Hey all -- I'm in the mood for a Western. That covers a lot of ground, these days. Clint Eastwood-style, man with no name? Homesteaders? Fighting off the Big Bad? Yup. Star Wars Mandalorian-style or Firefly space western? Yup. Mad Max / Road Warrior ronin / lone wanderer? Yes indeed. I'm down with all of it. What kind of plot / ideas have you got? Let's worldbuild this. I'm here for it. 18+? Sure. I'm sure there will be all sorts of adult themes.

Influences: Snake Plissken, Mad Max, Westworld, Unforgiven, Shane, Pale Rider, Firefly / Serenity, Mando, Silverado, Yojimbo, Blade Runner... heck, you name it.

Me: Male main character, happy to NPC several (incl. BBEG) able to post several times a week if the story hooks me in. Feel free to respond here, or PM with your needs / wants!

I'd be down for a Deadwood-style RP, something centered around a small town where the PCs need to interact to achieve their personal goals. Mark me as interested.

I'd be down for a Deadwood-style RP, something centered around a small town where the PCs need to interact to achieve their personal goals. Mark me as interested.

I think that would be do-able. Certainly always loved the small-town folk, working against a bigger threat, kinda-angle.

Anybody else feel the need to mosey? Shoe a horse? Discover a corrupt or cowardly sheriff? wear a white (or black) hat? Start a saloon brawl? End a standoff? Do a spot of Bounty Hunting? Mete out some frontier, hard justice? Act the Lone Wolf? Rob a train?

I think I could be persuaded.

For space westerns, Firefly is good; or, if you'd like some cassette futurism aesthetic while keeping the western theme, I had been thinking about a romp in the Cowboy-Bebop universe.

To keep things linear and on track, at the expense of "open world", I might suggest a heist plot ala War Wagon. That's a good movie, btw.

Color me curious. I’m down for anything, although I tend to prefer at least a fantastical edge to things. I’m out of ideas right now, but after a good night’s sleep, I’ll be ready for brainstorming!

@deegee Do you want to make a decision on the tech level and setting before we build a plot? Or do we build a setting/plot outline that's agnostic to the tech level and will fit on top of either a traditional or space western, and just pick once we have a concept?

I'd prefer to have a concept of sorts, before deciding on a time or setting or tech level. Don't want anything as arbitrary as a fictitious timeframe to ruin any semblance of creativity!

Alright, allow me to forward some ideas:

I mentioned before the idea of a heist. As the overarching Big Bad, we might have a powerful moneybags-type character (A corrupt frontier governor, a Doc Durant*-style railroad tycoon, or maybe a Space-Casino owner?) and his Dragon would be a brutish and unsympathetic security chief (whether gleefully cruel like The Swede*, or a steely consummate professional - maybe a Pinkerton Detective.) Your main character would lead a team out to hit the Big Bad where it hurts : in his wallet. Your character would have been wronged by the man in the past, so it's personal (and sympathetic, from a meta perspective), but the other characters can be either opportunistic or altruistic in their motives. I'd happily volunteer to play the Enforcer bad guy, in addition to a team member. A lot of this is from War Wagon; they had a back-to-back Kirk Douglas double feature on the TV - sue me.

Next idea is also a revenge story. In the vein of Murder on the Orient Express and Bullet Train a cast of characters enter a train or other mass transit seeking to kill a target or complete some other objective. If you want something like Express, they all want to kill the same man, but don't know each other. I think the Civil War gives a good pretext for this kind of revenge killing, if you want a traditional western setting. IRL, many of the blood feuds which broke out in the Wild West found their origin in the War Between the States. Perhaps you've got a Cullen Bohannon* type my-wife-is-dead schtick. If it's a chaotic web of conflicting goals, you have lots of tension since, by it's nature, the characters are stuck in close proximity and are far away from help.

Another team-oriented, goal-oriented premise would be a cattle drive (or setting-appropriate equivalent) whereby the team has to make a difficult journey over a large distance and encounter some difficulties. These could be light-hearted moments like an unfortunate cowboy getting bucked off onto a cactus, or brutal scalped-by-Apaches violence. Depending on the setting, this one might be an all-male cast and focus on themes of mentorship, coming of age, brotherhood, and sonship. Lots of banter between crusty old drovers and wet-behind-the-ears greenhorns just off the train from the east. Something like this.

So, those are some plots. I had an idea for an open-world setting, but it's a little esoteric and bends the definition of Western. An "Eastern," as it were. I like historically-grounded settings, so if you want hear my pitch of a gunslinger saga in the interwar far east, let me know.

*from Hell on Wheels

I love the idea of a heist. On a train? Maybe. But I also love the notion of a payroll heist that necessitates getting into someplace they shouldn't be in the first place. In town? In the Big Bad's stately home? In addition to this, I like the idea of coming to learn a little of the town, what makes BBEG deserve his title. One of my favourite tropes in the lone wanderer / western genre is the notion of anti-heroes coming together to fight on behalf of those who can't fight for themselves. They may have ulterior motives, or have no direct interest in the locals, or in the altruism of 'saving' anyone.

I think the open-ness of a small ville might be > train. Train feels very confined, and western to me feels very open-air (headcanon.) So, option one-ish? Honestly can't go wrong with anything Magificent Seven-esque.

@PrinceAlbert

I love the idea of a heist. On a train? Maybe. But I also love the notion of a payroll heist that necessitates getting into someplace they shouldn't be in the first place. In town? In the Big Bad's stately home? In addition to this, I like the idea of coming to learn a little of the town, what makes BBEG deserve his title.

I have two proposals for the Bad Guy and his relation to the main character: BBEG is a railroad/mining/space dust/whatever magnate, that keeps the local town under his thumb with his hired goons. The Protagonist used to be his right-hand-man, his troubleshooter and enforcer, before The Tycoon crossed a moral line that forced the now-Repentant gunslinger to grow a spine and a conscience. Left for dead and filled with guilt for his past wrongs, the Repentant gathers strength and allies to hit back. Perhaps, like in Pale Rider, he comes to the aid of an outlying community of people the Tycoon wants to run off. After beating back his initial thugs, the Repentant leads his ragtag team of downtrodden townies and hired allies on the offensive, planning to hit a gold/payroll/uranium/magic-space-healing-plant shipment. They Tycoon doesn't take this lying down, calling in the best, meanest troubleshooters money can buy from out of town. Big themes: Guilt, Atonement, Justice, Corruption.

The other concept I had goes something like this: Your kid brother hit it big out west. Gold, Oil, Cattle, whatever. You were happy for him, watching him build a name (and a town) for himself. But then a woman got off a train from the east and wrapped him around her finger. You could tell from the start she was no good, but your brother - God rest him - was naive about these sort of things. She whispered poison in his ears and drove a wedge between you. Unfortunately, it would seem she was not only a gold digger, but a black widow too; not long after they were wed, your brother dies suspiciously. The town comes under the iron grip of her pristinely-painted fingers, and devolves into a den of fraud, oppression, and vice. For your brother's sake, you're going to make her pay, and there's plenty of disaffected townies that - if they could be made to grow a spine - would like to see her go down as well.

Ooooh -- option one is on the MONEY! Awesome. Now -- I'm very happy to play the protagonist... but I don't want to steal anyone's thunder. We need a team, and I don't want to drive anyone off by making it all about me-me-me. Need some more blood in here before we take off a-runnin'

Oh, that first idea sounds so good! And I don’t think it’ll be too hard to adapt to more of a group focus, if that’s what you’d like. There are a lot of very good reasons to dislike a 19th century tycoon.

Ooooh -- option one is on the MONEY! Awesome. Now -- I'm very happy to play the protagonist... but I don't want to steal anyone's thunder. We need a team, and I don't want to drive anyone off by making it all about me-me-me. Need some more blood in here before we take off a-runnin'

Of course. I'm not suggesting you want to hog all the limelight; I just figured we need to start off with strong relationship and motive between at least one protagonist and the bad guy. Someone that, no matter what else unfolds, has a strong arc to complete with the antagonist. So, that way, other writers have freedom to play with character concepts more tangential to the antagonist, but there still is at least one character with a motive that has to go all the way to the end. So, not so much saying "me me me," but saying "I'm committing to a certain arc and a certain background that will carry the story through to the end, allowing others to explore a wider range of characters without worrying the plot will stall."

<Snipped quote by deegee>

Of course. I'm not suggesting you want to hog all the limelight; I just figured we need to start off with strong relationship and motive between at least one protagonist and the bad guy. Someone that, no matter what else unfolds, has a strong arc to complete with the antagonist. So, that way, other writers have freedom to play with character concepts more tangential to the antagonist, but there still is at least one character with a motive that has to go all the way to the end. So, not so much saying "me me me," but saying "I'm committing to a certain arc and a certain background that will carry the story through to the end, allowing others to explore a wider range of characters without worrying the plot will stall."

Well, as long as we have that firmly in mind, then! Looks like we have a few folks in this thread already. Anybody up for a recruiting drive of sorts? I figure five or six would be good. Let's say, 5-9, somewhere in there?

I'm thinking something along these lines.



...except he's no preacher.

Ah, so we're leaning into the Pale Rider angle? :^P

I suppose so -- although I hadn't really thought of that, initially. I pulled the notion from 'The Postman,' honestly. Stealing the clothing, maybe trying on the persona. Or even, creating a fictional travelling fire & brimstone judge/jury/executioner type. Should have recalled the Pale Rider motif. I love that picture. But it has been a very long week, and honestly, I thought of stealing / finding clothing a la Postman.

Should have recalled the Pale Rider motif. I love that picture. But it has been a very long week, and honestly, I thought of stealing / finding clothing a la Postman.

If you wanted to go with my suggestion of falling out with the Tycoon and left for dead, the desire for him to make a new persona - impelled by guilt and anger - just makes sense. Additionally, if you wanted someone to fill the role of the rescuer who saved the Repentant after he was left for dead, I could step in. Maybe as a permanent companion, or as a temporary mentor character who runs his course in the "Prologue" which sets up the Repentant and his collision course with the Tycoon. In either case, as my main "good guy," I'd offer to act as the leader of the community in the process of being railroaded out by the Tycoon. Hard-working, tough, but not experienced as a fighter; A a little older and a widower, serves as sort of the "camp dad" for all the other residents.

This still on your agenda?