High Noon Showdown Pardner

[Turkish]

Hey folks,

Soonish I'm gonna run a hero game somewhat based on the world of Deadlands, anyone have any good ideas for converting, especially for showdowns... Any ideas are very appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Savinien]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

While I've purchased some Deadlands books, I've never played the game, nor gotten involved in the mechanics. If I had some idea about what you were trying to emulate, I'd be willing to help.

 

But, getting some of the other board gurus would be better for conversions. I'm an idea man and lack the intestinal fortitude involved in crunching the numbers.

[Alibear]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

Western Hero for 4th Editin was one of my favourite supplements. You should be able to track down it on Ebay. Great book and some of the character write-ups are scarey as hell.

[Turkish]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

Great Thanks for the info, Ill look up the book.

 

I had another idea as I played with ideas on showdowns and was thinking of something along the lines of a western hero type of game but with all "fantasy" type of things going on.

 

I'll elaborate, and I have only really put any thought into it today so I may not really like it, but you guys are great walls to bounce ideas off of it seems. I was thinking, what if North America was found much earlier in history, when swords and bows were still the common weapon. What if the wild west was going on exactally the same, but there were no guns or trains yet. Then I got the image in my head of two spell casters of some sort having a high noon showdown and really started to dig the idea.

 

What do you guys think of the world? Too difficult or campy? Also, and I'm still fairly new to running a game, I was thinking of making magic a bit difficult and put a rule along the lines of multiple skill rolls to emulate casting time. For example, two mages stare eachother down at high noon, and to decide on who casts faster they have something like 3 rolls, on a d6, best 2 outta 3 wins and gets the first cast. I was thinking of making it a 5 point disad or something (will play with point totals if this is possible) and letting them buy it off to have a default 5 instead of having to roll.

 

Im looking through the Fantasy Hero book now and going back to the Hero 5th Ed book to try to find if there is anything along those lines.

 

Thanks for reading my rambles and I look forward to your ideas, or saving me the trouble and telling me its not practical, either way.

 

Thanks!

Turkish.

[Alibear]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

I ran a short campaign that christianity snuffed out magic. So native Celtic (and what have you) would be nullified by Christianity. Christianity and churches worked as huge big Suppresses v magic.

 

Magic works in America but not in Europe until Christianity can get a foothold in America before it doesn't work there too. Europeans could learn magic from The Natives and the natives could fight gunpowder with magic.

 

 

Or magic simply works in America because shamans believe that it works.

[Savinien]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

Tukish - Hero System already has this sort of thing with Dex. A player can use points to get quicker if they wish through Lightning Reflexes. Or, you could add Quick Draw: Spell Casting to simulate the duel. Also using some sort of PRE: Pre-Duel only skill vs. skill roll to compliment Quick Draw: Spellcasting could add an interesting facet to the game.

[Turkish]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

I like the ideas for the quick draw and such, but here is the real issue that I am seeing. How a duel worked in the typical High Noon thing is that you tease the gun a bit to try to get the other guy to draw before you. It was murder if the other guy didn't draw the gun also, so it was down to that split second of unholstering the weapon and shooting that the faster guy snuck in the shot.

 

So I want to get that feeling that the two duelers are pushing eachother to be the first to go... so I figured that could be a pre v ego or something along those lines, need to research it more, but I also want a randomness to the speed at wich the spells go off.

[Alibear]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

I like the ideas for the quick draw and such, but here is the real issue that I am seeing. How a duel worked in the typical High Noon thing is that you tease the gun a bit to try to get the other guy to draw before you. It was murder if the other guy didn't draw the gun also, so it was down to that split second of unholstering the weapon and shooting that the faster guy snuck in the shot.

 

So I want to get that feeling that the two duelers are pushing eachother to be the first to go... so I figured that could be a pre v ego or something along those lines, need to research it more, but I also want a randomness to the speed at wich the spells go off.

 

 

I think that might just be a hollywood convention.

[Turkish]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

Yep, Im hollywooding up some of the western showdown parts

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

I always thought it would be cool for fantasy-world duellists of certain orders to have a code where the drawing of one's sword was a highly ritualized game of brinkmanship. Once your sword was completely out of its scabbard, you were committed to fight, but anytime before that you could back down with no loss of face. How much of your blade is visible could be seen as an intimidation tool.

 

Of course, part of that would interact with the duellist's reputation -- if a guy is especially well-known he can make people flee just be reaching for his hilt.

 

It would be hard to come up with that kind of effect for guns, but it would be cool.

[Turkish]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

Originally I was going to put guns in the world, but decided to drop them, so Im really trying to make swords and magic take the place of shotguns and pistols in the wild west.

[Savinien]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

The idea sounds cool on paper, but I'm not sure how fun it would be during a game. Would you continually describe how close the opposing duellist was to using a spell. Do the spells require a focus of some kind? If so, pulling the focus would be close to drawing a smokewagon.

 

The predraw portion sounds like RP to me. You could do a Stare Down skill that is skill vs. skill among Spellfighters, but I'm not sure a simple roll is what you're looking for.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

Originally I was going to put guns in the world' date=' but decided to drop them, so Im really trying to make swords and magic take the place of shotguns and pistols in the wild west.[/quote']

Reminds me of the scene in Slayers where Lina Inverse began an incantation and the bad guys fled the scene because they thought she was about to fireball them. The trick was she'd actually been casting a lighting spell that had a very similar incantation.

 

And also of the sequence later in the storyarc where Lina had to bluff having a lot more magic at her disposal than she really had (due to one of that world's unique limitations of female mages).

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

One Western trope that I forgot to mention in this thread is that reputation is a two-edged sword. It can be your best friend, wshere just the mention of your name can intimidate your foes and get you out of trouble.

 

The downside of reputation is the campaign will be full of two-bit punks and up-and-coming fighters who think things like "Hey, that's Wild Bill Hickock! If I can kill him, I'll be known for all time as 'The Man Who Killed Wild Bill Hickock!' I'll be a legend!" Thus the PC with that kind of reputation will frequently forced to fight against and kill foolish people with whom he has no particular quarrel, people who could potentially have been friends or allies otherwise.

[sinanju]

Re: High Noon Showdown Pardner

 

Also' date=' and I'm still fairly new to running a game, I was thinking of making magic a bit difficult and put a rule along the lines of multiple skill rolls to emulate casting time. For example, two mages stare eachother down at high noon, and to decide on who casts faster they have something like 3 rolls, on a d6, best 2 outta 3 wins and gets the first cast. I was thinking of making it a 5 point disad or something (will play with point totals if this is possible) and letting them buy it off to have a default 5 instead of having to roll. [/quote']

 

How about this: Each player bids for the opportunity to go first. You start at -1 to your effective skill roll, but your opponent can always up the ante. This continues until one or the other of you backs down; then you both roll (at the appropriate minus(es)); if you won the bid and make the roll, you go first; otherwise, you muffed your spell and your opponent gets to make his attempt.

 

The greater your skill, the more negatives you can afford to risk in a bid to go first.