Thoughts on 10 Paces.
I played 10 Paces earlier this week with 2 of my friends. I GMed.
The main draw for me was its unique skill resolution system, it reminded me a lot of blackjack. Turns out that that mechanic is actually really fun! It took us a little while to get used to it, especially for me, because I both had to roll a random target number, and then decide myself how many rolls I think were appropriate for any given task (more rolls = easier / less urgent, and less rolls = more difficult, more urgent). However, we did get into the swing of things and I was pleasantly surprised by how such a light game (only 2 pages!) managed to generate some very tense situations.
For context, the game is western themed, and we improvised up a scenario about an alien invasion in some frontier town. Combat in this game is very good, a friend of mine has complained in the past that gunfights are very hit or miss in RPGs, that they could be more interesting than they usually are, and I do somewhat agree, luckily, 10 Paces does gunfights very well.
The combat in 10 Paces is all gunfights involving pistols, there are no rules for melee fighting or other types of guns (I did make some up on the spot, for fun and variety), but manages to still provide a very complex experience, trading in the positioning-oriented strategising that I've seen a lot, for a more probability calculating-oriented style. This does, however, result in the GM having to do a bunch of dice rolling and noting during combat that involves more than 1 NPC, but this was manageable by writing on a dry-erase mat.
The PDF for the rules is free to download on DriveThruRPG. I recommend giving it a look at least.
