''Dust Devils'' is an independently published

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

set in the

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

, written by Matt Snyder. It was voted the 2002 Indie RPG of the Year; it also won the Best Synergy of Game and Rules category, as well as placing in the Best Production and Most Innovative Game categories. The game uses playing cards and Poker mechanics to resolve scenes and situations. Players create poker hands using their character's scores to earn cards. Then, they compare poker hands to see how their characters perform in a scene. The game was the first RPG to introduce a randomized narrator. In the game, whoever plays the highest single card during a scene becomes the narrator for how the scene ends and what happens in it.

New edition

Matt Snyder republished Dust Devils in expanded form in 2007. The new edition, called Dust Devils Revenged, includes updated rules, play advice, and a brief examination of the

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

and history. The new edition also included three different settings for the game. *Deathwish re-envisioned the game for modern spy action *Ronin, by Jason Blair, altered the game rules for

Feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to Japanese Paleolithic, prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millenni ...

*Concrete Angels, by

Jared Sorensen Jared A. Sorensen is an indie role-playing game designer whose works include ''InSpectres'', '' octaNe'', and ''Lacuna Part I.'' Career Jared Sorensen was a member of the website The Forge, and later became an indie publisher. Sorensen designed ...

, altered the game for

Neo noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating s ...

crime

External links

Stories you play
(author's blog) Indie role-playing games Role-playing games introduced in 2002 Historical Western role-playing games {{rpg-stub