Raiding old western films for a short campaign arc.

[jdrakeh]

Well, uh, your players are searching for a girl who was taken against her will by a creature that is commonly used as a metaphor for sexual assault. i.e. You've got just as much subtext in your premise as The Searchers did in 1956.

I take it you've never seen The Searchers. In it, a girl is actually raped. There's no subtext. There's just actual rape.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Also, more recently there's BONE TOMAHAWK, which is to put it mildly is a pretty brutal western/horror hybrid.

Then there's DJANGO UNCHAINED which is really a story of a man becoming a better stronger version of himself while trying to rescue the love of his life.

There's also THE HATEFUL EIGHT, which is pretty much a locked door mystery/ stealth THE THING remake.

 

[J.Quondam]

3:10 to Yuma (both movies) is a pretty good story about transporting a prisoner from a little local jail to his trial several days' ride away while his gang tries to rescue him, along with a little twist that makes it a bit more than just "fend off the people trying to take our prisoner." I think it's also pretty easily reskinnable to any sort of escort job where a faction is trying to get one of their own back.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Magnificent Seven, aka Seven Samurai. The classic tale of a town hiring your players as mercenaries to protect them from a band of [insert monsters].

Beyond the standard TTRPG premise this opens up opportunities for the group to lay down some roots and/or have a friendly location to return to later.

I came here just to say this. I wrote a whole article about it:

Seven Samurai, the Perfect D&D Adventure

There are fewer movies more influential than Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and this movie's story makes for a nearly perfect D&D adventure. The theme of Seven Samurai may be a perfect D&D situation t...

slyflourish.com

 

[SlyFlourish]

Also, more recently there's BONE TOMAHAWK, which is to put it mildly is a pretty brutal western/horror hybrid.

Then there's DJANGO UNCHAINED which is really a story of a man becoming a better stronger version of himself while trying to rescue the love of his life.

There's also THE HATEFUL EIGHT, which is pretty much a locked door mystery/ stealth THE THING remake.

I've run Bone Tomahawk adventures like ten times now and love them. So has Rob Schwalb for Shadow of the Demon Lord and Shadow of the Weird Wizard. It's clearly a favorite of his. Brutal movie but a fantastic horror western.

 

[ThrorII]

So I ran a 10-session Wild West Cinema game a couple years ago.

Besides western movies, I watched a TON of "Tombstone Territories" episodes. They were a 60's western TV show, not widely remembered nowadays. I lifted just about every episode for inspiration.

It is free on YouTube.