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Old 11-16-2018, 11:59 PM   #1
Henchman99942
 
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Default GURPS Old West

Hello.

If anyone has run a campaign using GURPS Old West (3rd edition), I would like to know what year and location you used. What would be the best year for a game? Pre or post gold rush? Pre or post transcontinental railroad?
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Old 11-17-2018, 08:18 AM   #2
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

If, like me, for you the Old West is all about the weapons then 1870 or so seems to be the sweet spot. Much earlier and you're using cap locks; much later and it isn't incredibly "wild" any more. Etc.
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Old 11-17-2018, 10:46 AM   #3
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

I think I would prefer a "Dawn of the West" game at around the 1840s. There was more mayhem and more exploring, more actual pioneering. I also think I would do aspects of the West that are less often portrayed in the Stereotype. Such as the fur routes or the Santa Fe Trail. Or Pacific coast navigation; it is funny how no one seems to combine Westerns and Sea Stories when historically there is plenty of justification for doing so. Magazine weapons will be missing which seems different from our stereotype of the West (though the Texas Rangers took up with revolvers almost right away simply because Comanche were better light cavalry then practically everyone). Edged weapons, which are surprisingly lacking in any western except Zorro will be more common.
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Old 11-17-2018, 03:13 PM   #4
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

Depends on the game. If I'm on the Oregon Trail, 1836-1846 is the sweet spot. If I'm doing something along the lines of most Western gunslingers (Billy the Kid, Bat Masterson, Maverick, etc.), then the 1870s hits the spot.

The two have pretty different feels, too. Oregon Trail is pre-ACW, while most gunslingers are post-ACW. The change in weapons, increase in railroads, and other things makes the "golden age of gunslingers", what most people think of as the "Old West", a different feel from "We'll travel 20 miles on a good day following the Platte River west across the plains, and most days something will go wrong, even if it's minor... oh, and since this is 1837, Fort Laramie isn't yet built for resupply."
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Old 11-17-2018, 06:13 PM   #5
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

Quote:
Originally Posted by acrosome View Post
If, like me, for you the Old West is all about the weapons then 1870 or so seems to be the sweet spot. Much earlier and you're using cap locks; much later and it isn't incredibly "wild" any more. Etc.
Yeah, I get into this with people who say they want to set their (usually hypothetical) Old West games "right after the Civil War". I explain that they'll see my character not going anywhere without his 1866 Winchester. Some of them say "Aren't you going to carry a Peacemaker?" and I say "Reply hazy, Ask again in 7 years.".

John Wesley Hardin (no "G" or you'll find out a whole lot about a Bob Dylan album) was shot in a saloon in El Paso in 1895 during a thoroughly wild era. It's quite possible to go later than some people might think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Hardin
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Old 11-17-2018, 09:40 PM   #6
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

I'll add an additional second for "it depends on the theme/feel I'm going for."

In addition to those already mentioned, you could get a more "survival on the frontier" sort of story in the 1820s or 1830s. Maybe even earlier, but then the "Wild West" might be Tennessee. Think Davy Crockett, or The Revenant.

One more idea is "the death of the Old West" set in the 1890s or after the turn of the century. Expect to see a salesman demonstrating some modern marvel, and the old order being put out to pasture. Red Dead Redemption is one such, as is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
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Old 11-17-2018, 10:04 PM   #7
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

When I last ran my Old West, it was set in Colorado in the 1870's. The players started out in Kansas and had tickets on the Kansas Pacific that would ultimately take them to Denver Colorado.

If you get a chance, you may want to take a hard look at ACES & EIGHTS for their support material.

Also, email me if you want a copy of the data file for GURPS CHARACTER ASSISTANT for those "Adventure Guns". In addition, if you want my excel database with regards to gun cartridges and likely damage ratings - they came pretty darn close to the Adventure guns damage values. Using Douglas Cole's formulas for approximating the half-damage range, gets you a little bit more of the guns damage values for various other guns. I also have a few reference books that I can dig into for you, including an encyclopedia of the West (VERY thick volume) that I used to look up events that might have been current gossip (such as the Indian Massacre perpetrated by an Officer claiming a lot of braves killed when in fact, it was mostly women and children.
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Old 11-18-2018, 12:06 AM   #8
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

If you set your campaign around the year 1872 to 1873, you may wish to incorporate the Equine Influenza Epidemic. The url is HERE if you want to read up on it. It generally affected some estimated 75% of horses throughout the US.

Then there is the GREAT PANIC of 1873, which had some of its roots in the Influenza listed above...

Here is a LINK explaining THAT effect as well. This is one reason why I use my MONTGOMERY WARD catalog of 1890 for prices that I'm reasonably confident will be close to the 1870's prices, as inflation was not all too heavy during that time period.

For those who like to dig into a time period and research it, THE NEW ENCYCLOPDIA OF THE AMERICAN WEST edited by Howard R. Lamar might be just the thing for you. It spells out some of the events of the time with their own entries, including (purely at random) the anti-polygamy act passed in 1880 by the United States to deal with the issue of (yup, you guessed it) Polygamy in Utah. Circumstances were so bad that the Senate refused to seat a senator from Utah due to his known multiple wives. The law forbade polygamous males from holding office, from voting, etc.

But - if you need information not present in GURPS OLD WEST at your fingertips, I would recommend getting your hands on a copy of ACES AND EIGHTS pdf. It is a bit pricey, but it contains some 400+ pages worth of illustrations, maps, information on horses, price list that runs about 10 pages for goods and services (as well as pay rates per month for various jobs). It has its own "minigame" for running a Trial, mining for silver or gold, or cattle ranching.

If you like the idea of an alternate timeline, in which the United States entered into a civil war some 10 years earlier than it did in our timeline, one in which the North did not defeat the South, and Cuba became incorporated into the Southern Confederacy - then Aces and Eights might make for a nice world book as well.

If you are looking for props to use for your game world table top runs - you could do worse than to look at WHITEWASH CITY - paper miniature buildings that you print out and assemble for use at the table. With the cost of color ink being what it is - your best bet would be to print it at a printers than to print it off your own machine at home. But the nice thing is, the author of those buildings offers a free sample of a building so you can print it and assemble it see if you're interested in it. Of course, you can sort of cheat and buy balsa wood to build your own copies of those buildings or even paste the material onto ordinary wood or cardboard to make it more structurally stable, but that's up to you to decide.

Some of you may recall the old WEIRD WEST games - KNUCKLEDUSTER'S COWTOWN CREATOR might be worth picking up. There is also the FIREARMS version of the book series that might be worth picking up as well - but looking at Ebay right now, it looks like you will have a long wait for a decently priced copy to be found.

Just some thoughts... :)

Last edited by hal; 11-18-2018 at 12:08 AM. Reason: Forgot the link for the Great Panic
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Old 11-26-2018, 12:10 AM   #9
hal
 
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

Adding a little something extra here... :)

For those who might be interested in a historical Old West and like digging into real data, try looking at the Census Data for any given decade. The URL that I'm showing HERE is for 1860, but if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will see all of the Censuses taken since 1790.

What makes this resource useful is that you can download PDF's of the censuses to the extent that it will show you town names and populations for those towns. Something I thought might prove to be interesting for those who like their Old West Gritty and realistic...


:)
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Old 11-26-2018, 12:46 AM   #10
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Default Re: GURPS Old West

My last Old West game was also Colorado in the 1870s
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