“See the Elephant”
Andy Adams left the family farm in Indiana and headed west in the Early 1880s. For 10 years he was a working cowboy up and down the Great Western Cattle Trail. Who better, then, to give a first-hand account of what life was like in the Wild West?

When he published The Log of a Cowboy in 1903 he was disgusted with the portrayals he had seen in the penny dreadfuls. The Log of a Cowboy is a great read. Exciting, compeling, and suspenseful, it is a novel based on Adams own life experiences. The cattledrive encounters flooded rivers, Indians, Rustlers, and several cowtowns.

Great for it’s detailed description of the daily life of a cowboy, it is a perfect Western RPG resource.

Here’s some Linkage:
Andy Adams bio at Online-Literature.com Much more complete than Wikipedia.
The Log of a Cowboy at Gutenberg or at Amazon.

One scene comes up whenever I tell someone about this great book. It happened that the cowboys were in town when a ruckus broke out…

I saw The Rebel’s eyes, steeled to intensity, meet Flood’s across the table, and in that glance of our foreman he evidently read approval, for he rose rigidly with the stealth of a tiger, and for the first time that day his hand went to the handle of his six-shooter. One of the two pretended winners at cards saw the movement in our quarter, and sang out as a warning, “Cuidado, mucho.” The man on the bar whirled on the word of warning, and blazed away with his two guns into our corner. I had risen at the word and was pinned against the wall, where on the first fire a rain of dirt fell from the chinking in the wall over my head. As soon as the others sprang away from the table, I kicked it over in clearing myself, and came to my feet just as The Rebel fired his second shot. I had the satisfaction of seeing his long-haired adversary reel backwards, firing his guns into the ceiling as he went, and in falling crash heavily into the glassware on the back bar.

The smoke which filled the room left nothing visible for a few moments. Meantime Priest, satisfied that his aim had gone true, turned, passed through the rear room, gained his horse, and was galloping away to the herd before any semblance of order was restored. As the smoke cleared away and we passed forward through the room, John Officer had one of the three pardners standing with his hands to the wall, while his six-shooter lay on the floor under Officer’s foot.

What I like to highlight is a single sentence: “The smoke which filled the room left nothing visible for a few moments.” The Rebel fired twice and the man at the bar has fired 4 shots (2 pistols twice) and the smoke “left nothing visible.” Western movies have helped us forget that smokeless gunpowder wasn’t used in firearms until the end of the Wild West period. Whether as an additional rule in a shoot-out, or as colorful set dressing, including this nugget adds a touch of realism and authenticity to your Western RPG.

Andy Adams wrote several more books and from all appearances they were successful as well. I haven’t read them, but some are available on Gutenberg and at Amazon.

We jumped right into character creation and I described the conflict rules as we went–relating them to the particular stat at each step.

The only restriction I gave them was that the characters were all hunting Levi Oden. I left it up to them the hows and whys. I also let them decide whether they were working together or not.

So the Characters they came up with were as follows:

Reverend Davis Donovan

The good Reverend saw his entire congregation killed by a gang of outlaws. When they were acquitted and released, he sought vengeance. Afterward he left the trade of preaching and became a Pinkerton, knowing that they often worked beyond the law to take down outlaws.
Hand 4
Eye 4
Guts 3
Heart 2
Traits: Fast as a Jackrabbit, Cold as Stone
Past: Missionary(2)
Present: Pinkerton(2)
Devil (2): Hopeless. It’ll all end in death. And I’m going to hell.

Andrew Wagner (AKA Marcus Bryant)

A former Pinkerton who liked the power and freedom to pursue “justice” as he saw fit, he was eventually dismissed for overreaching his authority and embarrassing an important client. But now he had a taste for violence. He’s on the lamb from the Pinkerton’s they have a few questions, and likely a warrant, for him. He killed and took the real Andrew Wagner’s outfit, including his deputies badge, and fell in with Donovan and Stanton
Hand 3
Eye 5
Guts 3
Heart 2
Traits: Quick as Lightning, Sly as a Fox
Past: Pinkerton (3)
Present: Deputy (1)
Devil (3): Cruelty. Bryant took a little too much pleasure in the nastier side of his work as a Pinkerton, like beating confessions out of suspects or violently setting up townsfolk for government extortion.

Doc Emmett Stanton

Doc was practicing his trade when a patient under his knife confessed to a crime he’d never be convicted of. For the betterment of town, Doc acted as judge, jury, and executioner, and killed the man. No one ever knew. Sadly for Doc, He got a taste for killing folks
Hand 2
Eye 4
Guts 3
Heart 4
Traits: Cold as Stone, Sly as a Fox
Past: Doctor (3)
Present: Fugitive (3)
Devil (2): Murder. That first killing made Doc feel real good, but he knew next time, if he did it just right, he’d feel like God.

Doc, Donovan, and Wagner have partnered up to capture Levi Oden and bring him back to Grover’s Bluff for trial. They could kill him outright, but they only get paid if they bring back a living defendant for the trial.

They entered the town of Redding, New Mexico and immediately saw signs that the towns law officers were not doing their jobs*. A dead dog is nailed to the sign—its bloated body nursery to thousands of flies, trash blows down the streets, and bullet holes in shop fronts give silent eternal witness.

[*- Town marshals were not police officers in the modern sense. They were more like general civil employees tasked with everything from ordinance enforcement to trash collection.]

Spending some time in the Star Saloon, a grungy adobe building with whisky served from clay jugs, they discovered that the law in town is lazy, except when it is bullying. The Marshal, Horace Abernathy, is most content to sit back while his two deputies, Pete Holden and Tom Deggs, do all the work. Deggs was sitting in the corner when they enter, an enormous man with fists like hams, but he slipped out as they talked with the barkeep.

Doc and Donovan left for the Goode Night Hotel and met Holden and Deggs in the street. Holden aimed to pull his usual trick of bullying and frightening newcomers. Donovan, however, completely disarmed him by asking Deggs if it’s true he used to be a prize fighter. “Were you THE Tom Deggs?” Deggs is left liking the newcomers as admirers of his while Holden is just pissed off that they spoiled his fun.

Back at the Star Saloon, Holden and Deggs entered. Holden takes a stool at the bar and starts his bully routine with Wagner. Finally Holden ordered Deggs to take Wagner to the Marshal HQ and put and turn in his gun. Wagner tried to convince Deggs not to comply, but his gun ends up in the safe, which Abernathy doesn’t lock, having forgotten the combination. They heard gunshots and Abernathy and Deggs ran for the Star Saloon.

Having secured rooms, Doc and Donovan head back to the Star Saloon to find Wagner. They immediately run afoul of Holden. Doc asks him about Oden. Full of piss and feeling mighty from getting his way with Wagner he simply clocked Donovan across the face with his revolver. Donovan responded by firing and Holden is happy to return the favor, hitting Donovan in the arm. Doc, having taken up a position at Holden’s side, lashed out with a scalpel-sharp knife and opened up Holden’s arm and hip. Holden and Doc escaped out the back door and into the hills, while Holden is taken to the Doctor’s office for stitching and recovery.

When night fell, Donovan sneaked back into town to get their horses and supplies. And Doc patched him up. [Sadly Donovan has Zeroed out his Hand score.] Wagner met with Abernathy and found out that it would be no great loss if Holden died from his wounds. It might mean a job replacing Holden should Wagner choose.

Wagner scouted out the Doctor’s place and when he left he ran into Levi Oden. Levi knew Andy Wagner and doesn’t recognize him. Levi suspected something’s afoul. Later, Wagner returns to the Doctor’s place and kills Holden. He failed to see Levi Oden watching him.

The next morning Marshal Abernathy gave Wagner a deputy’s badge and invited him to dinner. Finally reunited the trio headed into the German House, a fancy saloon, after seeing three suspicious men ride into town and enter. They saw Lily Abernathy speaking with the men. The barkeep tells them that Lily is the real power behind the town. They also find out that Holden is staying at the Abernathy’s guest house. The suspicious men are three of Los Caballeros, a vigilante gang dedicated to protecting the weak and innocent.

My players will be on the trail of Levi Oden, a fugitive from Justice. I haven’t decided if they are all working together, probably not.
Here are the important supporting characters.

Horace Abernathy, Marshal of Redding

Mid-thirites. believes he’s found the perfect set-up as a do-nothing lawman. Hell, so long as she doesn’t find out about Dora, he doesn’t even mind his wife cheating on him…too much.
Hand 3
Eye 4
Guts 4
Heart 2
Traits: Seen It All Before, Sly as a Fox
Past: Gambler (1)
Present: Town Marshal (3)
Devil (3): Lazy. Horace is happiest sitting on the porch of his HQ, feet propped on the rail, with a cup of coffee and a cigarillo.

Lily Abernathy

Mid-twenties. Wife of Horace, sister of Pete Holden, lover of Levi Oden. She married Horace when he was a well-dressed, smooth-talking riverboat gambler, but now she loathes the West and will do anything to get back East. Women want to be her, and men want to be with her.
Hand 2
Eye 4
Guts 2
Heart 5
Traits: Pretty as a Picture, Smooth as Sillk
Past: Lady from Back East (1)
Present: Lady Behind the Power (3)
Devil (2): Manipulator. Lily knows what she wants and to get others to do it for her.

Levi Oden, fugitive, Lily’s lover

Levi was a hired gun for various outfits, but whisky always got him fired. Now his past is catching up with him, no matter how much he wants to change.
Hand 5
Eye 4
Guts 3
Heart 4
Traits: Quick as a Rattlesnake, Good old boy.
Past: Gunman (3)
Present: Fugitive (1)
Devil (2): Drunkard. Levi is a pretty good guy…when he’s sober. When he’s knocked back a few he is cruel and unpredictable.

Pete Holden, Dep. Marshal, Lily’s Brother

Pete learned cruelty in the Army as an Indian Fighter. Now he puts the lessons to use on the citizenry of Redding.
Hand 4
Eye 3
Guts 4
Heart 2
Traits: Mean as a bleeding bear, Steady as a boulder
Past: Indian Fighter(3)
Present: Lawman(1)
Devil (3): Bully. While cruelty and violence are Pete’s right and left hands, they serve his need to boss people around.

Tom Deggs, Dep. marshal

Tom hitched up with Pete in the Army and quickly became his enforcer and yes-man. Pete like having the dumb brute around to back his plays.
Hand 5
Eye 1
Guts 4
Heart 3
Traits: Strong as an Ox, Loyal as a Dog
Past: Prize Fighter (2)
Present: Lawman (2)
Devil (1): Killer. When push comes to shove, violence is the only tool in Tom’s belt.

Juan Gomez “El Padre”, Los Caballeros leader

Gomez is El Jefe of Los Caballeros, a group of vigilante gunmen, who usually fight for the weak, downtrodden, and helpless.
Hand 3
Eye 3
Guts 4
Heart 3
Traits: Hunts Like a Wolf, Everybody’s Friend
Past: Priest (2)
Present: Vigilante (2)
Devil (2):Wrath. El Padre is easy to talk to and generous to a fault, but when wronged (or sees others being wronged) he delivers the Wrath of god.

Pancho Mejia, Los Caballeros

The youngest member of Los Caballeros, Pancho is Gomez’s cousin.
Hand 4
Eye 4
Guts 4
Heart 4
Traits: Lady Killer, Cool as a Mountain Spring
Past: Vaquero (1)
Present: Vigilante (3)
Devil (1): Reckless. Pancho is prone to get in over his head whether by wooing the “wrong” lady, outright bragging, or simply taking unnecessary risks.

Jarogniew Leczinsky “Pollock”, Los Caballeros

Quiet and strong, Pollock joined Los Caballeros when his family was killed by outlaws in a bungled train robbery. El Padre is slowly turning his anger into a thirst for justice
Hand 4
Eye 3
Guts 3
Heart 3
Traits: Tough as Nails, Inscrutable as a moonless night
Past: Farmer(1)
Present: Vigilante(3)
Devil (3): Anger. Jarogniew (Polish from roots for anger) is a seething cauldron of hate and anger barely contained by El Padre’s whispered admonitions.

So there we go. I’d love to play any one of these characters as a PC, so I should have a blast running the game.

Here’s some relationship stuff I’m using that may not be obvious from the Character write-ups:
Marshal Abernathy is having an affair with Dora Parker, daughter of the Town Doctor. As far as they know, this is a very well-kept secret.
Dora Parker accidentally shot and killed Rev Finch when he confronted her and said he was going to tell her father.
Lily sees Levi as a means to get rid of her husband and her brother as a tool top get rid of Levi. Then she can take Abernathy’s substantial savings and remake herself back East.
Levi is in love with Lily and thinks she loves him too.
Levi, while not a deputy, has been able to reign in the worst of Pete’s abuses. This is only because Pete is utterly devoted to his sister and doesn’t want to upset her lover. He also the knowledge of their affair gives him a feeling of superiority over Marshal Abernathy.

What’s Going on Here
I am running a two-session game of Dust Devils Revenged starting Saturday. I haven’t really done any prep and I’m not using pregens, so I thought it might be interesting to blog the whole experience from Game Prep through AP to a review of Dust Devils Revenged. It’s much more ambitious than I planned for post on The Depot, but I b’lieve I’ll give it a shot.

Game Prep
First off, a couple of tools.
The Adventure Funnel from Dr. Rotwang’s Blog.
A western name generator I made using The Knuckleduster Cowtown Creator.

While the Adventure Funnel is great for traditional RPG adventures, Dust Devils is much more about emergent story than achieving a goal. With this in mind I used the funnel to help flesh out the supporting characters and their relationship.

Using the Adventure Funnel I came up with this:
Goal: Capture Levi Oden, wanted for murder, horse thievery, and violence a sundry.

Obstacles:

1. Levi Oden under Marshal’s protection (maybe even a deputy or Lily’s lover, or both).
2. Deputies make sport of newcomers
3. Town generally lawless
4. Terrifying Storm, flash floods,
5. Parson gets killed standing up to someone
6. Town Doctor’s daughter
7. Levi Oden has an upstanding reputation–he keeps the deputies in check.
8. Levi Oden is expecting to be followed and has a cache of travelling gear in a cave outside of town.
9. Los Caballeros - A gang of Mexican bandits? Zorro-esque? Wandering Freelance Lawmen? Rustlers?

Details:

• Flies on a bloated dog’s corpse (Blame Blood Meridian for that one.
• Lily Abernathy and Oden Levi are lovers. She is just using him, he is genuinely in love.
• Marshal Abernathy knows about his cheatin’ wife and aims to do something about it.
• Marshal Abernathy is having his own affair with Doc Parker’s daughter, Dora.
• Deputy Pete Holden is Lily Abernathy’s brother
• Deputy Tom Deggs is almost a “slow wit.” He follows Dep. Holden like a loyal dog.
• Parson Finch was killed accidentally by Dora Parker when he threatened to tell Doc Parker about her affair with Marshal Abernathy.
• Pete Holden will do damn near anything that his sister, Lily, asks.
• Saloon Owner, Jed Nuttal, is sweet on Lily and wants Levi out of the way.
• What does Lily want out of the situation? What does she gain by her affair with Levi?
• Los Cabelleros are hunting Deputy Holden. If a PC is possibly wanted they may recognize him as well.

“John C. H. Grabill sent one hundred and eighty eight photographs to the Library of Congress between the years 1887 and 1892. This collection is considered the premier collection of western frontier photography in the United States today. Known for their gritty realism, these sepia-toned windows to the past capture the American West in the midst of settlement. The well-crafted images evoke a definite sense of place and time that allow the viewer to peer into a world that otherwise survives only in our imaginations, and the stuff of legends.”

-Margaret McGuire, 2004. From Digital Picture Printing & Framing

Grabill’s photographs are gritty, realistic, and immediate. The entire collection can be found at the Library of Congress. Several sizes are available for download, including hi-res Tiffs.
I used one of his shots of Deadwood, Dakota Terr. to make my banner and another shot of his is my current wallpaper.
Here’s a few of my favorites:

There are many more her and they are wonderful inspiration for your Western game.

For my last Deadlands game I detailed the fictional town of Melody Colorado. I played around with some of the details, but it partially replaces Walsenburg Colorado, the county seat of Huerfano County. I choose Huerfano Co., despite never having been there, because it was along a cattle trail, had good mining and farming, and was close to Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. It was also one of the original 17 counties of Colorado which I felt increased my chances of finding historical information online.

I was able to get some great history about Huerfano county that inspired and informed my game. For example both “The History of the Georgia Colony” and “Hispanic Heritage in Huerfano County, Colorado” from this excellent page: Huerfano County Resources.

Here’s what I ended up with:
A large map of Melody - 1.9 Mb jpeg, 3400px × 4400px
A players map of Melody - 580 kb PDF
Melody People and Places.

My point for all of this is that you should always check to actual history of the region your game is set in, you never know what cool stories you’ll turn up. And, if nothing else, you’ll get some good local flavor.

The Knuckleduster Cowtown Creator from Forrest Harris and Knuckleduster Publications is a real treasure for the Western GM.

Here’s a review at RPG.net.

The Cowtown Creator hits me in several sweet spots. First it focuses on the real Old West instead of the movie/myth Old West. Whether your game is about the gritty realism or zombie-gunslingers, injecting some actual history is always a plus. Surround your zombie-gunslingers with accurate historical detail and disbelief is much easier to suspend.

How it conveys this historical detail involves my other sweet spots. Harris begins by describing various types of Western towns and examples. He even gives samples of the types and numbers of businesses you’d find in those towns. Next he takes us through each type of business, from the Cattle Yard to the Saloon, the Fancy House to the Barbershop. Along the way he offers floor plans (often based on period drawings and photographs), sample workers and customers, and colorful anecdotes out of the history books. As this is a system-free book, all the characters are presented in a descriptive paragraph rather than any kind of stat-block.

There are lists of business names, drinks, prices, and (my favorite) names culled from historical documents. And Names there are a lot of names. Thousands probably. More than you’ll need. [I used the names list to create a random name table that I'll post soon.]

In the back are a couple of system specific add-ons for d20, Deadlands [classic], and FUDGE.

And yet I still can’t convey how great this book is. It’s one of those that you grab when you’ve got a few minutes to skim something. Hands down it is the most useful Western RPG book I have.

Also checkout the The Knuckleduster Firearms Shop and the whole line of knuckleduster products, including Old West Miniatures.

[No, I am not getting compensated by Knuckleduster or Forrest Harris.]

Music and RPGs is a topic with stubborn opinions pro and con. Some like playing background music and sounds, others play a particular track during fights or a certain scene, still others detest it, claiming to be a GM, not a DJ.

I prefer music and some SFX in my games. Depending on the genre and tone of the game, I may loop a playlist in the background, or just highlight certain scenes with some background music.

In my recent Deadlands game I always played three songs from the Deadwood soundtrack as we sat down to play: “Theme From Deadwood,” “Arriving in Deadwood,” and “Iguazu.” These set the scene, as it were.

Recently I used Marco Beltrami’s excellent score for the 3:10 to Yuma remake. It is dark and subtle (for the most part) and perfect for looping quietly in the background.

Of course movie scores often get mentioned when music and RPGs comes up, and there are quite a few good Western scores out there. (Personally I found Morricone soundtracks distracting, they were too familiar and hence distracting.)

This topic comes up from time to time at the Pinnacle forum for Deadlands. Here a compiled list of music Deadlands players have used.

But what about sound effects? Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an easy way to have a gunshot or galloping horse or rambling saloon piano to a scene?

There is.

A little program called Soundstokey allows you to map sound files to your keyboard, making your laptop a sound board. It’s a snap to use.

During one game (it wasn’t a western game) I was playing a thunderstorm in the background and background music and using Soundstokey for specific sound effects. It was very easy to do with my laptop and Soundstokey.

If you don’t have any sounds for your game, try http://www.freesound.org/index.php.

I watched Appaloosa last night, staring Ed Harris,Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons. Instead of offering a review I’ll link a review I agree with and move on to movie’s usefulness as RPG inspiration.

The protagonists, Virgil and Everett, are traveling professional lawmen. When a town goes to hell, as they are wont to do in Western movies, the town council hires gunmen slightly more trustworthy than those terrorizing the town. Virgil and Everett are those gunmen.

Wandering Freelance Lawmen
With a small group, say 2-3 players, you could definitely run with this concept. The players are wandering good guys going from town to town and keeping the west clean. Now that I say that , it sounds an awful lot like some of the fantasy “sand-box” campaigns I’ve played in. The advantage of this set-up is that it has definite story-arcs. Enter town, exciting and dangerous stuff happens, leave town. Repeat. [That sounds like a 10 word description of Dogs in the Vineyard.]

On the negative side, the Wandering Freelance Lawmen model can present some challenges. It requires the GM to create a interesting town/situation and NPCs every time the heroes move on. Repetition would be a serious danger. One way to avoid this would have enemies that were humiliated and left alive lining up to exact revenge. Travel becomes dangerous as any cowhand in a saloon might be a vengeful victim of the heroes “marshalling.”

This model seems best suited to a short game that involves a few towns all connected by the villain. Perhaps the iconic (or even cliched) evil wealthy capitalist is trying to buy up the land in three towns along a future railroad line (or near mineral deposits). Each town has it’s own gang whose real job is to make life hell and reduce the property values.

One other more thing. There’s a scene in Appaloosa where violence is avoided because a character is familiar with Apache ways. There’s a lesson for GMs in that. If your player has some quirky skill, let him use it. Find a way to let him shine with his Apache Traditions Knowledge.

The Amon Carter Museum has a web feature called “Texas Bird’s-Eye Views” that features some really nice maps of various Texas towns from 1871-1892. While they are behind a Flash-based map viewer at the website, many of them are also on Wikimedia Commons.

After the Civil War there was an explosion in panoramic or bird’s-eye view city maps. The techniques and technology were sufficiently advanced to produce beautiful works of art. There is a detailed article on Bird’s Eye View map phenomenon at the Anon Carter site.

Below are some samples:
Austin, 1873.
Austin, 1887.
Eagle Pass, 1887.
Fort Worth, 1876.
Fort Worth, 1886.
Fort Worth, 1891.
McKinney, 1876.

All told there are 60 maps on the Amon Carter site, and many are also available on Wikimedia Commons and these are only for Texas towns. I’m sure with some digging we can find more primary source maps of Old West towns, in fact you can count on it.