Hello, all, 🙂
The West
In The West, there’s cowboys and indians, saloons and poker, high noon duels and general stores, miners and prospectors, chinamen and mexicans, outlaws and bounty hunters, the telegraph and the train, trading posts and fur trappers, and the US Army’s 7th Cavalry.
Credits
The West is a game for Eero Tuovinen’s Solar System rules set, as based off of The Shadow of Yesterday, by Clinton R. Nixon.
The West was developed by Rogério Alecrim, Ana Carrilho, LuÃs Figueira, Bruno Galvão and myself.
General Stuff
The West is not based on any specific period of American history, nor is it based on any specific place in the actual wild west. Rather, it is based on an amalgam of every single western movie ever made, from Roy Rogers to John Wayne to Kurt Russel’s Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, including all those western spaghetti classics with Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill. It is also based on every western TV show, from Bonanza to Kung Fu, and even Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Whatever the game’s setting might be, it should include a typical western town, and easily accessible from that town, whether on horseback or on foot, one or more ranches, one or more indian camps or maybe a reservation, and mine and/or a prospecting site, a river and a canyon, a fur trading outpost, a railway construction site, the border with a Mexico-like country to the south, and, maybe, a couple of other typical western towns.
Cultures
While the game depicts several different cultures, no effort whatsoever was made toward making those cultures accurate, whether historically or in any other way.
Westerner
The westener is the typical inhabitant of the typical town. He might be a general store owner or a farmer, and she might be a school teacher or a rancher’s wife. Whatever their role, westerners constitute the bulk of the population in the setting.
Easterner
The easterner is the person from the Big City, back east, whether that be New York, London or Paris. In the setting, esterners are the people with the high breeding and the fine upringing. The men are army officers, doctors or refined traveling gamblers. The women are the daughters of governors, who went to school in Europe and have just returned.
Chinaman
Chinamen are the exotic and misterious representatives of asian cultures, who have immigrated en masse to help build the railroad and other civilization infrastructures. Chinaman heroes might be lone wanderers, on a life-long quest, or they may have found a way to live with the prejudice and settle down in the town.
(Why chinamen? Because, while chinese women are undoubtedly part of the setting, in the source fiction, they are not depicted at all, except maybe as extras.)
Indian
The indian is the native of the land, carving a living out of nature. Indian men are hunters and warriors, while indian women are farmers, potters, leatherworkers and seamstresses. While most indians live in camps or reservations, a few have taken to working for ranchers and estate owners.
Mexican
The mexican is the immigrant from the south. The men scour the land in bandit bands or settle down to work as hired hands at the ranch. The women find work in saloons or hotels, or become part of those same bands. Mexicans are devotedly religious, with an unequaled, almost contagious depth of conviction.
What’s Next
Next up, the pools and all the open abilities, secrets and keys.
Cheers,
J.