Any interest in a semi-realistic old west game?

[dr_venture]

I posted this once before ages ago, but I'm now to the point where I can actually host games... thank you Hamachi, and all the kind souls on the boards & chat who have walked me through those now oh-so-familiar router screens.

I'm thinking about a ca. 1880 game in the California / Nevada area, as I'm most familiar with that. I'd like to maybe revive my current neighborhood perhaps, to it's early years. I live near Yosemite, and around here we've got places with seemingly cliche names like Rattlesnake Creek, Moccasin Hill, Hell's Hollow, the town of Garrotte (and Second Garrotte, even!), and you can still see the remains of the ditch that the Golden Rock Mining Company used to sell water by the board inch (1 inch square hole cut into a board that water was allowed to flow through) to settlers, saw mills, and of course miners in this land of seasonal streams. We actually have an old mine on our property originally named - I kid you not - Old Betsy.

Anyway, I'm curious as to wht the interest level is for a non-fantastical old west game. Well, there may be some fantasitc stuff in it, and it's only semi-historical in nature... thing an RPG version of Red Dead Redemption. Striving for some authenticity, but not getting too caught up in it. Emphasis would be on enjoying the atmosphere, a moderate amount of roleplaying, and of course killing and shooting and robbing and/or saving.

Game system would either be my Sidewinder: Recoiled ruleset, or perhaps Go Fer Yer Gun! (a freebie western version of Castles & Crusades)... or some mish-mash of the two.

Please give me a brief idea of your level of interest, how often you'd like to play, and rough availability. Thanks, all.

[Magnatude]

Count me in if you are able to do Saturday Nights. No preference to ruleset

[Dr_Babylon]

Similarly, I have no preference regarding ruleset. I am not familiar with either but willing and eager to learn. I love the "real world" period-piece stuff, researching a workable character background and shopping for appropriate gear and attire (oh, I'm gonna need to read up on horses). Depending on the agenda that is chosen for this project, it would please me to play a part. I am in EST but prefer late evenings so a Pacific schedule should suit my needs.

I was curious what timeline you were considering. Just thinking that, say, the Civil War and other events might be a factor in a character's history...that sort of thing...


Dr Babylon
("Deserve's got nothin' to do with it.")


edit: I see now that Sidewinder is related to D20 Modern and, thus, not so alien to me. Still, either system would maintain my sincere interest.

[Donegal]

I am very interested. I am in EST time zone and am not a night owl so I understand if the scheduling doesn't work.

[dr_venture]

Glad to see there's a bit of interest... enough to run a game I think. It might be fun to have a couple of PC/NPCs that either a player could double-up on, or we could have an on-going open spot for people to check out the genre for an evening. If we got all regulars, that's fine, too.

The question now is if we can arrange a mutual time. I'm a work at home dad with a very flexible schedule, so almost any time is good for me (other than weekdays until about 3pm). I tentatively have a Friday night game now, so Sat works for me. Donegal, what's the latest you'd want to stay up? Mag, what's the earliest you can start? Dr B: does Sat work for you? If we can put together at least a couple hours we can agree on (though it doesn't have to be every week - dunno how often everyone would want to play), then I can start putting together the start of a campaign of sorts & move this thread to another location.

Do any of you guys have accounts on Obsidian Portal (https://obsidianportal.com)?

Dr. B, I'm thinking the time frame would be around 1875 - late enough so there is more available weapon-wise and settlement-wise, but early enough that the west is still fairly undeveloped and untamed.

Also, you're probably more familiar with d20 than I am - Sidewinder is my only experience with it. I'm much more inclined to use the C&C mod, as I think the FG ruleset is just much more usable, and I much prefer the stat-based skill checks rather than the more precise d20... definitely a game style I'm more familiar with and comfortable with. I think it's more 'enabling' for players, giving them more opportunity to find ways to resolve issues... but that could just be my inexperience with d20 talking!

Let me know what you guys think.

[Magnatude]

I'm open to 3pm+ on sat... on occasion I would work on Saturdays but unlikely past 2pm PST. No on the OP account... as far as ruleset, I'll go with whatever works best for you.

[Donegal]

11pm ideally, but I could stretch it if we are in the middle of something. My OP name is Donegal as well.

[Dr_Babylon]

On Saturdays I work a little later so I cannot guarantee availability until at least 10:30 pm (7:30 your time?). Despite my genuine interest, I can understand if the eventual agenda does not suit my needs. There will be no hard feelings. The very last thing I want is to make things difficult for someone else because of my own preferences. I am unacquainted with this Obsidian Portal you speak of. And, again, I am impartial on the question of which rule set.

Was also going to ask, what are your thoughts regarding party make-up / motivation? Childhood friends in a frontier town? Disparate adventurers and mercenaries responding to the same offer of work / bounty / other? What will be the glue that binds us, I guess is what I'm asking.

Dr Babylon

(urge to produce fish-out-of-water North-West Mounted Police themed character rising ... )


p.s. What are the chances of my character packing a Merwin, Hulbert & Co. 3rd Model Frontier Army double-action revolver in .44-40 Winchester? Christmas is right around the corner.

[dr_venture]

Darn... that doesn't sound like we have a schedule concencus - Dr. B can't start until 7:30pm, and Donegal has to end by 8pm (Pacific).

Well there's currently no hurry - I have a bit of prep work to do, both in the tweaking the character gen rules, creating an extension for my Old West theme for C&C in FG, and actually putting together the first adventure. I'm actually running somewhat modified versions of some old Boot Hill adventures for my son - have you guys played any of those? I'm running him through a module from an old Dragon magazine, which is pretty fun, if a bit 2 dimensional 'out of the box'. That kind of thing would be a quick way to get the ball rolling.

I'll assume that there is enough interest and get to work on the prep. It'll probably be a couple weeks until I'm ready to nail down a session. Why don't we see if anyone else shows up and what their schedule is to see if there's any concencus? Sound reasonable to you guys?

Dr. B: I have no thoughts on party make-up or backstory. To me that's something that you guys would do yourselves, perhaps with my input if wanted or needed. You'd generate the characters you want to play, then look at their backgrounds, personality, and interests, then come up with your own ideas as to your reasons for being a 'party'. I think probably the most logical reason would simply be a matter of being people with both a bond of friendship/affection, and a similar sense of adventure, wanderlust, or just a good time. Other than outlaws, religious groups, explorers, etc., off hand I can't think of any such groups in real history, so you just come up with fake history: a good story that everyone gets a kick out of.

As for that specific gun, I'm unfamiliar with it. I'd have to figure out how to give it stats, but that's not very difficult. With both C&C & Sidewinder (d20), the weapons don't really have tons of variables - range, damage die, etc... very much like D&D (hmmm... a scimitar for 2d4 dmg or a long sword for 1d8dmg... decisions, decisions). The choice usually just comes down to what the player thinks is 'cool.' So other than the stats, I'd say your character would have as much chance of owning one as somebody in 1875 did if their heart was set on it. If it's available and you can afford it, unless it's a really rare item or has to be custom made, then I don't know why you couldn't.

[Magnatude]

Hmm... im partial to Good the Bad and the Ugly... my fave... but that was during the civil war.
How about we decide on being either outlaws or bountyhunters or maybe venture can shape us in the first session depending on our reactions?
So Cali/Nevada eh?
I'll post some of my character ideas soon... we starting in a town with some background?

I have the Boot hill editions on my comp

Do I become the trusty sidekick called "Cheaplaffs"?

[dr_venture]

Hmm... im partial to Good the Bad and the Ugly... my fave... but that was during the civil war.

You are a man of refined tastes... I salute you! I think 1875 is is more the Long Riders time period (I'm guessing - haven't checked)... not too much later than the civil war. No outright hostilities, but a portion of southern veterans are still smarting from the outcome (and probably lost most everything they had before the war). I think there was an economic downturn around that time too, so there might be a few entrepreneurial-types (ethical and... not so much) out trying to make money in some scheme or another. The indian wars aren't over yet (last one was the Modoc War in N. Cal), so there's some conflict there. A good time to be alive (in an imaginary game world).


How about we decide on being either outlaws or bountyhunters or maybe venture can shape us in the first session depending on our reactions?

FWIW, my suggestion would be to not box yourselves into a profession as a group, especially one as pursued as outlaws of any notablility... unless trying to outdo the gangs of lore is really what you guys want to do a lot of. I had a group years ago (mind you I was a lot younger then) that did the outlaw thing, and it turned into a situation where it was hard to do other things in the game because they were soooo wanted.

Maybe one of you is a bounty hunter, and the others decide to help on a mission for a cut of the profits... but then the bounty hunter may decide to take a guard job that the others are interested in, just to make a few easy bucks for a while. Maybe one of you grew up in the midwest and just wants to see the Pacific Ocean at least once before you die. Whatever you decide to do individually, I'd say as a group leave yourself free to be able to take opportunities that you see an advantage in. Perhaps you'll even want to be somewhat morally grey at times... or not. Maybe you have motives that will evolve as time goes by?

It can be as simple as this: with the current group I'm running, they're a down on his luck Nevada silver miner, a drifting ex-Union soldier, a young granger who left the family ranch, and an Annie Oakley-esque traveling circus trick rider & shooter who got tired of the performer's life... wanted something real. Chance brought them together at the same place & time where they struck up a friendship. Then an opportunity came along that they decided was too good to pass up, and thus they began to work together as a group. Hardships and danger followed, and their bond grew. Before you know it, they're a party. Maybe they'll split away from each other for a while, then get back together, but it feels natural and allows everyone to be their own person.

That said, everything is what you make of it. If you come up with a group backstory that paints a more cohesive picture - excellent!


I'll post some of my character ideas soon... we starting in a town with some background? I have the Boot hill editions on my comp

You're talking about the rules, right? That's no problem - how about the modules? If you have them, have you read them, and if not, can you refrain from doing so?


Do I become the trusty sidekick called "Cheaplaffs"?

I personally recommend it, yes. "Ohhhh... I can't get a long little doggie. I can't even get one that's small..."

[dr_venture]

Mag & Dr B: can you guys either PM me a contact email so that I can send invites to you for the campaign on Obsidian Portal, or just sign up for a free account there and send me your username on that web site. I'm working on putting together the rules (I'm kinda combining Sidewinder and Go Fer Yer Gun, so it's a bit of a slog) so I'm not quite ready share the site yet, but I figured I'd send out this message a bit early to get the process started.

One other thing: would any of you be terribly bummed by the idea of doing the game through FG chat, not voip? I might be able to arrange to use voip, but it's not really convenient for me to have an open mike in the house, and I really love having the chat logs to archive. Also, what do you consider a good game session length? What's too short and/or just plain too long?

Thanks!

[dr_venture]

Just a quick ping to let you guys know I'm working on the rules right now. Neither Go Fer Yer Gun! nor Sidewinder: Recoiled have the character classes I like, so I'm mixing & matching & more or less creating a lot of material almost from scratch. It's looking like you will select a basic character type ala d20 Modern (i.e., the Fast Hero, the Charismatic Hero, etc.) and get a few abilities from that, then select a basic background (i.e., wealthy, urban poor, immigrant, native, etc.) and get some more abilities, then pick a class which will provide most of your character's abilities going forward.

Classes are a bit odd for an old west game. In a fantasy world, generally fighters do fighter stuff and clerics do clericy stuff no matter what they're up to. In a more modern setting, well, it's not like if you have an "Outlaw" and a "Tin Star" character in the same group, it's unlikely they're both going to be continuing their professions at the same time and still be cooperating. So my interpretation is that your "profession" or class is as much a reflection of your professional interests as your background. A "Tin Star" character doesn't alwasy have to be working as a lawman, and an "Outlaw" doesn't always have to be committing crimes or even be a bad person. But both will probably always have proclitity towards such activities, and thus their character's abilities will develop that way as they progress. In reality, your character will mostly be defined by their actions, as far as the world around them is concerned.

I have the Obsidian Portal site set up and will send out invites to that when I have the basic character rolling info up there.

I am going to combine my current campaign with this new one - I only have so much time to be coming up with RPG material, maps, graphics, modules, etc. There will only be 2 or 3 characters continuing from that group - all are first level, so I think the group size will be good.

Dr B., I got your PM with email - thanks... haven't had a chance to reply yet. Mag, haven't heard from you on that front - please PM me an email addy that I can use to invite you to Obsidian Portal (free)... or you can go over there and grab an account yourself then just send me the username.

Thanks folks - progress is slow, but it's being made. We're still at least a couple weeks out from scheduling a session. Probably I will try to schedule 1 on 1 sessions to finish up characters, work out any questions or details, and get your character to the scene of the action with at least a tiny bit of personal history.

[VonKyrin]

I actually started writing a Fantasy Grounds adventure module that was realistic Old West for GURPS. I've been working on putting together a campaign for years although I haven't been too consistant with it since I don't have any players interested. I'm a pretty big fan of GURPS, and its skill based system lends itself to realism very well. You can pretty much create any type of character that you can imagine and the creation points keep all the characters balanced. There's an Old West suplement for older editions, but I prefer 4th Edition and so I just use it for reference.

I would recommend running a Western campaign in an alternate universe much like Red Dead Redemption. It allows you to not let the facts get in the way of your story. However - for my own campaign, I decided to go with total realism like a "historical" novel. You make up characters and events, but the big stuff in the history books happens the way the history books say, or pretty close anyway.

Hopefully, the players won't go buff up on New Mexico history and spoil some of the suprises of what's in store. But, the real adventure shouldn't depend on those events. Knowing the history might give the players some knowledge of the future, but wouldn't totally ruin the campaign. And no one is likely to know that history unless they go research it. There's a ton of really interesting stuff that happens related to the Cimarron, but I only know about it because I did an enoromous amount of research. It's a rather obscure part of history that, suprisingly enough, has almost been forgotten.

The campaign was to be called "Cimarron". The idea was to begin the campaign with a trail drive that ended up with the adventurers in the Cimarron region - a large region of northern New Mexico owned by one of the wealthiest land barrons of the age, Lucien Maxwell. I was going for something similar to HBO's Deadwood.

Most people have never heard of Maxwell, but Billy the Kid was killed in Maxwell's house. (Maxwell had left the house to his son Pete, if you're wondering why they say the house belonged to Pete Maxwell.). It's interesting that almost everyone in Old West history was tied to Lucien Maxwell and the Cimarron. At first I wondered why, but then I realized that he was on the Santa Fe trail and everyone came across that trail or the Oregon trail to go west.

Maxwell, historically, bought up basically all of northern New Mexico and was doing business with those who travelled along the Santa Fe trail. He was basically at a cross road where two trails met. The whole area was rich for adventure and a lot of stuff actually happened there during that time period. The Apache and Commanche indians were all around. Maxwell's town of Cimarron was at the bottom of part of the Rocky Mountain range on wide open plains. The area actually broke into "war" as squaters who had moved into the area in the 1860's fought the land owners for the land (Maxwell actually sold his claim a couple of years before the fighting broke out which may have been where part of the dispute came from since Maxwell didn't actually write out any agreements he had with people living on the land).

I chose 1866 as the starting year for the campaign. That's a year after the end of the Civil War which gives enough time for people to move around after the war since all transportation in the West at that time was on foot, whether your own or a horse's.

I've done a ton of research on that area and period, including traveling to some of the places.

In my mind, the Old West period is between the end of the Civil War and 1880. A lot of people consider the Old West period to extend even further than that, but most of what is stereo typical Old West was gone by 1880. Some of the later Old West events happened around 1880, like the shootout at the Okay Corral. But, I think a lot of those guys were in Tombstone specifically because everything east of Arizona had become civilized. Most of the famous events of the Old West took place in the 1870's and 1860's.By the 1880's the West was well on its way to becomming civilized.

The Colt Peace maker began production in 1873. That marks a seperate time period from the Old West previous to 1873. The Peacemaker was the first cartrige pistol - what we consider a modern bullet. Before that, you had to pour gun powder down the barrel and shove a lead ball down after it - I really love those old cap and ball pistols (they seem antiquated now, but before 1873 they were state of the art weaponry). Before the Peacemaker, the Indians actually stood a chance; with a cap and ball revolver, you're going to spend about a minute loading it after every 4 to 6 shots. That may leave you vulnerable to attack. And how many arrows can you fire from a bow in a minute. That's one of the reasons I chose 1866 for my campaign year.

I own a Colt Peacemaker, and I can tell you from experience that you only put 5 bullets in it even though it has 6 chambers. The firing pin sits on top of the bullet's firing cap. So, theoretically, you could fire the bullet just by dropping the gun on it's hammer. Or, if you got the hammer snagged on something, and it didn't go back far enough to half-**** it, the hammer would drop on the bullet and might do it hard enough to set the bullet off. I've taken the gun apart several times and I can tell you there is no "safety" on guns of that period. So, in order to keep from shooting themselves in the foot, they kept one chamber empty, so the hammer would not be sitting on a loaded chamber. I'm sure they did the same thing for cap and ball guns. So, you can imagine being in a fire fight where you only had 5 chambers loaded (or 4 if it was a 5 shooter instead of a 6 shooter) and then having to spend a full minute reloading. The Peacemaker was a HUGE leap in weapons technology.

Actually, it was the Henry Repeating Rifle that really changed things for the Indians. The cartriage rifle (that shot bullets rather than pouring powder down the barrel) was invented during the Civil War, but I think it took several years before such rifles were widely used. Also, it wasn't until 1873 that pistols started shooting cartriages (modern bullets).

After about 1875, the railroads started being completed across the Old West. That significantly changed things too. There was no longer a need to drive cattle long distances, when you could load them on a train and send them to market. It also connected the West with the civilized world and joined the West to the civilized world.

Another big technology that ended the Old West was the telegraph. Telegraphs were used during the Civil War, but I think a lot of the telegraph networks out West weren't really setup until the 1870's. But before telegraph lines, you could easily rob a bank in one town and be in the next town with no one aware of what you had done. It was a time period when you could commit all sorts of evil deeds and move to another town and have it almost like it had never happened. I think people didn't really like strangers and drifters for just that reason.

Also, after about 1875, all the Native Americans had been sent to reservations or otherwise pacified. That whole thing went down right after the Civil War. I'm in Texas, so I studied a lot of Texas history for the campaign. Fort Worth was one of many forts that the army setup as a line between the "Indian" frontier and the "civilized" world. By 1866 that line had already been pushed into west Texas and Fort Worth had been abandoned by the army. Most of the historical incidents related to the Native Americans all happened before 1875. I think a lot of them were probably actually before the Civil War, although the Civil War changed the American desire to occupy the west. Before the war, only trappers and traders had much interest in the West. After the war, the South was so decimated that a lot of people wanted to move out West and start over. Plus, the early West had a lot of oppurtunity in the cattle business; large herds of stray cattle were all over Texas in 1866 - and all you had to do to claim them was put your brand on them. Barbed wire and the railroad pretty much ended the cattle trails though.

Sherman's scorched earth campaign across the south left the south in pretty bad shape. Plus, one of the primary reasons for the war in the first place was that freeing the slaves would cost wealthy southern plantation owners dearly. A whole lot of southern wealth was destroyed during the war and the southern economy was so bad that a whole lot of people packed up all their belongings in a wagon and wrote "G.T.T." on their front door (Gone to Texas). The whole period between 1865 and 1875 is known as Reconstruction because the nation was rebuilding after the war.


Anyway, that's why I like the 1860's as a setting for the Old West. Of course, I'm looking at the Old West mostly in terms of Texas and the New Mexico territory.

[VonKyrin]

Oh, and I'm interested in joining the campaign although I'm not familiar with any of those rule sets. I'm in Texas - Central Time (-6 GMT). I'm generally available on the weekends. If I had my preferences, a 5 hour game every other weekend would be ideal.

Oh. And I'd probably prefer not using VoIP, although I'm willing to use VoIP.

[dr_venture]

Hey Von, I hope you finish up your campaign - sounds really fun. The regional histories from the period can be really interesting, and having visited NM once a few years back, I can see thta it'd make a great place for a game. I also think the idea of involving a large cattle baron's ranch is a really fascinating one, also... I think those places could be pretty impressive.

For CA, not surprisingly everything surrounded the gold rush - the state just exploded with people. There had certainly been non-natives here before that (trappers, missionaries, etc.) but in '49 you had a huge inflow of people from just about everywhere. Then since few really struck it rich, there were a lot of people that branched into businesses exploiting the area's natural resources such as lumber, farming, industrial mines, fishing, etc... even cattle, too (we still have an old fashioned cattle drive, cowboys & all, that runs up a bunch of back roads and Forest Service roads, then plops right onto one of the main roads into Yosemite a few miles from me, then runs for 10 or 12 miles - moving cattle between high and low country ranches for the season. It's always a cool experience to wind up tailgating a couple of cowboys and 200 or 300 cattle). Of course the other gold rush was for the merchants collecting gold dust from the prospectors - I've read a lot of account of prospectors quickly figuring that out!

As far as lawlessness, I think that most of it came about out west due to the expansion/contraction nature of things. Bodie is a good example in my mind - the place grew soo fast that I don't think the law enforcement could even keep up, so you wind up with a silver boom town in the middle of nowhere (even firewood had to be freighted in on the train) with 10k people working in 24 hr. shifts... half the year the snow drifts were up to the 2nd story windows and water would freeze just a few feet away from a glowing woodstove. So in good weather on payday, all hell broke loose. I think that at one point there were 2 or 3 murders a day occurring. But these places were products of time and place, and eventually such towns either got their police force in shape, and/or disappeared altogether.

If you're ever out in CA, Bodie is a real amazing place, preserved in a state or "arrested decay". Website here (https://parks.ca.gov/?page_id=509).

Interestingly, on the Indian front (I use the term, as most Indians use it themselves around here) the tribes of California were by and large pretty peacefull. There were certainly skirmishes here and there, but not much in the way of large scale battles. It's ironic that the last battle of the Indian wars occurred in far northern CA - the Modoc War.

Anyway, I suppose it's kind of a different, more regional spin on the old west. That's actually why it sounded fun to run as a game - it's not really the classic western setting, but it's one I grew up with.

I hope my game will be an interesting and fun one. I'd like to keep it as rooted in the period and history as I can, but without getting bogged down in every detail - there comes a point where it's not worth researching the details any further unless it's just plain fun to do so. Consider it a similar but slightly alternate universe... like the Star Trek reboot movie!

Send me a PM with your email, or sign up for a free account on Obsidian Portal and send me your account name. When I get the rules nailed down, I'll invite everyone to join in there for campaign-specific discussions and info.

Here are a few photos of Bodie, in case the reader of this thread has never been there. The contents of the buildings are real and left untouched.

[Dr_Babylon]

Huh. Here's hoping I won't be at a handicap for not knowing so much about the Old West setting. Play that stranger-in-a-strange-land angle, maybe.

In terms of rules and regs, Dr Venture, I have faith in whatever you choose to utilize. At the risk of seeming low-rent, I'm just awful eager to get into a consistent and engaging game that suits my eclectic requirements. You need anything from me to make this work, do not hesitate to ask.

To all other prospective players, might I suggest we make a concerted effort to not all shoot each other the first time out?

Dr Babylon


(p.s. My beloved Merwin, Hulbert, and Co. revolvers weren't produced until 1876. I'll get over it.)

(p.p.s. How much did a Golden Andalusian go for in 1875?)

[dr_venture]

No worries Dr_B - it's all in good fun. And I absolutely *don't* want it to authenticity to prevent a good time. I think it's a rare case that it would, because I think there's a lot of fun to be had in just taking reality and turning it up a notch - BAM! I'm the type of GM that is pretty logical - I'm happy to give you breaks for things that your character would be aware of, living in that era... I wouldn't trap anybody on stuff like that.

I'm glad I know as much as I do about the setting, but I'm no expert by a long shot. Hopefully I can add enough details to bring a little piece of my corner of the old west to life, and hopefully everyone will get a kick out of it.

The rules are a bit stickier than I thought, and I've been dealing with some distractions, so the progress has been going slow... but it *is* being made. Just to let you know it's progressing (and take this all with a grain of salt) that your characters will have the standard D&D/C&C stats plus Comeliness & Perception. Then ala d20 Modern/Sidewinder you'll pick a basic character type:


The Strong Hero
The Fast Hero
The Tough Hero
The Smart Hero
The Dedicated Hero
The Charismatic Hero


Rather than racial profiling for benefits (pun intended) we'll have social background:


High Society (barons of industry, Congressmen, successful business owners, etc. In short: an abundance of wealth)
City (this represents the average city upbringing and the better ethnic neighborhoods)
City, Lower Class (slum life, many immigrants and ethnicities endured such a life)
Rural, Well-To-Do (life of the wealthy in a rural setting: cattle and oil barons, politicians, lawyers, large business owners)
Rural (the average rural upbringing)
Frontier (growing up away from society & town, no nearby neighbors, self sufficiency)
Indian (a generic native upbringing)
Immigrant (you grew up in another country)


Then finally you'll choose a "class"... which is a bit of an odd concept in the western setting. I think of it more as your character's "professional proclivity." A character who is a "Tin Star" doesn't actually need to have a job as a lawman, but is likely drawn to such work and has acquaintences in those circles... and they're the most likely to be hired as such when an actual job is offered. Thus, their skills will develop in that area.

These are pulled from several sources (which seem to also unabashedly borrow from each other - some of the overlap in skills and titles are extensive). Currently, the classes are:


Academic
Artisan
Athlete
Bounty Hunter
Brave
Doctor
Drifter
Grifter
Gunslinger
Mountain Man
Outlaw
Preacher
Prospector
Rifleman
Scout
Showman
Tin Star
Wrangler


I'm boiling down skills into smaller groups and coming up with a d20/Castles & Crusades hybrid of granted class abilities and choosing abilities a-la-cart every 3rd level. I want to have enough abilities for everyone that there are lots of options for each player, but I don't want to make it too complicated.

The Artisan & Athlete are giving me trouble, as they are such open-ended categories - a one size fits all approach isn't going to work there, so I'll have to come up with some kind of way of just choosing appropriate abilities and more or less building a class from scratch.

I have taken the non-fantastic C&C cleric spells, which is about half of them, and divvied them up between the Doctor and the Preacher. So "Atonement," "Hallow," and "Remove Fear" are Preacher abilities through prayer and inspiration. The various Curing and "Remove Disease" type spells become Doctor abilities at various levels.

The Academic is actually shaping up to be a very interesting class!

Anyway, I think that's where we're at. At least there's something to think about... but it's not set in stone yet.

[dr_venture]

Oh, and I should point out that if you really wanted to come up with a justification for using one of the standard C&C classes, like Fighter or Monk or something, that's fine too, as long as you're not going around casting Magic Missiles or Raising teh Dead or anything. There's another game system for that. :D

[Belizan]

Have you guys picked a time yet?

[dr_venture]

Nope, not yet. Still waiting to see who's interested, and what times most folks are available. I think all I can say is we're looking at a Saturday night game, beyond that, dunno.

[dr_venture]

Well, and waiting for me to get the character generation rules done, mainly. Dang it.

[Dr_Babylon]

Sounds like Charismatic / City dweller / Grifter is the path for me. if I'm reading it right. Does an addition of stats mean that there would be Comely and Perceptive heroes, too? Just curious. As long as I've got a character who gets by on wits, charm, and luck I will be happy.

Until then, I shall remain
Dr Babylon

[dr_venture]

A charismatic greenhorn grifter is a good combination, sure. A bit of a fish out of water in the deserts of Nevada, but the west was full of them. "There's rhubes in them thar hills!" I have changed the name of the class to Flim-Flam Man, as 'Grifter' and 'Drifter' seemed too similar. A Flim-Flam Man would be anyone from a huckster of snake oil to the classic Maveric character... anyone who manipulates others and the situation to achieve his goals, whether good intentioned or ill... or somewhere in between. Some of their lower level skills are 'Lady Luck,' 'Sharp,' 'Work the Crowd,' 'Silver Tongue'... which sounds like what you're looking for.

Beauty and Perception aren't really 'characteristics' as much as simple attributes. They're actually rolled separately than the other stats. A modern Charismatic Hero would be, say, Robin Williams or Johnny Depp, maybe a politician you respect (sorry, couldn't resist)... while a Beautiful Hero would be Paris Hilton or Nicole Ritchie... there's not much there other than (arguably) looks. Same with Perception - to me Perception is simply how attuned you are to your senses: sight, smell, etc. A hero who's main defining characteristic is being able to perceive things is not much of a 'character'. "There's Bob over there, he's the life of the party, so witty! And there's Jolene, she's tougher than nails. And then there's Rufus, and he... well, he smells stuff and hears things."

[Dr_Babylon]

So simple gauges really. High perception is good but a high wisdom means you can apply your senses where it counts. In your example, Paris Hilton might be considered comely (by some...) but has all the charisma of a pine cone and, thus, would make a rather lousy demagogue. Gotcha.

Any thoughts on the swindler concept I PMed you a while back, boss? I'm all ears.

Dr Babylon

[dr_venture]

Sorry about the delayed response. Any of the characters in your PM sound fine.

I'm not sure how to rate them in the 'authenticity' category, and I'm not sure if it really matters. They certainly sound plausible, which is all I'd hope for.

There are a lot of genuine and odd characters that pop up in accounts of the west. Near where I grew up south of the Bay Area, there was a stage line that ran across the mountains, and one driver with a reputation for being a tough SOB was Mountain Charlie. There's still a Mountain Charlie Road there that was part of the early stage line, but now out away from everything. Unless I'm mixing up my historical characters, Mountain Charlie was reknown for surviving an attack by a grizzley bear, killing it with his knife... they patched a hole in his skull with a mexican silver dollar (silver won't rust in the skull). The point of the story: when Charlie died at some ripe old age and they laid him out for burial, turned out that Charlie was actually Charlene - she had hid the fact she was a woman for decades.

So teh authenticy of your characters? They don't sound as implausible or inauthentic as Mountain Charlie.

[dr_venture]

Oh, and apparently 'Charlie' was the first woman to vote in the State of California. Sounds like an RPG character to me.

[dr_venture]

OK, I'm trying to get this discussion off of the FG boards and onto the Obsidian Portal site. I have sent invitaions out to Mag, Dr_B, & Donegal.

If anyone else would like an invitation, even if you just want to investigate game times & see if you actually want to pursue the game, just PM me either your email address or your username at Obsidian Portal (free) and we can begin the game-centric discussion over there.

[VonKyrin]

Have you decided what year it will be in the campaign for certain? I'm thinking the year might have some influence on what character I might play and definately on the character's background.

Also, are we rolling character abilities and how are the rolls done? The less controll I have over the character's stats, the more I would want to see the stats first before deciding what sort of character I might want to play. Rolling a character would probably take me in the direction of letting the dice determine who the character is, rather than chosing the character.


I have a vague idea of what sort of character I would like to play, at this point, but it's still pretty vague.

[VonKyrin]

Bodie looks interesting. I've only managed to make it to a couple of "ghost towns". One that would have some prominance in my campaign, if I ever get it going, was not much of a town at all. Most of what was left of it was crumbling stone walls. Although, since there seems to be little record of what it was actually like, that leaves it wide open to shaping it to be anything you want it to be.

Lincoln is probably the main and somewhat best ghost town I've been to. (Lincoln and Union sure were popular words back then.) Lincoln is the site of the Lincoln County Wars which largely gave Billy the Kid his fame. The town was preserved somewhere about 15 to 20 years after that. I forgot what happened, but the town ended up getting frozen in time. Probably because it was abandoned, although I forget. It's been largely restored and I think it's a state park now.

[VonKyrin]

Dr_Babylon,

I think a lot of people get worried, when you start talking about historical games, that they don't know enough about the time period. Personally, I think the "game" part of it is far more important than the "historical" part, although I have a personality that just wants things to be acurate.

For players, I know I would be extremly forgiving of their lack of knowledge about the period. They just don't teach us much about history in school; they just kind of skim over everything and give the highlights. In their defence, they don't really have time or resources to go into great depth.

And so much is regional knowledge. This campaign has me realizing how little I know about what was happening outside of the Texas/New Mexico/Oklahoma/Arizona/Colorado area during the Old West period. I know quite a bit about what happened there, but the rest of the country I know very little about. I've been kind of curious about what was going on in the deep south during that period, such as Alabama and Georgia; alot of the area that I'm familiar with is just deadlands and Red Dead Redemption made me realize that the Deep South is some beautiful country. There's one spot in New Mexico that I've been to where you drive for hours through nothing but chaulky dirt/clay. It's just dull yellow clay or maybe lime stone as far as the eye can see. There's another place where it's about 10 minutes of driving over black twisted rock; it shocked me so much I had to get out of the car and up close to it. I later researched and found that it is the result of an ancient lava flow and that the black thicket of twist jagged rock is lava.

Anyway, so much of the history is regional that no one who hasn't really studied that region's history could possibly know anything about it. I wouldn't know anything about the Deadwood incident (America invading the Dakota hills because of gold found there after the land was given to the Indians) if it hadn't of been for the TV show and some research I did on it after watching the TV show.

And the more I study the Old West, the more it tends to leave more questions than give answers. There's not just one book that you can go read and learn about the Old West. But that can make it fun for a game. Just like I knew nothing about the Dakota hills incident, but I didn't need to to enjoy the TV show. And it was really facinating to later find out that it was all based on real history.

I definately feel like there's a whole lot more about the Old West that I don't know than I do know. I expect players to know pretty much nothing of the history, but that can be half the fun - if, after the campaign is over, you can see "Oh. And by the way, that really happened." or "Incidently, that person was a real person, believe it or not." (There are some interesting characters in the Old West that history has all but forgotten. We know a lot of the big names, such as Wyatt Earp, but there where some characters that were almost as facinating, or in some cases, maybe more facinating that no one remembers. )

I played in a game once, where the guy who was running it was afraid that him knowing nothing of the Old West would screw up the game and he was self concious that one of the players actually knew quite a bit of the Old West history. At that time, I knew practically nothing about the history even though I had grown up in those places my whole life. (I remember, as a child, people would go outside of town and pickup ancient Indian artifacts, because they were all over the place.) His game may not have been absolutely historically accurate, but that didn't keep any of us from having a great time.

Running a game, myself, makes me want to "get it all right", but at the end of the day it's a game, and it's about having fun, not "getting it right". Although, now that I think about it, I have been known to "call out" GMs for historical inaccuracies. (Maybe I should be ashamed of myself.) There was one WWII game that I played in that I remember specifically. My character caught a soldier, under his command, asleep on guard duty. It was kind of important to the scene for the soldier to understand how important it was that my character was forgiving him (It was like, "I'm gonna pretend that I didn't see this, but I had better NEVER see this again). The GM seemed to think it was "no big deal". I pointed out to him and latter emailed him the paragraph from the military code of justice that says that you can be court martialed and executed by firing squad for that. (In reality, I'm not sure anyone has ever been executed for that in the US Army, but it's certainly military law that you CAN be executed for it, I'm sure it's highly dependent on a number of issues including what you're guarding and how important what you're guarding is.

Still, I think that GM hated me for calling him out on that one. But, I realize it's his game, and if he says that in "his game world" there is no such law, then there is no such law. But, I'm still likely to point out the inaccuracy in a world that is supposed to be "realistic" and historically accurate. But, in the end, it's the GM's game and his word is "law", if you don't like it then you don't have to play.

[dr_venture]

Have you decided what year it will be in the campaign for certain? I'm thinking the year might have some influence on what character I might play and definately on the character's background.

Also, are we rolling character abilities and how are the rolls done? The less controll I have over the character's stats, the more I would want to see the stats first before deciding what sort of character I might want to play. Rolling a character would probably take me in the direction of letting the dice determine who the character is, rather than chosing the character.

I have a vague idea of what sort of character I would like to play, at this point, but it's still pretty vague.

Keep an eye out for the invite from Obsidian Portal - I put up a thread on the Forum there about the campaign date, which for a couple reasons including your interest, I moved back to just post Civil War, May 1866. There's also a little starting seed in the Adventure Log section on coming up with some background that puts your character out west.

ALso, the character generation rules are not at all completed, but if you look on the Wiki, you'll see what's there so far. THe rules for generating your main stats are up already, but I can summarize that it's almost standard D&D (4d6, chuck the lowest, rearrange) but with a couple of extra stats that are not rearranged & rolled separately.

See you over at the campaign forums!

[dr_venture]

Hey Von, well said on all of your comments about how to treat an historically accurate game. That's why I suggested my game be considered an alternate timeline... there's just no way to get everything right. We'll have a good time trying, tho... we'll be somewhere in the ball park.

[Magnatude]

thanks for the character info... I'll be creating this weekend (busy week) I'll have some extra time next week as the Boss heads out on a moose hunting trip... so I'm taking some time off to renovate my upstairs bathroom vanities and put a new tiled shower in the basement (Wives know how to make a brake from work... work... lol...) but it should give me a few hours more of PC time.

[dr_venture]

There's not much up there yet, Mag - the only detailed info is for the basic character types (Strong Hero, etc.) The rest of it is not filled out yet. I think I'm close to being able to upload info, though. I've had a couple web jobs pop up that are ASAP (natch) so I've been distracted again. Knowing you're angling to get some time to spend on it is good motivation for me, tho!

[dr_venture]

Even though I'm organizing the game's details on Obsidian Portal, I put an announcement on the game calendar on this site so folks can see we exist & know who to contact. I'll leave the listing there active until we have enough players, which we probably won't really know until we decide on a game time... which we should probably do soon.

[dr_venture]

Well, I'm only now getting to the point that I'm ready to run the game. The prep was way more time-consuming than I anticipated... plus the holidays... plus Skyrim... you get the idea. I think I've lost some players during the delay - very understandable, no hard feelings, guys. So I'm re-posting here to see if any of the old players are still interested (contact me over on the Obsidian Portal site), or if there are any new players that might be curious (contact me here). After this weekend, I'll remove the inactive players over there so they don't keep getting email updates every time I update a page.

Based on the players that are still active on the Obsidian Portal site, it's looking like it will be an evening game (Pacific Time), around 8pm till maybe 11 or 12? It's also looking like it will be a text chat game, as opposed to VoIP... slower, but more opportunity to role play and get into the game. It's not clear whether or not this will be a weekend or week night game. I'd vote for Thur, Fri, or Sat night, personally.

I anticipate it being a fun, fairly laid back game as the characters begin play near the Black Rock Desert in NW Nevada, May 1st, 1866.

[dr_venture]

Giving this a bump... hoping to find another player or two to jump into reasonable facsimile of the Pacific West in 1866. We have a handful of potential players and some scheduling issues to work out, but we're ready to gear up to ramming speed!

[dr_venture]

I would like to also clarify that the playing schedule (days and times) is still very much up for grabs, so don't let that deter you.