Wild, Wild West? Sidewinder vs spellslinger vs deadlandsd20?

[Stormborn]

The more I think about it the more I think that Spellslinger is the way for the OP to go. It is a nice system and has the added benifit of being cheap(er) than the other products, so players could buy a copy if they like.

While some of the background in Spellslinger is great - new world, railroad, range wars, etc.- as a whole I didn't care for the "setting" as such. I would homebrew it a bit myself.

 

[WayneLigon]

I have Sidewinder and I like it a great deal. I even bought both the PDf and the Print. Spellslinger looks good, too, though: can someone give a more detailed treatment of it?

 

[Henry]

I ran a Wild Wild West adventure using Spycraft 2.0 during the last Chicago Gameday.

You're in fact the one who got me thinking in that genre.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

You might want to check out Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death from Sword and Sorcery. The whole setting is Earth in 1890.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

Any ideas on mixing the rulesets that I have access to? SW:R, Deadlands d20, Spellslinger?

Any major balance issues in mixing the classes? (of course balance issues don't matter as much with CoC potential) Or any spell combinations that would be ...interesting....?

 

[Morgenstern]

I ran a Wild Wild West adventure using Spycraft 2.0 during the last Chicago Gameday.

It worked well enough, but you're right... I had to pick classes and gear very, very carefully (or re-explain them very, very carefully... Three doses of anti-fatigue pills? -- that's now a jug of moonshine!) for the pre-generated characters.

Awesome. I love the moonshine .

The Advocate, Explorer, Faceman, Intruder, Pointman, Scientist, Scout and Soldier could all be played as-is. The others would all have to be modified to one degree or another, since they rely so heavily on advanced technology.

8 out of 12 doesn't seem too bad. Let me try 3 out of the 4 that are left .

Snoop: This is an old west government spy - an early Pinkerton, who has contacts at the telegraph office (intercepting communications), well connected with snitches and shopkeepers alike, and hires young boys to stand around and spy on people for him (rahter than planting bugs). If you've seen the new Zorro, you should have little trouble envisioning the Snoop in period dress. This is a class far more about information than computers, and even in the old West, there was information flowing.

Slueth: This Catholic priest has journeyed into the west to tend the new flocks. He's educated, an expert judge of character, and hears all sorts of things in confession. He's pretty handy in a scrap too. The Slueth is based on Sherlock Holmes - he's out of place in the west because of his education, not his place in history . Tombstone (IIRC) had an amazing scene where two cowboys are absolutely spitting insults at each other in Latin. Using slueth level to represent a more refined, better schooled class of ruffian or scoundrel should work just fine .

Wheelman. The classic lone cowboy, he's got good outdoors skill and rides a horse like nothing you've ever seen. There's noboy you'd want more as your stage coach driver for a valuable shipment of bullion or in your posse when it came time to ride down the badguys.

(Yeah, sure, Hackers kinda need a net to swim through )

 

[Ranger REG]

If you don't mind widening the search of potential books, I would say OGL Steampunk is the best fit. Rules for gadgets, psychic powers, and it is within the timeframe of the period. You can always get historical information from a library.

I'm surprised no one else mentioned OGL Wild West, not that I possessed a copy

Fundamentally, and if you're using d20 Modern, got with Sidewinder: Recoiled.

Kinda wish Dog House Rules would offer free monthly adventures online for support.

 

[scourger]

I had the 3 games you mention. I got rid of Sidewinder & Deadlands d20. They were too complicated. I liked the style in which Sidewinder was written, so the Recoiled version is probably good too. But, each of the two added too much on top of d20 (the core D&D game) for me to easily use and to get my players to play. So, I ran a Spellslinger mini-campaign using adventures from Dungeon. It was fun but short-lived. I think if I had it to do over again, I would use the warrior & expert NPC classes from the DMG (maybe the ones from Arcana Unearthed with Spellcaster if I wanted magic) along with the firearms rules presented there to make a fun, simple Western d20 game. I would use craft-sundry, knowledge-West, profession-Cowboy & use device skills to catch all the stuff that the PCs may have to do--ever--with those skills. The rest would just be ad hoc.

To go off on a tangent (as you requested), I would really prefer at this point to use Savage Worlds for such a game. SW is just a beautiful, simple system. Deadlands Reloaded is supposed to be out anytime now, and it would be a great game to revisit with the new plot point campaign book.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

I've come across 2 interesting modules...
One is a Deadlands/WW:the wild west cross over.
The other is a Deadlands/CoC% cross over

Evil GM laugh

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, I would also suggest either OGL Steampunk or Spycraft 2.0.

I have run the same !880s campaign with both, of the two I vastly preferred the Amazing Machine rules in OGL Steampunk, but my players vastly prefer the Gear rules in Spycraft... They win. (If the players refuse to use the only part of a rule set that you prefer then you might as well switch.)

The Auld Grump