So I'm thinking of running a Western HERO scenario...

[UltraRob]

So, I'm thinking of giving a Western HERO game a shot, but the way I look at it, using HERO I see a whole lot of unconscious characters from gunfights instead of dead ones. It's the Fantasy HERO problem all over again, going back after the fight and "cleaning house" on all the unconscious dead guys. I want this to be like the good old Westerns where most people drop after a single hit, with maybe enough time for a short speech at best unless they're a hero.

That said, I see a few solutions.

1) Make all ranged weaponry do X2 damage as a default, and this includes arrows and thrown knives...they always just seem to take people out in a lethal way after one hit.

2) Have people make CON shock rolls when they get hit not to die, maybe with the amount of damage taken subtracted from the CON roll or somesuch just to make it hard. A few people might survive, and anyone with Combat Luck sure would, but that's about it.

3) Encourage Deadly blow, saying it reflects characters skill with the weapons and levels of accuracy.

These sound good? Any other ideas?
I want quick clean gunfights with lots of guys falling over everywhere and a high mortality rate.

Rob

[Jhamin]

Use the bleeding rules. And use your DM fiat to declare that all the nameless NPCs automatically bleed out.

[Lord Liaden]

Well, you can start with adding in the optional rules for increasing lethality, namely Hit Locations and Bleeding. These will kill off your opponents far more readily, especially if your character has the skill with his weapon to make a Placed Shot to the head or vitals.

If you have access to Ultimate Martial Artist, you might consider allowing your gunslingers to buy Ranged Martial Art maneuvers to reflect their skill with a gun; these can increase the effectiveness of their weapons.

Your own ideas will certainly work to increase the death toll in your games. I suspect that the old 4E Western HERO genre book addressed this issue, but not having that book I can't cite any pertinent sections from it. OTOH I can offer you an optional Critical Hit rule from the first edition of Ninja HERO, namely: if a character's roll to hit is less than half of what it needs to be in order to hit the target (e.g. you need a 12- and you roll lower than 6), the attack does maximum BODY to the target.

One thing to keep in mind is that unlike fantasy games, characters in a Western setting almost never have any Resistant Defense. Killing attacks will go through them with no BODY subtractions.

[Vanguard00]

One thing to keep in mind is that unlike fantasy games, characters in a Western setting almost never have any Resistant Defense. Killing attacks will go through them with no BODY subtractions.

That's the big one right there. Don't let anyone take more than 1 level of Combat Luck (3rpd/3red). Also, remember that many NPCs will only have 8-10 BODY. Using hit locations and bleeding rules, one shot can kill 'em pretty easily.

[Captain Obvious]

A friend of mine once ran a Western Hero campaign with the x2 damage house rule. We spent most of our time recuperating rather than fighting. I would suggest you use the Critical Hit rule Lord Liaden brought up, as well as the Hot Location table and bleeding rules. I will also suggest that you allow a Paramedics roll to heal one point of damage on any wound (only one time per wound though), and that wounds of only 1 BODY heal overnight. This will increase mortality moderately without making the characters feel like invalids all the time.

[KA.]

Two small changes.
1) 0 Body is now dead. (Makes 2 1/2 d6 RKA quite lethal.)
2) No one other than Doctors (and maybe Dentists and Barbers) have the Paramedic Skill.

KA.

[UltraRob]

Hmm, all good points...

Maybe 0 Body is dead is the better way to go, I rather like that one.

Rob

[KA.]

UltraRob,
I do have a few more suggestions for a Western campaign.

1) Make sure that the PC's have some pretty strong Psych Lims to motivate them to act, even when wounded.
Depending on the tone these could be:
(John Wayne Style) Protective of the Innocent. Hatred of Bullies. Etc.
(Clint Eastwood Style) Vengeful.
Otherwise, you will end up with an "Infirmary Hero" campaign, where everyone gets shot once and then spends a month healing up.
You may even want to build a limited "Heroic Regeneration" Power, so that when they don't die, they heal up fast. You can set it up so that it doesn't work when you are dead, so you don't have a bunch of zombie gunslingers running around.
(On the other hand . . . )

2) It helps keep the campaign going if you build characters with "families".
Every character should have at least a couple of family members (could be DNPCS, or just NPCS) that they would not mind playing as PC's if (when) their characters die. That way, you can have lethality, and continuity.
All the characters do not have to come from a Bonanza setting (built in brothers and father that are all potential PC's), but make sure that they have some friends in the community that would respond to their death.
(Maybe the bartender they have known for years, puts down his towel and straps on a gun to avenge their murder.)

3) Design the enemies so that they motivate the PC's to act.
One of the best quotes from Happy Days.
Richie is having problems with some bullies.
His father tells him to walk away.
Richie asks "What if they chase me?"
Father : "Are these the kind of guys who would chase you?"
Richie : "These are the kind of guys who would catch you!"
While it is fine to have some smart, manipulative, "mastermind" bad guy running the show, street level gunslingers need to be fast, brutal, and uncontrolled.
You can't just sit around planning things and healing up.
They will come find you. Or they will find your friends. Or they will attack regular everyday townspeople, until they draw you out into the street.
They don't engage in a "war of nerves", they engage in a war of fists, knives, and bullets.

4) If you don't want everyone dead the first day, have some "laws".
Things that everyone, even the bad guys, more or less agree to.
a) No gunfights in the saloon. The bartender has a shotgun, and he will blast anyone who starts gunplay indoors.
"Do you know how much that mirror costs?
I had to order it clean from St. Louis!
Now git!"
This will give your PC's a chance to "settle things like men" once in a while, without everyone dying.

b) Once a formal gunfight is settled upon, very few people will attack the participants before the stated time.
Gives you a chance to build up tension, and keeps the characters alive a bit longer.

c) You can get away with shooting anyone who draws on you, but you cannot get away with shooting an unarmed person.
This let's you have sidekicks, DNPC's, etc. that can interact with the bad guys and not get killed.
They may get insulted, slapped around, or in the case of girlfriends
(depending on tone) either assaulted (as in, kissed by Blackie, when they don't like Blackie) or Assaulted (as in raped [not something I would have in my campaign, but "in genre" for the Clint Eastwood style]), but they won't actually be killed.

you get the idea, but have some fairly firm rules of behavior, so that everyone is not just shooting people from their windows like ducks in a shooting gallery.

KA.

[Kirby]

So, I'm thinking of giving a Western HERO game a shot, but the way I look at it, using HERO I see a whole lot of unconscious characters from gunfights instead of dead ones. It's the Fantasy HERO problem all over again, going back after the fight and "cleaning house" on all the unconscious dead guys. I want this to be like the good old Westerns where most people drop after a single hit, with maybe enough time for a short speech at best unless they're a hero.

My suggestion is to use the Hit Location Table on page 276 of FREd. Whoever shoots rolls for hit lotcation and BODY, and then you use the STUNx & BODYx from there. This way, a 2d6 rifle will pretty much kill if it hits the head or vitals, while hurting a lot if shooting in the hand. I also suggest not letting anyone buy resistant PD/ED.

Hollywood may be famous for the one shot, one kill in the Old West, but in reality, that was hardly the case, especially since most people used pistols, not rifles.

I want quick clean gunfights with lots of guys falling over everywhere and a high mortality rate.

Clean with high mortality rates? "Not gonna happen." After your first big fight, the PCs won't be eager to get into another one. When our group played Western Hero, we quickly learned how fatal gunfights and knife fights were. I really wouldn't use the 0 Body = Dead for any important PCs/NPCs. With less than a handful of people in town knowing paramedics, PCs won't be recovering any time soon. Even after a knife fight, a character will want to rest. And if you are built on 75 points, not many people will have more than 10 Body, much less 12. A RECOVERY of 10 will still take three days to recover 1 BODY. Without resistant defenses, rarely a person will take *only* one BODY, unless it's a fistfight.

If you are worried about people "surviving" (perish the thought), encourage your PCs to buy skill levels.

[Lord Liaden]

Here's one house rule that I've used to simulate "instant kill" attacks: any character that takes BODY damage equal to or greater than his starting BODY from a single attack has to make an unmodified CON roll or die immediately from shock. Because PCs and major villains generally have higher CON than ordinary people they have a better chance of making their roll, and with generally higher BODY they rarely have to roll at all. OTOH for unimportant mooks you can just assume that they fail their CON roll automatically.

[Toadmaster]

I've played in one western hero campaign. While I liked it, we found WH was much more Unforgiven or Wyatt Earp, than 1960's cowboy shootem up.

[Bozimus]

Wow! Great thread! I have longed to run a Deadland/Hero PBeM game and you guys have provided tons of cool ideas!
Muchas Gracias!

I suggest the use of Luck Chips, as detailed in the following thread...

http://www.herogames.com/forums/show...light=rdu+neil

I would modify the above system to allow the reduction in body damage taken. Since the GM gets far fewer chips, the bad guys outta drop like flies, but the PCs can mitigate the damage somewhat, resulting in fewer deaths and less down time for healing. This also provides a mechanism that allows the GM to really hammer on them without actually killing them very frequently. The "Fate Chip" system works very well in Deadlands' PBeM which I participate.

I would also double or triple the body recovered per month (house rule).

[Guzalot]

As long as you disallow resistant defenses and use hit locations your campaign will be plenty lethal. A 2d6 RKA to the head or vitals will be a kill shot more often than not.

[Doc Democracy]

I love westerns an understand what you mean about the gunfights. However - as has been pointed out - if PCs get killed lots they often don't enjoy the game as much!

I played a fantastic skirmish game called Once Upon a Time... which was a fanatastic simulation of the Old West - we played out the final scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on tabletop - they got away...

Anyway - that system used three kinds of protagonists in the game:

I Protagonisti
- like the "Man with no name", and the "Old Man" and Sundance Kid. These are the main men and everyone knows who they are. They are quicker, more accurate and more durable than everyone else (the superheroes of their day)

Cowboys
- like Butch Cassidy and other competent characters but not real gunfighters. These are the guys that get everything else done and support the gunfighters with rifles behind barrels.

Peons
- everyone else - the nameless hordes and townspeople that are only fit for rifles on rooftops - guaranteed to die if they get involved in any gunplay.

I'd suggest having different rules for different roles. If a player wants a steely eyed gunfighter then he should be playing an I Protagonisti but shouldn't be much use for much else - there should be a maximum of two of these in any party. All of the rest of the group should be cowboys.

I Protagonisti should not die with one shot - these are the characters in films that get hit at least twice before they die - unless it is the final duel - one shot should always be enough there - though an I Protagonisti should always get an opportunity to spit out a curse or a question before they gasp their last.

Cowboys should not die with one shot but should often be taken out of the fight for a prolonged period of time. They often are able to bringthemselves to at opportune times to save their I Protagonisti from being shot int he back by some sniper or another - though rarely from an opposing I Protagonisti.

Peons die when they are shot.

The mechanics? Personally I would use the hit location chart and allow the players to alter the hit location by one for every one that they score below the required to hit roll if they are I Protagonisti - for every two if they are cowboys. If they have points over after getting the location they want then let them use the points to add 1 BODY for every two points - or even to alter the hit location of a shot hitting them...

I would also allow the heroic healing mentioned earlier. In the films the healing time was rarely mentioned and often glossed over when another fight started. Have them put in bed in bandages for a couple of days before they get out - completely healthy (or perhaps with a temporary physical limitation - gimpy or can't use left hand)

I think the major thought has to go into the duel. I can't remember the Western Hero options being that cinematic. I'd probably try to come up with something similar to the aerobatic rules in Justice Inc where they manouever and stare before going for the draw. It shouldn't come down to damage and BODY totals - simply who wins - both gun blaze and after staring a bit more one of them falls over. Not sure how I'd do it though...


Doc

[Bozimus]

Doc,
Nice ideas! But won't all the PCs want to be "I protagonists"? Who wants to be Joe Peon?