Here's mine: it is purely historical, lots of fascinating persons from the historical wild west featuring as prominent NPCs but the focus is of course on the PCs and their activities. The campaign focuses on three of the wildest towns in Wild West lore: Dodge City, then East Las Vegas, then Tombstone.
I would use the old Iron Crown Outlaw supplement and set it in South Dakota around the 1870s to 1880s.
I like to run wild west games as purely historical, in the first few years after the end of the civil war (which adds something to the usual mix of bank robberies and gun slingers).
A fictional world with everything dialed up to ten. Red Dead Redemption, West World, Spagetti Westerns, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Tombstone, Bone Tomahawk, The Searchers, There Will Be Blood, The Wages of Fear (not a western, but written like one), then throw them all into a blender. During the timeline, I’d probably have some event that brings Weird into it.
Boot Hill's Burnt Bush Wells was for a long time my go to for a starter setting.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1038144Here's mine: it is purely historical, lots of fascinating persons from the historical wild west featuring as prominent NPCs but the focus is of course on the PCs and their activities. The campaign focuses on three of the wildest towns in Wild West lore: Dodge City, then East Las Vegas, then Tombstone.
Anything from a Zane Grey book is what I use.
I would run Deadlands for Savage Worlds. Zombie Cowboys are cool and all, but being able to PLAY as a Zombie Cowboy (optionally) can be a successful campaign pitch all by itself.
Cool setting, really fleshed out.
As much as I think I would enjoy a "pure historical" game , I have no doubt fantastic elements would creep in ala Deadlands.
Spaghetti Western with less gun fu, and a focus on adventure and combat situations. Gritty mapped tactical combat and maneuvering over terrain maps. The main player I'd want's favorite western is The Wild Bunch, and I'd expect his play style to be something similar, staging heists and precipitating bloodbaths.
Quote from: Patrick;1038306As much as I think I would enjoy a "pure historical" game , I have no doubt fantastic elements would creep in ala Deadlands.
Actually I was tempted to offer a science fiction version twist. Westworld did it the android/themepark way but I would do something a bit different using the
Outlaw supplement with the
Time Riders supplement that Iron Crown produced.
This would allow me to create the following premise:
The PCs live in the 22nd century in a post-scarcity world. As a form of dangerous "entertainment" they are taken back to the Wild West (and other time periods should they wish but we are starting with Deadwood 1876).
Time cannot be changed significantly because of a causality loop called Timelock (i.e. you cannot kill grandad) but Wild West was a pretty chaotic place where people would often disappear so there is a lot of flexibilty here.
PCs cannot blatantly use technology of the 22nd century but some immunisations and such will be in effect along with emergency drugs and the host/time travel providers are on hand to pull you out if you are seriosly hurt, provided that you don't go too far away from Deadwood.
All this would be to teach the players about just how cheap and short life was in that period and how brave and tough those folks were.
SPOILERS: After about the third session something goes wrong and they are stranded there for a while, maybe foreover...
Mine is based on a Fantasy world about Native Americans from the Great Basin, who were able to endure apocalyptic disease due to magical healing (heavily stressed, naturally), and thus hold regional power well into the Wild West age. Mostly located in Nevada, dealing with the Silver Rush. The high quality silver ore holds at bay undead necropoli, but also even greater, darker hordes from deeper within.
Basically an American Indian Mines of Moria on an epic scale, with negotiating Ghouls of K'nan being a buffer state between the topside humans and the deeper, more hostile, underworld realms below. The routine Wild West violence helps feed the Ghouls, as per Tribal negotiations, who in turn try to keep back greater horrors of the deep earth.
So far I never got people to engage that far. You'll most likely die if you engage that element too fast, and you'll never really "solve it" as heroes, as the sheer number & power of the terrors are too large. But I was hoping players would like my Hugbox N.A. Silver Boomtown before their PCs died or moved on. :)
Pretty much all of my Western campaigns have been loosely historical, but the idea of some fantasy elements is intriguing.
I'd love to base a game off of the Western stories of Robert E Howard. Some are straight western, some are weird west style.
Purely historical with scenarios largely derived from the Trail Drive (https://www.fictiondb.com/author/ralph-compton~series~trail-drive-series~10375.htm) series of books by Ralph Compton and from Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
Quote from: Mike the Mage;1038342Actually I was tempted to offer a science fiction version twist. Westworld did it the android/themepark way but I would do something a bit different using the Outlaw supplement with the Time Riders supplement that Iron Crown produced.
This would allow me to create the following premise:
The PCs live in the 22nd century in a post-scarcity world. As a form of dangerous "entertainment" they are taken back to the Wild West (and other time periods should they wish but we are starting with Deadwood 1876).
Time cannot be changed significantly because of a causality loop called Timelock (i.e. you cannot kill grandad) but Wild West was a pretty chaotic place where people would often disappear so there is a lot of flexibilty here.
PCs cannot blatantly use technology of the 22nd century but some immunisations and such will be in effect along with emergency drugs and the host/time travel providers are on hand to pull you out if you are seriosly hurt, provided that you don't go too far away from Deadwood.
All this would be to teach the players about just how cheap and short life was in that period and how brave and tough those folks were.
SPOILERS: After about the third session something goes wrong and they are stranded there for a while, maybe foreover...
I find this very VERY interesting! I hope you follow up on it!
Quote from: Opaopajr;1038363Mine is based on a Fantasy world about Native Americans from the Great Basin, who were able to endure apocalyptic disease due to magical healing (heavily stressed, naturally), and thus hold regional power well into the Wild West age. Mostly located in Nevada, dealing with the Silver Rush. The high quality silver ore holds at bay undead necropoli, but also even greater, darker hordes from deeper within.
Basically an American Indian Mines of Moria on an epic scale, with negotiating Ghouls of K'nan being a buffer state between the topside humans and the deeper, more hostile, underworld realms below. The routine Wild West violence helps feed the Ghouls, as per Tribal negotiations, who in turn try to keep back greater horrors of the deep earth.
So far I never got people to engage that far. You'll most likely die if you engage that element too fast, and you'll never really "solve it" as heroes, as the sheer number & power of the terrors are too large. But I was hoping players would like my Hugbox N.A. Silver Boomtown before their PCs died or moved on. :)
Please, PLEASE write this up. What system are you using for it?
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 (http://s415.photobucket.com/user/KrimsonGray/media/Sunalta_zpseynivqrr.png.html), 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. :D I can do better than the linked sample.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1038144What would your Wild-West campaign look like?
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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.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1039113The alternate history is the only thing about Aces & Eights I don't like, and don't use.
I am drawn to it because I find the idea of several powers able to intervene on the western frontier to be highly intriguing; players can wheel and deal even more than usual. I accept that in some ways it is rather implausible alt-history.
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.
D&D with six-shooters is probably the closest I'll ever be to running a Western-themed game, though I suspect mine would be that much closer to standard D&D to disqualify it from being called Western at all. (Well, other than the way D&D standard is already part Western.)
I'd be far more likely to lift a situation out of a Western story and run it as a D&D game, a kind of "Magnificent Seven" in reverse.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;1038838I'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'm trying to figure out how to find Sent Private Messages. I sent one to Pundit the other day outlining something I have been working on, and if I can retrieve the post I sent, I'll resend it to you. I'm slowly working on something that is starting as a map of Fantasy Southern Alberta circa 1900ish called Sunalta (http://s415.photobucket.com/user/KrimsonGray/media/Sunalta_zpseynivqrr.png.html), which is an alternate history of sorts. I say of sorts because the inspiration came a while back when I was reading about the Mongol Expansion period, because the Mongol Invasion of Kievan Rus is kind of part of my family history, which goes back even further to the Varangians settling the area in the 9th century. Anyway, I got diverted to the Gobi desert, which is a True Rain Shadow. Here in Southern Alberta we get a type of foehn wind which we call a Chinook that comes from the Rockies. So the setting inspiration is a "What if the Chinook Wind created a true Rain Shadow like the one that creates the Gobi Desert". Of course there would be actual Dinosaurs in Drumheller, because I really have to do that. There would also be Pleistocene Megafauna. One of my reasons for their inclusion is that many of them are already in various Monster Manuals. I might adapt some other creatures to fit with the wildlife. Like Dire Creatures. This is funny because the real Dire Wolf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_wolf) was just a bigger wolf, probably averaging 130-150lbs. So having other Dire creatures is kind of funny, because the name of a species somehow became a descriptor. All the same, I have seen skunks the size of dogs, and a porcupine that was probably over 100 lbs. So bigger versions of things that exist are fairly plausible. You could even call Dire Wolves Waheela (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waheela), which would be encountered in the North.
Other monster from local myth could be brought in, because placement is easy when the legends tell you where they hang out. :D Like Wendigo and Adlets. Real creatures that exist in our world can mess you up without resorting to the supernatural. A block away from area is a sign on the edge of Fish Creek Provincial Park saying Warning Cougar in Area, and not the kind you run into at a bar, because a cougar was spotted one block from my house. I've walked past coyotes before. A hare gave birth to leverets (https://www.instagram.com/p/BU7uET7FkHY/?taken-by=krimsongray) in my yard last year and and we had to catch them because a rather large dog sized skunk was trying to get them. It might have got one of them. Deer walk into our yard at night, and do their business there and the raccoons prefer to do their business on the shed, which is thankfully aluminum. Anyhow, lots of wildlife within a mile of my house. Bobcats, Lynxes (yes, there is a difference), thankfully no bears yet. At least not this decade. So really, making the setting fantasy is more or less just using things that are, and adding in some things that used to be and maybe a few things that might be.
I haven't thought much about populating the place, but in this world there is no Canada. Sunalta is it's own Dominion, and cities are more like City States. I think my mantra here is that I don't want to make another Deadlands. If anything I'm more inspired by Gothic Earth from the Ravenloft setting Masque of the Red Death. I even made my own gonzo version of Gothic Eastern Europe (http://s415.photobucket.com/user/KrimsonGray/media/Maidenloft/GothicEasternEurope2a.jpg.html) for a game called Maidenloft, which as you might was a MAID inspired game set in Caste Ravenloft with Strahd as the Master. Though unlike MAID, I used M+M 3e to run it and the game ended up being Castle Defense against a horde of angry Clerics, Paladins and Nuns with nunchaku but I digress. Sunalta wouldn't be anything like that, I just liked the way the map I linked turned out. :D
But from the gist of what Pundit is saying, a Western D&D setting should still be D&D, and not Boot Hill, or Wild West Masque of the Red Death, or Wild West d20 Past, though the latter could easily be done that way by giving the setting the Urban Arcana treatment. So right now, I'm just more concerned with making a decent map with roads and water and rails and everything. And make the Chinook Desert look more like a desert. So the setting isn't set in stone, because making it D&D with casters and stuff is still an option. Mind you, it is probably better to go with a realistic design approach, and then layer on the D&D stuff afterwards.
Quote from: wombat1;1039746I am drawn to it because I find the idea of several powers able to intervene on the western frontier to be highly intriguing; players can wheel and deal even more than usual. I accept that in some ways it is rather implausible alt-history.
And I find that silly. The reason the wild west looked like it did was because it was a frontier FREE of law & order, free of great nations fighting. The wild west as we most remember it really started AFTER the civil war.
And there's
way more interesting political stuff happening there in that real timeline than could happen in a timeline where you have a bunch of little countries vying for power. There's the conflict between the ranchers and the farmers, the ever-approaching 'civilized world', the republicans and the democrats. The northerners and southerners making a new life. The petty kingdoms of corrupt officials and rich ranchers.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1040018And there's way more interesting political stuff happening there in that real timeline than could happen in a timeline where you have a bunch of little countries vying for power. There's the conflict between the ranchers and the farmers, the ever-approaching 'civilized world', the republicans and the democrats. The northerners and southerners making a new life. The petty kingdoms of corrupt officials and rich ranchers.
Made me think of a combination of Elizabeth Gaskell (Cranford) and Firefly.
Well, Firefly was in part inspired (if I recall) from the wild west after the civil war.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1040018And I find that silly. The reason the wild west looked like it did was because it was a frontier FREE of law & order, free of great nations fighting. The wild west as we most remember it really started AFTER the civil war.
And there's way more interesting political stuff happening there in that real timeline than could happen in a timeline where you have a bunch of little countries vying for power. There's the conflict between the ranchers and the farmers, the ever-approaching 'civilized world', the republicans and the democrats. The northerners and southerners making a new life. The petty kingdoms of corrupt officials and rich ranchers.
Fair enough but I work under two limitations.
1. Before I did any significant running of a historical game, I would wish to immerse myself thoroughly in the history of it, and while there is nothing wrong with my mid-19th century American history, or my grasp of the relevant fiction, I still don't know nearly enough to run with any great comfort. In my group of historians and wanna-be historians that is going to pose a problem sooner rather than later.
2. History is a politically charged issue, and my political views are significantly at variance with those of almost all my players, and I have this fear that is very quickly going to lead to strife because my Republicans in that game are going to be very different from those in their minds, and my Democrats are going to make them pretty uniformly curl up in a corner and twitch. Or possibly a harrumph.
Quote from: wombat1;1040383Fair enough but I work under two limitations.
1. Before I did any significant running of a historical game, I would wish to immerse myself thoroughly in the history of it, and while there is nothing wrong with my mid-19th century American history, or my grasp of the relevant fiction, I still don't know nearly enough to run with any great comfort. In my group of historians and wanna-be historians that is going to pose a problem sooner rather than later.
2. History is a politically charged issue, and my political views are significantly at variance with those of almost all my players, and I have this fear that is very quickly going to lead to strife because my Republicans in that game are going to be very different from those in their minds, and my Democrats are going to make them pretty uniformly curl up in a corner and twitch. Or possibly a harrumph.
Those certainly aren't invalid points, but both can be mitigated.
You don't need to know EVERYTHING about 19th century American history to run a decent Wild West campaign. You might have to do a bit of research about the specific place in the wild west you'd want to set your game (good suggestions would be Deadwood, Dodge City, East Las Vegas, or Tombstone). You'd want to read the biographies (even if it was just the Wikipedia biographies) of some of the most famous people of the west, especially those who were in the place you wanted to run it in. None of this would take that long, and it's fascinating reading.
There's good sourcebooks in game terms to help you, a lot of Aces & Eights itself (aside from the fake alternate history) gives you an idea of the way things were, as does the GURPS Old West sourcebook, which is quite good.
There's also series or movies you can refer to. Lots of great documentaries on the wild west, and if you want to add a bit of cinematic style, there's stuff like the HBO Deadwood series, or the movie Tombstone (or even the much less entertaining Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner).
You just have to get enough to get the basics of the setting and what it was like, including the conflicts between oncoming civilization and the wildness of the place, between the remnants of the south and the north (in the form of Democrats and Republicans), of ranchers vs farmers, and the rises and falls of certain locations as boom towns with very little law and gradual 'gentrification'.
As for point #2, I think you'd just have to explain the context to your players: point out that while there was a lot of racism in the old west, it was in many ways less racist than back east. That Republicans were the party that ended slavery and that were the champions of reconstruction and the party of progress (by the 1870s, though, they were also full of government bloat and corruption), while democrats were the anti-reconstruction party and in some ways the more conservative populists who tended to be less favorable to law & order or to progress & industry.
I think the setting (Wild West) is amazing on its own. Most of us are aware that there is (much, much!) more to it, but Hollywood really is our educator here.
What I loved about The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, was that it was both a treasure hunt and a tripartite death struggle all set within a Civil War environment.
So for me I would find a period or incident or wider setting (e.g. the Civil War) to base my mini-campaign around.
Something set in the aftermath of Little Bighorn, or in the fallout of the OK Corrall would suit.
Mission-wise, I would start with the assumption that the PCs are a D&D adventuring party, and retrofit into Western cloth from there.
Quote from: Motorskills;1041039Mission-wise, I would start with the assumption that the PCs are a D&D adventuring party, and retrofit into Western cloth from there.
I still think the class system from Masque of the Red Death had some good ideas, but I think that adapting classes from d20 iterations of Star Wars would work better, minus the tech stuff if you wanted to be historical, or with it if you wanted to go a steampunk route. In my old 1e campaign, we used a Scout class from one of the Dragon Magazines for characters that did Ranger stuff (Tracking, Scouting, living off the land...) without the magic. If you had spellcasting at all, wizardry would really be unheard of, but Clerical/Divine magic performed by missionaries, priests, pastors, shaman, and medicine men would be more likely. Though just doing it historically without magic would be fine as well, even though the mortality rate would increase. Western does map on to other forms of fantasy just fine.
Quote from: Krimson;1041045I still think the class system from Masque of the Red Death had some good ideas, but I think that adapting classes from d20 iterations of Star Wars would work better, minus the tech stuff if you wanted to be historical, or with it if you wanted to go a steampunk route. In my old 1e campaign, we used a Scout class from one of the Dragon Magazines for characters that did Ranger stuff (Tracking, Scouting, living off the land...) without the magic. If you had spellcasting at all, wizardry would really be unheard of, but Clerical/Divine magic performed by missionaries, priests, pastors, shaman, and medicine men would be more likely. Though just doing it historically without magic would be fine as well, even though the mortality rate would increase. Western does map on to other forms of fantasy just fine.
Yep. I was more thinking that I want each PC to be able to contribute a speciality. It's not an absolute must-have, but I don't think it's a bad default.
I might turn things up to eleven in my campaign, but I wouldn't introduce overtly fantasy elements, the setting is amazing enough without it.
Is it weird that I think a Wild West AU for Naruto would be cool?
No jutsus or any other special ninja powers, just Naruto and his fellow inhabitants of the Hidden Leaf Village as Western archetype characters, possibly PC's in a Boot Hill campaign.
Hell, you could set the whole story in a frontier town in the fictional Hidden Leaf County with the characters hanging out at the Nine Tails Saloon, drinking whiskey, eating ramen, and playing Faro and other games of chance.
Naruto and his buddies could form a posse and fight off outlaw gangs, Indian raiding parties, and the likes of Caesar's Legion (hey, who said we had to be historically accurate?)
That is a fanfic or a campaign waiting to happen!
Not sure if I could run a straight historical Western and I know my current group would have zero interest in that. I'd probably end up doing something closer to The Warriors Way. It would be full of over exaggerated clichés and stylized action. I'd steal some inspiration from Into the Badlands and The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger to mix it up a little.
Let's see, you have a land that has moved on from what it used to be. Old relics remain but most are useless, rusting away and most people don't even remember what they were or how to use them anyway. Your average Jo is just trying to survive in a harsh land that has strange dangers lurking out in the wild. It wouldn't be as supernatural heavy as Deadlands, but there would be things like angry spirits, wild flora and fauna, and weird "natural" phenomena.
Now, there are places that have sprung up that provide safety and order. These would be similar to boom towns in a normal western, but here they are feudal lands run by Barons. You want to live with order and safety instead of homesteading out in the wild, you pledge your life to a Baron. Some people make a good life for themselves while in service, some not so much. This is where you can have your ranch wars and other rivalries.
Then I'd throw in an order of protectors, like the Gunslingers, who's reverence for the gun is at near religious levels of fanaticism but who also possess what seem like near mythical shooting abilities. Besides them you can have some other mystical elements added in. Low key stuff, no fireballs. I'd look toward shamanism or even Eastern mysticism to mix it up.
Quote from: rgalex;1041549Old relics remain but most are useless, rusting away and most people don't even remember what they were or how to use them anyway.
Or they don't work the way they should. Blain the Train is a pain.
I am drafting notes for a Boot Hill campaign, using the module Burned Bush Wells. I've decided to use fictional El Dorado County and to place my customized version of the county in the southern part of Colorado Territory . Game year 1875.
I'm not worried about making it all historically and geographically accurate, but I would like the terrain , wildlife , people and so on to feel plausible for the time and place.
Primary characters thus far include an ex-farmer, a pretty tough rural midwife, and a lady exhibition shooter who grew up hunting game.
(Yes that last one has more than a bit of Annie Oakley as inspiration. This being before the era of the big wild west shows the character had traveled with a smaller outfit:a couple of actors, a guy doing prestidigitation , that sort of thing.)
If anybody wants to make one or two saddle buddies, trail partners, relatives, hangers-on, etc. he can do so. Boot Hill 2nd edition explicitly mentions players controlling multiple characters as an option. Indeed, this is a nice way to introduce a replacement player character when the inevitable deaths occur.
I suppose the pre-generated characters in the module provide another good source of backup player characters.
Awwwwww yeah! Lonesome Dove.
Quote from: Omega;1038299Boot Hill's Burnt Bush Wells was for a long time my go to for a starter setting.
Ah! I'd love to read more about how you developed/ ran it.