Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier vs Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game

Compare Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier and Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier	Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game
Genre	Historical	Horror, Historical
Tags	Simulation, Crunchy, Deadly, Gritty, Sandbox, Classless, Career-Based, Tactical, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support	Fear & Stress Mechanics, Player-Only Rolls, Theater of the Mind, Character Building, Character-Driven, Narrative, Low-Prep, Licensed IP
Core Mechanic	Gunfights run on a Count Up measured in tenths of a second instead of turns or rounds. Each character rolls d10 and adds Speed for a Starting Initiative, where lower is better, then adds each action's Count cost to find when it happens. To shoot, place the Shot Clock overlay on the aimed point of a Target Silhouette and roll d20 plus Accuracy modifiers. A 25 or higher hits the exact spot and 14 or less misses. Totals in between draw a poker card whose suit sets the direction the shot drifts from the aim point. Skill checks roll d100 and succeed at or above a mastery number that falls as the skill improves, while ability checks roll d20 at or under the score.	The GM rates a task from difficulty 0 to 10 and multiplies it by 3 for the target number; difficulty 0 succeeds automatically. When a roll is required, players roll a d20 for tasks, attacks, and defenses and succeed by meeting or beating the target. Skills, assets, and Effort spent from Might, Speed, or Intellect Pools ease the difficulty; Edge reduces those Pool costs.
Dice	d20, d100	d20
Complexity	High	Medium
Accessibility	Medium	Medium
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$	$$
Publisher	Kenzer & Company	Monte Cook Games
Year	2007	2023
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want a long-running, town-centered Western campaign where characters build careers and reputations, and where gunfights are rare, precise, and often fatal.	Groups seeking community-rooted horror in early 20th-century Appalachia, with player-controlled risk spending and theater-of-the-mind action. It suits GMs who prefer flexible adjudication and explicit horror-safety conversations.
Highlights	Shots target specific locations rather than an abstract opponent, so a near miss can still strike nearby and hit location feeds a detailed wound and healing system. Profession Paths award Building Points for career objectives such as opening a business or winning an election, so a banker or rancher advances as surely as a gunfighter. Cattle drives and jury trials run as complete mini-games with their own daily checks or juror track, so frontier work generates play outside combat.	Character arcs award XP for steps in GM-approved arcs and for climaxes even when their final goals fail, keeping personal stories mechanically active. Single-use cyphers turn folk charms and strange objects into frequently changing powers, encouraging players to spend unusual tools instead of hoarding them. What Wakes Mode widens the natural-roll range for GM intrusions until a ten-hour recovery roll resets it, turning supernatural attention into escalating mechanical pressure.
Considerations	Running the full game takes the Player's Guidebook plus its separate GM Addendum PDF, along with a poker deck, the Shot Clock overlay, and Target Silhouettes for gunfights. Characters die at 0 hit points with no recovery from death, and slow healing, infection, and incurable disease can sideline a character for weeks of game time. The alternate-history setting presents slavery and period racial attitudes as setting facts with mechanical effects, such as a higher literacy cost for freed-slave characters.	Stat Pools serve as both health and spending resources, so Effort and abilities can leave characters less able to absorb harm. The GM sets task difficulties and decides when to introduce complications, placing much of the game's consistency in GM adjudication. The game is built around alternate Appalachia in the 1920s and 1930s rather than a portable generic-horror setting.