Wild West RPG - Simulationism vs. Narrativism (lets discuss RPGamability of Westerns)

[Cikomyr]

I kind of was bit by the Wild West bug recently (i blame my watching of Wild West exodus miniatures), and i got thinking about GMing a Wild West with steampunk and fantasy elements.

Core premisce: the players are Pinkerton Agents/Bounty Hunters hired by the Train Company ("The Company") to investiguate a Train Robbery, and recover the stolen goods. The Bounty is 40,000$

Thing is, it was wholesale train robbery: the train itself was robbed! As they dig deeper, the Agents will eventually discover dirty secrets the Company would rather keep secret, and they will have the choice of turning their back... And feel the wrath of the other Pinkerton Goons.

Replace native americans with Elves, replace black peoples as Orcs (to better have player play out genuine rascism, or at least rascist stereotypes that were commonplace at the time). Yes, there was a Civil War. And yes, it was to free the Orcs from slavery.

Thing is.. What sort of system do you think would be better? Is it better to go for lethal gunfights, or hit point sponges?

What are the rules of a Western Duel? Do somebody give a signal? Why are both fighters wait for thr other to make the first move?

How far the steam punk area do you think would befit such a campaign? Would Warforged-like Steambots be appropriate? They'd probably clunky and slow, but also immune to bullets. Youd have to use.melee weapons or explosives to pry their armor open...

What tropes do you think befit the Westerns but isnt applicable to an RPG?
What tropes do you think is a perfect blend of Western and RPG?

What sort of characters would you like to play in that sort of setting?

Etc... Lets discuss!!

[goto124]

DnD is a Western dressed up as a medieval fantasy.

[Cealocanth]

It's a great idea (which is why it has already been done). I have a fair warning that adapting fantasy systems to new genres tends to produce games that are lackluster in quality. With that in mind, let us proceed.

If it hasn't already been pointed out, Deadlands pretty much does everything you're trying to do in an RPG. It's an alternate history western with steampunk, horror, and fantasy elements all incorporated into a well developed universe which allows for a number of different campaign types and character archetypes.

If you're dead set on making your own game though, then I would try for a system with a grittier "hit or miss" kind of combat, the kind where you can get a lucky roll and a player dies, rather than the kind where you have to sink seven bullets in a guy before he falls. The West was supposed to be dangerous, but the people out there are supposed to be tough-as-nails as well. Still, with the current amount of bullets that d20 tends to allow, it doesn't contribute well to the gunslinger archetype.

Careful with steampunk. While the real Old West was as closely tied to the industrial revolution as the Golden Age of Piracy was tied to ships, steampunk elements can quickly overpower a campaign if you're not careful. The technology can be out there, but it needs to be treated like 'newfangled' technology that really is too expensive for most people to get out in the west. Sure you may see a rich or experienced cowpoke with a gattling-pistol or a steam-powered horse, but for the setting to stay with that down home Western feel, technology needs to be old, dirty, and everything needs to be done with the sweat of your back and a good dose of luck.

Racism is tied very closely to the Old West, it can't be avoided without people asking questions. However, this is a game. You may feel so inclined to make your Western world as historically accurate as possible, including a slave trade, a civil war, and unimaginably brutal treatment of natives, but you need to remember that this is a game. Fake racism usually ends up being just as, if not more, offensive as real racism. Unless everyone in your group is absolutely, positively okay with it, just leave racism out of the picture, or handwave it and say that your civil war went on for so long that both sides were required to call upon members of all races and genders to fight, and quickly civil rights movements gained grounds on both sides.

In a Western setting, there are numerous characters you can play. To name a scant few, there's the gunslinger, the outlaw, the preacher, the drifter, the dandy, the escort, the gambler, the cowboy, the prospector, the hunter, and the native shaman. The characters I've played in this type of game were a crackshot buffalo hunter with a sadistic side, a good soul who wanders the West with his sister in hopes of righting the wrongs in the worlds, a paleontologist ever on search for his next big dig and his gateway to fame, and a mad scientist from Back East whose experimentation involving reanimating the dead got him outcast into the West.

[Cikomyr]

Wow. Thanks a lot. What a great reply!

I hear you about your warning of not overdoing the Steampunk. And about rascism; its something i should clear with my players beforehand.

I heard a lot about Deadland. But isnt it supposed to be extremely complicated? Like, a simple duel could lead to wound infection, dysentery and death? :-P

I guess it DOES make sense if you want a "gritty gunslinger" game...

I also got my answer regarding duelling. The point of drawing last is that it makes your use of self-defense more justified XD

I also love your description of archetypes. And i agree; there should be room for wide-eye idealists who seek a bright Future in the Frontier, but also for those who just want to get out of the Great Cities. Hmm... I guess Pinkerton could potentially hire just anyone they damn wanted. Or maybe i should review.my game premise?

[Frozen_Feet]

DnD is a Western dressed up as a medieval fantasy.

For added hilarity, 1st Edition DMG has rules for crossing over rules and characters from then-current Western RPG called Boot Hill. So yeah, this is a thing that's been done.

That said, crossing fantasy with Westerns holds little appeal to me. I'd just rather play in WIld West proper without the added fantastic baggage. To adress the thread title, I think it'd be easier to implent Westerns, the genre, using some sort of rules-light drama game that allows for easy replication of story structures from well-known movies. Following a D&D-like rules paradigm for frontier-crawling would lead to realistically short lifespans in the hands of disease, snakes and bandits, as there'd be no easy healthcare. On the other hand, the more I think of it, such a frontier crawl sounds increasingly appealing. Start with a group of settlers and go downhill from there...

[Cikomyr]

For added hilarity, 1st Edition DMG has rules for crossing over rules and characters from then-current Western RPG called Boot Hill. So yeah, this is a thing that's been done.

That said, crossing fantasy with Westerns holds little appeal to me. I'd just rather play in WIld West proper without the added fantastic baggage. To adress the thread title, I think it'd be easier to implent Westerns, the genre, using some sort of rules-light drama game that allows for easy replication of story structures from well-known movies. Following a D&D-like rules paradigm for frontier-crawling would lead to realistically short lifespans in the hands of disease, snakes and bandits, as there'd be no easy healthcare. On the other hand, the more I think of it, such a frontier crawl sounds increasingly appealing. Start with a group of settlers and go downhill from there...

GM: okay. The goal of this campaign is for you to reach Oregon
Players: okay! What will be our reward?
GM: bloody surviving!

[Mr. Mask]

Western Duel: Most duels in the old west didn't have rules. It was more a social situation escalating to the point where someone pulls a gun and starts shooting--sometimes days later in a surprise retaliation. As for why you'd wait for the other guy to reach for his gun, that's normally because you're hoping it doesn't escalate to the point of firing, or because you're just so nervous and busy trying to regulate your pulse that you hesitate. There's also the complication of when you're law enforcement, or you may even want to be able to claim self defence that they reached for their gun. Although, in the older black powder pistol duels, they did tend to be very formalized, with someone dropping a handkerchief to signal to fire.

[Geddy2112]

I like the idea of having mostly mundane PC's having to deal with Mundane problems. Oregon Trail would be a cakewalk with a 1st level druid and 1st level wizard. What makes these games fun is the hardship of reality. You can still add in sorcery and steampunk, but when creating pure water is a true world breaking power and not just a cantrip it has a different effect on your world.

My view on the wild west is one of harsh, unforgiving environments and civilizations. I would certainly lean for lethality of gunfights, but also disease, dehydration and a random animal attack being lethal.

I suggest using Call of Cthulhu in the early setting (Late 1800's) for your campaign. You have the mechanics for steampunk and magic, but it will be exceptions and not the norm. 2 shots from a gun kill as fast as a snakebite. Wild shamans and occultists can get magic but at a price. Steampunk elements are cool, but go light and make them novelties as Cealocanth said.

[dream]

I kind of was bit by the Wild West bug recently (i blame my watching of Wild West exodus miniatures), and i got thinking about GMing a Wild West with steampunk and fantasy elements.

Core premisce: the players are Pinkerton Agents/Bounty Hunters hired by the Train Company ("The Company") to investiguate a Train Robbery, and recover the stolen goods. The Bounty is 40,000$

Thing is, it was wholesale train robbery: the train itself was robbed! As they dig deeper, the Agents will eventually discover dirty secrets the Company would rather keep secret, and they will have the choice of turning their back... And feel the wrath of the other Pinkerton Goons.

Replace native americans with Elves, replace black peoples as Orcs (to better have player play out genuine rascism, or at least rascist stereotypes that were commonplace at the time). Yes, there was a Civil War. And yes, it was to free the Orcs from slavery.

Thing is.. What sort of system do you think would be better? Is it better to go for lethal gunfights, or hit point sponges?

What are the rules of a Western Duel? Do somebody give a signal? Why are both fighters wait for thr other to make the first move?

How far the steam punk area do you think would befit such a campaign? Would Warforged-like Steambots be appropriate? They'd probably clunky and slow, but also immune to bullets. Youd have to use.melee weapons or explosives to pry their armor open...

What tropes do you think befit the Westerns but isnt applicable to an RPG?
What tropes do you think is a perfect blend of Western and RPG?

What sort of characters would you like to play in that sort of setting?

Etc... Lets discuss!!

These are all expectation-related questions for a GM & the group of players. Here, you get such a wide field of answers the end result is something unplayable, perhaps.

[obryn]

For added hilarity, 1st Edition DMG has rules for crossing over rules and characters from then-current Western RPG called Boot Hill. So yeah, this is a thing that's been done.

Murlynd - he of the magic item, "Murlynd's Spoon" - was a literal cowboy paladin from Earth's Old West who campaigned in Greyhawk and became a quasi-deity. IIRC, he was Don Kaye's character in Gary's game, but don't hold me to that.

[Vitruviansquid]

I'm in agreement with Cealocanth on the issue of HP. DnD style hit points have got to go, or you will never be able to get those tense stand-off situations where the sheriff and the outlaw are staring each other down on the dusty road.

To be perfectly frank, I think it'd be much more troublesome to try to build a Wild West RPG out of DnD than it would be to build one from the ground up. DnD's got way too many mechanics cleverly designed to make the game feel medieval.

DnD's assumption about how weapons work don't make as much sense in a Western, because you don't want to exchange gunfire in the same way DnD heroes will exchange sword blows.

DnD's assumptions about alignment come from a simpler time, when you could tell who was good or evil based on the deity they worshiped or the family they came from and you were given a free pass to smite evil. A game about the Wild West must have an alignment system with some more ambiguity (or drop alignment altogether, if you've never been a fan)

DnD's dungeons would also tend not to work in westerns. If you find yourself at the outlaws' hideout or Natives' camp, the chances are probably nil that it would be a booby-trapped multi-story dungeon, and even if it was, gunfire is so loud and violent that there's nothing to keep every enemy in the dungeon from rushing at you the moment you started fighting the first guards.

And so on, and so forth.

[Mr. Mask]

If they like DnD's system, it wouldn't be hard to port it to the wild west. Find some gun stats for d20, potentially houserule buffs for melee in the name of balance, refluff the +1 bonuses to new technological marvels rather than swords of ancient kings, and cut back on traditional sorcerer/wizard classes (using some sourcebook alchemist or steam engineer or something to replace their role). If you want to play a more genuine wild west experience, go ahead, I recommend it. But if the GM and players like DnD, they shouldn't exclude it as an option.

[Cikomyr]

I was more thinking of a core system similar to WFRP or Dark Heresy. More lethal..

[Mr. Mask]

Think you can convert it to the wild west?

[Cikomyr]

Hmmm.. Probably.. Cant be that hard.. I sure know WFRP firearms are extremely deadly (best of 2d10 +4 damage).

Add in more variety of available firearms to reflect period guns, more reliable firearms (but steampunk guns as reliable as WFRP guns). Go dig a few talents and mechanics from Dark Heresy.. You might have a game :)

But i think i will dig Deadlands at least once. Thr whole "card game as initiative order" really intrigues me. Also, poker chips. Chips are good!

[Mr. Mask]

Sounds like a plan. Good luck with it! You can update this thread with questions or start a new one if you need advice, later.

[Cikomyr]

After checking up the original Deadland, i have to say i am a bit disapointed by the card-combat system. Not what i expected. A bit too clumsy in my mind, and the Black Joker rule really make things weird.

I think id like to try to create my own kind of card-outcome rule set. Probably based around poker combinations for better outcomes, ill have to think of it.

[nyjastul69]

I know I'm late to the party, but I enjoyed running a game of Aces &Eights. It's more of a straight foward western than Deadlands. It is set in a alternate earth timeline.

[Beleriphon]

I was going to throw in the Aces & Eights as well. The combat wheel is pretty awesome. You drop an acetate overlay over an shillouette of a cowboy to determine where you hit, aiming at the head will kill, but good luck with a wicked lucky roll. It actually simulates aiming at centre mass being your best bet pretty dang well.

[LibraryOgre]

While I'm a Kenzer fanboy, I haven't played Aces and Eights. I would probably suggest that Savage Worlds would be a good option... you can import stuff from SW Deadlands, it's got basic rules for elves, magic, and such, and should work fairly well overall, without being a terribly complicated system.

[Toilet Cobra]

There are surely better systems, but I ran a weird west game using 3.5 rules and it worked fine. It wasn't completely perfect but it gave the players a lot of options and the ability to fight monsters as well as get in gun fights in a frontier town. We used homebrewed rules & feats for firearms and dynamite. The game and the town were called "Witchwood" and we still remember it fondly.

A good group and a willing spirit can overcome the system's flaws. Hell, we played 4th ed for like three years.

[Jay R]

What are the rules of a Western Duel? Do somebody give a signal? Why are both fighters wait for thr other to make the first move?

The shootout as we think of it is a Hollywood invention. There were certainly shootouts, but standing there and waiting for the other to draw is to build tension in the movie.

But any old west game is based on the legends, not the facts. As the editor in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance said, "This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." So here are the basic principles.

Drawing on somebody and killing them is murder. The good guy won't do it - ever. The bad guy knows that if he doesn't draw quickly and cleanly, or if he draws and then misses, his target has time to draw and possibly shoot first. They are also each waiting for the other one to back down. Also, if the bad guy's eyes or movement reveal that he's about to draw, he gives his opponent more time to draw.

When the bad guy finally decides he is ready to draw, he draws his gun and tries to fire. If it's early in the movie, facing a decent but unimpressive opponent, he kills the victim. If it's at the end of the movie, facing the hero, the orchestra crescendos, and the hero successfully outdraws him and wins.

In the TV show, Alias Smith and Jones, they showed how fast Kid Curry was by never showing him move. Cut back and forth from him to the villain back to him back to the villain. The villain starts to draw and stops, wide-eyed, with his gun not yet out of his holster. Cut to Kid Curry unmoving but with his gun pointed at the villain. It was very effective cinema. I'm not sure how to make it an effective gaming mechanic.

[Frozen_Feet]

I'm in agreement with Cealocanth on the issue of HP. DnD style hit points have got to go, or you will never be able to get those tense stand-off situations where the sheriff and the outlaw are staring each other down on the dusty road.

Not really. Just add Saving Throw Vs. Death to guns in addition damage, or use rules for Massive Damage and lower the hitpoint treshold for triggering it to something that comes up reasonably often with guns.

As a funny bit of historical trivia, often it wasn't the injury from being fired at that was lethal - but blood poisoning caused by either grease and dirt on the bullets, or other infection of the wound. There were (and to extent, still are) case of people who were shot quite a number of times and only went down to afterbattle complications.

[Knaight]

What are the rules of a Western Duel? Do somebody give a signal? Why are both fighters wait for thr other to make the first move?

On this, I have seen an effective mechanic for things. It's a gambling skill mechanic, in which you have a skill which lets you roll and add however many dice (d6 by default, but it doesn't have to be). That is your basic roll. You can try to do better, and as long as you roll a number you haven't yet you add it to your total. If you roll a number you have, your total sets to 0. So, generally you try to manage risk, in a high stakes betting game. This works for most things surprisingly well. Opposed rolls work the same way, with the person behind generally being the one to try and shoot for a higher number. If you lose the roll, the amount you lose by matters (it transferred directly into damage)

That game also has a mechanic originally for jousting. In that particular case, trying to do better when losing was mandatory. Everything escalated until somebody flubbed a roll and gets a zero total. That exact same rule would work beautifully for the classic western duel. The case where people can actually cut their losses works better for just about every other type of gunfight.

[LibraryOgre]

Not really. Just add Saving Throw Vs. Death to guns in addition damage, or use rules for Massive Damage and lower the hitpoint treshold for triggering it to something that comes up reasonably often with guns.

Hackmaster has a "Threshold of Pain"; if you take more than that amount of damage in a single blow, you have to make a Trauma Save by rolling under 1/2 your Con on a d20p. If you fail (more than 1/2 your con), you are incapacitated for 5 seconds for every point you fail by.

It takes 10 seconds to Coup de Grace. It takes a multiclass thief 5 seconds; thieves can do it in 3, and assassins in 2.

[Beleriphon]

I like D20 Moderns rule for massive damage. If you took your Con in damage in a single attack then you had to make a Fort save or drop to -1 HP and start bleeding out. There's a reason guns that fired .50BMG rounds (2d12 base) were the bane of everything. The save was pretty easy to make though, but I figure its the thought that counts.

[Cikomyr]

Oh well. I did it and damned myself.

I went and watched For a Few Dollar More. Last of the Dollar Trilogy I watched... man it was Glorious and Grim..

I went and did some research for some other of the best Westerns (spaghetti or otherwise). I found the series of movies about... Sartana. Apparently it's quite clever and quasi-steampunk, as the titular character use plenty of James Bond grade gadgets as well as guns to defeat the baddies.

I also heard about Clint Eastwood's own movie, High Plain Drifters. It's on the list.

[nyjastul69]

Oh well. I did it and damned myself.

I went and watched For a Few Dollar More. Last of the Dollar Trilogy I watched... man it was Glorious and Grim..

I went and did some research for some other of the best Westerns (spaghetti or otherwise). I found the series of movies about... Sartana. Apparently it's quite clever and quasi-steampunk, as the titular character use plenty of James Bond grade gadgets as well as guns to defeat the baddies.

I also heard about Clint Eastwood's own movie, High Plain Drifters. It's on the list.

I highly recommend High Plains Drifter. My favorite Clint Eastwood western is Unforgiven. It's probably my favorite western of all time actually.

Edit: When running a wester RPG I found TV serials such as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Rawhide(did I mention I'm an Eastwood fan), etc. to be great sources for adventure ideas. They are a bit campy, but a great source of inspiration, lots to draw from.

My favorite western TV show, by far, is HBO's Deadwood. If you can get by the cussin', it's full of character, flavor, story, flavor and then some more flavor. Great acting as well. Top notch stuff IMO.

[Cikomyr]

I would like to ask a question regarding Lawmen in the old west. From this wikipedia article

Despite idealistic portrayals in television, movies, and even in history books, very few lawmen/gunfighters could claim their law enforcement role as their only source of employment. Unlike contemporary peace officers, these lawmen generally pursued other occupations, often earning money as gamblers, business owners, or outlaws—as was the case with "Curly" Bill Brocius, who, while always referred to as an outlaw, served as a deputy sheriff under sheriff Johnny Behan. Many shootouts involving lawmen were caused by disputes arising from these alternative occupations, rather than the lawman's attempts to enforce the law.

I am having trouble understanding exaclty what is a "lawman". Is it a local official - a.k.a. a " Sheriff"? Or does it refer to State-sponsored law enforcement officials, like State or U.S. Marshalls? Were there lawmen travelling/operating incognito and still earning a (minimal) salary?

[themaque]

Well, I'm a huge supporter of DEADLANDS myself. If you don't like the original system (philistine!) they have a simplified version for the SAVAGE WORLDS system that can be a lot of fun. This would also open you up the the plethora of pre-written material depending on how gritty or weird you are willing/wanting to go.