Survive This: This Dead West

SURVIVE THIS!! The Dead West (STDW) is a horror western tabletop RPG where genre bending demons, devils, monsters, and technology, are invading this apocalyptic, alternative-Earth, wild west setting.  Is this game a horror game?  Yes.  Is this game a western?  Yes.  STDW is a complete mind-twist, as if it was written by Stephen King on an 80s late-night cocaine binge, while listening to thrash metal, and staring at the Sci-Fi western art of Boris Vallejo.  If you can wrap your brain around that, then you’ll understand what STDW is trying to accomplish.

In STDW, player’s take on the role of the movers and shakers in a fictional old-west town.  During the day, things are as you’d suspect in a western setting, but at night, shit gets weird.  The goal of the players will often be to survive the night, and pray that the coming of the dawn, returns their town to relative safety of their hard but mundane lives.

Playable Classes include:

• Cowboy (Tough horse riders that specialize in Range Riding or Rodeo Riding)
• Demon Stalker (Part scholar, hunter and scout that kill demons)
• Doc (Masters of healing in a world of violence and death)
• Faithful (Spiritual healers that strike fear in minds of demons and undead)
• Frontiersman (The master survivor and scout for a rugged world)
• Gambler (Manipulating the odds and people to make lady luck turn your way)
• Gunslinger (Expert duelist and trick shooter)
• The Hand (Jack of all trades)
• Knife Master (Expert with blades and thrown weapons)
• Lettered (Educated scholars in an unsophisticated world)
• Marshal (The law of the land and protector of the people)
• Outlaw (You take what you want, when you want)
• Pugilist (Hand to hand experts that put their opponents down)
• Rifleman (Range shooting expert and sniper)
• Soldier (Trained fighter that can shoot, fight, ride and scout)
• Telestic (Magical adepts that specialize in the Path of Life, Arcane or Decay)

The Game Master’s (GM) in STDW take on the role of the town’s folk, the monsters, and the setting itself.  The GM will decide the adventure, while allowing players to make their own choices, and will react accordingly to those choices.

Monsters & NPCs of note:

• Reverend Jedidiah Stormcrow – A man, hard as nails. His parishioners see him as a messiah, his word is law! Everyone in town fears him. His enemies, and those who stand against him, are not long for the world.
• Cherub Demons – Sent by Satan, 4ft tall winged, flying red devils, carrying archaic melee weapons.
• Deadites – Once nightfall comes any person who has died and not been buried or destroyed, will have their corpse possessed by a spirit and rise again and a Deadite.
• Vampyres – These are like punk-rock wild west vampires – think The Lost Boys meets John Carpenters Vampires.
• Committee of Vultures – Were-vultures. These sinister creatures can shapeshift at will and they can communicate with the other committee members telepathically.
• MegaDemons – MDs are 10-14 ft tall red devil like demons.
• Tres Amigas – Three sisters of Spanish descent, act as masked vigilante.
• Other Monsters – Wendigo and the Wechuge, Thunderbirds, Skinwalkers, N-dam-keno-wet, Atahsaia, Piasa Bird, Katshituashku, Bakwas, Zombies, and more.

I don’t like my wild west rpgs weird!  Can I play this as a straight up wild west setting?  Yes.  While this was designed to make your west weird as hell, providing GMs all the tools to do so, you can simply choose not to use those tools and you will have a traditional wild west RPG, to play.

About The Game:

The Dead West uses the SURVIVE THIS!! game system.  SURVIVE THIS!! is on OSR, d20-based game system, that features:

• Class and Level
• Attributes:  Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and Survival.
• Survival allows you to re-roll failed attempts.  Similar to Luck in Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.
• Ascending Armor Class
• Advantage and Disadvantage
• Hit Points and Saving Throws
• Most rolls are d20+Mod to beat a target difficulty, where rolling higher is better.
• Simple Skill System and a lot more!

If you have played any version of the world’s most popular fantasy RPG, you can play SURVIVE THIS!! and know exactly what is going on almost right away.  It’s very easy to pick up.  If you have no experience with those games, SURVIVE THIS!! is easily approachable and has about the same learning curve as any traditional tabletop RPG.

SURVIVE THIS!! The Dead West is designed to be a standalone game, meaning no other products are needed to play.  However, because it is part of the SURVIVE THIS!! game series, it is 100% compatible with games like Dark Places & Demogorgons, We Die Young, What Shadows Hide, Vigilante City, Bloody Appalachia, and more!

The game will include all the core rules needed for play and character creation, along with a full setting guide, monsters, villains, bestiary, adventure seeds, equipment, random tables, index, appendixes, and more.