Any Old West gaming fans?

[WittyDroog]

Oh I didn't know that. How is it handled? Is it just a custom die roller for a 52-sided die basically? Does it support images?

Though a public deck everyone draws from would be great, A&E can work fine otherwise since you can shuffle the deck every time you draw (You just can't do traditional card games like those found in A&8).

I guess the only thing to figure out then would be a shareable image of the "silhouette" and then have a Shot Clock template that players can manipulate to put in the spot they want. Then you got combat down.

[CAPryde]

I'm not sure if you noticed it, but I'm running a Deadlands game, if you are interested in playing something with an Old West flavor.

As a side note, the card-drawing mechanics in that set work exactly as you would want them to--players are positioned around a table, draw from the same deck, and can see only a combination of their cards plus the cards in the communal pool, unless the Marshal chooses to reveal everything on the table.

[tdewitt274]

The public deck has kind of fizzled. The intent was to create a generic deck for multiple games. I did some initial work, but I don't have the required skills with interacting with the db to make things stick. In the end, the thought would be to be portable enough to add to other rulesets as well as work on it's own.

[Doswelk]

Oh I didn't know that. How is it handled? Is it just a custom die roller for a 52-sided die basically? Does it support images?

It's a deck of cards (with jokers). You can deal out a maximum of 5 cards (unlimited in the Deadlands extension, which also has a nice poker table that PCs can "sit" down at)

The cards are tokens as well so you can just put them as tokens on an image.

[AgatonSax]

https://www.rollspel.com/engelsk/western/ewestern.htm

I have no idea if this game is available in english (it's a swedish game).

They are working on the 4th edition now. I own and have played 1st edition only. It was/is quite complex but still easy to play. Character creation and fights are the most complex. Once you created a character the gameplay is simple like any other game, ordinary roleplaying from the players and skill-tests are performed with a d20 and add your skill-value to overcome the difficulty (usually 20 for ordinary stuff).

1st edition was very complex when it came to initiative, rounds and hitting and from what I've heard it was simplified to speed up the game in 2nd edition.

Worth to look for. There are lots of weapons, including when they were released to the market and lots of history. Somewhere from 1700-1900. At least in 1st edition they also included a lot from Hollywood since most people have seen a western or two. A holster was called "hollywood-holster" and it's up to the GM if they want to include the hollywood-stuff. You still have the common holster and for gunslingers the crow and twisted pair.

Everyone I ever played RPG with loved to play Western but the drawback was Hollywood. Most of us took a shot at GM-ing and lack of ideas for adventures made us all quit after a while. It usually ended up sooner or later with a bankrobbery or two and the obligatory chase like in the movies.

It's been around 15 years since I played it. I would love to have a go again but I'm in the middle of another campaign that will fill my time for quite some time (as GM).

[tdewitt274]

This is probably the most comprehensive list of western RPGs I've seen.

[dr_venture]

I have no idea if this game is available in english (it's a swedish game).

They are working on the 4th edition now. I own and have played 1st edition only. It was/is quite complex but still easy to play. Character creation and fights are the most complex. Once you created a character the gameplay is simple like any other game, ordinary roleplaying from the players and skill-tests are performed with a d20 and add your skill-value to overcome the difficulty (usually 20 for ordinary stuff).

I've seen mention of this game on the web (probably on that page that tdewitt274 linked to (indeed a great page)! I found their stash of free modules, which auto-translate into English with enough clarity to be useful, actually. It seems like it's well put together.

Everyone I ever played RPG with loved to play Western but the drawback was Hollywood. Most of us took a shot at GM-ing and lack of ideas for adventures made us all quit after a while. It usually ended up sooner or later with a bankrobbery or two and the obligatory chase like in the movies.

That is the rub with a western game: plotting the adventures take a bit more work unless you want to wind up with endless gunfights. In fantasy games like D&D it's easier to just think, "ok, the characters are 2nd level - how about them running into an orc stronghold in some cool old abandoned for of some kind, or underground stronghold." There more freedom to just kinda throw in fun elements without worrying so much about history or what makes sense. In the end, the easiest thing is to have somebody start shooting.

ALso, there are less options in terms of being able to quickly choose between dozens and dozens of monsters or fantastic locations or magical items with strange properties. It's like if you ran a fantasy campaign and limited yourself to melee, no demi-human races or magic to speak of, and maybe a handful of limited monsters. The easy choices as GM are relatively quickly used up, and you are left having to develop personalities, motivations, communities, etc. Definitely can be done, but it's hard... at least for me.

So far I've had the best luck by trying to focus more on non-combat skills and atmosphere of the old west. Fun so far, I constantly have to find ways to give players challenges. The reality is that many times, not a lot happened in the old west... so you have to kick it up a notch.

[peterb]

FYI, if you prefer BRP over D&D have a look at the Old West download section at BRP Central and the Aces High monograph from Chaosium. Since the BRP ruleset is easy to modify it should be easy to set up a Old West game.

[Casimir]

If you give it some thought, most fantasy adventures can easily be converted to a Western setting with a small bit of work. The basic plot elements are usually the same anyway - it just comes down to replacing the "monsters" with antagonists that fit a similar Western theme, and "magic" in the same way (generally I used either Indian shamanism or new technology for that in my games back in the day).

But still the primary problem comes down to mindset, as Agaton_sax said above. Trying to get "hollywood" out of the minds of the players isn't an easy task at first. One way I used was to illustrate just how deadly shootouts were - once the players are at least somewhat reluctant to get into a shootout, they begin to try to consider other alternatives to resolve their challenges.

[xDirtyDreamx]

I have been running western RPG's for a couple years now I have been using a rule system called gutshot. I really enjoy it is very simple and very quick play. I have been able to successfully adapt it to multiple offshoots like zombies in the west or fighting cult classics like Dracula and the invisible man.