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Win with Westerns
21 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, we saddle up and ride into the wide-open world of Western RPGs. The Western genre continues to captivate players, and we'll explore classic tropes like morally grey heroes, high-stakes showdowns, exploration, redemption, and the struggle against nature. You can create memorable campaigns from the stuff of history, or you can mashup the Western genre with gritty supernatural horror, inventive steampunk technology, or the familiar comforts of Sci-Fi Westerns like Firefly. Learn how to capture the unique feel of Western settings, from the loyalty of a cowboy’s horse to the elemental motivations of frontier life. Tune in to discover how to harness the spirit of the West for your next tabletop adventure!
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Transcript
Tribute to Val Kilmer and Western Genre Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, I heard you the first time. Winner to the king, $500. You
00:00:05
Speaker
you must be Doc Holliday.
00:00:09
Speaker
That's the rumor. You retired too?
00:00:14
Speaker
Not me. I'm in my prime. Yeah, you look it.
00:00:22
Speaker
You must be Ringo. Look, darling. Johnny Ringo, deadliest pi the pistolier since Wild Bill, they say.
00:00:34
Speaker
What do you think, darling? Should I hate You don't even know him. No, that's true, but I don't know. There's just something about him. Tune up, level up your fun.
00:00:49
Speaker
Tune up, your quest has now begun. Tune up, we'll show you how it's done. Tune up, tune up.
00:01:03
Speaker
Tune up, tune up.
The Appeal and Complexity of Westerns
00:01:07
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Tabletop Tune Up. I'm Mark. I'm joined here by my friend, Ben. How you doing, Ben? I'm doing well. it has been two weeks since our last episode. and i am ready to go.
00:01:19
Speaker
it has been two weeks. And, you know, sadly, in that two weeks, ah we lost the great Val Kilmer. So i think with this intro, we just want to give a little extra Val, right? Yeah.
00:01:33
Speaker
little more Val, please. I loved him in Top Gun, as we all saw that. i loved him in Tombstone. I also, though, have a really soft spot in my heart for Top Secret. Did you ever watch Top Secret? I love Top Secret, but a Real Genius was my kind of go-to Val Kilmer film.
00:01:50
Speaker
but you know That's probably the first film I saw him in. yeah Yeah, but you just can't beat Tombstone. His Doc Holliday, it's almost like nobody can touch him now.
00:02:01
Speaker
wells That's his. Yeah, I would think anybody else trying to do Doc Holliday has Val Kilmer, the ghost of Val Kilmer, like haunting them at this point. Yeah, for for sure. Well, Val, you are missed.
00:02:13
Speaker
But today, we're we're going to be talking about Westerns because... We're going to do another genre exploration. When was the last what was last time we did one? We did Pulp.
00:02:24
Speaker
We did it a while ago. That's right. We did Horror before that with our buddy Christopher Wachaud. Today we're going to Westerns. love Westerns, man. i don't What do you, why? Why we why do we love Westerns, man? love Westerns because, for the same reason I kind of like post-apocalyptic, which is maybe sounds a little weird, but they're both these very kind of primal elemental things where there's not a whole lot of civilization around. And so whatever there is, what you carry with you in your heart and your hand and on your holster.
00:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, there's just that, like like, you know, it's in the wild. You know, things are, there's there's not that structure you get. Anything can happen out there.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah. Now, let me
Global Influence of Western Themes
00:03:05
Speaker
ask you, though. Do you think this is, per se, like an American genre? Yeah. you know It's hard for me to to gauge that because I don't know a lot of other, like the the kind of culture that other you know civilizations might have.
00:03:18
Speaker
But I will note that I feel like samurai films are so close to Westerns, they're almost indistinguishable. So much so that like Yojimbo is a direct translation from Akira Kurosawa's film.
00:03:33
Speaker
ah Excuse me, The Seven Samurai is a direct translation. So these these movies translate back and forth. Yeah, yeah. So Seven Samurai connects up with The Magnificent Seven. if If you didn't know this, friends out there, go watch those two movies. you're going to see essentially the same story unfold, but one of them's in feudal Japan and one of them's in the Old West.
00:03:52
Speaker
And Yojimbo is also directly translated to Clint Eastwood film. i can't remember which one. That's ah for a few dollars more. Yeah. I mean, there the but they have a very similar...
00:04:04
Speaker
kind of like breakdown of society. you know they Japan was kind of going through a very similar kind of restructuring as the the you know guns were kind of coming in There was a new wave of of society that was being introduced.
00:04:21
Speaker
I think there's a lot of parallels. And I don't know about other cultures because i obviously... Well, I think you're right. But i also think if you're interested in Westerns, but you don't necessarily want to take all the American stuff, you can also look to Australia.
00:04:33
Speaker
There's some really interesting stories down there. There's a Hugh Jackman film called Australia. You could check out. There's also that movie quickly down under, which is a classic. Oh yeah. I was just going to say, it's starring Tom Sillick's mustache, if I'm not mistaken. That's right. And let's not forget Alan Rickman's fine performance as one of our favorite villains.
00:04:51
Speaker
God, Alan Rickman. ah Another great one. Anyway, guys, we love Westerns, and I think you do too. And I think you don't necessarily have to play a full straight up Western game. You could mix and match it and We're going to get into all that kind of stuff.
00:05:04
Speaker
But like let's start with what are some of the tropes? What do we what are the tropes that we love about Westerns? Yeah, let's think about what makes a western a Western instead of a fantasy or a sci-fi or something else. And yeah, we'll we'll mash these up later, but let's start with nature.
Defining Tropes of the Western Genre
00:05:18
Speaker
One of the things that tells you immediately what kind of story you're in in any Western you watch is what's going on in nature. Is this one of those stories where we're seeing magnificent vistas where you can see for 30 miles?
00:05:30
Speaker
Is it a desolate, barren, spaghetti Western-y kind of desert that ah you might see a roadrunner or coyote in? Is it just... mesas and all that kind of stuff. Or maybe it's a brooding mountainous space with looming gray skies overhead and a storm's coming.
00:05:48
Speaker
There's so many great ways that you can use nature to help you tell the story and set the mood. Yeah. Nature really is like the, you know, the third character, you know, or one of the prime characters really in a lot of these Westerns, you know, they spend as much time filming the environment as they do some of the characters. Yeah, definitely. Kind of set in that mood.
00:06:07
Speaker
Another thing you might think about is that a lot of Westerns are, because of the historical aspect of it, they are set during an expansion. And we can talk more about the expansion part, but part of expansion is the fact that all of these towns are served by maybe train lines or carriages, wagons.
00:06:27
Speaker
They're, you know, boom towns that are sort of not the result of Great urban planning, but they're just sort of ramshackle places thrown together. They've got saloons and yeah wild things going on. They got some poor hapless person having to, you know, enforce some sort of law there. That's right.
00:06:47
Speaker
But like these saloons and trains are things people want out of these Westerns. You cannot shortchange them of that. so Everybody wants to be the guy that kind of like pushes those two saloon doors open. You know, the ones that kind of are on the little springs, the hinges Yeah, they kept no cold air out. That's right.
00:07:04
Speaker
you know, one thing that like I really like about Westerns, and it gets me excited to play a Western, to be honest. If I'm a player looking at playing in a game like this, the kind of morally gray area is a lot of fun place to explore as a player. And you're almost given permission to explore that in a Western, whereas some games, you they might want to play a little bit more heroic.
00:07:28
Speaker
There's something fun about playing that kind of skirt in the line kind of character. Yeah, it's interesting. I think Westerns, because the law is mostly absent, there is a kind of, well, who are you going to be? Are you going to be on the side of the angels? Are you going to be somewhere in between? What's the story going to be with you?
00:07:45
Speaker
And what do you stand for? And you remember I mentioned that reference to post-apocalyptic stories. I think that's true post-apocalyptic stories too. So if we ever get around to doing a genre episode on that, I think we'll see some familiar themes coming up from our Westerns. So,
00:07:57
Speaker
when we're kind of diving into like the idea of these morally gray, we're also kind of touching on the concept of law versus justice and like how they can be different and how even the law could be unjust.
00:08:10
Speaker
We're also talking about the power versus the powerless. And that's where outlaws can become heroes when you have these kinds of power imbalances. Yeah. One of the things that's interesting is that if you're watching like an old school, like John Ford Western,
00:08:26
Speaker
There's the guys in the white hats, and those are the good guys. There's the guys in the black hats, and those are the bad guys. ah You can also get a sense of this or a flavor of this if you ever watch the old Lone Ranger TV series. Not the recent movies, but like the old ones.
00:08:37
Speaker
And if you're playing like the Little House in a playie Prairie RPG, you could just be just a really good person. Yeah. And raise a really good family. Yeah. Wow. ah Well, so so what changed all that? What changed this? Yeah. I mean, this is Sergio Leone's introduction to the to the genre. This is when we get our first Clint Eastwood Westerns, like Fistful of Dollars. And all of a sudden, the hero isn't necessarily a hero. He's kind of an antihero. But, you know, he's yeah he's not as bad as the worst guys, I guess. I don't know.
00:09:07
Speaker
they're They're great stories, though. He revolutionized that that genre and brought some so much needed life to it. So this is actually one of the important things to then talk to your players about is what kind of position do they think they want the party to have with respect to law and justice, with respect to what kind of characters are going to
Character Archetypes and Redemption in Westerns
00:09:25
Speaker
be? Because a lot of that kind of standard issue fantasy D&D style murder hobo behavior know what side of the that's going to put you on in your average Western. That's right.
00:09:34
Speaker
So another thing I want to talk about real quick is about these, I call them kind of like over-cranked characters. Like they're all treated... not with a deaf touch.
00:09:46
Speaker
These characters in these films, at least the the the ones that we remember, are all pretty wild and crazy. And if you even think about like some of our you know history, who are the ones that stand out?
00:09:57
Speaker
Wild Bill Hitchcock, you know Calamity Jane. like these are kind of like These are characters. Yeah, yeah. They were larger than life because you had to be. Yeah. So your villains in these games should be larger than life. Your characters that you're playing, they should be larger than life. We're playing a Western here, folks.
00:10:16
Speaker
Have fun. Yeah. We're here to have fun. I think the NPCs can also be really crazy and fun too. You know, Prospector Pete and Grizzly Dan are these characters that just having those names, you know immediately who those guys are going to be.
00:10:29
Speaker
You know what they're to sound like too. Yeah, old Toothless Tony's whistling while he's talking. Yeah, there's there's going to be the town drunk. There's going to be the, you know, madam at the local brothel, you know.
00:10:41
Speaker
There's all of these really great characters that are available for you. Speaking of these characters, let's talk about like some of them. like Redemption seems to be a theme we see sometimes in these classic Westerns.
00:10:55
Speaker
And sometimes it can be like ah failed redemption story. yeah I was thinking about Unforgiven. Here's a guy who's trying to turn a new leaf and he's he's a horrible farmer.
00:11:06
Speaker
He's just going to do one job just to make good for his family. Yeah, he made a promise to his wife, but he's going to have to break it now. Yeah. And it's just, you know, that redemption story just never... Doesn't work out for him, does it?
00:11:21
Speaker
Doesn't really work out, you know? But that that is a story unto itself. And I think that redemption, even though there wasn't really that story arc of redemption, that was that was the story a failure. You know what's interesting about that is when you look at some of these great movies in the genre, the ones that are especially reflective, some of the more modern Westerns, you know,
00:11:44
Speaker
They do such a great job of of bringing back that kind of later reflection on the morally gray characters or on those law versus justice things.
00:11:56
Speaker
You know, it's hard to imagine Gene Hackman's Little Bill in a John Ford Western, you know? Oh, my God. Little Bill, man. and Another one gone too soon. Gene Hackman's Little Bill is he's the most terrifying villain. on screen I swear to God, that guy scares me to my core when I watch him.
00:12:17
Speaker
But, and, and let's talk it real quick. Cause like, I want to get back to like one thing about high stakes showdowns with these guys. Like you cannot have, a fight with little bill and not have the stakes be high.
00:12:31
Speaker
And so when we're talking about these, these movies, when these characters kind of meet and maybe they have that showdown, that, that shoot off, I think height stakes is a big part of Westerns, whether it be at the poker table, whether that be, you know, at a gunfight, the stakes should be high. Do you think though, that that's any different from any other really good game? Like, wouldn't you say that about a fantasy game too?
00:12:58
Speaker
No, i I would honestly, I don't think it is in that that in ah in a high stakes showdown, we're talking about a dice roll versus a dice roll at a table.
00:13:09
Speaker
We're talking about one decisive thing that you could do that could change the storyline. And that's what ah what essentially what a draw of the gun is. Yeah. somebody's Somebody's dropping.
00:13:20
Speaker
So it's not like a protracted duel. It's like a moment. It's a moment. And that can be true. Us with the poker table. That's why the, the poker table is a great, ah you know, kind of an allegory in a Western for a gunfight.
00:13:33
Speaker
They're kind of like everything turns over by that card and you win or lose you, you feast your famine. And then sometimes you might just draw a gun and then you do it all over again. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:45
Speaker
So I think high stakes is a big part of a Western. Excellent. What else you got? Anything else? well Let's also go back to that concept about exploration and the the expanding frontier and the way that changes life in the state of nature.
00:14:00
Speaker
You know, if you happen to have indigenous peoples around, how are they going to feel about this? That's like the the idea of manifest destiny where, you know, people were traveling. They felt they were like i ordained to to move in a different direction. yeah Now that's an interesting concept for any sort of game you're playing.
00:14:19
Speaker
It doesn't necessarily have to be a, like there doesn't have to necessarily be a religious context to it. That can be all sorts of reasons why people are pushing expanding out into ah territory within your game world.
00:14:31
Speaker
Imagine that they're trying to escape something. That would be an interesting way to set up a a campaign. Here's a whole bunch of west expansion because it turns out that there's a huge army landing on the shores of, you know, back east.
00:14:44
Speaker
Or what if it was that there was a plague or a disease? And so everybody was trying to move out into the wilds to kind of get away from that. You know, these corrupted cities. You could think of so many interesting motives to basically move people into a frontier area.
00:15:01
Speaker
Expansion equals exploration. And exploration is one of the just DNA of RPGs. But, you know, it's not all bad things that we're running
Blending Westerns with Other Genres
00:15:12
Speaker
from.
00:15:12
Speaker
it may not be quite so abstract what we're heading to, Mark. Sometimes out there, there's the promise of gold. yeah. There's gold in them there, Hills. Natural resources are a big part of this. And interestingly, again, if you're playing with genres, if you're doing something that's like in a fantasy space or a sci-fi space, it could be that there's some interesting mineral or magical something or who knows what. But you could do all kinds of stuff to draw people into a frontier life, seeking a fortune that otherwise wouldn't be available to them maybe.
00:15:44
Speaker
So we've talked a little bit about, you know, just right there, you were kind of mentioning how you can combine it in with a fantasy game. The thing is with Westerns, a Western is like a bit of a feeling. It's a bit of a like, there's a lot to it, but you could mix Western with so many different genres and have a lot of fun.
00:16:02
Speaker
What are, what are some of your favorites, Ben, that you've, obviously you've mentioned fantasy. Yeah. That I've actually run for the last two years. I've run a fantasy Western game. You sure have.
00:16:13
Speaker
And it's been a lot of fun. We're kind of nearing our end of it. I think you shouldn't just sort of say you're running a Western fantasy. You have repurposed the curse of Strahd into a Western.
00:16:24
Speaker
And I think that's kind of awesome. we've We've been having a lot of fun, but what other kind of genres can we talk about here? Well, ah look, I'm not going to take this list in order. We made a list here, friends. No lie. It's in our notes. But to actually start ah with dessert.
00:16:37
Speaker
Sci-fi westerns, you guys. Firefly. Come on, man. So good. So amazingly fun. And such a western. I'm a big fan. I think I've talked to you before about the thrilling adventure hour.
00:16:48
Speaker
They have a segment on the thrilling adventure. If you guys aren't fans of the thrilling adventure, I would rarely say Stop this podcast, go get the thrilling adventure hour, listen to it and become a fan of sparks, Nevada, the Marshall on Mars.
00:17:02
Speaker
I can't pause the podcast cause I'm part of it. Okay. I wouldn't say that doesn't mean I'm not a fan. I just haven't really dived into it yet. Folks. But going back real quick to to Firefly, yeah that is about as Western as you're ever going to get. It hits all the tropes of of a great Western, even down to the kind of wacky characters we talk about.
00:17:24
Speaker
How about you, Mark? What are some of your favorite Western mashups? Oh, gosh. You know, I like, um you know, steampunk is always kind of fun. we we talk about the Wild Wild West old TV show.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah. um They definitely had a lot of like tech gadgets. It was almost like a 007 meets the Wild Wild West. And as a kid, that just was awesome.
00:17:46
Speaker
How about when you got a little older and they came out with a movie of the Wild Wild West? You you know what? That look on your face, I think you've blocked it out. The Will Smith movie with Kenneth Bronagh as the bad guy, the big mechanical spider. You remember all this?
00:18:00
Speaker
ah A therapy has worked wonders. You've taken me back. No, it wasn't very good. It even had Selma Hayek in it, and it wasn't very good. Not at the top of people's list. But I'd say that's also, if you're looking just at the genre elements, I think it's a good example.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah. You know what? One of my my favorite, which is actually a mix of all this stuff. Yeah. is ah Did you ever watch Into the Badlands? ah You know, that's one on my list I got to go watch still. Oh, it's fun. It's really fun. It's like, it's everything. It's got steampunk.
00:18:32
Speaker
It's got noir. It's got fantasy. It's got, you know, science fiction. And it's all in the medley of a Kung Fu Western. Yeah. And it works. That's And it works wonderfully.
00:18:44
Speaker
I will say, too, you can do some neat stuff to just slightly mash up Wild West stuff with some things. Sure. So, for example, bring you a little supernatural horror you know, the Weird West, if you want to call it that. Doing something where maybe some of that folklore out on the frontier turns out to be a little too true.
00:19:01
Speaker
Chupacabra, Sasquatch, or real threats. Who knows? You could also come up with ah all kinds of stuff to do with strange indigenous gods, monsters, and...
00:19:12
Speaker
I guess. So guys, people like mix and mash these things, man, have fun with it. Like this is a, this is a, something to have fun with. So just, you know, go for it.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah.
Adapting Western Themes in RPGs
00:19:24
Speaker
Okay. So let's talk about this. We're going to talk now about, we've talked about the tropes. We talked about some different kind of campaign themes or, or mashup ideas. um Let's talk about some things about how you execute a little bit of that feel. And I think for some people that might feel kind of like, oh gosh, do I have to go learn a whole bunch of history and get super into what's going on in the middle part of the 19th century. And I want to say, i mean, look, follow your muse a little bit.
00:19:49
Speaker
Mashing up gives you a little bit of room to play. But here's what I'll say, too, is it's not that far off from fantasy tropes you're familiar with, because, of course, you're out there in a frontier. And so you're still operating on horseback. You're still lighting campfires at night, living off the land.
00:20:04
Speaker
That's something that has in common with games that you've probably played a lot already. So maybe things to think about that even if they're common elements with your typical fantasy game, maybe you should focus on them a little bit more because that's probably true of the genre. And an example here might be like your horse.
00:20:20
Speaker
Your horse in an average D&D game probably doesn't have a name. And as soon as you get to the yeah the walls of Moria or something like that, where you've got to go underground or you're go to do something else, that horse is turned loose. And you're going like, oh, good luck, buddy.
00:20:34
Speaker
That horse needs a name because like when your villain punches that horse, you... you you want to You want to get that revenge. Yeah, that's true. ah i will say that in a Western, right, your horse is like the faithful companion. ro Rogers' horse is named Trigger. and let' I mean, look, you could treat him as disposable too. But people probably are going to be a little more attached to their ride in this kind of game.
00:20:56
Speaker
There's differences, obviously, with these genres. you know If you're playing, like let's say you're converting a Dungeons & Dragons game, which is something I into a Western fantasy, obviously a metal armor was all just kind of like, was not a thing. we were kind of working with leather and swords were kind of different as they were. So you're mostly mostly kind of like transferring some of that those weapons into pistols and things like that for your game. now Over the course of a Western fantasy, they might find these things and that might turn into more of a fantasy depending on how your players react and what they like and maybe also what they how they built their characters.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, this is interesting because I think if you're thinking about a D&D game, it's not really well organized around firearms. So i do think one of the things to think about is what system are you thinking about using and does it well support the tropes of the Western genre that you want to run in? And it could be that you want to run a very fantasy-like Western where metal armor and swords and shields and castles are are things that...
00:22:03
Speaker
are still fairly typical but if that's not the kind of game you want to run then you might want to think about a different system that doesn't require so much armor uh let me ask you do you think firearms are kind of quintessential like if you don't have revolvers and rifles and stuff like that uh is it missing something as a western i think it is i don't know i don't know if it is or not per se but i do think that it they add something to it and Whether or not your players are using them, as it's mostly just having them there. Maybe your villains are using them, and that makes it more interesting. i don't know.
00:22:41
Speaker
ah Friends out there in DM land, if you happen to run a Western game and you give your villains guns but don't give your players guns, we'd love to hear your feedback here at TabletopTuneUp at gmail.com.
00:22:52
Speaker
yeah Okay. We'll say that like, you don't necessarily have to give, ah you know, the guns some sort of special, you know, extra ordinary power. They could, they could literally just be the same as crossbows or things that you're using, just repurposing them.
00:23:07
Speaker
We're talking about flavor here. And a lot of what Western is, is flavor. It's how you present it.
Common Themes in Western RPGs
00:23:14
Speaker
It's the feeling that you give. It's the way you set up the story. Now,
00:23:18
Speaker
no Guns might cause problems and depend on the system and how you choose to to run them. So maybe be smart about house ruling too. Correct. Okay, cool. um Another kind of thing that's worth talking about when you're trying to execute that Western period feel is what kinds of adventures are people going to run in this game? Like what kinds of adventures are kind of prototypically Western adventures that And I'll offer a couple of thoughts here.
00:23:44
Speaker
One would be like a gold rush, a mining operation, all of the stuff to do with claim jumping and people seeking their fortunes in the frontier and thievery and murder when somebody strikes it rich, right? All of that kind of stuff is very much in the center of this job.
00:24:00
Speaker
I always think of like trains and stuff like this. so Something in in my game that I've been running. i love to have, you know, the idea of trains as being part of the adventure.
00:24:12
Speaker
You know, if I don't have ah a battle on a train and. Is it even a Western? Is it even a Western? No, I love it. I love that stuff. Another thing we could add is we've talked a bit about that kind of law and justice angle.
00:24:24
Speaker
And one of the things that I think is really kind of core at this one is the outlaw gang, the duel, the showdown, the what are you going to do when there's not enough law? And actually, as you were talking about the difference between law and justice, you can have a whole game about that and about what about if there's corruption? what if What if the law in a given town, thinking back to that Tombstone movie, right? What if the law is either ineffectual or self-corrupt?
00:24:50
Speaker
yeah What did the players do with that case? Do they leave the settlers and these frontier folk to their own devices and fortunes or they become the law? What do you do about Little Bill? What do you do about Little Bill?
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah. So that's another great really great source for Western stories. And in all of these, right, the motivations are really elemental. There's elemental as the natural setting that you're in.
00:25:13
Speaker
It's vengeance. It's I just want peace and quiet. It's I got to protect my family. It's things like that. And that you mentioned that it's elemental. it That is really the heart of a lot of why people like Westerns.
00:25:28
Speaker
It's, it's, there's something primal about it. Yeah. It's either they love the good versus evil justice and all that stuff. There's, there's something in there for everybody and it's fun. So let's, I want to just, can we touch on a little bit of things to maybe watch out for?
00:25:45
Speaker
Cause there are some landmines in this genre. Yeah. and Yeah, let's ah let's talk about what not to do. And I i think I knew where a couple of these are gonna go. ah Where do you wanna start, Mark? like Look, at least in the American West,
00:25:59
Speaker
It was not a friendly time. in And it was not a friendly time for women. It wasn't a friendly time for any anybody of color. Like, you could do an entire game.
00:26:11
Speaker
Yeah. Bad-mouthing these people and making the game miserable for everybody. Don't do it. I think I remember slavery was a thing for a lot of the West, right? Yeah.
00:26:22
Speaker
Let's leave racism and sexism out of the game, you know, for the most part, unless your players are all bored of it, I guess. And maybe I'll say maybe not even then, right? Maybe not even then. You guys were not going to do the Django Unchained campaign.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that would be fun for most people. Now, I can't speak to everybody, but it wouldn't be fun for me. So I'm just going to leave that stuff out of it. I don't want to alienate people at my table, and don't want to make people feel uncomfortable.
00:26:49
Speaker
let me Let me ask you, though. want to hear kind of your your judgment call here. Let's say you've got players who want to play characters who characters of color. And you've you' let's imagine further that you're in a semi-historical game, right? So we were talking about the American West.
00:27:03
Speaker
How do you... balance those elements. How do you kind of help give that player ah bit of that, you know, identity, but at the same time, not get too mired in some of the historical scenes?
00:27:16
Speaker
Well, Ben, I don't because I'm not going to run that type of game. I just be very careful, folks. Be really careful with this. Have conversations with your players. I, I don't even have advice for that, Ben, because it's not something I would want to run.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah. So i I would just avoid it. Yeah, that's that's just that's what I'm going to say is that's a legitimate strategy, too, is to say, look, there's versions of this game that I'm going to run because I just don't feel either competent or comfortable to do it.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. And on that note, like and another thing is to be careful using like D&D races as allegory. It'd be really easy to just say, you oh, the orcs are allegorist to Indians.
00:27:59
Speaker
um First of all, it's just kind of lazy. It's not terribly imaginative. And also, if you want to, be careful with it.
00:28:10
Speaker
Just be mindful. Good notes. All right. I think, unless I'm mistaken, why yes.
00:28:24
Speaker
It's our tune-up segment. So Mark, as a GM, speaking of getting ready for a campaign and talking to your players, what are some of the questions that you ask prior to starting a campaign?
00:28:39
Speaker
Can you guys all make it weekly? yeah That's a good one. what What are the good starting questions? One of them is schedule. Yeah. How's everybody's schedule looking? Yeah. Like, can we actually pull off a weekly game or how often can we play?
00:28:53
Speaker
And sometimes like maybe if you're the GM, maybe if maybe once a month is just not enough for you. And you're like, yeah, it doesn't keep my interest. I'm out. You probably also, given all of the interesting variations we've talked about in the Western genre, and we've talked about this in other genres too, knowing what kind of game people want to sign up for is really helpful.
00:29:14
Speaker
yeah you guys want a fantasy Western or a historical Western or something else? Or just whatever kind of game they want to play. Like, it you guys want to play Shadowrun? Yeah. like Like, what what is the game you're playing?
00:29:27
Speaker
Let me ask you this, though, as a kind of a follow-up to that, though. How much do you weigh your interests as GM? Because you're going to end up doing a lot of work for this. Yeah, that's that's a good question. Usually see if I'm going to run a game, if I say I'll run a game next, I'll let the players know like what I'm willing to run as far as like what what actual game. like I will play Pathfinder. I will run a Pathfinder game for you guys. I'll let them know what game I'm willing to play. Or maybe it's just something that I feel comfortable running that type of game.
00:29:57
Speaker
Or like I wouldn't feel comfortable running, say, like Shadowrun. Right. I just haven't played it enough too to be comfortable telling stories in that world. i don't mind playing in it.
00:30:10
Speaker
I don't think I can run it right away without some serious ah homework, which I may not be wanting to do right now. and One of my tricks is if I know there's, i mean, usually i imagine you're this way too.
00:30:21
Speaker
Usually there's like two or three games that you've been wanting to do for a while. And so what I'll do is I'll kind of go, okay, guys, I'm happy to run one of these games and then I'll give them kind of a ah list.
00:30:34
Speaker
And then they can, if whatever they choose at that point is good for me. Yeah, so I think that's a great one. What kind of game, what system? Then you can kind of get down into like what kind of genre? What are you guys interested in playing? What do you guys want to explore?
00:30:48
Speaker
You might get a lot of different different opinions on that. But once you kind of narrow down a system, you've narrowed down most of it. If people want to play Shadowrun, that's kind of what they want to play.
00:31:00
Speaker
Right. Now, if they want to play D&D, you might say, well what? What kind play fantasy or do you want to play heroic fantasy? Then you can kind of narrow those down a little bit more. Yeah. Sometimes the theme is baked into the system and sometimes it's not if the system is it very flexible and universal.
00:31:17
Speaker
Well, these are great questions to ask at the prior to starting a
Campaign Preparation Tips for Western RPGs
00:31:20
Speaker
campaign. Any other questions you ask prior to starting campaign? I think we want to get the the type of story down, what we want to play. And then also big part of it is what is your character? What do you want to play?
00:31:33
Speaker
I like, before I even work on a campaign, I like to have characters in mind as I'm working. So I almost almost always ask for characters before I even sit down start crafting.
00:31:46
Speaker
I might get the genre. I might get the idea to get the brain percolating. But I don't really start putting pen to paper until I have something worth writing about. Yeah, that's really interesting. Sometimes players have this idea that they're going to kind of show up at the last minute with a character they worked up the night before.
00:32:02
Speaker
And I think that's just setting yourself up for a lot of pain and suffering in the course of your game. That's fine for a pickup game or a module if I'm going to run one, which I don't usually ever do.
00:32:13
Speaker
But if I'm working on a campaign, some story, I need to know who the characters are before I start writing that story. You know, the most important question I like to ask prior to starting the campaign, who's bringing snacks?
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. Who's bringing snacks? i'm I'm only kind of partly kidding. um One question that's kind of important is where are we going to play this game? You might play at you might play at Somebody's house, you might play at the local game shop. Those all have kind of separate concerns.
00:32:42
Speaker
I will say like this, if you're doing this at a local game shop, it could kind of get loud, depending on whether it's a busy place. And that may be an important thing for your players. Sometimes it might not be well lit and you might have to, if you're getting to be of a certain age, that you might end up needing to put some reading glasses.
00:32:59
Speaker
You know, one of the more practical things is um I need a place that I could leave the stuff at the table. So it's not, you know, every week we have to come back and reset the table.
00:33:11
Speaker
So i don't I don't really like gaming at public places because I can't do that. Now, I have a dedicated game table. When my game is done, I can leave everything as it is and we can pick it up next week and it's still sitting in that same spot.
00:33:27
Speaker
I like that. Very helpful. i actually have done that lately with a game and it's really great, actually. i i should have been doing this a long time ago. Well, guys, I think that kind of wraps up our tune-up segment, wraps up our episode. We got more stuff coming in a few weeks. Remember, we're on an every two-week schedule now, right?
00:33:47
Speaker
That's exactly right. And in two weeks, we'll see you again. Between now and then, you're going to keep those dice rolling. Keep them rolling, guys. Tune up, level up your fun Tune up, your quest has now begun Tune up, we'll show you how it's done Tune up, tune up
00:34:14
Speaker
Tune up, tune up
00:34:19
Speaker
Your RPG's dragging lost in the same old scene But these two roll up, bringing power unforeseen No tired tropes, no predictable line They craft realms with a depth that'll blow your mind Legends in the game call them sages of the board When they're setting the scene, you're never ignored Roll the dice, spin the fate, watch it unfold They're turning the mundane into stories of gold One's the storyteller, words so rich and refined The Oz, the rulekeeper, precise on the grind Together they're a force, a perfectly balanced scheme Every session they run feels like a living dream Heroes rise, villains plot, epic battles ignite With twists and turns tricks Call them up when your world's ready to fall They'll turn it to greatness, the best game of all
00:35:23
Speaker
Come get your tune-up, it's time for your tune-up, your game needs a tune-up. Come get your tune-up,
00:35:35
Speaker
it's time for your tune-up, your game needs a tune-up.
00:35:48
Speaker
Tune up.