Quote from: CRKrueger;965638I wasn't referring to a "Real Wild West", I was referring to the real-world "Wild West". If you're asking me to define "Wild West" - America, West of the Mississippi, roughly last half of the 19th century.

I'd say maybe even into the early 20th century, at least until cars became a common mode of transportation. I guess there was no definitive ending. I mean here in Calgary there are still businesses with hitching posts, and there's still a law on the books that they have to provide water for your horse. I think there may also be a law about providing a horse for anyone invited to leave town. In the mid 80s I walked to the store and a classmate of mine was riding into town on horseback. The area is all developed now, but then it was just farms and ranches. I think most of the ranches are still there.

Doing a quick search, one site gives the Wild West Era as 1865-1895. Another lists the Old West as being prior to 1912, and a third says the terms Old West and Wild West are interchangeable. So if you were talking about 1900, you technically wouldn't be wrong.

Quote from: Krimson;965676I'd say maybe even into the early 20th century, at least until cars became a common mode of transportation. I guess there was no definitive ending. I mean here in Calgary there are still businesses with hitching posts, and there's still a law on the books that they have to provide water for your horse. I think there may also be a law about providing a horse for anyone invited to leave town. In the mid 80s I walked to the store and a classmate of mine was riding into town on horseback. The area is all developed now, but then it was just farms and ranches. I think most of the ranches are still there.

Doing a quick search, one site gives the Wild West Era as 1865-1895. Another lists the Old West as being prior to 1912, and a third says the terms Old West and Wild West are interchangeable. So if you were talking about 1900, you technically wouldn't be wrong.

Yeah, 50 years was being generous, it's probaly closer to 25-30 years after the Civil War, perhaps even taking a few years too kick into high gear, so 1870-90.  In any case, 50, 30, 25, 20...it's not a long time and things moved lightning fast because all of the US could face West.

If you have a fractured America, with North, South, Great Britain, France, Spain, Mexico, Texas, two or three actual tribal nations, Deseret...it's a glorious mess and will probably result in a slowing down of industrialization as well as extend the timeframe of frontier america.

I think of Wild West era as predating the Gilded Age; 1865-1888 seems about right. The frontier was effectively closed by 1890 - https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/history/us-history-ii/settling-the-west/the-closing-of-the-frontier

If I had to narrow down the end of the Wild West to a specific moment, it would be when Frederick Turner presented his paper "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.  It had a huge influence on how America's elite viewed the closing of the frontier and its implications, and it also set the stage for the emergence of the Western as a literary genre.  As far as when the Wild West began, the end of the Civil War is the obvious starting point, but that's not necessarily a hard and fast rule, as some pre-war figures and events are sometimes folded in.

Quote from: CRKrueger;965193Ooo, nice fake outrage to try and sell the dodge.  I guess that's a "no" on having actually read the Deadlands texts, eh?

Doubling down on the lie, eh? You're a kooky guy, Kruegy. A really stupid, kooky guy.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;965852Doubling down on the lie, eh? You're a kooky guy, Kruegy. A really stupid, kooky guy.

First of all, let's fix the lie you are telling:

Here's what I actually said:
"Except, Deadlands alternate history doesn't split until Gettysburg, and regardless of what you think of it, they never once claim what's Brady's claiming."
I never said you claimed Pinnacle was making Brady's argument that the cause of the Civil War was based on economics, I said Pinnacle doesn't claim that.  I clarified why that is....

"Like I said, the rationale for the cause of the war isn't touched on at all."

Here's what you did say:
"As I said, the element that some people find potentially problematic is the echo of real world racist rhetoric."

The big problem with your argument that you have been pathethically trying to dodge for several posts now with your lying bullshit is that it is literally impossible for Pinnacle to be echoing any racist rhetoric concerning the cause of the Civil War and who was at fault because they do not talk about the cause of the Civil War at all, and their alt-history doesn't diverge until Gettysburg.

Simply put, you had no idea what the fuck you were talking about, you were simply parroting the "Deadlands is problematic" idea, and are being your usual disingenuous self when caught out, because Justin Alexander is never wrong, right?

I'm sure we'll get at this point:
1. Another drive-by dodge attempt.
2. Ignoring the topic
3. Textual sophistry, grammar, the definition of is, etc...

What I'm sure we won't get...
4. An example of echoes of racist rhetoric concerning the start of the Civil War out of the Deadlands texts, because it's not there, and he never read them. :rolleyes:

With Pundy on this one, love reading good alt history too much to not have shitty alt history get on my nerves especially with such a late POD as 1863. But easy enough to just excise the stupid out.

Quote from: RPGPundit;965472Huh. I'm with you on Planescape, but I'm not sure about Dark Sun. I had a lot of fun with it when it first came out.

With Dark Sun it was initially hyped as this super kill your characters dead setting and all its nearly alien theme going. But the execution seemed like they got cold feet at the last minute (Id lay odds it was an order from higher up) and it feels a little odd. Like its not as deadly as it should be.

Then 2nd ed came along and things started to go downhill like alot of late TSR settings. Greyhawk, FR, etc.

Quote from: Krimson;965587Sigil is a pretty fun city to start a campaign in. I will always ignore the Faction Wars and just use the setting as a jump point to adventure.

Right. Sigil allmost feels like it would have been better off as a Ravenloft domain. This huge bleak Dickensian city full of monsters and men and its hard to tell which is which.

The problems start when you step outside Sigil and the outer planes are this big whatever of blandness.

Quote from: jeff37923;965630FASA's Battletech and Palladium's Robotech both suck as settings and games. If they were trying to create a game that emulated giant robot action from anime and manga, they missed the mark by a very wide margin. R Talsorian Games' Mekton beats both of them hands down in emulating the genre.

Im not so sure. Battletech does capture the feel of Dougram which BT draws alot of mecha from for its mechs. And Dougram was a very tactical series that looked at the logistics and gradual escalation of the resistance. BT just magnified that into a interstellar level.

Quote from: Omega;965969Im not so sure. Battletech does capture the feel of Dougram which BT draws alot of mecha from for its mechs. And Dougram was a very tactical series that looked at the logistics and gradual escalation of the resistance. BT just magnified that into a interstellar level.

I haven't seen that much Dougram, so I could be wrong in that case. Now that is another anime for me to track down.......

Quote from: Omega;965969Im not so sure. Battletech does capture the feel of Dougram which BT draws alot of mecha from for its mechs. And Dougram was a very tactical series that looked at the logistics and gradual escalation of the resistance. BT just magnified that into a interstellar level.

Does Dougram spend 6 hours on 1 fight, at the end of which 1 mech from 8 has been destroyed? Because that is my Battletech experience.

Quote from: Krimson;965676Another lists the Old West as being prior to 1912, and a third says the terms Old West and Wild West are interchangeable.

1912 is an interesting date as I just finished reading Riders of the Purple Sage which was written in 1912 and, from what I've seen, is the first really popular "Western" novel. The book takes place in 1871 and the author talks about the frontier as if it were dying out in most places. (whether that's true or not I don't really know). Maybe 1912 is just the date where people considered the frontier "Wild West" era to be in the past. Kinda like how we now consider the "Arcade in the Mall" era to be in the past despite the fact that some arcades still exist.

OTOH, I grew up watching shows like Davey Crocket and Daniel Boone (same show really) which were set in the late 1700s IIRC. When Disneyland opened up it had a Frontierland. Even though Frontierland had stage coaches, mine cars, saloons, and gun fights, Fess Parker showed up on opening day to introduce it. I'd consider the "Old West" to start pre-Revolution. But that's just me.

Quote from: S'mon;965995Does Dougram spend 6 hours on 1 fight, at the end of which 1 mech from 8 has been destroyed? Because that is my Battletech experience.

Really? Ouch. This is why I'm happy I stuck to just reading the books and playing the video games. Mechs blew up left and right in those. I've hardly glanced at the official rpg but I'd almost certainly use a more familiar system if I were to ever try running a campaign in that setting.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;9659961912 is an interesting date as I just finished reading Riders of the Purple Sage which was written in 1912 and, from what I've seen, is the first really popular "Western" novel. The book takes place in 1871 and the author talks about the frontier as if it were dying out in most places. (whether that's true or not I don't really know). Maybe 1912 is just the date where people considered the frontier "Wild West" era to be in the past. Kinda like how we now consider the "Arcade in the Mall" era to be in the past despite the fact that some arcades still exist.

The first Western novel and the first really popular Western novel were one in the same: Owen Wister's The Virginian (1902).  In the preface, he writes about how the frontier looks the same and has the same physical features, but the kind of men who populated it in the recent past will never again ride across the landscape.  He never uses the term "Wild West," but he laments the passing of an era that had ended so recently that he'd used the present tense when he started writing.

The closing of the frontier and the disappearance of the self-reliant, two-fisted men who had settled it is in the DNA of every Western, even if it's never mentioned directly.