Western Hero 6th edition

[Christopher R Taylor]

The best dice for a Western Hero campaign

[Stanley Teriaca]

Anyone's thoughts about "The Greatest Gunfighters Who Never Lived 2"?

 

My own list...

 

Yosemite Sam (Loony Tunes, an example of a cowboy bad guy in a toon force game)

 

"Bat" Mastodon (Another toon character, semi original parody of "Bat" Masterson, but as a humanoid elephant with bot wings)

 

Spike Segal, Jet Black, and Fea Valentine (Cowboy Bebop)

 

"Lash" LaRue (whip using cowboy of movie fame)

 

El Zoro

 

Snively Whiplash and Dudly DoRight

 

Sargent Preston and his loyal sled dog King(?)

 

I assume you have a ton of suggestions to add also. (To be honest I don't expect to actually see a write up of "Bat" Mastodon, because he doesn't exist.)

[Rich McGee]

On 12/28/2023 at 4:21 PM, Stanley Teriaca said:

El Zoro

 

Snively Whiplash and Dudly DoRight

That's Zorro, Snidely Whiplash and Dudley Do-Right.  None of them were really known for being gunslingers though, particularly Snidely - unless you count shooting someone in the back from ambush as gunslinging. 

 

For cartoons, various characters from Marshal BraveStarr are decent options, although the show tended to downplay the gunplay.  The Marshal himself, 30/30, Tex Hex, Cactus Head and Thunder Stick are probably the best fits.  Zachary Foxx and Shane Gooseman from the Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers also seem good.  Foxx takes the term "firearm" very, very literally, and Shane is just an all-around combat monster.

 

For a more literary source, a large part of Mike Resnick's body of scifi work has Western overtones, and there are loads of memorable gunmen scattered throughout them.  If I had to pick just one, it would Sebastian Nightingale Cain (aka Songbird), the protagonist of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future.  For someone who wrote so much (not even counting his 200+ erotic novels in his early days...), won so many awards and only died in 2020, Resnick seems weirdly underappreciated.  Maybe it's his quirky sense of humor and tendency to write bittersweet endings that leave you feeling a bit conflicted about whether you actually enjoyed what you just read.

[Stanley Teriaca]

2 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

That's Zorro, Snidely Whiplash and Dudley Do-Right.  None of them were really known for being gunslingers though, particularly Snidely - unless you count shooting someone in the back from ambush as gunslinging. 

Ok. I understand not having Do-Right and company. The thing is basically a parody of riverboat melodramas after all, and not westerns which just happened to be set in Canada.

 

Zorro also wasn't much into gunplay when he could swash, buckle, and flash his sword. But I bet he did use a gun and carries one.

2 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

For cartoons, various characters from Marshal BraveStarr are decent options, although the show tended to downplay the gunplay.  The Marshal himself, 30/30, Tex Hex, Cactus Head and Thunder Stick are probably the best fits.  Zachary Foxx and Shane Gooseman from the Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers also seem good.  Foxx takes the term "firearm" very, very literally, and Shane is just an all-around combat monster.

Agreed with BraveStar. And Galaxy Rangers was an adaptation of an anime (Space Sheriff Bismarck, I believe).

2 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

 

For a more literary source, a large part of Mike Resnick's body of scifi work has Western overtones, and there are loads of memorable gunmen scattered throughout them.  If I had to pick just one, it would Sebastian Nightingale Cain (aka Songbird), the protagonist of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future.  For someone who wrote so much (not even counting his 200+ erotic novels in his early days...), won so many awards and only died in 2020, Resnick seems weirdly underappreciated.  Maybe it's his quirky sense of humor and tendency to write bittersweet endings that leave you feeling a bit conflicted about whether you actually enjoyed what you just read.

I don't know this author. But that is just my ignorance speaking.

 

I didn't mention Vash the Stampede from Trigun because I don't have any idea on how to depower him while keeping him as lovable and goofy as he is.

[Rich McGee]

45 minutes ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

And Galaxy Rangers was an adaptation of an anime (Space Sheriff Bismarck, I believe).

You're conflating a couple of shows.  Star Musketeer Bismarck (1984 in Japan) was the original anime, which was later licensed by the US company WEP, expanded, reorganized, and released in English as Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs in 1987, resulting in a bit of Frankenshow whose added six episodes and rewrites for US kiddie standards (ie no killing) don't hang together well.    Galaxy Rangers is not based on the Japanese shows at all and barely resembles them beyond being a Space Western, although that belief seems somewhat common.  I blame that on the wiki page for Saber Rider, which goes out of its way to mention that the show was "...similar to the series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers and BraveStarr."  The only similarity any of the three have are the scifi Western elements, which were intentionally dialed up quite a bit with the Saber Rider adaptation of Musketeer Bismarck.  Plots and premises are quite different beyond that - no giant robots in Galaxy Rangers, for ex.

 

I can't suggest a good way to downpower Vash himself, but some of the other Trigun characters might be more viable.  There are some other anime space westerns out there that might suit though.  Outlaw Star and its caster pistol would be an interesting mechanical challenge to write up (and has probably been done already by someone), Space Dandy is an obvious choice given its shared creator with Cowboy Bebop.  Desert Punk is more post-apoc and less Western, but it still has a bit of teh vobe and gunslingers galore.

[Christopher R Taylor]

The only Resnick story I have read is one I cannot remember the title of, but its about the most evil man in the universe who is hired to deal with a problem only he can.  It was well written and very interesting when I read it in high school.

[Stanley Teriaca]

I just thought about The Wild West C.O.W.Boys of Moo Mesa. A what if the teenage mutant ninja turtles were three anamorphic cows instead of four anamorphic turtles. And set do apart from humans that they form their own society.

[Stanley Teriaca]

Well, there is the original pulp novel version of the Ghost Rider (Night Rider/Phantom Rider). I would love to see how you would writeup his ability to cloak parts of his body with his cloak, making people actually think he is a real ghost....