Guns are at the heart of any good western rpg, and Aces & Eights is no exception. The gun deck is a 71-card PDF deck — each card featuring a specific ­­­­­­­­­­­­­pistol or rifle from the Aces and Eights core rule book, which you can print on any desired cardstock or paper. All the information you need is about a specific weapon is on one card for easy reference.

Of course, reference normally isn’t a problem because players have the information for their character's weapons on their sheets, and the GM does likewise for his NPCs.

However, what happens when a player’s gun jams in the middle of a skirmish? As he throws the worthless piece of iron to the side and scrambles to grab a shotgun from the bled-out body of a comrade, play suddenly stops. Books are pulled out as the player records the information for the new weapon and applies his characters’ modifiers. Possibly a player taps on that General Store depicted on the town map and says, “I walk in and ask the proprietor if he has any guns for sale. I’m looking for a Colt.” Gun Deck to the rescue!

In the situation above you could rule the proprietor keeps a small selection of pistols behind the counter. Simply deal out 1d6 gun cards and hand them to the player saying, “I’m afraid this is all I have at the moment...” Alternatively, let’s say a player fires his last shot at the large man coming up the stairs to ruin his day. As the bear of a man goes down in a heap, the player announces he’s grabbing his would-be-killer’s pistol and jumping out the window. Fan through the deck, find the gun the NPC was carrying, and hand it to the player.

It’s a simple game aid but incredibly useful, especially in large skirmish battles when weapons are being discarded and retrieved from fallen bodies...

v1.1 posted Jan 16, 2013 correcting some errors on the cards