Huckleberry is an RPG system that, as the name implies, is set in the Wild West, where supernatural and spooky is the new normal.

Disclaimer: We were provided with a free digital copy of this product.

Seems like we’re on a streak of dark and gritty RPG systems lately – all the Pirate Borg, Many Sought Adventure last week, and now Huckleberry. It wasn’t planned out like this, I promise – I don’t mind though. It’s a lot of fun looking at a bunch of different systems and seeing what they come up with.

The Setting

Taking place in the years after the American Civil War, the setting draws heavily from Native American mythology. I admit it’s not a subject I have a lot of experience in, and there’s not a lot of details in the book – and things are intentionally left a bit nebulous either way – but I get the general gist of it. The Earth is the Fourth World, but the Spider Woman opens a way to the Fifth World, a new frontier to explore, which draws in thousands of people. After 30 years, this Exodus is over as the way closes, leaving the players in a brand new world to experience, of both pristine wilderness and ancient civilisations. And also magical corruption, monsters, and dangers, as well as good old human greed.

In just a few words, the Wyrd is dangerous, water is precious, and people suck.

The System

Huckleberry is mostly pretty simple. As with every system, you’ll have to read the rules a couple of times before getting them, but it’s fairly lightweight. There are no classes or even technically levels – just Attributes, Skills, and Traits, with some very specific ways to “advance”, and only in small increments.

So, let’s take a closer look. You have 4 Attributes: Spirit, Quick, Reckon, and Tough. One of them gets a d12, one a d10, one a d8, and one a d6. These cannot change – they are the basis of your character. You also have a Wyrd dice, which starts as a d10, but can increase or decrease as the game progresses. You also have 9 skills: Athletics, Brawl, Bush-Craft, Education, Expression, Hand Guns, Long Guns, Skulduggery, and Wrangle. One of them starts as a d10, four as a d8, and the other four as a d6. You can increase those dice after you adventure enough, but each skill can only be increased once. Finally, you have Traits: There are 5 types of Traits – Blood, Flesh, Disposition, Calling, and Legend – though the final one isn’t relevant unless you play for quite a while. Each character starts with one of each of the first 4 types, with the option to gain more Disposition traits in the future.

That’s pretty much what each character has – you also have some equipment, and maybe a ride (be it a horse, a stagecoach, or something more exotic), but it doesn’t require a lot of tracking. As for how you make checks, the GM (or Trailboss, here) decides what Attribute and Skill is appropriate, and you roll both those dice. A total of 10 is a success, and for every 2 above that, you get an Ace – you can either use Aces on the spot for additional benefits, or bank them (“sleeve” them) for the future, up to 4 at a time. You can also use sleeved aces to increase your rolls to turn a failure into a success. If you roll Snake Eyes (both dice roll a 1), it’s an automatic failure that decreases your Wyrd dice by one size. As for what the Wyrd dice is used for, it’s rolled along the relevant Attribute dice for Attribute Saves – essentially “defensive” or “reactive” rolls, as opposed to the more proactive actions you take with skill checks. But you can increase your Wyrd Dice back up (or even up to a d12) by using 4 sleeved Aces.

There’s some additional mechanics for combat, but I don’t think I need to get into much more detail. Overall, the mechanics are very simple; no d20s, you only ever roll 2 dice at a time, you need to hit a 10 instead of any “moving target” with a DC or Armor Class or anything like that, and there’s very few skills and attributes in total.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Huckleberry is a quick, easy, and engaging system for “Weird West” games. It might take you a couple of tries until you’re familiar with some of the mechanics, mostly because terminology like “Ante Up” and “Aces” might take a bit to recontextualise for an RPG rather than poker, but if you like the dark, gritty, supernatural western aesthetic, you should definitely check it out.

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