Wild West Game Experiences
 

Hey everyone,

I'm currently working on a Wild West game, using premade characters and planned to last two sessions. The game is set during the gold rush of 1849 and I'm giving characters only guns that existed at that time period (ie. no cartridges, no repeating rifles, long reload times on everything, ect). There are no supernatural abilities, no meta game abilities (like luck), and combat skills for PC's range from 11 to 15.

This is my first game set in this time period, and I was wondering what some of the major differences between this and either a low tech or ultra tech game that I should be looking out for? In particular:

1. If the players get into combat how far should I be planning on having combat take place at (rifles have a 1/2D range of ~100 yards)?
   
2. How worried should I be about a single lucky shot putting a PC out of action for the entire campaign (it will take place over a few weeks of traveling in game)?
   
3. Are there any extra rules scattered through Martial Arts, High Tech, ect that are ideal for a game like this?
   
4. Anything else to be aware of from your experience?

If all goes well with this game I'm planning on making it one of my go-to introductions to GURPS, so I want to make sure I'm as prepared as possible.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

I don't have any Wild West experience, but let's see...

Even if you restrict firearms to TL5, which would be sensible since you're in the first decades of TL6, there are a variety of repeating rifles that have sizable magazines in High-Tech, so make sure you're aware of that. They suffer from lower Accuracy, but they should be popular anyway. Let's say you put a 4x scope on a Winchester (anything more powerful also increases Bulk): it exists in TL5 and gets common in TL6, according to High-Tech, so that brings the accuracy of the Winchester up to 5. So, add that to a Guns skill of 15 to get 20, and that person will reliably hit targets up to 10 yards away with aimed shots, and have a 50-50 chance at 100 yards. These get better with Weapon Bond, or... actually, I'm not sure there's much else you can do to increase your hit chances, at that point. So that tells you a bit about engagement ranges: if you're more than 100 yards away from someone, they might have a really big scope or get lucky, but for the most part you're safe, since they're doing half damage even if they hit.

And how lethal is this gun? The classic M1873 does 3d+1 pi+. You can get it in a bunch of different calibers, but that seems representative. That averages about 18 points of injury, so an average person is going to have to make HT rolls to remain standing, but they'll need to bleed for a few minutes before they risk death. A headshot is 36 injury, so of course that's more likely to be lethal, but even that seems like something a PC has a good chance of living through.

Of course, nobody likes losing 18 HP. How many HP can a PC regain in a week? Again assuming TL5 medical tech (the frontier probably isn't on the cutting edge here), people under a doctor's care get 10 rolls to recover HP per week, so even with HT 16, it's going to take about two weeks to get back to full HP after that rifle shot. Other than the +1 for having a physician's care, though, I'm not sure how to get bonuses to that roll, so that'll be worth looking into.

So, there you have it. PCs aren't going to get one-shotted from outside LOS under normal circumstances, but bullets suck.

Have you read Tactical Shooting? It's aimed at TL 8, but it's the best gun book there is. Not sure what precise you'd want, but it goes into detail on fanning a revolver's hammer, among other things.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

It sounds like you want a deadly adventure where people fail a lot at hitting anyone and spend lots of time reloading. If you are also a stat normalizer, it sounds like people will die a lot as well.

Do you players like that experience? If so, then go for it!

Have you run through some practice combats to see how they run?

I would caution you to be careful when you use this as in introduction to GURPS. Let the people new to GURPS know that it can be played in really different ways that the way you'll be running it. And that if they hate the experience, they should try again with a different style.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

Actually I believe it's early TL5. The start date is 1849, which puts your example gun (The M1873) 24 years from being developed. From what I've been reading in Hightech, almost all of the guns at this point are still muzzle loaded, with a few breach loading rifles being experimented with. Loading consists of putting wadding, powder, percussion cap, and ball in separately or pre-assembling them into a paper casings that you break apart and use when loading.

I'll flip through tactical shooting, and I've read some of the techniques in high tech. As a two shot where people will be playing pre-mades I'm trying to keep the rules as light as possible.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

Hatchets, short swords, knives and such will be important back up weapons. A couple double barrel shotguns might be useful too. The Allen pepperbox entry on High-Tech page 92 is the classic miner's weapon of the day. At Acc 1 and 1d+1 pi- it's not much good past three or four yards.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

100 yards in an extended, military-style firefight, but I would propose MUCH shorter engagement ranges. The legendary gunfight in OK Corral[1] had ranges of a scant 2-3 yards!

I'd recommend having a table with general distances on it. 10 yards for fights in and around buildings (like a saloon), 15 yards across streets, 20+ yards in open areas with limited cover. That's my guess anyway.

Well, the rule in gunfighting is avoiding getting shot, so I'd make sure everyone has good Dodge scores and some Tactics to avoid getting caught flat-footed. Fast-Draw is the classic answer to shooting-before-being-shot, but good timing and tactics can win the day.

Also decent HT, Fit, and Hard to Subdue/Kill can be a literal life-saver, and Rapid Healing can get an adventurer back in the fight much easier!

Tactical Shooting is your friend! I can't think of specific ones at the moment though...

Make sure your characters know Cowboy Rules. Touching another cowpoke's hat or his horse could result in some serious confrontations. :P

-------
[1] Tactical Shooting, page 10

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

What background do your characters come from? Remember there are at least three different cultures(anglo, hispanic, indian) and all their subgroupings to deal with, plus the immigrants of various peoples who want to try their hand. Make that four because there is Chinese too.

You might have a rapier here for a rich Mexican or American from New Orleans. Or a navaja for a poor one(I know I kind of go on about navajas but navaha lore is fascinating). Likewise you might have bowie knife for anglos. Saber would do for both Anglos and Hispanics and there and there might be an Indian or two who can handle one, not just an assimilated one but one who picked one up on a raid or learned it from a teacher at a rendevous. I can't remember what the favorite hand weapons for Indians in the region were though. In any case revolvers are a cliche in Westerns though they deserve to be because they were a force multiplier for frontier patrols. But for tavern mayhem and duels hand weapons might work and be an interesting change of pace. Another advantage is that the martial arts of hand weapons have a rich history and sometimes have guidebooks available on line.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

1. If you force the situation you have explained above expect someone to build a bowman, then be ready to explain why the bow is so much better then your artificial period firearms (see 2 below).

2. You may want to check your dates and logic on repeating rifles and revolvers- the first percussion cap revolver was 1833
The first repeating rifle was either the Girandoni in 1779 or the Lagatz (sometime in the late 1700s), the thomson rifle was 1814, and colt had made a revolver rifle almost as soon as he had made his mass produced revolver. Browning was producing harmonica gun rifles in 1834.

So basically unless you are throwing historical accuracy out the window for gameability reasons, the repeating rifle predates the revolver.

3. If you go with a default assumption of body hits//never have bad guys target the head/vitals average ST and above PCs can expect to survive any single bullet wound, healing times as mentioned are going to be harsh. If you are using the random hit table, then an unfortunate roll could result in near instant death (from a head or vitals shot), doubly so without allowing luck.

4. Expect your PCs to at least inquire about armour- it may not fit the western setting very well, but mail or plate would actually have been pretty effective against those early 1800s weapons, if your PCs are routinely being shot and put out of commission for weeks of slow healing being the weirdo wearing mail or plate under his poncho will be preferable to another bullet wound.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

I recently introduced a bunch D&D players to GURPS, the setting I used was a historically accurate depiction of elite soldiers in the Vietnam war so there may be some similarities that you can draw inspiration from.

I did allow what you call meta game advantages. For example the party scout had danger sense and the demolitions expert had luck. The downside was some scenarios were too easy, but the upside was that there were multiple situations where the PCs should have died but didn't due to these advantages. Realism didn't seem to be impacted, some people believe that these types of traits really exist, I have spoken to veterans who were convinced at any rate.

I found it was better to start combat at very long ranges. It gave the PCs options, close combat was usually over in a round of two and very deadly.

I started the campaign with a selection of missions before opening it up as a sandbox. That helped the players get a feel for the game system and historic context before they had to make any major story based decisions. You could recruit the PCs as deputies for a couple of missions before the sheriff retires and they are on their own. Recovering from injury is a big problem in historically accurate settings. This is another advantage of the mission based approach, you can delay time between missions to allow the party to heal.

Re: Wild West Game Experiences
 

The Colt revolver rifle was from 1855, no? Were any of the others actually commonly employed (as opposed to just patents, prototypes, or rare oddballs)?

The black powder revolvers were common in the US from the 1830s onward. Colt Paterson, Walker, Dragoon. There were also the pepperbox styles. But AFAIK even newly designed rifles were still generally muzzleloaders even up to the American Civil War, when the Henry and Spencer show up.