So I Want To Run A Western Game...

[Dannyalcatraz]

My $0.02:

I'd recommend Sidewinder & Deadlands, believe that HERO or M&M could handle it well, and have no doubt that Aces & Eights is up to the task, and must grudgingly admit that GURPS would probably do just fine.

 

[Wik]

There was a free RPG giveaway a while back, and one of the games mentioned was "Gunslingers and Gamblers". I never played it, but I really liked the mechanics - they basically involved poker dice, and when you rolled checks, you were trying to make the best poker hand with those dice. Which seemed like a pretty cool system.

 

[pawsplay]

There is no question in my mind I would use GURPS 4e with High-Tech. Hit locations, rules for loading revolvers, good rules for riding horses, easy character creation for characters on that scale, a robust skill system. There is seriously nothing better unless you are looking for a more story-based engine.

 

[Celebrim]

I ran a one off of Boot Hill when I was younger, and one of the things I immediately ran into is something that 'Aces and Eights' hits on - its not at all clear what you do in a campaign length Western game. It's not clear what the story arcs are. If anyone knows how to run a Western game, regardless of rules set, I would be interested in hearing your theory.

 

[Oni]

The only western game I've ever played in was a short campaign using classic Deadlands, and while it was a little clunky, I really enjoyed it and would happily play it again. I think that its mechanics are very much in sync with its genre.

 

[pawsplay]

In a gunslinger game, typically, you have a tension between, on the one hand, stability or the big haul, and on the other, restlessness and a need to keep moving ahead of your enemies and barbed wire fences. A gunslinger is a feared outsider, but at the same time commands respect, bucks the social norm of civility but provides a form of justice. Gunslingers tend to be lonely creatures looking for glory. So a gunfighter typically begins either just leaving town or just entering it. Some new element has changed his environment, possibly a rival gunfighter, a ranching plan, a railroad, a federal marshal, robbers, and so forth. Cowboy gangs are similar, but the gang acts as a sort of replacement family.

In a township game, you have the usual horde-of-orcs, corrupt chamberlin, quest for the lost mine type situations, but reskinned for the Western setting.

Probably the most helpful thing to do is pick a place and a year. The Western era, as such, lasted only a decade or two, sandwiched between the Civil War and the Gatling gun. Pick a major gunfight and the events leading up to it, then move it to a fictionalized locale of your choosing.

 

[Treebore]

Running Western stories is just like running any other game, you create a bad guy, develop the bad things he is up to, determine resources (henchmen, wealth, influence, etc...) and run the game.

Its just in Westerns issues are resolved in two ways, fists or guns. Or maybe a gentleman's agreement to resolve an issue with a draw from a deck of cards, a horse race, or some other competition.

My collection of John Wayne movies inspires me a lot. Especially the early silent black and whites.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

IOW, when the party asks the crotchety old man at the bar about a bit of local history, he can spout off:

"Three Brands for the cattle-kings yonder by Big Sky,
Seven for the Shorthorn-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for dairymen doomed to die,
One for Señor Oscuro on his dark home
Out in cold Chicago where the stockyards lie.
One Brand to rule them all, One Brand to find them,
One Brand to bring them all and in the railyards bind them
Out in cold Chicago where the stockyards lie."

In a township game, you have the usual horde-of-orcs, corrupt chamberlin, quest for the lost mine type situations, but reskinned for the Western setting.

IOW, Indian attacks, cattlebarons vs sheep ranchers, land grabs due to the railroad coming through/feeding & water rights/valuable mines (gold, silver, tin, lead, iron, nickel, turquoise, salt & more)*, runaway slaves, Chinese labor revolts, opium riots, bank robbers & Pinkertons, settlers & Manifest Destiny, frontier exploration & dangerous passes ("Donner, party of 12...er...10...er 6...").

* If you pick up an issue of Rocks & Minerals magazine or watch a few episodes of Cash & Treasure (w/Kirsten Gum (yummy hot!!) or Becky Worley), you'll find a lot of info on where various notable mines & strikes were and still are, and when they were discovered.

 

[scourger]

My overall recommendation for you is to use Savage Worlds.

My next Western game will use a Boot Hill module with the Savage Worlds rules plus some of the additional rules from Deadlands Reloaded in the Aces & 8s setting (if the game gets detailed enough to need a fleshed-out setting).

My last Western game was Spellslinger d20 with adventures adapted from Dungeon magazine. It worked well for the short term, but a little of the fantastic goes a long way in the genre. For a d20 game, you can just use humans only with non-spellcasting classes in the PH with the optional firearms rules from the DMG. I have often thought that would make a fine Western game.

 

[Ariosto]

Aces & Eights is just ... how to put it?

Nonpareil?

That said, I have had a LOT of blasts with Boot Hill, going back to the little booklet that I don't think even called itself anything like an RPG.

We always played BH at the house of the guy whose stepdad had bought the whole Time-Life Books series on the Old West.

I have no particular nostalgia for FGU's Wild West, but no particular animosity either. It's workmanlike, and posted online somewhere apparently by permission of the authors (who may well own the rights to do so).

If you're not too particular, just about any set of rules might "git 'er done". Got guns? If not ... got bows? Yeah? Give 'em six-shot cylinders.

Got gun-phile players? Let them do the work, and get plugged with their own pedantry.