Boot Hill (role-playing game)

Boot Hill

Second edition 1979 cover.
Designer(s)	Brian Blume Gary Gygax
Publisher(s)	TSR, Inc.
Publication date	1975
Genre(s)	Western

Boot Hill is a western-themed role-playing game designed by Brian Blume, Gary Gygax, and Don Kaye (although Kaye unexpectedly died before the game was published), and first published in 1975. Boot Hill was TSR's third role-playing game, appearing not long after Dungeons & Dragons and Empire of the Petal Throne, and taking its name from the popular Wild West term for "cemetery". Boot Hill was marketed to take advantage of America's love of the western genre. The game did feature some new game mechanics, such as the use of percentile dice, but its focus on gunfighting rather than role-playing, as well as the lethal nature of its combat system, limited its appeal. Boot Hill was issued in three editions over 15 years, but it never reached the same level of popularity as D&D and other fantasy-themed role-playing games.

Soon after TSR was formed by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye in late 1973, they and new business partner Brian Blume started development of the rules for a Western genre miniatures combat system and role-playing game called Boot Hill. Kaye in particular was an avid supporter of Boot Hill—he was a fan of the Western genre, and even his fantasy D&D character, Murlynd, was dressed and armed as a cowboy after being magically transported from Gygax's Greyhawk campaign to an alternate universe set in the Wild West.

However, Kaye unexpectedly died of a heart attack in January 1975. Blume and Gygax subsequently published Boot Hill later that year in memory of their friend. It was TSR's third role-playing game, after Dungeons and Dragons and Empire of the Petal Throne.David M. Ewalt, in his book Of Dice and Men, described the game as "the company's second role-playing game; it was set in the Old West and focused mostly on gun-fighting."