Why are Victorian and Western Games incompatible?

[Ranger REG]

TITLE CHANGE

Another interesting note - the cast photos in all the ads for LXG list the name of the character except for Mina Harker - she is listed as "Dracula's Bride". I guess Hollywood thinks we Americans are too illiterate to know who Mina Harker is. Then again, they renamed the movie The Madness of King George III to The Madness of King George for American audiences because they were afraid we'd think it was a sequel and we'd ask where I and II were...

It's interesting you brought that up. I heard that the second Legally Blonde film have their title changed overseas, from Red, White, and Blonde to something like Blonder than Ever.

I guess it's all part of the marketing agency trying to find ways to appeal to the local culture.

I mean True Lies, may be a great Action-Adventure Spy movie in America, but it may be considered a tragedy in the Middle East regions.

 

[Kusuf ibn Zaid]

Perhaps the biggest reason I mentioned Jack London is that he based his stories on his own real life experiences in Alaska, which was not only wilder than the Wild West, but also damn cold. I am surprised that London is not taught in school, but his subject matter is ususaly very grim.

Jack London is taught in most schools. His story "To Build a Fire" is probably the most prevalently covered (due to its short length). But "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" are certainly on most schools reading lists. At least they were when I went to school back in the 70's.

- Kusuf

 

[JPL]

London's Wolf Larsen, the antihero of "The Sea Wolf", would've been an interesting addition. But he's not well-known, and he would've paled next to the more fantastic Nemo.

I'm percolating an idea for a sort of comprehensive steampunk-swashbuckling-pulp campaign world for d20 Modern. Man, if I ever actually tried to sell a game world, that would be the one, just because no one else will do it for me the way I want it...

"Shanghai Knights" is an interesting case --- a cowboy and a Chinese martial artist in Victorian England.

"Around the World in 80 Days" takes the ultimate British gentleman across America, where he encounted wild Indians and Mormons and such...

Stick a cowboy in a Victorian horror or mystery or sci fi. Or stick a British gentleman in a Western. Lots of potential. The genius of "Big Trouble in Little China" is that it's a kung fu movie starring a guy who is incredibly ill-equipped to be the hero in a kung fu movie and doesn't really even understand the conventions of the genre he's in. Same thing when Homer Simpson worked for Hank Scorpio --- Homer was in a James Bond movie, and never realized it.

 

[Doc_Souark]

The worlds of Victorian era England/ America is perfectly blendable with a western RPG.

 

[Krieg]

.

 

[garyh]

I can't believe NO ONE'S mentioned...

"The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr."

That's a perfect example of Western/Victorian/Steampunk... and a really, really good show to boot!

 

[Max]

It seems to me that there should be no trouble combining the two, especially since you can use d20 rules for both. Having a mostly common rules set would make it easy.

For western, you can use Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures. I'm not sure what is out there for Victorian d20 games but I would guess there is something. Just not something I pay attention to.

You could also base everything on d20 Modern, if you like. Sidewinder is being updated to use d20 Modern and that would probably be the system to use for a Victorian setting as well, since it has incorporated rules for guns.

Max

 

[Voneth]

I can't believe NO ONE'S mentioned...

"The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr."

That's a perfect example of Western/Victorian/Steampunk... and a really, really good show to boot!

Reminds of the gaming session I WISH I could have been at for GenCon 2002. Bruce Campbell was playing Deadlands and basicly played his Brisco character.

 

[Ezrael]

Brisco County Jr. was one of the most fun TV shows ever, a fitting successor to the original Wild Wild West. Damn, was that a good show. I *still* remember it fondly, a decade later. (How long *has* it been?)

Another good example of the Victorian/Wild West crossover is the excellent Space 1888 RPG, which provided for both. It'd serve anyone well as a sourcebook. It also has neat strangeness on Mars and Venus and in the asteroids, to boot.

Also, in addition to his naturalistic fiction, Jack London wrote some excellent science fiction/fantasy that would be of use to anyone in any RPG format. The most recent collection of those tales is available as "Fantastic Tales", edited by Dale Walker, with an introduction by Philip Jose' Farmer. My copy was printed in 1998 by Bison Books, and the ISBN is 0-8032-7979-5 if that helps anyone find it. Most recommended is The Red One for Lovecraftian horror that predates Lovecraft, A Relic of the Pliocene for some interesting time slippage, A Thousand Deaths for some science fictional horror and Goliah for a villain with a scheme and a method that would be right at home in Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

 

[WayneLigon]

The Old West can accommodate all sorts of characters, so no reason not to have people from Victorian England show up (and visa versa - the Victorians were particularly enamoured of the Southern Gentlemen, also). And you can also do it for laughs, like in Shanghai Noon/Knights.

'Ruggles of Red Gap' is a classic comedy novel by Harry Leon Wilson, but could also be adapted to a more serious setting with just a few tweeks. The synopsis of the 1935 film version:

An English gentleman loses his stuffy manservant, Ruggles (Charles Laughton), in a poker game with an unmannered cowboy and his wife. Ruggles accompanies his new employers to the tiny, wild town of Red Gap, Washington. Rich, rowdy Egbert Floud (Charlie Ruggles) introduces Ruggles as "Colonel" Ruggles, and the town ladies are quite taken by the sophisticated servant in disguise as he enamors them with fictitious stories of battles gone by. Ruggles proves his newfound patriotism in one of the best scenes of the film, his recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in the Silver Dollar Saloon. The dream of freedom leads him to open his own restaurant, where one of his first customers is the nobleman who has come to reclaim his former servant.

There is also a re-make (Fancy Pants) with Lucy Ball and Bob Hope. (The above Ruggles is also a remake of two silent versions)