Hit the Deck - Aiming and Evasion

What tends to separate a more modern genre RPG like our Weird West game from something a bit historically older is not just the type of technology used, but how much distance combat often plays a greater factor in the game.

In thinking about game sessions that will likely continue to feature a lot of flying bullets I wanted to introduce some game mechanics that would keep things interesting without unduly adding to the math and fussiness of the system.

At the most general level I could think of, characters in a fire-fight might choose to attack normally (use the rules "as is") or they might want to put more effort into shooting (aiming) or not getting shot (evasion). Here then are two special actions a character in our Weird West game can choose to take.

Aiming
The character uses this round to carefully aim their weapon at a target. Next round if they attack the target they can reroll their attack dice if the first result is a miss.

Evasion
Instead of attacking the character spends this round trying to keep their head down, diving for cover, or otherwise trying their best to make themselves a difficult target. If a distance attack against them indicates a hit, they can make their opponent reroll their attack dice (once).

Aiming vs Evasion
If a character takes a round to carefully Aim at another character using Evasion, the two special mechanics cancel each other out and a normal attack roll is made.

Our next game night got pushed back a week until early March, but that's given me a bit more time to work on the cards and map for the next session. There will definitely be a bit more "weird" in our next Weird West game. :)