Pyramid Pick: Back East: The North

Pyramid Review

Back East: The North

Published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Written by Rick Dakan and Jack Emmert

$20.00

Note to Deadlands Players: There are some minor spoilers contained in this review.

After reading Back East: The South, I must admit to being disappointed with Back East: The North (BE: TN). While the book may be worth the $20 price tag to Marshals interested in taking their posses into the eastern US or who desperately want to introduce some non-martial arts fighting maneuvers or Spiritualism (a new Knack), a fair proportion of the material is, at best, fair to middling. Also unlike Back East: The South, BE: TN does not have a strong potential for use in other roleplaying systems. Most of the problems with the book arise from two principal flaws: 1) The geographical area is too large and too varied for a single work. 2) There is no coherent sense of what horror should feel like in the North.

The first difficulty with BE: TN is its scope, which attempts to cover the entire Union east of the Sioux Nations (set primarily in modern day North and South Dakota). By comparison, the Confederacy is effectively divided into two sourcebooks -- Back East: The South and River of Blood, the supplement for the Mississippi River valley south of St. Louis. This division allows these different regions to be treated separately, and at an appropriate length. By contrast, BE: TN attempts to cover the Midwest and Northeast in a single work. The Union is also divided between . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: September 24, 1999

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