I don't hate Westerns but I don't love them either. However I am getting a really strange desire to run this game. And one of my players does like Westerns. It just seems like a really kino setting. The problem is, running stuff set in the real world really annoys me, I often avoid superhero games for this reason, unless I can just run it in Megalopolis USA. I like how Dogs in the Vineyard just had "Back East" and then the frontier. No need for different states or real-world towns or cities. Just don't ask don't tell when it comes to the country.I know Deadlands has the Civil War still going on, or did, I don't even want to know what Current Year did to that setting. Not to mention, good luck including anything from Native Americans. And yes, my players are the sort who would mind. I don't really care but at the same time it just feels like it is crimping on my roleplaying escapism if we have native tribes based on real ones.
I think just overall the tropes are so overwrought and almost stereotypical that it feels like it would be hard for me to run. Like trying to talk in some country accent running NPCs, or really hamming up the tropes of Westerns and making it really campy and lame, would ruin it for me. But I also love the potential the setting has, especially since it's lower magic. Has anyone altered the Wild West style setting with Deadlands to be its own thing? I definitely could, possibly even removing natives entirely, but having ruins of an old civilization, possibly some old Aztec-like civilization that worshiped Lovecraftian entities, but with cowboys and gunslinging and saloons. That appeals to me a lot. I get that I might just be being a little bitch, but it's hard to explain what I mean. I want to run a game in this setting it just feels "cringe" for some reason because of how ingrained the tropes are. Just like superheroes. But both can be really interesting an emotionally engaging if you break out of those. I just want to find a way to do that without losing its genre identity.
Just stop being a bitch and lean into it. The cringe can't hurt you unless you let it.>I don't even want to know what Current Year did to that settingIf there's one thing the new versions did right, it's ending the Civil War. The uneasy post-war peace and the and the tension of not knowing who might be a Johnny Reb is a big part of the mood of a lot of Westerns
It sounds like the sorta thing that warrants watching the Dollars Trilogy to get in the proper headspace.
>>98426160Wasn't there a version of the setting set on another planet
>>98426160It's the same as the all Dwarf party: you think if drinking horns and table thumping songs are involved it will be funbut it will be some dour mechanistic fucker glowering at you for roleplaying. This is 99% of all games that aren't a dungeon crawler board game with people you actually like
Same as Always: Talk with your playerd avout their expectations and see to it that you twist the experience to a degree that allows all of you to have some fun. If that ain't reasonably possibly, play it another day with another group.I haven't played Deadlands nearly three decades, but for me the stereotypes and over-the-top tropes and cliches were a substantial part of the fun back then. Thinking of it, I might actually want to do a small campaign with my current group again as I think they would enjoy that.
>>98426160You and your friends sound fucking awful and I just want you to know that your problems are your own fault and you deserve to suffer.
>>98426160>And yes, my players are the sort who would mindThen this is your issue, not the game.
>>98426160Is this like Bravestar the tabletop game?
>>98426160Current year is a retcon the civil war lasted 10 years but is over now.This being the second time-travel retcon in fiction.Do cowboy stuff, they apologise for the metaplot ruining 3 decades of material.Use what you like from it.
>>98426568There is really someone who modeled all cartoon characters.
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>>98426160>I don't even want to know what Current Year did to that setting.You really don't. Let's just say it's dead, Jim.
Nut up and run an actual western game instead of a weird west one.Then don't apologize for anything that game includes, don't let it get political, any player who tries to paint the medium/get post-modern about it is dragged outside and beaten to death, ect, ect.The second you start doing something without a wink to the camera, people will be interested.
>>98426160>my players are the sort who would mind.A premise of the setting is that a vengeful Sioux shaman did a magic ritual and now the west is magically weird. If the idea of a magic indian man is offensive to your players you really should find a different game. Something like Aces&Eights maybe if you just want gunslingers in the old west and not Deadlands specific brand of magic/horror.There were splats for other regions, "South o' the border", "Back East" etc which might work better for you.>>98426341Lost colony... it's not greatThere's also Wasted West, a post-apoc version.
>>98426613>A premise of the setting is that a vengeful Sioux shaman did a magic ritual and now the west is magically weird. If the idea of a magic indian man is offensive to your players you really should find a different game.I've always wanted to play a magical indian kinda character of some stripe in some game, but being forced to go trawling in public sectors like Roll20 for games means not only do I rarely ever find an appropriate setting for it, what few I can find are often the kind of "people" that'd eat me alive for daring to have fun that way. So I sympathize with OP.
>>98426160I've run it before. You just need to avoid the campy stuff like the plague and lean into the more dark and serious side of the West. Bone Tomahawk. Dead Birds. The Burrowers. Silent Tongue. Grim Prairie Tales. El Topo. The Shadow of Chikara. Depart from the main strip of saloons and brothels and cowboys yelling yee-hah. Show convalescent homes where people gasp out their final breaths in the last stages of consumption. Quarantined hospitals amidst diptheria outbreaks. A waterhole that's been supernaturally poisoned. Freezing cold lonesome trails through valleys of ghost-white ash where wildfires have decimated all life (a la The Road) and travellers are disappearing. A band of sick fuck cowboys who've been cursed as wendigos for raping, slaughtering and eating a farm family. Draw heavily from native folklore, but also tone down all the classic Injun colours and outrageous headdresses and all that stuff. Washed-out, black-and-white warpaint. Maybe the local tribe was conned by a visiting voodoo priest from Louisiana and have lost their connection to the earth, the spirits, the animals. A grim aura of shame and loss hangs over their presence, but still they persist, unwelcome wraiths whose own homelands actively shun them. They and their mounts are wiry and gaunt, the moonlight catching the points of their skulls where the skin is stretched tight over the bones. It's all in the spin you put on accepted tropes.
>>98426160I don't get it, why would it be cringe?
>>98426651"stay away from everything that actually be fun and is the only reason anyone plays westerns" lmao
>>98426160It's very, very easy to just set it in a fictional town/county in the west and just go nuts. The history of the setting has already greatly diverged from our history, so anyone bitching about "historical accuracy" can easily be filtered. The latest edition is specifically made so it's much easier to ignore as much of the meta plot as you like. I ran a short campaign recently that was mostly concerned with the king in yellow, it had nothing to do with history or the deadlands meta plot beyond some things I specifically picked and altered beyond recognition anyway.Don't worry about the Deadlands setting, don't worry about history, lean into old west tropes (that's *why* people want to play an old west game.) I will say, if you're starved for ideas, the current "Guides to the Weird West" they have are pretty tight. It doesn't get too bogged down, I have a brief overview of the territory in question and then a bunch of towns/cities, and each adventure site has a pressing problem for the PCs to take care of. Very immediately gamable content for a game master. Grime Prairie Trails, from the last edition but still easy to get, is also really good, it's a collection of monsters/enemies and a short adventure to introduce them. Like a shorter, but much more in depth monster manual.
>>98426160>>98426161You already have the solution to your problem in your OP. Just run DitV with the parts of Deadlands you like, leave out the parts you don't. Don't worry about it too much.
>>98426160>>98426429Adding that by the grace of God and Christ's sacrifice, you can find new life with the peace to abide through suffering and the mercy of eternal life when your evil choices should have earned you ceaseless torment.
>>98426651Please GM for me.
>>98426160>Run it based off the real worldOther than the names of places and historical figures Dead Lands has pretty much nothing in common with the real world. Especially when you start heading west. The further west you go, the stranger it gets. So just starting the game in the middle of Kansas will have you knee deep in supernatural bullshit.If you really want to ditch all semblance of reality, go for Lost Colony which is basically Bravestarr.
>>98426613I liked Lost Colony but mainly because I ran it like a Saturday Morning Cartoon instead of something serious.
I'm kinda curious how Dark Ages is going to turn out.
>>98427899>Takes place in 877 AD>King Arthur is running England during the plague>Morgan Le Fey resurrects as the first harrowed and creates the four horsemen>Brings magic barrelling into "reality">Merlin jumps forward in time and yoinks a crate of six shooters from the main Deadlands timeline and converts them to something like the caster guns from Outlaw Star>All while vikings are kicking in the doorThat's the basics of what I know of it so far. It's incredibly stupid but I DEFINITELY want to play it because it's that special kind of retarded that loops back around to sounding awesome.
>>98427933Is Savage Worlds AE any good? I played old deadlands (and liked it) and I played Savage Worlds when it first came out (and did not like it).I assume Dark Ages will be SW.
>>98426267Yeah I'll probably watch it.I just feel like the other players (other than the one who likes Westerns) aren't gonna be into it. And I also feel like I won't be that into it creatively unless I can "subvert" the setting in some way into my own thing.>>98426386Yeah I would have a bit of the cliches but I feel like it needs more than that. I think making it an unnamed place in an unnamed state might help.>>98426445Nothing I am saying is meant as an objective criticism of the game, I promise.>>98426429I get what you're saying and I promise I am not who you are envisioning. I don't have any problems with Native Americans in an RPG because they got conquered, I have a problem with it because I don't like real-world settings in general. Because then I have to adhere to that and it creates this weird pressure. it's why I, despite loving alternate history settings, have never been able to write stories or run games in an alternate history setting. The pressure is too much.
>>98426601I mean Weird West is the main draw for me.I just would rather make up fictional native tribes if they would be involved at all. I would rather it take place in Not!America.>>98426589>You really don't. Let's just say it's dead, Jim.Did they remove native americans entirely from the setting? I know Magic The Gathering did that with their Wild West plane, but that was a total fantasy world so they could do that sort of "erasure" without getting in trouble lol.>>98427029I don't know. "Cringe" is the only word I have for it because my vocabulary has collapsed. I think it's just that it is such a heavily trope-ruled genre and people don't take it as seriously. It's cliche and full of cliches. So I want to do something new with it.I also get unreasonably autistic and unhappy when my RPG campaigns have to contain or take place in real life locations or reference people that actually exist in the real world. Like I am opening myself up to "ummm axschually that wouldnt happen that way">>98426651Good ideas. I would definitely make it very horror-heavy like Deadlands is meant to be. >wendigoslol I had one show up in D&D and learned that apparently "wendigo" is like taking the Lord's name in vain for native americans, none of them were native ancestry but they still didn't want me to even say the word anymore>>98427327>I ran a short campaign recently that was mostly concerned with the king in yellow, it had nothing to do with history or the deadlands meta plotThat sounds kino. moar?
>>98428267>Because then I have to adhere to that and it creates this weird pressureAs has been said in the thread: Deadlands is so different from actual history, you aren't beholden to anything. Just make "Gravestone County, Montana" and set your game there. You're overthinking this.
>>98427348Dogs in the Vineyard system sucks dick though. The escalation mechanic idea is cool but I don't want piles of dice. I want a game where they shoot zombies and shoggoths.But I might steal the "setting agnostic" elements of DitV where they don't really relate anything to the real world at all. They keep the story very much centered in its own world. I might do that. I don't know why, but keeping things vague and saying you are "somewhere out west" instead of "somewhere in northern Wyoming territory" helps me get into the game a lot more, as a GM at least.
>>98428317Skill issue on your part there with what kind of game to run. But if you really want to avoid historical things and don't really like westerns as is, run a space western. Lets you do all the same shit but not worry at all about whatever autism problems you're having about inuns.
>>98428317>. I don't know why, but keeping things vague and saying you are "somewhere out west" instead of "somewhere in northern Wyoming territory" helps me get into the game a lot more, as a GM at least.Then do this!
>>98428374>Skill issue on your part there with what kind of game to run.I mean I want to run that type of game I just don't like certain aspects of it, so I might change them.Unless you mean the part about zombies and shoggoths, I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek there, I don't want the game to be a mindless shoot-and-loot, but I do want it to have more action than a typical Dogs in the Vineyard campaign would have.>>98428599>>98428301I think I will, but I might even keep the state they are in vague and unnamed. Just have no real mention of anything specific in the real world at all. I do this with post-apocalyptic games I run too. I don't even say what caused the apocalypse.
>>98428178Yeah DA will be SWADE.SWADE still has most of the faults of the previous editions but did just completely axe charisma as it was redundant. There are some differences but the core loop of the TN being 4 for skill checks and shooting stuff, bennies moving back and forth, etc are all pretty much the same.Really, the system is good for action heavy bullshit and kind of ass for anything else. So as long as your preferred style of play is kicking in doors and blasting shit, it's a good time. >>98428300>Wendigo is like taking the Lord's name in vainWhat a bunch of faggots. NA don't name drop or talk about their monsters because they believe speaking about them gives them power. Navajo get REALLY on edge if you mention yee naaldlooshii (the Navajo term for skinwalker) because that's like directly inviting a demon into your house and even if they don't personally believe in skinwalkers, you gotta be retarded to just invite bad supernatural shit into life. If it doesn't exist, that's fine, but if it does, just a little, staying off the radar of a near unkillable evil force is a good idea.
>>98428300>That sounds kino. moar?The players were a mad scientist cyborg who routinely ate ghost rock and a Annie Oakley style shootist/stage magician Huckster who leveled into the magic gunslinger variety. They were a brother and sister, called back to their Father's estate because he had gone missing. It turned out he was looking for a way to stop a group called the Wifes of Carcosa from summoning the city into Denver. They also had help from their other brother, a shiftless slacker who was actually a Harrowed.They solved some mysteries around the town near where their dad lived, got into some fights with a splinter group that had taken over parts of Helstrommes company, ended up finding their father's brain in a mi-go brain jar in a dimensionally shifted mi-go ship. They ended up finding a macguffin that would shut down Carcosa, but it turned out it was being held by that rogue Helstromme faction, who was actually being led by a time travelling version of the mad scientist pc, from a version of the future where they had lost. (I was pretty pleased with how that one turned out, it was the first time I pulled off a legitimate twist in a game). We had a loooooooong hiatus and I wanted to wrap the game up, so I started the last fight in media res with them already stuck in a dreamlike state in Carcosa. They escape, the shooter pc doomed her harrowed brother's soul so that they had the help of the demon possessing him in the final fight, and then we had a huge, nearly 2 hour combat with the surviving wives, the time displaced mad scientist, and all the PCs allies.It was a fun campaign, it ended up being maybe a dozen sessions and had a little of everything. I didn't really worry about hewing to hard to any canon or mythology, I just kind of used whatever seemed interesting to me on the day.
>>98429438Yeah it makes sense that they wouldn't want to talk about them but I don't believe in wendigos so I can talk about it. I wouldn't go up to some native Americans and start yelling WENDIGO WENDIGO at them. I have respect for their culture and shit. But I'm not gonna censor myself when none of them are present.
>>98429569That is pretty cool. That's the kind of weird stuff I'm hoping for.
>>98426160If you're worried about being cringe I think roleplaying isn't for you.
>>98427933>>98427933Late 9th century for King Arthur? Good lord thats dumb.
>>98426160Deadlands IS cringe. You either like that kind of cringe or don't.
>>98430040It was a lot of fun. Deadlands leaves a lot of room for whatever weird shit you want to throw in there.
>>98430255Oh yeah, it's a mess but the entire thing is stupid enough I want to play it.
>>98430292>>98430242Cringe is the wrong word. I don't know what it is that bothers me about trope-heavy settings, and settings that take place in the real world, but Deadlands is both. I think I can get around it though.
>>98430787Deadlands is a setting where the dead rose again at the Battle of Gettysburg because a native American shaman went into a mystical otherworld and made a deal with malevolent entities to get supernatural power. A mystical super coal has been discovered that has allowed technology to advance by leaps and bounds. The USA doesn't exist as we know it, it has two native American nations and an independent Mormon steampunk Utah in it. The entire coast of California is a fucked up mess due to a giant earthquake. There are giant Worms in the desert. And that's all shit everyone knows about, there is also magic and demon possessed undead and priests who perform miracles and zombie powered robots. Aside from the Geography and the names, it doesn't "take place in the real world." This has been said over and over again in this thread, why are you having such a hard time understanding that?
>>98426161>I think just overall the tropes are so overwrought and almost stereotypical that it feels like it would be hard for me to run.At this point in history, that applies to every ttrpg genera.
>>98428300>none of them were native ancestry but they still didn't want me to even say the word anymoreIf your players take imagined offense on behalf people who aren't even there, then any game with even vaguely folkloric or mythological inspiration will be a risk. It would also be really hard to reason with them since they are essentially channeling the non rational beliefs of an imagined person. A native American absolutely has a right to take offense at a disrespectful take on his genuine beliefs, but other people don't have that right on his behalf. It's likely that Deadlands is not the right choice for your group.Pic rel is from the card game, not the rpg >>98429438>Yeah DA will be SWADEThanks, Anon.
>>98432266Yeah I admit that that is part of why I want to distance it from the real world, but also just in general I would rather "genericize" it so that it feels like a fantasy setting, really artsy and such, rather than the real world. I don't know if there's a name for that, intentionally making a real world place seem like a fantasy world.
>>98433971Re-skinning the game to something more palatable is probably an ok solution, but Deadlands had a lot of flavour baked into the names of rules and character options, so I expect it would be a fair bit of work.Are you still going to have poker hands and six shooters, or are you going full weird?
>>98428300>lol I had one show up in D&D and learned that apparently "wendigo" is like taking the Lord's name in vain for native americans, none of them were native ancestry but they still didn't want me to even say the word anymoreMan, I've had that shit.Hearing some white girl talk about 'Practices that are closed to us' made me want to immediately run Wendigo: The Stereotyping
>>98434974based>>98434856>Are you still going to have poker hands and six shooters, or are you going full weird?Probably yeah. It will still have the flavor, just a bit more generic.I also do like the idea that the native tribes went extinct and left nothing behind but ruins and some lovecraftian beasts of unknown varieties.
>>98436785Fully othering natives by basically making them extinct aliens, and thus portraying the colonisation of the west as settling terra nullius rather than perpetrating a genocide should actually be deeply offensive to everyone. Your players are full retards if they are offended by Wendigo, but not by this. Be careful you file of enough identifiers so it's clear you're not talking about North America. Like say it's on the moon or Atlantis and people go there in Jules Verne style rockets or something, so you can keep 19th century earth tech, but be explicitly clear that it's not a real earth continent.
>>98433971>I don't know if there's a name for that, intentionally making a real world place seem like a fantasy world.Yeah, there is, it's called fucking retarded
>>98426160Remove the author self-insert guy who instakills everyone.
