When did the wild west stop being cool?

[The_Universe]

You will bow before the Duke! The Duke is...king.

...er...you know what I mean. Just watched the Shootist last night, Starring John Wayne himself. Fantastic film about the death of a warrior culture, and the death of an old warrior. Sad, but awesome. I recommend.

 

[The_Universe]

Isn't interesting how the common view our cultural history has swung from innacurate extreme to another?

Very much so. I find it interesting how often people cry that we're not seeing the "shades of grey" that occured in reality, all while they see only black.

Saying that cowboys loved killing "injuns" is just as innacurate as saying "injuns" loved killing cowboys.

Feel free to comment on your view of history, but nothing in history is *ever* this simple. Take it from a guy who's taught it.

 

[Dragonblade]

Personally, I'm unable to romantisize the west when I know that a bunch of Native Americans were killed because of the crime of having something that we wanted. And that a lot of Chinese died building the railroad. And that Manifest Destiny made life hell for a lot of Mexicans. And so on...

And don't forget that native Americans who were killed in land disputes with white settlers had for many years before been killing each other for the same land. And before that you could look at crusader knights killing muslims, or muslim killing pilgrims to the holy land, or the Romans slaughtering Celts or Celts killing Romans or other Celts. And so on for the entire history of mankind.

Newsflash for you, but the ENTIRE history of mankind is one of the murder, betrayal, war, and greed. We have swung from one extreme (the natives are savages) to another (the white man is a brutal oppressor). One extreme was used to justify colonial aggression. The other is used to justify post-colonial leftist guilt.

Its interesting to note that both extremes are based on the concept of demonizing some specific group or culture and then rallying behind opposition to that group or culture. Anyone who decries the evil white man or the evil Europeans is JUST AS GUILTY of racism to me as the Klan member at their rally. You have just chosen a different group as the object of your 'hate'.

The fact is history is made up of the actions of individuals. Some good, some bad. There are instances of heroism and nobility. And there are instances of cruelty and oppression. Study history and learn from it. But to engage in moral handwringing over actions in the distant past made by people with a completely different moral outlook than you is pointless and pathetic.

 

[Umbran]

As far as RPGs are concerned, I think one finds that traditinally, historical settings just don't do very well - things like Boot Hill and GangBusters just don't sell well compared to the fantasy, Sci-fi, and Supers genres. Even games that only aim for psuedo-history like Deadlands don't do all that great.

It seems to me that historical games have a handicap that others don't, an extra barrier to entry in the form of historical knowledge, or knowledge of the media representation of that history.

D&D doesn't try to emulate the real historical world or it's social constructions in any but the most vague way. But historical games do. In order to grok a game like Deadlands or Boot Hill, you have to first have a handle on the western genre and it's tropes. That limits the audience significantly.

So, it isn't that the genre isn't cool. It's that the intersection between the set of gamers and the set of western fans is fairly small.

 

[Krieg]

Umbran makes some excellent points.

However when you really sit down and think of the campaigns you have run over the years I would bet that many of them have far more in common with western tropes than we realize at first glance.

Small groups of rugged individualists trying to make their way in a hostile frontier, visiting towns where the only law is at the tip of a sword...massively inflated prices on goods due to massive influxes of gold brought in from questionable sources...a melting pot of dissimilar cultures living within spitting distance...hostile natives and wide open unexplored lands.

It's not quite as great a leap as we often think.
.

 

[Incenjucar]

The irony about 'PC' is that it's just a method to get people to let them do what they want to do. So long as you make it look PC, you can do just about anything. Unless it's white male oreinted, then it gets messy. But aside from that, "Supposed Minority group 27B vs. Anything" tends to get by no matter what.

 

[Umbran]

It's not quite as great a leap as we often think.

Yes, but the devil is in the details. Some of the larger structures may be similar, but the fiddly bits are the issue. Those fiddly bits are the difference between a fantasy tavern and a wild west saloon. If you don't get the details right, you don't feel like it is a western, and you lose all the point of playing a western game instead of a fantasy.

 

[Nisarg]

I hate to burst your bubble, but did you ever see The Conqueror? John Wayne as bloody Genghis Khan. It's as bad as it sounds. Wayne trying to act like an Asian barbarian in bad makeup while speaking with a silly accent is quite possibly the saddest thing I've ever seen on celluloid.

Sorry, totally off-topic.

Of course, the Conqueror was so bad it killed John Wayne. Literally.
They filmed it very close to some nuclear testing grounds, and most of the people involved in that film died relatively early of cancer, John Wayne included.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

Isn't interesting how the common view our cultural history has swung from innacurate extreme to another?

Very much so, that's my problem with Deadlands. It feels the best tactic to present the 19th century is to make it just like modern america. Blacks are free (even though its an alternate history and the Confederacy is still at war!) and can rise to any position of power they deserve to, women can be sheriffs, judges, whatever they like, because there's no sexism. Indians and their religions are respected. The chinese are barely mentioned, but they're certainly not being killed in droves by the railroad companies...

..all of which means, of course, that white america in that century were in no way racist sexist bloodthirsty genocidal murderers.

Everyone gets off scot-free, except (for some baffling reason) the Freemasons. They're satanists and so is their leader Albert Pike. Um, yea.. ok. Someone woke up with a pole up his ass.

Nisarg

 

[Gomez]

I've got to agree with Ranger REG. John Wayne is the ultimate cowboy, indeed possibly even the ultimate American because he is the archetype of the Rugged Individualist, a view of life that is sadly increasingly lacking in our modern world. A man like John Wayne is what every American ought to aspire to be -- independent, lives by his own judgement, live-and-let-live with anyone who will reciprocate, agressing against none yet won't tolerate being agressed against.

Despite the disparagements of some, he never was a genocidal maniac. Although the portrayal of Indians in the movies may not have been the most positive, Wayne's character often had respectful friendships with non-whites, and he never went out on racist killing rampages just for the sake of killing Indians. His characters nearly always always sought some aspect of Justice, and only went after those who had done wrong, e.g. raiding and killing settlers.

John Wayne is cool. Always has been, always will be! It's people who don't like John Wayne who are not cool.

The John Wayne's character from The Searchers was a bigot, a racist, and most likely the best acted and most realistic of any of Wayne's characters. Great movie by the way. And yes John Wayne is very cool!