Old West Old School?

Summary:

Any experience with old old west games and/or retro-clones?

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Old West Old School?

cr0m 09 Apr 2014 17:13

I'm looking to run some Old West games for RBV this year, but haven't been able to settle on a system. Aces & Eights was recommended, but it is hella complicated (although I do like the grittiness of gunfights).

I'm really turned off by the art and general amateurishness of Boot Hill, but I don't have a copy so I haven't checked it out.

What I'm looking for is some sort of 0e D&D + some kind of interesting gun fight mechanic (i.e. not just D&D bows and arrows reskinned, and everyone AC 9). Does this exist?

Doesn't have to be d20-based. Just quick character generation and general ease of use like older edition D&D.

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Chris
Vancouver Red Box: a site for old school D&D

Re: Old West Old School?

Sternum 11 Apr 2014 11:39

I suggest giving Boot Hill another look. The third edition is fast, furious fun, and the art is ripped straight from Old Western pulp magazines. It is a good game.

Aces & Eights is made by the guys who designed Hackmaster, and I've heard that it's crazy complicated.

I've heard good things about Coyote Trail, but haven't played it. It's only $5 on DriveThruRPG, so it's easier to get a hold of than the long outta print Boot Hell.

Last edited on 11 Apr 2014 12:00 by Sternum Show more

Re: Old West Old School?

Invincible Overlord 12 Apr 2014 13:30

I have Aces and Eights and I think it' complexity is overstated. It is interested in a sort of bullet time combat, but you can start messing around with that with two-stat characters. The "advanced" rules are modular and campaign oriented, so if you wanted to begin with very simple characters and flesh them out as you go if you're interested, the rules seem to support it. I found it all really appealing, but never got to play.

Re: Old West Old School?

cr0m 01 May 2014 20:15

Thanks guys. I borrowed a copy of Aces & Eights and it looks too complicated for me. I picked up a copy of both 2nd and 3rd Ed Boot Hill, too. 2nd is pretty much a miniatures skirmish game—none of the PC stats has to do with anything but combat. 3rd Ed. looks like an honest to Gygax, RPG. I'm reading through it now.

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Chris
Vancouver Red Box: a site for old school D&D

Re: Old West Old School?

cr0m 30 Jun 2014 22:36

Obviously today is the day when I remember a bunch of posts I made on RBNY!

So I was pretty unenthused by 3rd Ed Boot Hill. I mean, it's not bad or anything, but I think the main issue is that I can't figure out what the "core activity" of an Old West game is.

Old West gaming needs a Moldvay to distill it down into its fundamental "this is cowboy gaming" the way Mr M did for D&D and dungeon crawling.

For me, the main issue is that the closest analogue to D&D's "explore hostile territory and loot the inhabitants" is completely reprehensible in the context of the Old West, where the hostile other is aboriginal people, and murdering/looting them is precisely what cowboys tend to do in the Westerns concerning them.

From what I know about Westerns and Old West literature (which TBH isn't encyclopedic), the core Old West experience seems to happen in a town, and involve relationships, not monsters. I haven't figured out how to Moldvay that.

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Chris
Vancouver Red Box: a site for old school D&D

Re: Old West Old School?

Sternum 01 Jul 2014 17:11

I've been binge watching Have Gun, Will Travel, which is about as perfect a source of gaming inspiration there is for a Western game. It's a very well written show. Many of the early scripts were written by Gene Roddenberry before he ran off to do Star Trek, so the tone is familiar if you look for it.

Anyway, the main character is a good-guy gun for hire who takes on all sorts of jobs. He mediates feuds between ranchers. Tracks down children that were adopted by Apaches. He foils a robber baron by betting the town's water rights on a race through Death Valley. He hunts down an eloping couple and brings them home for a proper wedding.

I'd run a Western game more like Pendragon than D&D. More epic quests than monster hunting.

Re: Old West Old School?

Invincible Overlord 01 Jul 2014 22:14

Again speaking up for aces and eights, there's a lot of support for non-shooting. There were a lot of reasons the western was a top genre for adventure for so long, there's a lot that emerges from the setting.

Re: Old West Old School?

FredH 02 Jul 2014 15:12

It's not really faithful to genre, but the basic Old West town-and-desert setup seems like a good blank slate to paste other story types into. Secret evils in the town! Strange things out in the desert even the Comanche won't go near, or acknowledge exist! Monstrous-threat strangers who ride into town and have to be dealt with! Non-monstrous strangers who ride into town bringing plot with them! Etc.

Re: Old West Old School?

cr0m 22 Jul 2014 23:08

Thanks for the recommendation of "Have Gun, Will Travel". That's a show I've never seen. I've barely watched any Western tv shows from that era. I think my basic problem with a town based game is something that Zak S blogged about: superheroes are reactive. I could run it as a sandbox of missions, which is how parts of Red Dead Redemption work—you can wander around running into missions and do the ones that appeal to you.

So far the only real structure I've been able to come up with is where the PCs are trying to carve a town out of the frontier, and they have to deal with threats to the town, whether that's criminal gangs, road agents, robber barons, evil ranchers, etc. Still haven't figured it all out yet.

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Chris
Vancouver Red Box: a site for old school D&D

Re: Old West Old School?

ETSmith 31 Jul 2014 17:42

For guidance on how to structure a campaign, I'd recommend looking at the Knuckleduster Cowtown Creator, an old Fudge book (with stats for Deadlands as well) filled with random tables and odd historical facts great for a town-based sandbox game.

As for rules systems, there are lots of Westerns in the OSR now, but I've no AP experience with any of them. Scroll through This List and you'll find half-a-dozen. Given that I think well of the designers, Blood & Bullets and Go Fer Yer Gun (both by Simon Washbourne), and Shotguns & Saddles (by Dave Bezio) are worth checking out. There's also Weird West, a micro-mini sytem with OSR roots.

Last edited on 31 Jul 2014 17:45 by ETSmith Show more

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