G is for Gunslinger

It always seems to come back to westerns for me. From the Leone-inspired name to the Sabata poster banner to the boomtown of Motherlode, most of my blog has been western-inspired, a fantasy or apocalyptic veneer over a frontier core.

I was talking with my friend CJ about the sort of games that he would like to play over a couple of whiskey and cokes and he started reminiscing about a Deadlands game in his past, probably the most successful game that he's ever played in. I tried to get a Deadlands game going with my crew before, but there's just something about the setting and PC parties within it that's really hit or miss for me. It seems like a lot of people gravitate towards the Arcane Backgrounds and cool powers of the setting; I've seen a lot of potential parties that are loaded down with Hucksters, Mad Scientists and Blessed without once cracking the multitude of movie western roles. I guess it's hard to think of 'Old coot prospector' or 'Army deserter' as D&D-style gaming classes, even if they are western archetypes.

I think my ideal campaign milieu is an anachronistic action western, equals parts Robert Rodriguez's Desperado, Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado and Howard Hawks's El Dorado, plus a lot more films on top of that (I just liked the rhyme scheme): a West that Never Was combining kung-fu, sleeve guns, electric guitars and motorcycles with a cinematic frontier filled with oil towns under siege, outlaw gangs and railways connecting it all. The closest that I've seen any piece of media come to the idea is Rockstar Games' Red Dead Revolver. Even with a soundtrack of phenomenal Spaghetti western music and a gritty film aesthetic, it was still a Capcom game at heart, which means that nothing has to make sense. You can be fighting fat guys and midget clowns in an abandoned mill until everyone's dead, then have to deal with a dynamite-strapped boss character who chases after you with a pair of metal shields and explodes when he runs into you and that's okay, because they're carnies.

I haven't seen this kind of cinematic western flavor in many RPG products, save Dave Bezio's Wild West Cinema, which seems to be on the exact same wavelength as I am. However, I'm hesitant to spend another $10 on a PDF download that I might never use when I'm reasonably sure that I could hack this game together with Savage Worlds, the game I'm most comfortable with and the original rules set in which Bezio ran his successful wild west games.

I know this one is a bit short and a bit late, so here's a little bit of video to make up for it. Over-the-top Korean westerns are a-okay in my book.