Wild West Game Experiences

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

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.

I don't remember dates much so much as details. I do remember the Texas Rangers adopting revolvers because that was an important event that gave them the upper hand against the Comanche. Before it was actually the Comanche that had the advantage because of their better equestrianism, etc, and a saber isn't really enough better then a Comanche traditional hand weapon to make up for that.

This is of course in Texas. However now that I think about it the period of Texan sovereignty was about a decade or so before the conquest of California. So revolvers would have been available for several years already.

As for rifles from what I know there were very few repeaters of any kind(revolving or magazine) and those seemed to be experimental. The idea was old but their wouldn't have been enough actual models to introduce one to the game without a special explaination for the reason.

[VariousRen]

Originally Posted by starslayer

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.

I don't consider myself knowledgeable about the time period or guns in general, but high tech is giving significantly later dates than those. For example, the Colt M1848 (developed one year before my game is set) on page 93 as Colt's "first truly successful revolver" and doesn't fire all-in-one ammo. It also lists the Volcanic Repeating Rifle (developed 1855, 6 years after my game is set) as "one of the first level-action repeating firearms" on page 109.

If high tech is wrong or incomplete and there were other mass produced firearms that fit the bill I'd love to read through the source material and I can tweak my game to match.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

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.

The 'Colt revolver rifle' which was used by the american forces was made in 1855, colt was producing 'revolver rifles' almost as soon as he was producing revolvers (he actually bothered to get a patent on the 'colt revolving rifle' his early revolvers and revolver rifles did not have specific names because he did not bother patenting them and design could change significantly form gun to gun)- his named revolver rifle bears a lot of 'learned through trial and error' enhancements, like compromising some barrel length to put the revolver action well in front of the face.

Browning harmonica rifle was full production 1834-1842

Girandoni rifle was the Austrian army rifle from 1780-1815, and was part of the Lewis and Clark expidition. They were retired in 1815 for being too complicated for an average soldier to work and maintain, as well as being expensive to produce, but were well regarded for their superior ability to lay down fire at range (which basically says 'PC weapon of choice' all over it)


Side note: Revolver rifles were actually made FIRST in the late 1500s, but they were comparatively more expensive and difficult to use(safely) compared to muzzle loading rifles, as well as requiring careful use of wax to load them (or else the powder would get wet and fail to fire). For the most part any weapon from the time period was an 'oddball' 'one shot'- no assembly lines existed and generally shops were 1-3 man deals that did all of the work themselves (see the browning harmonica gun above- browning stopped because he got elected chief justice and was too busy with his 'day job' to keep up with orders for his firearms)

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

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.

I was quite wrong! I suppose I misread the start date as 1894. Thank you for catching that.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Couple of points --

IIRC the Browning Harmonica Gun was the product of Jonathan Browning, Mormon gunsmith and father of the famous John Moses Browning. "He invented a 'sliding breech' repeating rifle also called a Harmonica gun between 1834 and 1842 while living in Quincy, Illinois. He achieved success with the Harmonica gun and he received many orders. It is estimated that each Harmonica gun took 2 weeks to make, and Browning sold the guns for twenty-four dollars." -- Wikipedia.

So while I'm sure other gunsmiths were making these they were hardly to be called common.

1847 -- the famous Colt Walker .44 (actually about a .454 ball) was sold to the Texas Rangers. Only about 1100 were ever made, only about 100 for private sales. Note that they had a nasty tendency to blow up with a full charge.

The Colt Dragoon pistol was produced to the tune of about 19,000 American-made copies; the British plant turned out about 750 more. So while not tremendously scarce they were far from ubiquitous.

One of the most popular handguns of the day was the .31 caliber "Baby Dragoon" or Pocket Model in .31 -- usually 5 shot, although there were some six-shot models. (Remember -- only a very careless gun-toter will carry said weapon with hammer down on a loaded & capped chamber.)

You also would have a variety of "plains rifle" -- the Hawken being the most famous, but not the only one of the bunch. Other weapons would include muskets, possibly converted to percussion -- can use with .69 caliber ball, with buckshot, or in a "buck 'n' ball" load. (In 1840, if I recall Flayderman's guide correctly, the US government went through its old stocks of muskets and sold off about 150,000 old ones (from 1795 through c. 1820 production) for near scrap-metal prices. I'd expect a fair number of these on the frontier.

Again, IIRC, some gunsmiths made a fair living out of converting these .69 caliber muskets to .69 caliber rifled muskets. [The term "rifle-muskets" referred to the new-build Minie-ball weapons of c. 1855 & on -- thin-walled (hence not "rifle") but actually rifled.]

Another option might be the Model 1841 "Mississippi" rifle -- .54 caliber, 9 lbs., no bayonet fitting (until remanufactured by US arsenals c. 1855 to .58 caliber and with a sword-bayonet lug welded on.) While apparently there were none made for sales to civilians a lot of deserters from the US Army took their weapons with them and so some entered the civilian market this way.

Also, IIRC, there were a lot of 12 & other gauge double-barreled shotguns in the gold fields -- buckshot for some hunting & dealing with claim-jumpin' varmints; ball for dealing with large four-footed varmints at close range. IIRC there were lots of cheap Belgian shotguns available -- warning, your quality may vary.

[Polydamas]

If your players are used to forgiving genres, it might be a good idea to run a test combat or two to demonstrate that being shot once is bad news, taking cover is important, and so on. Old habits can be hard to shake, and it sounds like you don't want to work through two or three parties until the players stop being tenderfeet.

Edit: Here is a famous fictional description of the problem from the 1990s, when the Knights of the Dinner Table tried Cattlepunk http://www.kodtweb.com/2016/06/10/the-wild-riled-west/

Originally Posted by VariousRen

1. 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)?

It sounds like you already made that choice when you wrote your character creation guide. If you want the PCs to be the guys who have long serial adventures, its a good idea to give them advantages like Luck and Serendipity. If you want them to be random people who might die from the first rock thrown in the riot or might survive untouched, then don't.

High points can somewhat mitigate this, but by default GURPS is like real life- sometimes the professional boxer is sucker-punched from behind, falls badly, and dies.

Stories, whether academic histories or the pulpiest novel, tend to be about people who have the bad luck of getting into trouble and the ability and good luck to get out of it. The guys who drop out along the way, or die from being kicked by a horse or drinking unclean water, tend to be pushed to the side.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

1. Are there any extra rules scattered through Martial Arts, High Tech, ect that are ideal for a game like this?

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.

Don't forget Pyramid #3-74 Wild West and Adventure Guns. If gunfights will be a focus, you might want to review the rules for surgery and stabilizing Mortal Wounds. The rules for Bleeding and infections make recovery from combat more realistic, although you can always quibble about the details.

If you could tell us more about the kinds of activities which might be featured in the game, people might have other ideas. For example, in a game which focused on creating order out of chaos, Social Engineering could be helpful; in a game about travelling and exploring, Low Tech and its companions could be useful.

[acrosome]

Really, unless you get meta in some form there isn't a way to eliminate the possibility of random and sudden death in this setting. You can use blow-through damage without the bleeding rules- that might help. (But be ready for long convalescent times.) You can allow meta advantages like Luck. Or you can let them pay points to turn mortal wounds into flesh wounds after-the-fact.

You can keep random and sudden death unlikely, though, if you try. That would just be by being a reasonable GM and not, for instance, getting the players ambushed. (Which would likely wipe them out.)

Oh, and encourage them to run away when that is a reasonable option.

[VariousRen]

The game will only a two session adventure using pre-made characters, with the focus being on travel, tracking, and gun fighting. The set up is that a group of prospectors hired by a wealthy businessman have gone missing, and he suspects treachery. The players are sent to find the prospectors and discover if they've died from exposure, ambush, or have broken their contract to try and steal a claim for themselves early in the gold rush of 1849.

I'll be using a short list of weapons as the standard armament of the day.

The Allen Pepperbox (1d+1 pi, holds 6) is cheap and common, carried around as a self defense weapon. The Colt Number 5 (2d-1 pi, holds 5) is a more serious weapon, with detachable cylinders for faster reloads. Finally the Colt Dragoon (2d+1 pi+, holds 5) is the heaviest revolver people may have, and isn't commonly used.

The M1819 Flintlock rifle is the rifle of choice for those with cash (3d+1 pi+, reloads in 5 seconds), although older muzzle loaded flintlocks will be much more common.

Finally the Tower Blunderbuss (1dx13, 35 seconds to load) is the most common shotgun design around.

There will of course be knock off versions of all of the above (generally cheap quality, with lower malf scores, range, damage, and acc).

Protection comes in the form of Leather jackets and pants (DR 1), a full Buff Jacket (DR 2), and/or a metal vest (DR 5F). Wearing armour is generally a trade off between protection, weight and heat. A high dodge is critical, and encumbrance penalizes survival checks to resist fatigue loss.

Because this is a short running game, I'm comfortable with people being hurt or killed in the few combats that we run. There will probably be two combats, with the first serving as an introduction (players placed at an advantage), and the second ending off the story line. There will probably be one or two chances for violent conflict along the way that skillful negotiation can avoid.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

If your players are used to forgiving genres, it might be a good idea to run a test combat or two to demonstrate that being shot once is bad news, taking cover is important, and so on. Old habits can be hard to shake, and it sounds like you don't want to work through two or three parties until the players stop being tenderfeet.

Edit: Here is a famous fictional description of the problem from the 1990s, when the Knights of the Dinner Table tried Cattlepunk http://www.kodtweb.com/2016/06/10/the-wild-riled-west/


It sounds like you already made that choice when you wrote your character creation guide. If you want the PCs to be the guys who have long serial adventures, its a good idea to give them advantages like Luck and Serendipity. If you want them to be random people who might die from the first rock thrown in the riot or might survive untouched, then don't.

High points can somewhat mitigate this, but by default GURPS is like real life- sometimes the professional boxer is sucker-punched from behind, falls badly, and dies.

Stories, whether academic histories or the pulpiest novel, tend to be about people who have the bad luck of getting into trouble and the ability and good luck to get out of it. The guys who drop out along the way, or die from being kicked by a horse or drinking unclean water, tend to be pushed to the side.

Oregon Trail often kills people off by mundane things like that doesn't it?