[DL] Lone Stars Thoughts (spoilers)(long)

[Reemull <reemull@yahoo.co.uk>]

It's been about a week since Mr McGlothlin has had to answer anything 
concerning Lone Stars so it's about time to start up another Lone Stars

thread.  Following what can only be described as a catalogue of errors 
I finally managed to obtain a copy - so here are my thoughts/questions 
concerning Lone Stars: Texas Rangers (LS:TR).

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My first instinct was to compare the book to Agency: Men In Black
Dusters (MiBD) - and to be honest I must say I preferred it and found
it a more entertaining read.  I think this was mainly due to the style
of writing Mr Goff (anyone know what he is doing now?) adopted for MiBD
- which left me skipping ahead to get to the crunchy bits (don't get me
wrong I like MiBD - I just found some of the text a little tedious). 

The book I think works well and is well laid out, i.e. everything is 
where I would have expected it to be.  The "Who's, where" section seems

to perform a whole load of work (giving you the info on who is where,
as well as providing an insight into the character of the ranger in
that location, plus giving some inspiration ideas for Marshals) as well
as bring a darn entertaining  read.  My only problem with this section
as all the Rangers come across as being "X who is the best at Y".  Each
of them come across as fine upstanding gentlemen - which I'm sure they
are most probably not. 

I would have liked to have seen some stats for some of the Rangers 
mentioned in this section - just some information that would give the 
Marshal a couple of fleshed out Rangers that could be easily slotted
into their campaign.

I like the Chaplain Corps - very nice.  Initially I wasn't totally sure

quite how they fitted in under TR (to my mind they weren't TRs but work

with them closely), but they provide some variation to character types 
for those wanting to run a TR only campaign.  It would have been nice 
to have had some Chaplain names fitted in with the "Who, where" section

(or maybe I missed them).

I dislike the high supernatural level of the TR - in fact to save me 
rambling on about that here - I'll post that concern under a different 
thread.  Anyway, as much as I dislike the abominations I dislike
calling them "the band" even more.  I can understand why it is done and
they need referred to somehow - but I cringe a little at that one
(however as much as I dislike it - I cannot come up with anything
better so maybe I should keep my mouth shut? :-) ). 

One thing I wasn't sure about - the book lists the total numbers of TR 
- however doesn't give an idea as to how many chaplains there are (only

that there members are "small but dedicated") the same is true for the 
abominations (just how many people(?) are in "the band"?)

I would have liked some "unofficial" comments from say, Hank Ketchum,  
"telling it how it really is in the Weird West" would have been a nice 
way to finish off this section - even if it had only been put in as a 
single page scribbled note format.

The guide to abomination pages are excellent - I was unsure how the 
TR:Bible was going to manage the lowdown on the critters without 
duplicating a whole load of pages from other books or giving everything
away.  However I love the way it's been done and will have no
reservations using it with my TR player.  Some reviewers are bound to
complain that the critter stats are in another book - however I cannot
see another way of doing it without paying through the nose for
information you already have elsewhere.  

The rank systems for both MiBD and LS:TR I always think work out a 
little complicated in comparison to the rest of Deadlands - however the

rules are in keeping with the fact that the characters that use these
them are now part of an bureaucratic organisation (but less so with the
TR than the MiBD).   I like the fact that the Chaplain Corps get their
own section - plus the fact that the information is both applicable to
the North and South is helpful.  I noticed that there were no
archetypes involved with the book - I wondered if this was done due to
space restrictions and the fact they'd have to be done in both classic
and D20 systems thus taking up more space?

I was a little disappointed with the Shootist AB as it wasn't as
upgraded as I hoped it might be.  Most of the "extra" hexes are simply
the cut hexes from Law Dogs (OK Acoustic Shadow is a worthy addition -
but as far as I can see it's the only true addition) - again I've
diverted my shootists comments to another thread.  A brief note - Doc
Holliday seems more clean cut and genuine "do-gooder" than I have ever
seen him portrayed in any western, never mind what he must have been
like in reality. 

The book is a fun read and is packed full of interesting tidbits (I was

happy to see the Ranger oath get it's place).  Also as the first dual 
statted sourcebook I was unsure how I would take to the inclusion of
D20 material (although I own the D20 system I don't own Deadlands D20
hence the space on this system is of no use to me personally) - and to
be honest I was perfectly happy with the way the stats for both systems

fitted together.  The book comes across as a bit of a "little goody
two-shoes" book with everyone being fine upstanding gentlemen - however
I guess the book was written from a biased standpoint (by that I mean
being written by the hand of General King - rather than Mr McGlothlin 
;-) )

I love the recent trend in Deadlands books (started with MiBD?) to not 
only have the art directly relevant to the text, but to include 
captions as well.

To finish I leave with a final question asked by one of my players on 
first viewing the book....

"So, why is Kenny Rogers on the cover?"

Cheers

Roy

PS  Argh! Forgot to mention the fighting moves!

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