GURPS Old West

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

But are Westerns strictly about the Wild West?

Not always. For example, The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

[Black Leviathan]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

But are Westerns strictly about the Wild West? The Western genre isn't primarily about lawlessness, it's about society.

The Western Genre isn't really about one or the other. Most stories are about wresting civilization out of the wilderness, and wild shoot-outs are a part of that wilderness as much as unmerciful deserts or wild animals or angry native tribes. Later on the Genre also came to be about what is lost in the race for civilisation but it is still a story partially defined by the Wildness of the West.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by copeab

Not always. For example, The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

That’s just an exceptionally wild Wild West (from the human perspective).

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

But are Westerns strictly about the Wild West? My Darling Clementine, The Searchers, Red River, High Noon, The Furies, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Toll Gate, all truly great westerns, are all about civilization and civilized values. Taming the land and building communities, leaving one society and finding your place in the new society, the price of both law and lawlessness, these are the themes of the western. Certainly, later Westerns shifted emphasis but works like Cat Ballou, The Ballad of Josey, or Support Your Local Sheriff! all have serious things to say about individuals and society. The Western genre isn't primarily about lawlessness, it's about society.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre was not about law or lawlessness, it was about avarice and grace and who can handle wealth and who can't.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Treasure of the Sierra Madre was not about law or lawlessness, it was about avarice and grace and who can handle wealth and who can't.

More about the futility of of avarice or seeking wealth, and the bad end that chasing avarice leads to, vs. the willingness to enjoy a simple life and doing something that helps folks in some fashion. It comes through a lot more in the book.

[hal]

For a different "Western" you might try Amazon.Prime and search on Kirk Douglas for free viewable movies (well, movies you can watch having paid your prime membership fee).

The movie you want to find is BIG TREES with Kirk Douglas and Eve Miller. Right about the time of the movie, Congress passed a law allowing large tracts of land to be traded for land elsewhere - public land that is. So, loggers - having depleted the land they were granted earlier, could now swap out the land for fresh timberland elsewhere.

Bear in mind, the fact that the homesteading act, amended (I seem to recall three separate times) allowed people access to publicly owned land at the price of $1.25 per acre up to 160 acres. This would later cause problems when the ranchers with cattle went head to head with homesteaders applying for and being granted - land that was originally free range. Greed rears its ugly head for many reasons over many different opportunities. So, westerns can involve lumber, buffalo hides, land, water rights, mineral rights, etc - things that are FREE or for a relatively nominal price, is going to attract people who want something for nothing.

If it is desirable, I will take the time to vet the information source I have, that lists the price of farmland that is not "free range" - but developed farms. Prices could range as little as $10 per acre and go as high as $50 in one listing that I saw for one county/state. All of this is for the time 1880 if that helps.

[copeab]

I liked Bone Tomahawk on Amazon, a watchable, if merely okay, western/horror. The plot is good for a one-shot, where PC survival isn't of great importance, but it would need some work for a campaign.

[Astromancer]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ( l got the link and improved the spelling ) is one of the Cohen Brothers many amazing reworking of the themes of the Western.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The Ballad of Buster Scoggs ( I'll get the link and improve the spelling later) is one of the Cohen Brothers many amazing reworking of the themes of the Western.

Oddly enough, I started to watch that - and found I absolutely HATED it. Seems like this is one of those "hate it/love it" types since you seem to consider it amazing. (No slight against you - my tastes in Westerns simply found it hard to enjoy).

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by hal

Oddly enough, I started to watch that - and found I absolutely HATED it. Seems like this is one of those "hate it/love it" types since you seem to consider it amazing. (No slight against you - my tastes in Westerns simply found it hard to enjoy).

I can so see that. I loved it, though not all of its choices. Still, it is very easy to see why many people would hate it. When you go to the edge, some people will always feel you went too far. Far enough for some will always be too far for others, that's not a slam at you, it's simply a fact about art.