This page used to be part of the FAQ, but now has it's own page for the purpose of printability.
The FAQ contains common questions on
Doomtown gameplay.
For rulings on specific cards, please see the Accumulated
Rulings.
""When in doubt, win the trick" - 5:12" - Hoyles 1838
Table o' Contents
Q: What's "Deadlands"?
A: Deadlands is a property created by Pinnacle
Entertainment Group. The Deadlands property has appeared in the self-titled
RPG, the Great Rail Wars miniatures game, and now DOOMTOWN, a trading card
game. There are other Deadlands products as well, including different
settings. For more information, visit the Pinnacle site.
Q: Who is AEG?
A: Alderac
Entertainment Group (AEG) is an outside game design firm that has a
contract with Pinnacle to develop and publish the DOOMTOWN game. AEG took
over publication of Doomtown from FRPG on 1st January 2000. Unfortunately,
falling sales meant AEG was forced to cease publication of the game, and the
last expansion set was released in January 2001.
Q: Who are the DTC?
A: The Doom Town Council is the body now responsible for maintenance
of the game, its rules and tournament support. It consists of
representatives of AEG, Pinnacle, the four existing World Champions and some
co-opted player representatives.
Q: Who is FRPG?
A: Five Rings Publishing Group (FRPG) were the original publishers
of Doomtown. Their contract with Pinnacle ended on 31st December 1999,
at which point their production of the game ended.
Q: That's fairly confusing. So who owns what?
A: Pinnacle owns Deadlands. AEG owns the DOOMTOWN game mechanics
and has a contract to use the Deadlands property in the game. FRPG no longer
owns any part of the product.
Q: So, tell me a little about DOOMTOWN.
A: It's a fast paced game set in the Wild, Weird West of the
Deadlands alternate history. In that history, a group of Indians called
the Last Sons used an ancient ritual to make a deal with some evil spirit
creatures called Manitous. Those Manitous have been unleashed on the world,
and as a result, things didn't turn out quite the way the history books
say they did. The Civil War is still raging; a huge earthquake sank most
of California into the pacific, and a strange substance known as ghost
rock has been discovered. Ghost rock burns hotter and longer than coal,
that that efficient fuel has allowed the development of all sorts of steampunk
technology.
DOOMTOWN is set in the tiny frontier town of Gommora. Gommora sits on top of a huge strike of ghost rock. The town is filling up with people determined to take control of the area and mine the ghost rock for their own profit and motives.
You play the leader of one of those factions, called Outfits. You recruit Dudes to do your bidding, you give them Goods to make them stronger and more effective, and you stake your claim to various Deeds in and around the town. From time to time, Events happen that can have pretty sweeping effects on the game.
Your basic objective is to have more control than your opponents have influence. Control comes from Deeds, influence comes from Dudes.
Q: You've piqued my interest. How do I get some?
A: DOOMTOWN was sold in Adventure Game retail stores all over
the US, Canada, and parts of Europe and Asia. If your local store hasn't any
left, then online sellers and auction houses such as eBay frequently have
product available.
You need to buy a starter deck to begin playing the game. The starters are pre-constructed - they contain a fixed selection of cards, and each is designed to play the faction contained within. The outside of the deck box tells you a little bit about that Outfit, so you can get a taste for the various factions in the game. You need at least one starter deck to begin play, because your Outfit has some specific statistics that appear on the deck box itself (and a card inside), and each deck contains one card specific to that faction that's not found anywhere else.
When you get interested in expanding your collection, you can buy Booster Packs (called Saddle Bags) that contain randomly assorted cards that you can use to customise your deck, or just put in binders to look at the pretty pictures.
Q: And where can I find a list of upcoming
tournaments and events?
A: All DTC Tournaments
will be announced on the official Doomtown mailing list, and will also be
listed on the Fuzzy Duck site, which also contains details for joining the list.
Q: So how's it packed out?
A: The most available set and recommended for new players is the
Boot Hill base set. Within this, the cards appear in two types of displays. The standard display
is the Starter display, which contains 1 copy each of the 9 different starter
decks. Each deck contains a selection of cards and a rulebook. You can
build a viable play deck for your chosen faction straight out of the box.
DOOMTOWN also comes in a "Booster" display. We know that many people like to have duplicates, or like to have some cards for their collection and some cards for play. So you can get boosters without the decks. In fact, this is the most efficient way to build up your collection of rare cards. Just remember that you won't get the "deck only" card in the boosters.
Q: Ok, sounds good, so what's the rarity scheme?
A: There are four levels of rarity across
318 cards within Boot Hill. There are 18 fixed cards, all of which are
only found in the starter decks. Then there are 100 Rares, 100 Uncommons,
and 100 Commons, split across the starters and boosters.
Q: Right, so how many of each do I get
in a starter and a booster?
A: Within a starter deck you will get
50 fixed cards, designed to let you play either of the outfits straight
out of the box. In addition the deck contains a further 10 random cards,
of which 7 are Common and 3 are Rare, for a total of 60 cards. The boosters
use a fairly typical rarity scheme, consisting of 10 Commons, 4 Uncommons,
and 1 Rare.
Q: And is the case for all the expansion
sets too?
A: Sort of. Expansion sets such as 'Ashes To Ashes'
contained 156 cards in the set, and have 3 different
starter decks. This consists of 50 Common, 50 Uncommon, 50 Rare, and 6
Fixed cards. Packing for the starters and booster is the same as Boot Hill
set. The initial release of the game (Episodes 1-9) were released monthly
in small sets, with 1 in every 4 cards being 'rare'. Pine Box used the
standard rarity scheme, while its three expansions had Rare 1 and Rare 2
cards, but no uncommons.
Q: What about an introductory set?
A: Yep, we got that for you too. Take
a look at 'Shootout At High Noon', a twin pack of 2 pre-constructed decks,
one Black Jack and one Law Dogs. These are specifically designed to play
well and give you a real taste of how the game works, without getting you
bogged down in the more advanced rules. This set is frequently found in
stores and with online traders, and is recommended if you can't find someone to
teach you the basics.
Q: These cards don't have any solid colored borders! How can
I tell if I'm getting a "limited edition" card or a reprint?
A: When we reprint cards, a small "bug"
- a graphical icon - appears on the card next to the artist’s name. The
symbol for Boot Hill is a cross .
Q: Can you tell me what order the sets were released in?
A: Sure, although release dates are approximate.
| Product | Release Date | Anything special? | Symbol |
| Episodes 1-3 | April 1998 | Rolling Thunder | |
| Episodes 4-6 | July 1998 | Rolling Thunder | |
| Episodes 7-9 | October 1998 | Rolling Thunder | |
| Pine Box base set | 1999 | First base set, reprints from above | |
| Mouth of Hell | Early 1999 | Strange rarity, poor distribution | |
| Reaping of Souls | Mid 1999 | Strange rarity scheme | |
| Revelations | Late 1999 | Strange rarity scheme | |
| Boot Hill (AEG base edition) | 5th May 2000 | ||
| Ashes to Ashes (1st expansion) | June 2000 | ||
| Eye for an Eye (2nd expansion) | September 2000 | ||
| Do Unto Others (3rd and last expansion) | January 2001 |
Q: Is there some software for Deadlands? Like a card database or deck editor?
A: Sure, we've got three for ya!
One Eyed Ikes is an Excel spreadsheet maintained by Steve Crow and is available from his site at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/doomtown.htm It's also available from the deckbuilder link to the left of this page.
Steve Wales has created an awesome application called the Doomtown Card Explorer, containing a database of all the cards as well as several inventory tools. These can be found at http://doomtown.sjwales.net/
Markus Seger has also written a very cool Windows application, called
Doomtown Card Manager. It has a complete card database which you can use
to look up cards. It also contains a deck editor and an inventory editor
so you can manage your decks and your collection of Deadlands cards. It
requires Windows 9x or Windows NT/2000 or higher. It's free, you can download
your copy at http://www.geocities.com/markus_seger
Section F: Contact Information
On the World Wide Web, visit the Official DOOMTOWN Home Page at: http://www.alderac.com/doomtown
For information on becoming a DOOMTOWN Deputy, send email to TownCouncil@FuzzyDuck.org
Any rules questions and comments about this FAQ should be sent to us at MatB@fuzzyduck.org or Gerry@gamesmeister.com
Keep an eye on the newsgroup rec.games.trading-cards.misc, as we sometimes post there. We also monitor the traffic for questions and comments.
You can sign onto the DOOMTOWN electronic mailing list by sending email to majordomo@alderac.com . Use a blank "Subject:" line and include this command as the only line in the body of your mail: subscribe doomtown-ccg
This will sign you on in normal mode, where you will receive every message as it's sent to the mailserver. SAVE THE INSTRUCTIONAL MESSAGE you receive! It will prove invaluable when you wish to unsubscribe or if you have problems.
To receive an accumulated digest of postings approximately once per day instead of individual letters, send to majordomo@alderac.com . Use a blank "Subject:" line and include this command as the only line in the body of your mail: subscribe doomtown-ccg-digest
Send any and all card ideas DIRECTLY to Dave Williams at dwilliams@alderac.com along with the following legal stuff. DO NOT post card ideas to the list server or any public forum as it will then probably never see the light of day. But then again, as no further expansions are planned, they probably won't anyway.
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