Historical as opposed to 'with sci fi elements' to be sure. But historical vs. western movies/novels/tv? Hmmm... That is tougher. The historical west was... well, the real world. People died a lot less in gunfights and a lot more to dysentery. Cowboys spent a lot less time fighting black hats vs white hats and a lot more time... herding cows.

I think I would like historical western, but with the 'life is constant adventure' thing that tv/movies have going for them. And maybe with a bit of Hollywood firearms technology as well.

Quote from: Patrick;1038394I find this very VERY interesting!  I hope you follow up on it!

Thank you. I will.

ETA: I was worried the last bit might be a "bait and switch" but I guess if the players reacted badly, the time machine would get back online.

Quote from: Patrick;1038395Please, PLEASE write this up.  What system are you using for it?

I ran it in D&D 5e Basic Rules-As-Written-ish Play-by-Post, as my test drive of the system. I was very new to PbP, so I learned that it and tabletop are two very different beasts. The record is still here on this forum's Play By Post subforum, named: Livonia's Lament D&D 5e Basic RAW. There's a part one and part two topic In Character, with an Out of Character topic.

In retrospect, my players were very patient with me and my experiments with the system and PbP. I got a run through Speed rates, (Fast Normal Slow,) working with Perception, Investigation, Stealth, Tools, and Rests. I also explored what I could with rich text, spoilers, and private messages for hidden knowledge, along with seeding the world from Random Content Generators and seeding the hint of this meta-struggle. But slow pacing and issues like handling the confusion of possession and puzzles, tough things face to face in tabletop, became harder in PbP. My biggest take-away is PbP lives and dies on Momentum.

I tried it again at RPGPUB, with similar success and fading. PbP is a trying format.

As for doing system with the setting... I wouldn't use D&D 5e with its RAW healing rates. There's no real sense of threat when a night's sleep can bounce you back up. But there's enough horrible things in a Boomtown, and the Exhaustion penalties are delightfully lethal for desert travel (and Goodberry spell does not exist in Basic), that there are real threats. Easily ported over into old TSR D&D, though, or any other system I assume.

That said, my "Hugbox Silver Boomtown," Livonia's Lament, is still there, lethal (I don't ever use Zero Level NPCs, so good luck guessing who can kill you quick), and filled with real nasties inside and out hidden among the colorful characters. I've had to go outside RAW for a few things, like Skinwalkers as an amalgam of Jackalwere+more stuff!, or amping the lethality of 5e's Peryton closer to 2e, or designing a Rattlesnake and its poison from whole cloth, but on the whole I tried to be faithful to the Rules as Written for that experiment.

Borrow what you like from my notes on either website: locations, NPCs, 'medicines', etc. As long as you don't sell it as your own I don't care. I'll even fill you in on more background  questions, if you have them. I put even a few links to real world touches, such as actual Shoshone words, real world valley names, actual mythology from several cultures, ('Easterner' means 'Westerner', because all these 'foreigners' are coming from the East... Coast,) and obvious adaptions of real world analogs (e.g. town of Onerous is comprised of 'Reno' backwards plus 'ous' at the end, e.g.2. Last Unction is a play on Sacramento meaning sacrament). Have fun!

Probably a steampunk version of the fictional Old West, with the different Indian tribes, Europeans, and other cultures (China, Japan, India, Central and South America) replaced with different D&D or Traveller species. Would probably concentrate on the Cherokee, since my wife and sister-in-law are supposedly Cherokee.

Spaghetti Western style is the most fantastical I would get, or maybe something like The Good, The Bad and The Weird. My sweet spot would probably be the Mexican Revolution era as imagined by the Italian directors (Duck You Sucker, Run Man Run, etc), though a foray into a snowy western landscape like in The Great Silence would be interesting.

I generally love historical, but I do admit that a D&D Western with six-shooters and so on would be cool too.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1038819I generally love historical, but I do admit that a D&D Western with six-shooters and so on would be cool too.

I've considered doing a crossover of Boot Hill and AD&D in a nostalgic Western with fantasy elements, firmly rooted in old-school fantasy and Wild West Americana tropes.

If you are interested in the setting developments I have made so far, send me a PM. You might actually like it.

I'd do it more cinematic, with some weird elements tossed in. Like Wild Wild West. (The old 60s TV series, not the movie)

I rather like the Aces and Eights alternate-history take of the United States, and have used that in the past; I think I would use it again, but I find the Aces and Eights rules rather cumbersome to use.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1038819I generally love historical, but I do admit that a D&D Western with six-shooters and so on would be cool too.

Murlynd approves. Yeah, that would be pretty awesome. As for my own setting, I have been working on a fantasy version of Southern Alberta called Sunalta, which is technologically around 1900ish. If you ever wanted to do something like this, Pundit, I would totally make time to put maps together and I wouldn't even talk money until it was profitable. I can do better than the linked sample.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1038144What would your Wild-West campaign look like?

Quote from: wombat1;1038892I rather like the Aces and Eights alternate-history take of the United States, and have used that in the past; I think I would use it again, but I find the Aces and Eights rules rather cumbersome to use.

The alternate history is the only thing about Aces & Eights I don't like, and don't use.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1039113The alternate history is the only thing about Aces & Eights I don't like, and don't use.

I do think that is how RPGs are suppose to work.

Not a huge Western fan, apart from the aesthetic. If I'd ever run a Wild West game again, it would probably set in the Deadlands universe.

The only way I'm interested in running a Historic Western Campaign would be in the deep dark woods of the American Wilderness Frontier. The OG hexcrawl, so to speak.

I'd be sorely tempted to set a Western campaign in Minnesota, starting in 1865 with the PCs being discharged from the Union Army. Most people who live here don't know jack about our own history outside of the failed bank job in Northfield that brought down the James-Younger Gang so I can stick to real people and events with little issue.