Deluxe Shadows of Brimstone

A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to play in a Back to the Future-themed Shadows of Brimstone game. The adventure was called "Shadows of Hill Valley: 1885," and had the players being hired by the local Blacksmith (the mysterious Emmett Brown) to clear out the mines where he had hidden one of his "inventions."

Hans, the game host, brought props for the table and whiskey for the players. Along with our extended Brimstone theme music all the props really brought forth the Old West theme. In this post I put up some highlight pics from the game, to help understand the glory that evolves from a bunch of middle-aged men pretending to be cowboys.

No big deal, just buying dynamite and whiskey in Old West Hill Valley.

One house-rule we always use is: We START in town (rather than END in town). It just makes more sense to us, because by the time we finish an Epic battle we're usually pretty tired, so we just make sure we get back to town safe and then we run the town portion at the start of the next session. So for this game we started in Hill Valley, and went straight to the Saloon.

At the Saloon, old Blacksmith Brown was asking around for some tough hombre's to deal with a little problem down in the old mines.

Hans (who was hosting the game and running the monsters) brought hats, bandanas, and even set up an old West backdrop for the game!

 

Cowboy hats and bandanas worn with rugged pride.

A full party consisting of the Rancher, Gunslinger, Marshall, Lawman, Preacher, and Piano Player.

Just a few steps into the mines we start facing sanity-shattering monstrosities.

Another house rule: When your character drinks whiskey, YOU drink whiskey.

So much sanity-blasting was done, everyone was downing whiskey like no tomorrow.

 

After defeating the Yeti-beasts, we took a left.

Moving further into the Mines.

Found the Delorean! Looks like we weren't the first...

So many spider-things to kill!

Epic success!

I post these photos to show that any game can be made epic, it just takes a little effort on the part of the organizer. So the next time you decide to invite some people over to play Arkham Horror, or maybe a different game that wouldn't take eight hours to set up, consider adding some set dressing to the table. Making a fun time even MORE fun is the essence of what true game mastery is all about! I know after this game I'm going to make an effort to make even regular board game nights into something for the players to remember.

Game on!