Idea for a new Campiagn Setting: Dead Man's Hand

[Prak]

ok, so I was listening to a slightly guilty pleasure of mine on the radio, Beastie Boy's Paul Revere, and being the nerd I am, I started thinking of kinda a gritty wild west style world where the great equalizer isn't guns, but rather magic, a world full of saloons, adventure, outlaws and spellslingers. How's that sound? I started wondering what I'd need and I came to three conclusions so far:

-better evocation spells (as the rule of the day and the game-world equivalent of guns, evocation spells would need to be strong enough to drop a fellow third level a reasonable percentage of the time)
-a system that allows huge fire-fights with multiple spells/round(maybe casters get a Rate of Fire with each level of spell?)
-magic equivalents of the standard western archetypes done up as PrCs.(Wizard Sheriff, Spell Slinger, Necro-outlaw)
-A way for players to create spell stitched(as this is about the only way for Necromancers to fit into the game-world well.)

[Rob_Knotts]

1186283028[/unixtime]]I started thinking of kinda a gritty wild west style world where the great equalizer isn't guns, but rather magic, a world full of saloons, adventure, outlaws and spellslingers. How's that sound?

Actually seems fairly practical. Some classes already exist outside civilized law (rogues, barbarians, rangers, druids) or above it (paladins, possibly clerics). Adventurers get thier money from raiding dungeons or defeating monsters & villains, wild west characters get thier money from robbing banks & trains or capturing the people who do. Taverns aren't all that different from saloons, and wizards and sorcerors can fill the role of gunslinger pretty well. The biggest change. The biggest change I'd think you'd need to make is to eliminate monsters entirely or almost entirely in favor of NPC antagonists. At thier heart westerns are about personal confrontation, either one-on-one or in small groups.

I started wondering what I'd need and I came to three conclusions so far:

-better evocation spells (as the rule of the day and the game-world equivalent of guns, evocation spells would need to be strong enough to drop a fellow third level a reasonable percentage of the time)

You might be better off leaving the spells as-is and either introducing metamagic feats front-loaded to be useful for low-level PCs, ring or wand equavalents of six-guns that enhance spells, or eliminate familiars in favour of a new class ability enhancing evocation. On the other hand, you might want to introduce horses as a special kind of familiar....

-magic equivalents of the standard western archetypes done up as PrCs.(Wizard Sheriff, Spell Slinger, Necro-outlaw)

Gambler-bards would be a must

-A way for players to create spell stitched(as this is about the only way for Necromancers to fit into the game-world well.)

I don't think working in necromancy would be all that difficult. I know some fantasy-western settings have presented necromancy as a form of dark tribal magic. And you could always throw in a corrupted preacher:uptosomething:

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

I like the idea of all PCs being spellcasters. By definition, then, that's why they're the heroes. You just have to figure out enough variants that the PCs don't end up being all samey and junk. Some suggestions:

• 
  
• Wizard: Book learnin' magician. From the East.
  
• Voodoun: Ritual magic magician. From the South.
  
• Spiritwalker: Animal magician. From the West.
  
• Rainmaker: Weather magician. From the Midwest.
  
• Blacksmith: Mechanical magician. Fom the North.
  
• Liberator: Battle magician. From the East.
  
• Slavemaster: Enchantment magician. From the South.
  
• Spellslinger: Battle magician. From the West.
  
• Planter: Plant magician. From the Midwest.
  
• Haggler: Pact magician. From anywhere.
  
• Gambler: Luck magician. From anywhere.
  

Wow. That's a cool enough list I'm excited about your setting. This lends itself to regional feats, background stuff, and tapping the whole of American mythology. Northern Crown tried something like this (although set earlier) and, while the writing is good, it's mechanically unsound. By just figuring fvck it and making everybody a spellcaster, a lot of that's eliminated.

Are orcs Native Americans? Elves British? Gnomes Eastern European? Halflings Spanish? Dwarves German? Humans persecuted and that's why they fled the Old World? Do elves and gnomes keep humans as slaves in the South?

Whoah. Ten kinds of awesome.

[Prak]

well, I wasn't particularly thinking of doing it as an american wild west thing, more like trigun. Obviously wild west, but very different.
Chan's more along my lines of thought with the Casters-only, but just D&D in a wild west setting would work too, though UMD would need to be a class skill for everyone.

The problem with necromancy is that the game is supposed to be a spellslinger thing, and a necromaster character doesn't work too well..

[Catharz]

1186347719[/unixtime]]The problem with necromancy is that the game is supposed to be a spellslinger thing, and a necromaster character doesn't work too well..

What, the only spellcasters are gunslingers? It sounds like you want this to be more of a movie-mythical China setting, with martial artists being the only ones with real power.


Necromancy is one of the most important elements of any wild-west setting, from creepy bone setters to cowboys driving herds of undead cattle (so they can age on the hoof).

[Prak]

well, sort of, I do want most casters to be spellslingers of one profession or another, but others can exist. The idea however, is that most if not all PCs will be spellslingers, so necromancy needs some work.

[rapanui]

The idea of an "equalizer" in a Wild West story is that anyone has access to it and thus makes ALL men truly equal. Unless you can go into a store, buy a wand of Fireball, and recharge it for a nominal fee, then the setting will feel different than a true Western.

Even one of the most feared gunslingers in the West could die due to a single bullet fired from the gun of someone that had never used one before.

[JonSetanta]

Spellslinger! SPELLSLINGER!
Ooooh how much damage????
I'm thinking that if any Evocation must keep up with enemy CON improvement, HD size, and sheer levels, it must increase exponentially.

Just a quick concept:
caster levels 1-4 1d6 per level
caster levels 5-8 1d6 per level +1d6 per 2 levels
caster levels 9-12 2d6 per level
caster levels 13-16 2d6 per level +1d6 per 2 levels
caster levels 17-20 3d6 per level
Maybe more dice?

And now you can insert those Bulletes, Wyrms, and Aranea with wild abandon to the sandy countryside without explaining "oh some kooky wizard put them there". No.. They are there as natural predators, and yall gotta wrangle em up ya hear?

My brother had a similar idea, but the elves ended up as Native American role and (ironically) dwarves were German investors.

[Bigode]

Your answer on evocations.

[Prak]

1186546351[/unixtime]]The idea of an "equalizer" in a Wild West story is that anyone has access to it and thus makes ALL men truly equal. Unless you can go into a store, buy a wand of Fireball, and recharge it for a nominal fee, then the setting will feel different than a true Western.

Even one of the most feared gunslingers in the West could die due to a single bullet fired from the gun of someone that had never used one before.

I was actually kinda thinking that, maybe make spell-shells that each hold a single charge of a spell and magic items akin to a non-sucky rod of many wands so your not counting all fifty fucking charges on your enemies wand and still be able to use great paraphrases like:

"I know what you're thinking, 'Did he fire 6 shots or only 5?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement I kinda lost track myself, but seeing as how these are Maximized, Empowered, Heightened Caster Rank 20 Fireball spell-shells, the most powerful spell shells in the known world, you have to ask yourself: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, Do ya, punk?"

They'd also be cheaper (sorta, a box of 50 spell shells would still cost the same as a wand, but you'd be able to buy smaller numbers if strapped for cash) and it would be a bit more dramatic and in keeping with the feel of a gunslinger game. In combat after firing 6 shells, you'd have to reload, after using up a wand you toss it because now it's worthless and draw another as a free action because like everyone else you have a rank of sleight of hand so you can do that.

The 6-rod(for lack of a better name) would require a UMD check, but it'd be a lower DC that the average person could occasionally make, just like Joe Scmoe can fire a shot off from a pistol, but he ain't gonna be great at it.

Spellslinger! SPELLSLINGER!
Ooooh how much damage????
I'm thinking that if any Evocation must keep up with enemy CON improvement, HD size, and sheer levels, it must increase exponentially.

Just a quick concept:
caster levels 1-4 1d6 per level
caster levels 5-8 1d6 per level +1d6 per 2 levels
caster levels 9-12 2d6 per level
caster levels 13-16 2d6 per level +1d6 per 2 levels
caster levels 17-20 3d6 per level
Maybe more dice?

And now you can insert those Bulletes, Wyrms, and Aranea with wild abandon to the sandy countryside without explaining "oh some kooky wizard put them there". No.. They are there as natural predators, and yall gotta wrangle em up ya hear?

My brother had a similar idea, but the elves ended up as Native American role and (ironically) dwarves were German investors.

yeah, kinda what I was thinking, though the occasional mage-made creature can fit in too. But like I said, not really gonna put in steretypes like those.

and really, as far as archetypes go, the native americans would be better represented by Goblins, Orcs or Wild Elves, as it was usually the "savage" archetype played up in westerns.

Your answer on evocations.

yep, already thought about it.

[Catharz]

How about having Native Americans as humans? That would be an ironic twist.

[JonSetanta]

1186627349[/unixtime]]How about having Native Americans as humans? That would be an ironic twist.

Nay, For The Lord Sayeth They Muste Be Savages...

Heh that would be funny, with the tribes defending against a flood of crude, smelly Western-culture 'demihumans' including the elves..

Bigode: Yes I saw that a while ago, very nice.I believe both K and Frank have mentioned the same thing, but I assure you my urge to fix Evocation has been around since the dawn of 3.0e when I first realized how cheated my spellblasters had become. >_<
Unfortunately, no DM wanted to modify Evocation. They usually viewed spells as sacred, no to be tampered with. They also didn't see the problem with, say, Forcecage, Polymorph, or 3.0 Hold Person and Haste.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

As to the point of not being able to work necromancy into it...

Anyone here ever read The Goon? The main villian is a man known only as "The Zombie Priest", an old-school deep-south revival style preacher who just happens to be a powerful necromancer. Of course, The Goon takes place in setting modeled after the great depression, which puts it somewhere in the '30s....

Except for one story I have, which concerns the origins of a man called The Buzzard. The Buzzard was a wild-west style gunman, sherrif of a small frontier town which was visited by the Zombie Priest. In those days he was doing the whole Traveling Revival thing, perhaps with a bit of Medicine Show thrown in for good measure. The Priest took over his town, corrupting the townsfolk by spirit and then by flesh until they were dropping dead from a mysterious plague and rising as zombies, all but the Sherriff, who had sensed corruption in the Priest from the outset but could not convince the people to reject him. When the Priest came to gloat over his victory, the Sherriff snapped. Out for blood, he re-killed every undead he could find on his way to the Zombie Priest, and almost killed him too. In a panic, the Priest threw corrupt energies, (presumably the very spell he used to make zombies) at the Sherriff, but instead of being consumed by those energies, he was transformed by them, into a wreched creature who can only derive sustanance from the flesh of zombies.

So, that's one good way to work necromancy into the game.

Also, Louisiana was part of the West too, why not use Voodoo?

-K

[bitnine]

Zombies would need to be more awesome. I want to see a zombie playing a piano in a saloon and/or folk banding together to hire a necromancer to get them a tough zombie sheriff. That just seems neat.

And I have to say that I agree about the being able to pick up magic/wands. Something like the townsfolk being able to all grab their ol' spellshooters and ride a bandit out of town seems in keeping with the sort of thematic that's being referenced here. Plus, I agree that another part of the thematic is the danger of anyone being able to have/pick up a gun and having to deal with that.

As for monsters, I think you could include a number of them - just placed as a contrast as the mysticism of the native land. After all, when a ticked off wendigo starts killing off farmsteads at the edge of town, the players might need to mount up and ride into the wild to put it down. Given the amount of culture/setting blending you wanted to do, abandoned mines, ghost towns, aztec-style temples, each of these would make for handy setting-appropriate dungeons.

[Prak]

problem is, that your suggestion on necromancy, Desdan, is only really addressing NPCs and BBEGs, the players, whom I want to be primarily combat spell slingers, don't have much, I mean, sure, the party Necro can throw down ray of enfeeblement spellshells, and and can do some healing(I'll put healing into the necromancy school like it should be), and maybe even some party buffing, but it's hardly in keeping with the idea of the necromaster...

I agree there needs to be some more awesome low level undead, and the idea that the town gathering up their 6-rods to run the bandits out of town is in keeping with the theme I'm looking for. However(and that's a big however) Im not thinking of doing the game as such a slavish adaptation of the wild west, really I'm just thinking the lawless, guns and saloons thing dropped into a more larger than life, high fantasy setting. So, wizard law-man in his robes shoots down a purple wyrm tearing up the mage-farms in more of a film-noir feeling than sheriff pulls out his trusty six-shooter to run the one-eye gang outta town, then spits into his animated spitoon(although that's a viable setting and feel too, and both need the same rules, so maybe we should figure out the rules mods and present both settings?)

[Username17]

OK, there's no way in hell that you want to do this in D20, because D20 is inherently "Heroic" in the Greek sense. Characters have levels and hit points, and that means that people can survive easily attacks which would eviscerate lesser men. The entire methodology is Homeric and therefore inappropriate. Remember that while Homer wrote some men small and some men tall, Daniel Colt wrote every man the same.

That being said, you're not going to be able to just grab a future modern system and run with it either because the lack of cars really puts things in a different perspective. Hell, there are people who seriously fight with axes, and most modernish games abstract. So we'll be borrowing some concepts from D&D and some from Shadowrun to make the game you want. We won't use any of the existent Weird West titles (Werewolf: Wild West, Space 1889, or Deadlands) because the systems are terrible.

Basic Action Mechanic: Attribute + Skill + Equipment in Dice, TN 5

So you'll be rolling a variable number of d6s, with difficult tasks requiring more 5s or 6s to appear on those dice. The reason we will be using this mechanic instead of rolling say a single die and adding bonuses to it or rolling a number of dice trying to get at least one to come up with a variable minimum target number is because you want normal humans to actually have a chance of succeeding at tasks that the power players do, and you don't want to force characters to roll intractable numbers of dice (you can almost count on getting a success against TN 11 if you roll 27 dice).

Attributes
"I get it… you're huge. That's wonderful for you."

D&D and Shadowrun both keep track of Strength and Constitution (Body) separately. That's dumb. Being really strong is worth precisely as much as any other minor ability and having it be one of your primary attributes is retarded. So in the era of gunslinging and spellslinging we're going to remove that bullshit altogether. Strength and Constitution are going to be one stat, and we're splitting Dexterity in half (because people are shooting guns at each other and allowing a single stat to be both your attack and your defense is bullshit). While we're at it, we're going to shift some of the aspects of Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma around so that Charisma isn't so fvcking fvcked all the time.

• Strength It lets you lift things. Also, you roll it to soak physical damage.
  
• Agility It makes you accurate and precise. You roll it to shoot people in the face.
  
• Reaction It makes you speedy and responsive. You roll it to dodge.
  
• Intuition It makes you perceptive and shit. You roll it to notice things.
  
• Logic It makes you "smart". You roll it to make things and know stuff.
  
• Willpower It lets you influence people and impose your will on the world. You roll it to soak Magic.
  
  
• Magic How powerful the magic you personally do is. Rolled when you cast a spell, but not when you load a caster shell into a longarm.
  
• Edge How "lucky" you are. Edge can be added to any roll, but only a limited number of times per adventure.

Skills
"Is there a doctor in the house?"
The set of Skills you choose will inherently determine what kinds of characters exist. If you make Disguising yourself part of Stealth, then Ninjas will tend to also be masters of disguise. If you make it part of Acting then entertainers will end up being the masters of disguise. In any case, you're going to want to divide up skills by what attribute they normally get adjusted by.

Strength
"My legs are the size of your whole body, did you really think that you'd get away?
Giants and Orcs are strong. So things that Giants and Orcs are good at should be Strength based skills. That list might include:

• Running
  
• Jumping
  
• Climbing
  
• Survival
  
• Hitting things with an axe.
  
• Throwing a tomahawk at people.

Agility
"If the Red Van says he'll shoot out the Ace of Spades, that's what the Red Van will do."
Vanir and Sidhe are agile. So things that Vanir and Sidhe are good at should be Agility based skills. That list might include:

• Shooting people in the face.
  
• Sneaking around.
  
• Firing a bow.

Reaction
"You missed me. Again."
Ghouls and Sidhe have good Reactions. Mostly that lends itself to combat applications, but things they are good at should be Reaction checks:

• Dodging Attacks.
  
• Shooting First.
  
• Sensing Danger.

Logic
"We're going to need more steam pressure if we want to get this off the ground!"
Dunkalfar and Goblins are very Logical. So things that Dunkalfar and Goblins are good at should be Logic skills. This could include:

• Medicine.
  
• Steam Punk engineering.
  
• Magitech Crafting.
  
• Crafting and Repair.
  
• Alchemy.
  
• Sabotage.

Intuition
"The man in the corner has a loaded caster. Watch out for him."
Deep Ones and Orcs very Intuitive. So things that Deep Ones and Orcs are good at should be Intuition skills. This could include:

• Perception
  
• Resisting Illusions
  
• Creepy Prophecy
  
• Art
  
• Tracking

Willpower
"Sit the fuck down. You have displeased me."
Vanir and Giants have great willpower. So things that Vanir and Giants are good at should be Willpower skills. This could include:

• Leading Troops.
  
• Convincing People to do stuff.
  
• Resisting Magic.

You could make a roughly equal number of skills for each attribute, or you could try to balance the fact that, for example, Reaction and Agility make you win shoot-outs by having more skills trigger off of other attributes. I would recommend the latter.

Races and Cultures
"We don't like your kind around these parts."

Hatred and mistrust of foreigners is an important part of the Wild West. At its base, you have the following groups:

• Native Americans
  
• European Settlers
  
• Chinese Laborers
  
• African Laborers
  
• Mexicans

But hey, we all know that all of those groups are subdividable essentially forever. My suggestion would be to make the Europeans be European folktale critters: Vanir, Sidhe, Jotun, Dunkalfar. African Slaves (and ex-slaves) should probably be something that you can easily imagine enslaving – like Beastmen or something. I haven't given it a whole lot of thought.

The Chinese of course, come from the Western Sea, so they are actually clearly R'lyehans. You can do the whole thing where Chinese women aren't allowed so that the R'leyhans have a desire to mate with your women. It nicely touches on the racism of the time and the racism of the Cthulhu mythos they come from.

The Native Americans could go any direction. They can be played up as anything from Noble Savages to Scalping Monsters. Or just normal people who happen to be in the process of having genocide perpetrated on their nations. You know, whatever. You seem to want to go Orc on this one. I can't say I blame you, but remember that there's lots of room for multiple races on multiple tribes. I will now share a racist joke of the Navajo:

So I know this Navajo woman who is getting married to a Sioux man. Hopefully their children will end up with Navajo brains and Sioux hearts. Because it would be really sad if it went the other way.

Mexicans are a mixture of Tribals and Europeans. They have a bunch of half-orcs and shit.

The place of Magic
"I've loaded a death spell into this thing that'll wipe out the whole town. Don't fuck with me!"

Magic in a Weird West setting has two main places:

• The driving force behind Ghost Stories.
  
• An alternative to Steam Punk methodologies.

So in general, Magic is built and then it does something. What that is, is make Lightning Guns and Ghost Riders. As I see it, there's a couple of ways you could go with this:

1. Magic is inherently wicked. Using Magic causes the dead to rise and builds up destroying the world. In this model, Vanir and Svartalfs are selfishly tapping into arcane power to run their magitech and make spell slingers that they are using to conquer the dweller in the wilderness. Meanwhile embattled Orcish shaman struggle in vain to defend themselves against the more powerfully equipped elves and dwarves while simultaneously fighting a losing battle to keep the dead in the ground while the manasphere is relentlessly polluted by the Vanir war machine.
   
   
2. Magic can be Modernized. Intuitive Magic that the tribals use is a very personal experience and the savages are ruled by capricious and secretive shamans. Meanwhile, magitech comes with the promise of utility for the masses. As Dunkalfar mage engineers manufacture spell engines to bring the wonders of sorcery to the common man, civilization expands into the wilderness. The light of reason is carried by the Vanir across the savage lands as the settlers create cities with light and clean water where once only monsters and savages roamed.

Either one is fine for a Western setting. In either case, people don't normally cast lightning bolts under any circumstances. They might do a mighty ritual of vast power that brings forth a tremendous thunderstorm to devastate the countryside. Or they might make a lightning gun that subsequently fires bolts of lightning. But people don't cast combat magic at all. If people have personal magic tricks (and they probably should), they should be along the lines of "traceless walk" and "Telescopic Vision" – passive abilities that are awesome, but not "totally l33+".

-Username17

[Catharz]

So I know this Navajo woman who is getting married to a Sioux man. Hopefully their children will end up with Navajo brains and Sioux hearts. Because it would be really sad if it went the other way.

Have you ever heard of the Hopi urine dance?


[Edit]
Oh ya, and what was the name of that steam punk game played with a deck of cards? That seems like a fairly appropriate place for things to be tech- and culture- wise, given that the Wild West was about the same era. Frank's "spell engine" comment reminded me of it.
[/Edit]

[Bigode]

That's awesome, Frank, but:

(because people are shooting guns at each other and allowing a single stat to be both your attack and your defense is bullshit)

Well, I (kinda) know a system that handles it that exact SAME way ...

[Username17]

1186825390[/unixtime]]That's awesome, Frank, but:

(because people are shooting guns at each other and allowing a single stat to be both your attack and your defense is bullshit)

Well, I (kinda) know a system that handles it that exact SAME way ...

Close. Actually it's two stats for your attack and defense and two stats for your other kinds of attack and defense.

If you were seriously having primarily gun-based combat, Dexterity would be instantaneously and obviously the uber stat. Bullets aren't strength dependent, and do enough damage that your soak is a dismal afterthought most of the time. So Dexterity in a gun-based system is practically the entirety of your offense and almost all of your defense. It's basically your "combat stat".

Which is why it has to be chopped up if you're going industrial age. SAME is designed to be power scalable, which makes it inherently Homeric. I don't actually think that double d20s is a good system for future/modern/near past gaming - which is why I'm suggesting "pile-o-dice and TN" as a base mechanic instead.

-Username17

[Catharz]

1186849487[/unixtime]]
Which is why it has to be chopped up if you're going industrial age.

Chopping it up also allows you to have out of shape, overweight guys with great aim. That's a big plus in my book!

[Prak]

1186782036[/unixtime]]OK, there's no way in hell that you want to do this in D20, because D20 is inherently "Heroic" in the Greek sense. Characters have levels and hit points, and that means that people can survive easily attacks which would eviscerate lesser men. The entire methodology is Homeric and therefore inappropriate. Remember that while Homer wrote some men small and some men tall, Daniel Colt wrote every man the same.

it could be run D&D, but then so can anything, you're right, it ain't that great of a system for this, especially since you can shoot a commoner in the head in D&D and then they're walking around the next day... partially owing to HP, partially owing to shitty gun stats...

That being said, you're not going to be able to just grab a future modern system and run with it either because the lack of cars really puts things in a different perspective. Hell, there are people who seriously fight with axes, and most modernish games abstract. So we'll be borrowing some concepts from D&D and some from Shadowrun to make the game you want. We won't use any of the existent Weird West titles (Werewolf: Wild West, Space 1889, or Deadlands) because the systems are terrible.

I rather like (old) Storyteller, but that's just my opinion...

Basic Action Mechanic: Attribute + Skill + Equipment in Dice, TN 5

So you'll be rolling a variable number of d6s, with difficult tasks requiring more 5s or 6s to appear on those dice. The reason we will be using this mechanic instead of rolling say a single die and adding bonuses to it or rolling a number of dice trying to get at least one to come up with a variable minimum target number is because you want normal humans to actually have a chance of succeeding at tasks that the power players do, and you don't want to force characters to roll intractable numbers of dice (you can almost count on getting a success against TN 11 if you roll 27 dice).

works for me, simple to teach. However, it makes me think of another system... ORE (or, One Roll Engine). It's what Godlike works off of, and it uses one roll of Xd10s to determine both your degree of success and how long it took you to do it, or, for attacks, it uses the number of matching numbers to see if you hit the guy(and where), and the size of the number to determine damage(this is called the width and heigth of your roll) what do you think of that? basically, you can have a max of ten dice on a roll, and anyone can do something, they just have to get at least two dice to match. It has several stats, Body(big and tough), Coordination(control and manipulation of your body), Sense(noticing things through the five senses, or, in some cases, a sixth or whatever), Brains(intellect), Command(leadership), and Cool(how well you deal with stress), and it has skills for each stat, such as:

• 
  
• Atheletics
  
• Brawl
  
• Endurence
  
• Running
  

• 
  
• (various firearm categories, such as Machine gun, submachine gun, etc. all different skills)
  
• Dodge
  
• Sailing(I don't know... I didn't put it here...)
  
• Stealth
  

• 
  
• Hearing
  
• Sight
  
• Smell
  
• Touch
  

• 
  
• Cryptography
  
• Mechanics(Type)
  
• Language(Type)
  
• Navigation(Land, or Air/Sea)
  

• 
  
• Inspire
  
• Intimidate
  
• Leadership
  
• Perform
  

• 
  
• Bluff
  
• Lie
  
• Mental Stability
  

It's got a system for a type of magic, as it was designed to be a low power super-hero game, but there's not much balance between supers and non-supers, except when the non-supers have the same number of points and simply have better attributes and skills(but of course the supers can have stuff like Hyper Body 9(+1 wound box to torso and each limb, can hit concrete and metal and shit without damaging self, unarmed attacks cause lethal damage/more damage, auto-pierce armor 4-, roll to pierce armor 9-, auto-heal "shock" damage after each battle, "jump good", and exhale hard enough to inflat truck tires...(useful if private numbnuts forgot the tire pump back at base camp...)) or Hyper Leadership which allows you to command two different groups of people over two different phonelines more easily, or Hyper Brawl which allows you to more easily hit larger numbers of people at once... It's actually a pretty good system, but I was wondering what you thought.

Attributes
"I get it… you're huge. That's wonderful for you."

D&D and Shadowrun both keep track of Strength and Constitution (Body) separately. That's dumb. Being really strong is worth precisely as much as any other minor ability and having it be one of your primary attributes is retarded. So in the era of gunslinging and spellslinging we're going to remove that bullshit altogether. Strength and Constitution are going to be one stat, and we're splitting Dexterity in half (because people are shooting guns at each other and allowing a single stat to be both your attack and your defense is bullshit). While we're at it, we're going to shift some of the aspects of Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma around so that Charisma isn't so fvcking fvcked all the time.

• Strength It lets you lift things. Also, you roll it to soak physical damage.
  
• Agility It makes you accurate and precise. You roll it to shoot people in the face.
  
• Reaction It makes you speedy and responsive. You roll it to dodge.
  
• Intuition It makes you perceptive and shit. You roll it to notice things.
  
• Logic It makes you "smart". You roll it to make things and know stuff.
  
• Willpower It lets you influence people and impose your will on the world. You roll it to soak Magic.
  
  
• Magic How powerful the magic you personally do is. Rolled when you cast a spell, but not when you load a caster shell into a longarm.
  
• Edge How "lucky" you are. Edge can be added to any roll, but only a limited number of times per adventure.

Skills
"Is there a doctor in the house?"
The set of Skills you choose will inherently determine what kinds of characters exist. If you make Disguising yourself part of Stealth, then Ninjas will tend to also be masters of disguise. If you make it part of Acting then entertainers will end up being the masters of disguise. In any case, you're going to want to divide up skills by what attribute they normally get adjusted by.

Strength
"My legs are the size of your whole body, did you really think that you'd get away?
Giants and Orcs are strong. So things that Giants and Orcs are good at should be Strength based skills. That list might include:

• Running
  
• Jumping
  
• Climbing
  
• Survival
  
• Hitting things with an axe.
  
• Throwing a tomahawk at people.

Agility
"If the Red Van says he'll shoot out the Ace of Spades, that's what the Red Van will do."
Vanir and Sidhe are agile. So things that Vanir and Sidhe are good at should be Agility based skills. That list might include:

• Shooting people in the face.
  
• Sneaking around.
  
• Firing a bow.

Reaction
"You missed me. Again."
Ghouls and Sidhe have good Reactions. Mostly that lends itself to combat applications, but things they are good at should be Reaction checks:

• Dodging Attacks.
  
• Shooting First.
  
• Sensing Danger.

Logic
"We're going to need more steam pressure if we want to get this off the ground!"
Dunkalfar and Goblins are very Logical. So things that Dunkalfar and Goblins are good at should be Logic skills. This could include:

• Medicine.
  
• Steam Punk engineering.
  
• Magitech Crafting.
  
• Crafting and Repair.
  
• Alchemy.
  
• Sabotage.

Intuition
"The man in the corner has a loaded caster. Watch out for him."
Deep Ones and Orcs very Intuitive. So things that Deep Ones and Orcs are good at should be Intuition skills. This could include:

• Perception
  
• Resisting Illusions
  
• Creepy Prophecy
  
• Art
  
• Tracking

Willpower
"Sit the fuck down. You have displeased me."
Vanir and Giants have great willpower. So things that Vanir and Giants are good at should be Willpower skills. This could include:

• Leading Troops.
  
• Convincing People to do stuff.
  
• Resisting Magic.

You could make a roughly equal number of skills for each attribute, or you could try to balance the fact that, for example, Reaction and Agility make you win shoot-outs by having more skills trigger off of other attributes. I would recommend the latter.

I actually rather like this all, looks good. What about allowing some skills to be affected by different attributes depending on character, for example, a Mind-reading gunslinger who has impecable aim not because he's coordinated, but because he can sense his targets and uses his logic or willpower, or an elf that runs really well because he's so nimble and uses agility to run, whereas the giant uses strength.

Races and Cultures
"We don't like your kind around these parts."

Hatred and mistrust of foreigners is an important part of the Wild West. At its base, you have the following groups:

• Native Americans
  
• European Settlers
  
• Chinese Laborers
  
• African Laborers
  
• Mexicans

But hey, we all know that all of those groups are subdividable essentially forever. My suggestion would be to make the Europeans be European folktale critters: Vanir, Sidhe, Jotun, Dunkalfar. African Slaves (and ex-slaves) should probably be something that you can easily imagine enslaving – like Beastmen or something. I haven't given it a whole lot of thought.

this I definately like, it keeps the feel without saying "oh yeah, the elves are british and the orcs are black" I much prefer saying "the archetype and role filled by the europeans in the real world is filled by elves, and the archetype and role of black slaves in the real world is filled by lycanthropes(or whatever)"

The Chinese of course, come from the Western Sea, so they are actually clearly R'lyehans. You can do the whole thing where Chinese women aren't allowed so that the R'leyhans have a desire to mate with your women. It nicely touches on the racism of the time and the racism of the Cthulhu mythos they come from.

interesting, and very cool, it makes me think of deep one snake oil salesmen...

The Native Americans could go any direction. They can be played up as anything from Noble Savages to Scalping Monsters. Or just normal people who happen to be in the process of having genocide perpetrated on their nations. You know, whatever. You seem to want to go Orc on this one. I can't say I blame you, but remember that there's lots of room for multiple races on multiple tribes. I will now share a racist joke of the Navajo:

So I know this Navajo woman who is getting married to a Sioux man. Hopefully their children will end up with Navajo brains and Sioux hearts. Because it would be really sad if it went the other way.

I would think it'd be better to go by tribe... so for example, the Crow native americans are drow, and the appachies are wood elves, and the navajo are those desert goblin things from "It's Hot Outside" or something along those lines. Hell, tribes really don't even matter, native americans were plot devices and character backgrounds in western stories, so it's entirely acceptable to say the scalping savages running through town are orcs, and the gentle medicine man that helps you by calling spirit shields up for the town's defenders is a high elf, it seriously doesn't matter, does it?

Mexicans are a mixture of Tribals and Europeans. They have a bunch of half-orcs and shit.

the same role could actually just be filled by half-breeds of any and all kinds. A half-celestial ostracized from it's people can fill the same role as a half orc and both can be "mexican" laborers.

The place of Magic
"I've loaded a death spell into this thing that'll wipe out the whole town. Don't fuck with me!"

Magic in a Weird West setting has two main places:

• The driving force behind Ghost Stories.
  
• An alternative to Steam Punk methodologies.

So in general, Magic is built and then it does something. What that is, is make Lightning Guns and Ghost Riders. As I see it, there's a couple of ways you could go with this:

1. Magic is inherently wicked. Using Magic causes the dead to rise and builds up destroying the world. In this model, Vanir and Svartalfs are selfishly tapping into arcane power to run their magitech and make spell slingers that they are using to conquer the dweller in the wilderness. Meanwhile embattled Orcish shaman struggle in vain to defend themselves against the more powerfully equipped elves and dwarves while simultaneously fighting a losing battle to keep the dead in the ground while the manasphere is relentlessly polluted by the Vanir war machine.
   
   
2. Magic can be Modernized. Intuitive Magic that the tribals use is a very personal experience and the savages are ruled by capricious and secretive shamans. Meanwhile, magitech comes with the promise of utility for the masses. As Dunkalfar mage engineers manufacture spell engines to bring the wonders of sorcery to the common man, civilization expands into the wilderness. The light of reason is carried by the Vanir across the savage lands as the settlers create cities with light and clean water where once only monsters and savages roamed.

Either one is fine for a Western setting. In either case, people don't normally cast lightning bolts under any circumstances. They might do a mighty ritual of vast power that brings forth a tremendous thunderstorm to devastate the countryside. Or they might make a lightning gun that subsequently fires bolts of lightning. But people don't cast combat magic at all. If people have personal magic tricks (and they probably should), they should be along the lines of "traceless walk" and "Telescopic Vision" – passive abilities that are awesome, but not "totally l33+".

I like both and think they can fit together very well.

[MagnaSecuris]

I think we just need to make a quick distinction between PCs and NPCs.

PC types-
*Cast spells
*Do cool things by themselves

Commoner types-
*Use items to replicate spells
*Can still get the drop on powerful people
*Are there to fill in the background

There, we've defined them. Unfortunately, this leaves the person who wants to play a tomahawk-wielding orc in trouble. But we can fix that later.

Okay, so let's make a PC Class mechanic that can be adapted for general use by a dozen different classes. This is important because a guy who deals lightning damage has to be just as generally effective as a guy who plays with fire or cold or some random combination. Maybe there will be monsters with resistances to certain elements, but that can come later.
PC generic Spellslinger
*HD: d8
*Full BAB
*Magic [energy] shot: Deals 1d6+1d6/level damage. (so 2d6 at lvl1, 6d6 at lvl5).

Now all PC-level characters can kill eachother in one shot, since we won't be adding STR to HP totals. So essentially everything level-appropriate is a save-or-die. Unless you get unlucky with your damage dice or have gotten really lucky on rolling your hit dice. There will probably be feats that add arbitrary bonuses to this damage or to your HP. That's cool and works as long as everything balances out so that spending a feat for +x HP is just as level appropriate as spending a feat on Metamagic: Empowered.

They'll also get other cool things when they level up, like resistance to thier energy of choice, or the ability to talk to sea creatures, or whatever seems appropriate for a level 9 Lightning Mage.


But what about NPCs, the bartender with a "shotgun"? He's got to have something magically powerful, to keep him competitive.
But we've already got that: the 'spellslinger' or magic rings. With rings you've already got the limitations built in - ten fingers, ten shots- no shenanigans. Eithe way, the damage is equal to the maximum damage of the person who made it, or the combined damage of several people. PCs can also buy (or make for eachother) shells that do different energy damages so Jim doesn't feel left out when the group fights a Fire Demon and his character's fingers spray [Fire] damage. We also have the all-important mechanic of how long it takes to reload.
Generic NPCs
*HD: d6+Str. So on average they'll be less kickass than a PC, but a tough guy still has better hitpoints than Mr. McScrawny.
*Can use spellguns.
*No class abilities. Just 3/4BAB and story-related skills/effects.

All right. Now we've got PCs who go around being awesome and shooting magic out of their [whatever] and NPCs who own ranches and buy rings, or shells, whatever.


Now back to that Tomahawk Orc we mentioned earlier.
We need a class for him. Well, that's already covered in the generic PC. It's just a matter of saying he has a different sort of magic. He doesn't shoot lightning out of his temples or fire from his hands, he may not even know that he's magic. It might not even be magic when it comes time to add flavor, what matters is that it's just as good.

But he needs to be different, otherwise the player will feel cheated.
So here's the Strongman PC
*HD:d8+STR. He's harder to kill. Awesome.
*Full BAB
*He gets his melee/thrown weapon. It might do a d6 or a d12 and have crazy magic item damage bonuses, whatever. What really matters is that he adds both his strength modifier and 1d4/level to the damage because he's a PC and he's therefore magic.

He can of course also use the shells of firebolt that he's bought. And presumably this class mechanic would also work for an archer. Maybe he should eventually get a 'rage' ability. And some cool things to go along with that, like using STR to soak magic damage when raging.


As for Necromancers, they should probably just be a 3/4BAB magic ring-using class. But their undead followers that obey their master's every order can use guns and magic items too, so the firepower potential can build up quickly.
Shamen should probably have a completely different mechanic that I can't be bothered to come up with.


One thing missing is area-effect spells. These aren't really a 'part' of the Wild West. Maybe you can take a metamagic feat chain to have a 'shotgun cone' spread for your [energy] blast, then a second for a 30-foot burst. And so on.
While we're on the topic of feats, it would probably be a good idea to make a feat so you can fire a spellgun/ring from both hands at the same time. This allows the two-guns feel of westerns, is offset by 'reloading' time, and is perfectly logical.
Also, Sneak Attack seems like another place to use a series of level-appropriate feats. Unless you feel like writing a rogue class.

[Username17]

So you want to have a combat system? Well, you're going to need to get in line because every game system needs a combat system. Let's consider your goals:

• Characters should frequently drop opponents in one hit.
  
  
• Bears should take several shots to bring down.
  
  
• Shooting a rat kills it dead.
  
  
• Some characters should take 3+ hits before going down.
  
  
• running around hitting people with tomahawks should be a workable, and interesting life choice.

So to begin with, let us consider a few basic assumptions:

• Everyone has 10 hit points.
  
• A hit from a weapon does an amount of damage that is reduced by a strength check from the target to determine the final HP reduction.
  
• Being larger causes you to automatically lose less hit points from an attack.
  
• Being smaller causes you to automatically lose more hit points from an attack.
  
• Lethal and Nonlethal damage should accumulate towards dropping your ass like they do in D&D or White Wolf.

So we've got one of those basic systems in which weapons have a base Damage, and then you try to hit someone. If you succeed, they have to soak damage. If you succeed by more, they have to soak more.

Now let's talk about various traps that we can avoid.

• White Wolf's single die-roll is bullshit. A single roll to determine whether an attack hits and how much damage it inflicts is really annoying. Don't do that.
  
• Shadowrun's 3 die rolls is more than is strictly necessary. It takes too long to make an attack roll, and then a dodge roll, and then a soak roll. You can probably work dodge into the attack roll and ultimately feel better about yourself.
  
• Shadowrun has 2 damage tracks, which bizarrely means that sometimes it is better to attack someone with non-lethal weaponry if you want to kill them. That's dumb. White Wolf's system of running a slash or X through each box to indicate lethal or nonlethal is a better recording system of damage.
  
• Aggravated Damage is bullshit. White Wolf's "third rail" of damage is retarded and should be gotten rid of altogether.

So here's the core difficulty: when you stab a man with hat pin while he's asleep, you can kill him in one shot. It's not even considered weird. But if you try to fight with a hat-pin in combat, you're lucky to do a point of damage. Argh. My suggestion then is to have the net hits from hitting well to scale up damage triangularly. That is, a weapon does an extra point of damage if you get a net hit. It does 3 extra on 2 net hits, 6 extra on 3 net hits, and 10 extra on four. This 4 hit "deadly upgrade" for extraordinary success on an attack roll allows characters to murder people in their sleep with just about anything, which is appropriate for the Western genre.

-Username17

[Username17]

However, it makes me think of another system... ORE (or, One Roll Engine). It's what Godlike works off of, and it uses one roll of Xd10s to determine both your degree of success and how long it took you to do it, or, for attacks, it uses the number of matching numbers to see if you hit the guy(and where), and the size of the number to determine damage(this is called the width and heigth of your roll) what do you think of that? basically, you can have a max of ten dice on a roll, and anyone can do something, they just have to get at least two dice to match.

Asking players to perform multiple operations on any die roll is entirely unreasonable. Yahtzee is hard to play while drunk, and that makes it an inherenly poor system for use as an RPG engine.

I actually rather like this all, looks good. What about allowing some skills to be affected by different attributes depending on character, for example, a Mind-reading gunslinger who has impecable aim not because he's coordinated, but because he can sense his targets and uses his logic or willpower, or an elf that runs really well because he's so nimble and uses agility to run, whereas the giant uses strength.

Sure. Go for it. You could throw in racial abilities or you could give people optional ability packages like "Graceful Athlete" (use Agility for a bunch of extra skills). I would suggest not doing it the NWoD way where you are supposed to simply mix and match your skills and attributes every which way - that leads to hella broken bullshit.

OK, in no particular oder here are some things that players need to be able to do:

• Ride Horses
  
• Animal Husbandry
  
• Sneak
  
• Doctor
  
• Shoot Guns
  
• Use Casters
  
• Make Zombies
  
• Make Steam Punk Devices
  
• Make Spell Engines
  
• Make Potions
  
• Make normal Stuff
  
• Hit People with Axes
  
• Steal and Cheat at Cards
  
• Intimidate and Lead
  
• Bargain
  
• Track Across the Plains
  
• Climb, Jump, and Swim
  
• Sabotage

So here's a thought: Shadowrun offers an idea called the "Skill Group", where you get a discount on purchasing several skills on the grounds that they are related skills. You could do that. Groups might include:

Ancient Warfare

• Melee
  
• Archery
  
• Throwing Weapons

Modern Warfare

• Fire Guns
  
• Fire Casters
  
• Artillery

Treachery

• Sneak
  
• Disguise
  
• Cheat

You know, whatever.

-Username17

[Username17]

I haven't forgotten this project, I just transported a man from Watsonville to San Francisco.

The Peoples of the World
"Everywhere I've been, and I've been to a lot of places, I ain't never seen something as weird looking as you."

The West is rapidly filling up with settlers from all over the world. The open range is a free-for-all among many interest groups. While the Union declares that it is manifest destiny that it should all fall into their hands, there are still many who simply plumb do not agree. With the natives on the way out and resources up for grab it's no wonder that adventure seeking folks the world over have a hankering to go out West.

The Alfar
"Of course it looks expensive, I made it."

The Alfar are short of stature and tedious of demeanor. Alfar have skin which is colored as the sky is colored, though mostly they are pigmented as a painting of dusk or night scenes. Standing just 1.1m tall, the average svartalf has night black skin (seriously, with little stars and everything) and pupil-less eyes.

Alfheim and Niðavellir have only recently become independent nations, and many of the Alfar have diasporaed across the world. Ill treated by the Ifrit sultans, Svartalf culture has largely turned to science and the busy hands of the Svartalfar have made most of the spell engines which power civilization.

The dwarves of Alfheim are famous as mechanics, magicians, artisans, and builders. Their attention to detail is second to none, though their plodding gait and irascible mien oft discourage commerce with others. Still, a number of Alfar have taken their legendary skills out West where the demand is strong. And it is very strong.

Inspiration: Germans, Bohemians, Jews

The Ifrit
"Fire burns all things. It burns grass and homes, wood and flesh. It burns in my veins. It can burn your veins too."

The Ifrit are a people literally descended from smokeless fire. Easily identifiable by their metallic skin and burning spit and tears, Ifrit stand an imposing 1.9m tall. All Ifrit can see through fire as if it was clear, though smoke or coal is opaque to them.

A proud race, the Sultan of the Ifrit in Madrid was once granted dominion of all the West by the High Pontiff. Ifrit conquistadors conquered the entire reach from the Golden Kingdom to the Silver Empire and set up a brutal system of Missions across the Western reaches of the New World while holding lands in the Old World as far north as Vanheim and as far east as Alfheim. But of late, the flame of the Ifrit has sputtered and dimmed. The Sultan of the old world suffered terrible defeats to both the United Provinces of Vanheim and Tír na nÓg. Worse still, holdings in the New World have broken free and declared themselves as a myriad of quarrelsome sultanates and republics. The Burning Empire is now little more than a smoldering memory.

Remnants of the Burning Empire are still quite evident in the West. The priestly Missions are the only civilization in much of the farthest reaches. Ifrit Rancheros still run a great deal of cattle on the range – their land grants from the Sultan worthless paper but their burning sabers leave quite a mark.

Ifrit can interbreed with any people, and lands controlled by Ifrit have remarkably elaborate rules governing the status of those people with various amounts of non-Ifrit blood.

Inspiration: Spaniards, Mexicans.

The Loci
"I love these flowers. They are a part of me."

Loci, whether male or female are very beautiful. Each loci is tied to a tree, a rock, a spring, or some other geographical feature. Because Loci have such a strong tie to terrain, they don't travel as much as other peoples, with the notable exception of Oceanids who sail all over the place and thereby give the entire people a reputation for wanderlust which is entirely undeserved.

Both the High Pontiff and the Eastern Patriarch are Loci. Yet in the Old World there is no major political entity that speaks for Loci people. Most of the formerly independent Loci city states are now the property of the Sun King of the Sidhe. As a result, displaced Dryads are attempting to make for themselves a new life in the New World.


Inspiration: Italians, Greeks.

Coming Soon: The Sidhe (both the Tir Sidhe and the Court of the Sun King); the Lutin (also of the Sun Court); the Vanir (the conquerors of the sea from Vanheim and the barbarous Van from Helheim); the Jotun; the Deep Ones (from R'lyeh); the Skriatok (of the Winter Court), the Duszek (also of the Winter Court), and of course the
Natives:Buffalo People; Wendigo; Mikumwess; Maizenians; Kachina.

-Username17