Run or Gun and Posse Removal: Commitment to Location or Certainty of Egress?

General
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Community,
I have heard a little discussion about this before, and was thinking that since we are “between” official statuses of the extended run of DTR, this concept could be revisited on these forums. One of the major things that changed between Classic and Reloaded was the formalization and guarantee of the “Run or Gun?” step in a given shootout.

In Classic, if an entire opposing posse was removed prior to the resolution of poker hands in a shootout (through card effects), the shootout immediately ended and the remaining posse wasn’t allowed to flee - they were more or less “stuck” at the location of the shootout. The strategic consideration behind this rule confers that any trickery that allows for the bypassing of poker resolution also commits the remaining posse to the location of the shootout. I will call this “Commitment to Location” for shorthand.

In Reloaded, if an entire posse is removed before resolution, the shootout doesn’t immediately end because the remaining posse still has the option to stay or flee, in whole or in part, per the Run or Gun step. The strategic consideration behind this rule confers a level of certainty that no matter how the shootout goes down, if you survive you always have the option of going home afterwards. I will call this “Certainty of Egress” for shorthand.

…

Doing some research, I have compiled a list of cards which would see a slight power-down if we reverted to the Classic (Commitment to Location) rule:

Asyncoil Gun
Coachwhip!
Deliberate Infection
Dr. Arden Gillman
Festering Grasp
Jael’s Guile
Legendary Holster
Mariel Lewis
Pancho Castillo (ex1)
Pistol Whip
Point Blank
Red Horse’s Tail
Requiem for a Good Boy
Rich Man’s Guard Dog
Shotgun
Soul Blast
Swinford finds Trouble
Xiong “Wendy” Cheng

As these cards remove dudes from the opposing posse in one way or another, if you use some combination of them to remove the entire opposing posse prior to resolution, you also remove the option afforded to you in the Run or Gun step to flee.

Here is a list of cards which would see a slight power-up if we reverted to the Classic (Commitment to Location) rule:

Eva Bright Eyes
Mortimer Parsons
No Turning Back
Personal Ornithopter
The Highbinder Hotel
Willa Mae Macgowan

As these remove dudes in your posse in one way or another, if you use some combination of them to remove your entire posse prior to resolution, you also remove the option afforded to your opponent in the Run or Gun step to flee.

Here is a list of cards that would see both a power-down and a power-up, depending on the context of the current board state:

Law Goes Underground
Rabbit’s Deception
Rite of Profane Abstersion

As the two lists above it, if you use these cards to remove an entire posse, the remaining posse will be unable to flee - if you remove the opposing posse you will be unable to flee, if you remove your own posse your opponent will be unable to flee.

…

So I have a question to the community regarding a proposal to retain or revert the interaction between Run or Gun and Posse Removal: Do you prefer the Reloaded rule (Certainty of Egress) or the Classic rule (Commitment to Location)?

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Edit. I misunderstood the question, so you can ignore my post :slight_smile:

We played the game like this for quite a few months on OCTGN before we were told by one player that an option to run away home exists (after wiping out opponent’s posse ) and I think I liked the game a bit more when we played it incorrectly as booting your dudes at opponent’s locations ( and contesting deeds early) was much more dangerous. It was easier to defend your deeds in early game as people didn’t want to lose their dudes with influence to Travis or another expendable dude.

The other thing that I remember being different was the fact that even if you won, you ended up with booted dudes at opponent’s location so any move next turn booted you, so all-in aggression wasn’t as obvious choice as it is most often now. This particular situation made horses and movement effects much more important and was justifying their cost and inclusion in a deck.

As a side note,I believe that if the shootout ends immediately then even reacts cannot be played, so no TYWM or Hot Lead Flying if you would lose all of your dudes during round of a shootout.

Playing the game both ways, I prefer the classic version of the rules, especially because of the interactions in early game and secondly because movement effects were much more powerful and moving generally speaking required a bit more planning.

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swider,
To be clear, when you said you played the game like this (you said: “if you would lose all of your dudes during round of a shootout”), does that mean that egress was only denied if one posse was removed from card effects, or denied from both card effects and as a result of casualties?

Put another way: if the shootout made it to the Take Yer Lumps phase, but one posse was removed after casualties were taken, did you stop there or proceed with the Run or Gun phase?

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If the shootout went to Take Yer Lumps and one the players lost all of their dudes, a shootout ended immediately and there was no option to run away.

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Thanks for clarifying. Let me do so in return.

The “Commitment to Location” proposal only circumvents Run or Gun if the entire posse is removed before Take Yer Lumps (ex. Pistol Whip their only dude during shootout actions, Point Blank their last dude during resolution window). If the Take Yer Lumps step happens, so does the Run or Gun step, even if one posse succumbs to casualties.

The way you played (prior to being corrected) interposes an even stricter interruption clause to progressing through the steps of a shootout, and at the risk of splitting hairs, constitutes a third proposal that situates somewhere “to the left of” what I am proposing (Commitment to Location) as further differentiated from how the shootout steps currently function (Certainty of Egress).

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I think I misunderstood your post completely, to my knowledge the only difference between classic and DTR is that in classic the shootouts ended immediately when one of the posses was empty, in DTR in only happens when during Shootout or Resolution phase one of the posses is empty.

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I’m now pretty sure I’ve been playing the game wrong, and I don’t even know what right would be.

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From what I understand of the current rules, the two following 1-vs-1 scenarios play out like this when dude A (let’s say Angelica Espinosa) and dude B (let’s say Benjamin Washington) go into a shootout solo:

Dude A Pistol Whips dude B, sending him home booted. The shootout immediately “fast-forwards” to the Run or Gun step, and dude A may either stay or flee at her option.

Dude A Point Blanks dude B, acing him after poker hands are revealed but before they are compared. The shootout immediately “fast-forwards” to the Run or Gun step, and dude A may either stay or flee at her option.

My proposal is to prevent this “fast-forwarding”, making it so that Dude A is committed to the location of the shootout (for better or for worse), removing the option of her running home after committing such trickery (bypassing the “poker” of the shootout).

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My friend and I played movement wrong the first couples months. We were just working off the original rule book at the time, so yeah. It is a complicated game. Much to our collective satisfaction and frustration! I still consult said rulebook occasionally when it comes to jobs :blush:

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Just to be clear, so players aren’t confused.

If the shootout ends early due to shootout or resolution plays because a posse was emptied, the rest of the dudes are stuck there. (Job rules would send the aggressive posse home).

You skip to step 7 which discards your shootout hands and see if there are two posses left, which there wouldn’t be in this situation, so shootout over.

3 Likes
11

Oh dear - I did not intend for this thread to be a de facto rules question.

I was under the impression that if a dude gets into a shootout, if they survive, no matter what happens to the opposing posse at any step in the shootout, they always have the option of fleeing.

So the “proposal” already exists?

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This link lays out @crx3800’s helpful and prompt response pretty well:

http://dtdb.co/en/rules#rop39

  • If either posse is empty during Step (Making shootout play) 1 or 4 (resolution actions) skip to Step 7 (missing out the “Run or Gun” step). If you shotgun/point blank your opponent’s only dude there’s no opportunity to run home, denying yourself the chance to zip home and be in a better position for next turn.
  • So yes, your proposal already exists in the game. :slight_smile:

Sometimes if I’m facing a solo weak draw that I could shotgun I risk going to resolution so I can make it to “Run or Gun” and get home instead of being stuck and my opponent’s home/disadvantageous location. Sometimes this works well for me, on other occasion my opponent top decks a strong shootout hand and wins/ties: this is another opportunity to make poor decisions in Doomton. :wink:

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Zac, you are correct, Landon was responding to clarify because it has come up that players did not know there was an option to flee. As a Classic player, I thought the option wasn’t there in Reloaded through the whole first Sheriff season! It is one of the proposals being discussed for playtest, amongst floor rules, errata, etc.

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Alright, my misconception about the rules has been cleared up. Looking at the linked rulebook, I did notice some language that could be cleaned up to avoid confusion. A shootout has 7 Steps, and the end of Step 1 (Make Plays) reads:

“If, due to the use of Shootout abilities, there’s only one posse left in the shootout, the shootout ends immediately; skip to step 7.”

And, the end of Step 4 (Reveal and Resolve) reads:

“If, due to the use of Resolution abilities, one player loses all the dudes in their posse (aced or discarded), the shootout immediately ends; skip to step 7.”

What I’d like to point out is two things. First, these two entries should have nearly identical language, including help text. Second, the help text (in Step 4) covers “aced or discarded” but leaves out being sent home booted (think Flight of the Lepus or Willa Mae). So either removing it, putting “due to card effects” or “aced, discarded, or sent home booted” would be clearer.

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David, is the proposal being discussed what swider mentioned upthread? Namely, if a posse is emptied in Step 5 (Take Yer Lumps), instead of progressing to Step 6 (Run or Gun), the rules may be changed to skip directly to Step 7 (Chamber Another Round), denying the winning posse a chance to flee?

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Correct, not saying it’s going to happen, but it is under discussion in our list of things to test. We’ve been noting topics mentioned by the community, such as this one, to take into consideration as we move forward and work on improving Doomtown any way we can.

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I’ve been playing it that way the whole time and it has been a positive experience.

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I’ve been playing that if a posse is empty in step 5, you proceed through to step 6 then 7. I’d prefer it to stay that way.

2 Likes
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I’ve been playing this way too, following the rulebook. As noted above it can lead to interesting decisions too - risk not using your shotgun on a some scrub draw so that you can boot and go home and be better positioned for T2. Otherwise you can be stuck at a deed/your opponent’s home and then have to boot home/to another dee during the next turn, wasting almost a couple of turns. :frowning:

Happy to test alternative rules, but this would have a significant effect on some decks.

1 Like
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I’d be curious what type of decks would benefit/suffer from emptying a posse by any means as cutting off egress. Specifically, decks that routinely manage well against a variety of archetypes.

If this rule were to change, it could be called the “You Shot 'Em Dead, You Clean the Mess!” ruling. Or perhaps something shorter?