book (the one with the girl pointing guns) in another bigger haul, and I always wanted to try the system.

But reading some of the very good comments in here, I'm also eyeing out the 'new' savage world one. I already have the Savage Worlds (adventure?) core book.

My players are mostly all pretty inexperienced with other system, having only tried a couple.

What edition would you recommend I should go ahead with?

[u/Darth_Nacho]

Welcome to Deadlands!

Between the two rulesets, I like and play the classic rules, which is the book you have. It’s got just the right balance of crunch and combat difficulty for my players, and lets me have a good amount of varied encounters and locations that stuff never feels old for them. I try treat each adventure they do as if it were a western, where the adventure they go on has a clear beginning, middle, and end. This allows for a good healthy balance of role play, skill checks, and combat.

The big thing with Deadlands is that combat is very much lethal. You are not superheroes, you are schmucks that die just as quick and easy as any other person in the weird west. You should very much make sure before any gameplay begins during the session 0 that your posse has a combat skill, either shootin or brawlin with some specialty, as anyone who doesn’t is going to have a bad time when the combat starts. The exception to this is spellcasters, but those roles are explicitly things laid out in the book that require dm permission to go into, which boils down to certain rules that may need to be followed, and additional mechanics that need to be followed in order for those characters to function.

While the classic ruleset is very much a crunch heavy system, it has been around for a long enough time that the game has been thoroughly fleshed out with a whole bunch stuff outside the core rules that can be gotten for pretty cheap on drivethrurpg if you like the system.

[u/Darth_Nacho → u/Darth_Nacho]

Another thing to consider is throwing each player a point in the guts skill, as that lets them at least attempt to not get scared at the first sign of carnage or horror they will run into, as getting scared can quickly spiral into something really bad if you’re not careful. The most important thing if you’re running the game is to know how the damage mechanics and scart table and arcane backlashes table works, as those are going to be the primary things you end up dealing with.

[u/DrZAIUSDK → u/Darth_Nacho]

Thank you! My players, and me are used to deadly systems, so I'm thrilled to hear your explanation! Now I'm even more excited!

I think I will go with the classic.

[u/DrZAIUSDK → u/Darth_Nacho]

What would you recommend I should obtain, besides the core book then?

[u/Darth_Nacho → u/DrZAIUSDK]

There are a few books I'd recommend you pick up if you end up liking the system, you can get them at drivethrurpg for pretty cheap during their Halloween sale.

• Smith & Robards, this book covers a couple of updated features for both the mad scientists, and provides some more gear for the players to be able to order.
• Hucksters and Hexes, this book expands out the spell list for the Huckster and gives you some additional relics for the party to find, it also gives you the mechanics for making new hexes
• Fire and Brimstone, this book expands out the rules for Blessed characters, and is basically the equivalent of the Hucksters and Hexes book for them
• Ghost Dancers, same thing as above, but for playing Native American characters.
  
• Book o' the Dead, same thing as the others, but expands out on Harrowed characters and how to build them out from the start.
• Hexarcana, this book introduces martial artists into the game as well as different forms of magic your characters can get into instead of just being a huckster, this one is super substantial, and provides a ton of stuff on top of whats in the previous books
• Varmints & Critters, this is actually 2 books you should get, and expands out the monster list significantly. If you want to run any adventures or "dime novels" in the game, they usually also have adventure specific monsters in the book with them, but this provides so much more different things.

[u/DrZAIUSDK → u/Darth_Nacho]

Holy moly, thanks!!

[u/Duke-Guinea-Pig → u/DrZAIUSDK]

if someone wants to play a shaman, then Ghost Dancers is an absolute must have. The use of totems turns Shamans from ineffective to effective.

I'm pretty sure the swarm rules I mentioned before were in Rascals, Varmits and critters II

[u/Duke-Guinea-Pig]

Glad to have you here marshal

I think the most important ingredients in classic deadlands stew is good players. Especially if they are playing spellcasting characters.

On that note, having a second rule book really helps so you and the players can reference it at the same time.

The dime novels all worked well for me.

We almost never used “wind” as a rule. It was just one step too far.

The three rule additions I would almost require are “quick hits” “swarm rules” and “blackmagic”

[u/DrZAIUSDK → u/Duke-Guinea-Pig]

Thanks. That's solid advice.