Quote:
Originally Posted by soltakss
Yah, boo!
Sure, there were loads of farmers, farmers' wives, shopkeepers, tailors and so on. But so what?
If you have a Wild West setting you don't want to play a shopkeeper who just keeps shop. Well, I wouldn't, anyway.
You'd want to play the farmer whose family was slaughtered by bandits, the pioneer whose sister was captured by Indians, the civil war veteran who has become a bandit, a lone gunslinger, the whore with a heart of gold, the crazy prospector, a group of bandits and so on.
People don't play the 90% of people, they prefer the 10% of the population who were exciting and interesting.
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I agree. That is why I did up rules for quick draws and gun-spinning. Realistically, neither had much bearing in the Old West. Both are staples of the genre. The old West that most people seem to want to roleplay would be more like the West of dime novels, radio, TV and film. In fact, I'd say that the western genre has probably been warped by the enterainment indusrty more than any other.
To those who want a really accurate histocial Old West, well, expect to be bored. 90% of the people were farmers, and most of thier lives consisted of working on the farm and coming into contact with the farm animals and the other family members.
Any sort of playable campaign that won't put people to sleep would require some sort of atypical situation. Practically all of the "exciting" times and places in the Old West were atypical. That's why they were remembered. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is remembered because it was a fairly unique occurance, not because it was a commonplace one.
A completely realistic RPG would be even duller than a completely realistic modern RPG.
BTW, THat is one reason why I don't take much stock in the "purist" who hate "Spaghetti" Westerns. The John Wayne style westerns were if anything, less authentic that the violent "Spaghetti" westerns. Basically most TV and Film westerns are an idealized 1930s-1950s USA on horseback, with six shooters. More like what
Leave it to Beaver would have been like in the 19th century than what the real west was like.