The Old West

[Fawkes]

I was thinking about trying to run a short game loosely based on the movie Stagecoach - a group of travelers from different walks of life protecting a stagecoach as it travels through Apache country.

Can anyone recommend me a good system of rules for the Old West? I'm really only used to D&D rules, but I don't think they would be applicable here.

[The Rose Dragon]

All Flesh Must Be Eaten!

With the Fistful O' Zombies expansion.

You don't need to have zombies, though. That's just a gimmick.

[WalkingTarget]

Well, there's Deadlands or Dust Devils (both written specifically for Old West games). Otherwise, you could go for a generic game system like BRP or GURPS.

[LurkerInPlayground]

All Flesh Must Be Eaten!

With the Fistful O' Zombies expansion.

You don't need to have zombies, though. That's just a gimmick.

Except that the zombies would make a good stand-in for the Apache. Because really, they're just there to get slaughtered.

[The Rose Dragon]

Well, there's Deadlands or Dust Devils (both written specifically for Old West games). Otherwise, you could go for a generic game system like BRP or GURPS.

I've never heard of Dust Devils, but Deadlands has a lot of things that the Old West did not have. Like poker magic.

[Tyndmyr]

I've never heard of Dust Devils, but Deadlands has a lot of things that the Old West did not have. Like poker magic.

What do they teach kids about in history class these days? No poker magic?

Next you'll be telling me that they didn't have whisky voodoo.

[valadil]

Deadlands is an awesome system. Even if you strip out the weird occult horror stuff you'll still have fun with it. Poker cards are used for things besides magic and they help a lot with the feel of the setting.

[WalkingTarget]

Deadlands is an awesome system. Even if you strip out the weird occult horror stuff you'll still have fun with it. Poker cards are used for things besides magic and they help a lot with the feel of the setting.

Yeah, it's possible to play a game devoid of the Weird West aspects. It's just nice to have the rules for shootin', quick draw, stats for various period weapons, and other old-west stuff built into the system.

The only uses for cards unrelated to an Arcane backgrounds that I'm aware of are character generation and combat initiative/actions.

Dust Devils is an indie game, I hadn't played it myself, but some friends liked it (then again, one of these friends is good friends with Ron Edwards, so there's probably some Narritivist aspects to it).

[valadil]

The only uses for cards unrelated to an Arcane backgrounds that I'm aware of are character generation and combat initiative/actions.

Mad scientist gadget creation uses cards. Technically that's an arcane background, but I think it could exist in a standard wild west game without issue.

[Fawkes]

Are there any rules for Deadlands available online, à la d20 SRD?

[Kaun]

Deadlands was released as a D20 version but i would stear clear of it (in that form). From what i hear there is a new version of deadlands that has been released that has reverted back to something closer to 1st edition.

But i will give a massive +1 to any form of Deadlands that is not D20.

[WalkingTarget]

Deadlands was released as a D20 version but i would stear clear of it (in that form). From what i hear there is a new version of deadlands that has been released that has reverted back to something closer to 1st edition.

But i will give a massive +1 to any form of Deadlands that is not D20.

I've heard good things about the Deadlands: Reloaded game (using the Savage Worlds system - which was originally a simplified version of the original Deadlands system), but I haven't had a chance to look at it myself.

I don't know about pdfs or similar, but if you have access to a gaming store, they might have some old Deadlands books sitting around someplace. The first edition is 14 years old now so you might be able to pick it up cheap if you can find it.

Edit - Ooo, it seems that Pinnacle has at least some resources up on their website.

[RandomLunatic]

Sidewinder: Recoiled is an indy d20 supplement. Really good too.