Old West Sourcebooks?

[Dunadin777]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

My inspirations: 3:10 to Yuma, The Missing, Open Range, Wyatt Earp, Unforgiven, Dead wood, and so on in the dramatic, brief-but-intense violence range.

I'd like to do something with a gritty, but stream-lined feel to it. So I will probably restrict a number of options to make it simple and unimposing for new players. I'm not going to have much in the way of weird elements, with one notable exception. Unless I change my mind, I'll be having the setting be at least one or more years after the end of the war, set in antebellum Gettysburg. The solitary weird element will be that the dead soldiers buried there are starting to rise, and the players will have to try to find out how to stop it before they are overrun by thousands of undead.

I'm planning on this game being a special halloween event at the store where I work, so I'm focusing on it working as a good demo game, but most of the stylistic elements and resources(realism especially) I would likely use for other games in the future.

So, books I should probably pick up: GURPS Tactical Shooting, GURPS Old West, the Knuckleduster books, and maybe Thaumatology/Deadlands for the secondary elements.

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

If you're doing a straight up Old West game (realistic or cinematic) without obvious magic/supernatural events, I recommend picking up something by Louis L'amour. Those books run around 150 pages and can be read in a day or so, but give you great adventure ideas.

Oh, it's been such a long time since I've read a L'amour story, but I think it's time to pick up one of his anthologies again. Thanks for that reminder.