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theresattrpgforthat · 1 year ago

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Do you have any recommendations for games in the western genre? Or western fantasy/sci-fi? Absolutely can’t get enough of the combination of cowboys and six shooters, steampunk, and magic fantasy. I’m considering writing my own setting for DnD5E that combines these elements.

Theme: Fantastic Westerns

Friend, I think I've collected a real tight bunch of winners here, so I'm confident you'll find something that really scratches that itch you've got!

Wicked West, by Finch Edmund.

Wicked West is a PbtA game by Finch Edmund (they/them) about paranormal cowboys. It combines classic monsters with the backdrop of the old west and is meant to be played with at least two players with one player taking the role of Game Master. Wicked West is made to tell stories similar to the westerns of the 1940s-1960s about small towns and the struggles of life with a horror twist.

If you like combining monsters with your westerns, this is the game for you. It looks like you combine a couple of different options to make your character playbook, which is something I’m personally pretty jazzed about when it comes to creating characters. One interesting thing about Wicked West is the relationship your cowboy has with their horse: a vampire might feed off of their steed, while a witch can cast spells on their horse to run faster. If you don't mind a bit of a horror flavor to your Western, this might be the game for you.

Wizards of the Wild West, by ckellyrpg.

Wizards of the Wild West is an action-oriented TTRPG that combines fantasy magic with classic Wild West themes. It is powered by the LUMEN system, and takes heavy inspiration from looter-shooter games such as Destiny.

LUMEN is still a game that I’m excited to try out, so seeing it tagged onto a western game about wizards made me take a second look. This is a game for a raucous good time; you’ll be pulling off sweet character combos, with easy-to-understand breakdowns of each character class. Right now the game is still in development, but it’s still considered playable, so if you get it now it might have more content for you down the road!

We Deal in Lead, by Odin’s Beard.

You look to those closest to you, fellow gunslingers of the Order of the King. The arduous trek across the bleached desert is over and now you stand before a slip door. Though tested, the fellowship of your Order stands true.

You grasp the worn sandalwood grip of your artefact gun and twist open the door. You gasp as the sharp sea air hits your lungs. Gulls caw and the foam sprays your face like a baptism. You step through to another reality.

After all, there are other worlds than these.

We Deal In Lead comes highly recommended to me by folks who like the OSR scene. It’s based off of Cairn, a well-beloved fantasy system, and if you got the TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida bundle, you already have a copy!

The setting is meant to be somewhat post-apocalyptic, but the barriers between your world and others are thin, causing threats (and allies) from other dimension to have a chance to enter your world. The game focuses on combat, exploration and survival, and it’s almost completely compatible with anything released for Cairn.

If you like what you see so far with this game, you might also want to check out Omega City, a weird west city setting, still in ashcan form.

Vampire Cowboys, by Maddy Searle.

You are a gang of outlaws in the Wild West. You have a lot to contend with: enemy gangs, law enforcement, wild animals, and… did I mention? You’re also vampires. You must figure out how to survive in this harsh land, where “justice” is often swift and violent. Will you blend in with the crowd, and hide your vampiric side in an attempt to live as a gun-toting cowboy? Or will you give in to your monstrous urges and use your supernatural powers, making yourself known as a vampire? It’s entirely up to you.

This game premise is simple and easy to describe: you are vampires who are also cowboys. You live in a world where everything wants you dead, and you’re constantly fighting the parts of you that make you monstrous. The mechanics are very familiar if you’ve every come across a Lasers & Feelings game: a couple pages to read and you’re off to the races, ready to play.

Reboot Hill, by Groovy Dad Games.

REBOOT HILL is a sci-fi Western TTRPG set in the "Future West" of the far flung Hill-Ceballos System. When a war back on Earth results in a cyber-attack that frees all of the bots in the Hill-Ceballos, things go bad for the humans right quick. In the aftermath, bots have got to rely on their shooting irons and their processors to make their way in this new, post-human frontier.

REBOOT HILL is a card-driven tabletop role-playing game in which players portray "Aces"--bots with advanced AI that find themselves on the right or wrong side of the law.

Finally, a space western! Here’s a card-based game with a plethora of character options, including mechanical upgrades, as well as weapons and vehicles. You’re mainly going to be bounty hunters, chasing after varmints and villains so that you can scrape together a living. If you want a game whose game mechanics make you feel liked you’re sitting at a poker table, you should check out Reboot Hill.

Clink, by Technical Grimoire.

Clink is a tabletop RPG about drifters, the creeds that bring them together, and the history that drives them apart. This game uses coins to tell a story inspired by spaghetti westerns, ronin tales, and shows like Firefly or Supernatural.

Characters begin as rough sketches of the shifty sort you’d see in an old Western or Noir film. They all start as blank slates, their histories unknown. Tell stories about their past and create your character as you play.

I’m a big fan of Technical Grimoire, especially their expertly-designed Troika setting, Bones Deep. Clink isn’t Troika - it uses coins as a storytelling mechanic - but it’s very setting-flexible, as seen in the variety of the starting scenarios provided.

The game is also non-linear: throughout play your characters will experience flashbacks, which will help flesh out who they are as you play, and tell us something about who they used to be. You’ll start the game with two coins, which you can spend to gain a flashback, but you can also flip them to try and succeed at various tasks. As you play, you’ll also gain coins using a mechanic called a Trigger - bad habits that get them into trouble.

If you want a fresh set of rules to play around with in a flexible setting that stays true to the woes of outlaws and other Western tropes, I heavily recommend Clink.

Boondock Cartomancy, by Hookline & Sinker.

The consequences of westward expansion rear their head. Desolate, inhospitable, and unpredictable - the Outbacks are a ravaged desert, a wild tundra, an ancient tomb. Host to a plethora of unknown variables and formed from the corpses of failure, it’s a hotbed for the lawless, the corrupt, and the lost. Conditions for growing a corporate empire couldn’t be more ideal.

BOONDOCK CARTOMANCY is a tabletop roleplaying game about personal growth in a cruel and inhospitable wasteland, backlit with Western cowboys wielding powerful and unpredictable magic. It’s a game about reflecting upon the world and systems of exploitation we live in, and using ancient spells to blow up a caravan of criminals in a climactic shootout. It’s a game about interfacing with the human condition, and feeling cool as shit while doing it.

This game looks so cool! You are brokers, going on dangerous jobs in a hostile frontier, giving your characters objectives to complete while also exploring the way colonialism forces so many folks to act as simply cogs in a larger, uncaring machine. The game also gives you a fantasy to explore, by granting your characters card-based magic skills, and replacing their hit points with a luck meter. The game itself also has a really clever layout, presenting itself like an old-fashioned newspaper, with pieces of advertisements sprinkled throughout to give you bits of lore about the world. All in all, definitely worth checking out.

Former Rec Posts to Check Out

Rootin’, Tootin’ and Shootin.

Space Westerns.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #western games

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r0tting-rat · 2 months ago

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DCA PROMPTOBER 2024

Can I please talk about my God AU? Please please please the worldbuilding is simply delicious please

Day 13 - Night

Pairing: God!Moon x GN reader Warning: None Words: 2400+ Summary: You're a thief and Moon is the God protector of thieves and liars. You strike a deal.

On Ouroboros, a world of wolves, lions, sheep and bunnies, you were a fox. Sly, cunning, evasive and stealthy, a jack of all trades but master of none, doing everything it took to survive no matter the cost. You stole, mostly, and did odd jobs, but for a reason or another everyone in the region knew your name. Or, to be fair, one of your many names. You had made up many aliases during the years—many of which were still spoken like a curse, along with insults and blasphemies—and you would continue to create new ones for each name that would get reported to the guards.

You were wanted in many cities, looked down upon in multiple villages and beloved by… none, actually. The authorities of each place you had visited in the past had been given orders to arrest you on sight—dead or alive, no one really cared—and for that reason you feared you would need to flee the region of Lumen soon. A pity, honestly, because you were beginning to grow fond of the infinite plains of green grass, immense forests and prosperous cities, but you had to leave them behind and all because of a misunderstanding. You hadn’t stolen the King’s ring, not at all! He had actually hired you to retrieve it after it had been taken by a group of bandits. The king promised you a fortune were you to succeed, but something went wrong while you were rummaging through the criminals’ bags and most recent loot. The ring wasn’t there, but you found many other jewels in the mix which you knew had been stolen along with the ring. You guessed it could have been lost, or maybe they had already sold it, but you thought the king wouldn’t complain too much about it, so you brought back the whole bag. Inside were tiaras, necklaces and golden coins, all belonging to the king and queen of Lumen, but between them there was no ring.

The old man sitting on the throne had stared at you, eyes filled with venom, as you told him everything.

-It just wasn’t there, believe me, they must have sold it already,- you shrugged, pretending not to see the animosity of the guards surrounding you and pointing their polearms at your throat.

-Do you even know the importance of that ring, thief?- spat the king, but you shrugged once more.

-Not really,- you replied, -Was it a gift from your wife or something?-

-That ring,- hissed the monarch, -Has the seal of Lumen on it! It has been passed from generation to generation of kings and queens, it has been used to sign laws and documents ever since this city was built, that ring alone is older than history!-

Despite his age, the man stood from his throne to tower over you, imposing in all of his regal glory, and looked at you like you were a mere cockroach which had learned the human language.

-That ring was a gift from the Sun God to my ancestor, it is proof of the divinity of my role, and I don’t believe you.- The king’s words were spoken in a hateful hiss.

-What?- you asked, taken aback, -What do you mean?-

-I said that I don’t believe you. What I think is that not only you knew about all of this already, but you have also decided to steal it from me and lie so blatantly about it being “sold” away.- Your eyes darted to the doors of the large atrium, trying to remember if they had been closed behind you after you entered, but the more you thought about it the more you began to panic. -Guards, arrest this thief!-

Before the king could finish barking orders you turned around and ran as fast as you could towards the only exit, slamming your shoulder against the wooden doors decorated with golden flowers and praying they would open. The Luck Goddess was once again on your side and you managed to slip out before any of the guards could lay their hands on you, and before anyone knew it you stole the first horse you found—a beautiful white mare belong to the queen, who had just returned from a stroll—and you left the golden castle behind you.

Just hours later, at the border between Lumen and Umbra, the neighboring region, you jumped off the horse and took a break from riding. There was no time to waste, you knew it well, the king would have your severed head severed on a plate if you didn’t leave immediately, but you needed some time to catch your breath, and you also had a plan to escape. If you managed to leave Lumen you could restart from scratch in the region of Umbra, under a new name, maybe you could even find a dignified job and put an end to your life as an outlaw! The king’s guards couldn’t follow you in the other region, if you crossed the border you would have been safe from them.

Unfortunately, humans couldn’t cross the wild borders between the two regions due to a magical wall that separated the land in two perfectly identical portions, and the only way to cross said barrier was through official roads. Those roads however were guarded on both sides by armed guards, who checked every carriage and requested a permit for each person and animal being transported. Why animals as well? Because of shapeshifters, of course.

That option was completely out of the picture, many people before you had already tried and failed to cross the border via road. Invisibility, faking a permit, corrupting the guards; nothing worked, and you didn’t want to risk being taken back to the king were you discovered. During your many hours of riding however you had remembered about some legends you had heard in the city slums. People spoke of a man, many years before, who had managed to cross the wild border unscathed, after making a deal with the Sun God. Said man was a musician who had been accused of casting a spell on the queen and making her fall in love with him, so he had fled the capital city of Umbra looking for an escape route. At dawn he stopped running and sat on a rock, admiring the sky, and he began to play his lyre, certain that his time was coming to an end.

The legend said that, right as the first rays of the beloved Sun began to peek through, a man clad in a white hood stood in front of him, attracted by the beautiful music. The musician didn’t stop playing despite being terrified of the figure, which towered over him with its inhuman height, but suddenly the hooded stranger spoke to him in a gentle voice.

-You are talented, human,- the voice rumbled in the air, coming from everywhere around him, -You wish to cross my border, don’t you?-

The musician found the strength to answer soon after, bowing his head as he recognized the God standing before him.

-Yes, my Lord,- he spoke, trembling like a leaf, -I have been accused of a crime I didn’t commit by the tyrant of Umbra, there is no place for me here anymore.-

-A crime? Which crime have you allegedly committed, my humble servant?-

-Adultery!- replied the man, -They claim I have used sorcery on the queen, making her fall for me with my music, but I have done no such thing!-

The God hummed, and from under His hood a gentle smile blessed the eyes of the musician.

-I am the Sun. Love, music and passion are all part of my domain, so I understand your troubles well. Play a game with me, human, if you win I’ll allow you to cross my border.-

The legend didn’t say which game the two played. It could have been chess, a game of cards, no one knew, the only thing the legend tells is that the musician won, and the Sun God allowed him to leave Umbra and his crime behind. People began to speculate that the Sun God and the Moon God walked the mortal realm during the dawn and dusk, but those that tried to search for Them were rewarded with nothing whatsoever.

As you sat under a tree, looking at the iridescent hues of the magical threshold in front of you, you wondered if it had anything to do with being “worthy” of seeing the Gods. Night was beginning to fall, the Sun was setting in the horizon and from your spot in the soft grass you could see a myriad of stars illuminating the darkening sky.

☆

You weren’t sure of when it happened, but you fell asleep. You dreamed of nothing, waking up less than 10 minutes later to a full night sky and a cloaked figure standing before you. You screamed, startled, and immediately your hand flew to your belt, closing around the handle of your dagger. Your wide eyes couldn’t understand what you were seeing, it felt similar to reading in a language you didn’t speak, but your brain was trying to make sense of what was before you nonetheless.

The stranger had a dark hood littered by silver and golden dots, like a piece of the sky had been taken and sewn into the fabric, but the rim of the cloak turned into something akin to vapor when it reached the ground. The fabric which at first reminded you of satin looked almost alive, moving like black sand in the desert during a storm, and just looking at it for too long made you feel dizzy. The figure was way taller than you, forcing you to crane your neck to look at it, but under the hood you saw no face. Still, you felt watched.

The stranger didn’t say a word, you simply stayed there and stared at each other, so you understood that he was waiting for you to speak.

-Am I in the presence of the Moon God?- you asked in a feeble voice, -I… I wish to cross Your border and enter Umbra.-

-What do you think you can give me in return?- asked the hooded being, and his voice was so profound it seemed like it came from the ground under you. You stayed there, puzzled for a moment, before realizing that there wasn’t going to be any game. You weren’t in the presence of the Sun, after all—you were standing before the everlasting Moon.

-I don’t have much,- you said, -But I promise to do what it takes to pay You back, if You let me escape, my Lord.-

-So you’re asking me a favor based on… a promise?- He laughed, -Don’t you know that promises made by a thief and a liar are less worthy than a handful of dirt?-

-My Lord, are You not the patron God of thieves, liars and wanderers?- you asked, showing far more bravery than you actually had. In reality, you were shaking in your boots just by standing in front of a creature like Him. -Don’t you protect those who walk under your night sky?-

-I’m the God of many things, mortal,- He replied, and you could feel the irritation in the Moon God’s voice beginning to rise, -What you mentioned is just part of my domain. I am the patron God of liars, but I’m also the Law and Justice, or do you not remember?-

You took a step back, ready to flee in case the situation turned sour, but the mist falling from the God’s hood began to envelop you, pulling you closer and making you shiver.

-I protect those who act hidden by the shadows of the Night I bring, that which you call “Luck” and “Fortune” has been me all along. I have protected you from the harm others may have caused you but I will not stand in the way of justice, for that will be simply the consequences of your own actions.- The God looked down upon you, and your hands lost their grip on the dagger you were holding. You had never felt so afraid in your life, and soon found yourself on your knees in the wet grass.

-Please,- you begged, -I’ll pray, I’ll make sacrifices in your name and forever be devoted if You let me cross, my Lord! I’ll lead a honest life!-

For the first time in your life, ever since you were small, you weren’t lying, and considering the domain of the God you were speaking to you were sure that He was also aware of that. Still, the idea of it seemed to amuse Him greatly, for He began to laugh loudly. Shocked, you stayed still, on your knees, and waited for the divine being to stop taunting your desperation. You uttered a last, choked “please”, which went unheard in the chaos around you.

-Foolish, oh, so foolish of you!- the Moon God barked, -If you so desperately want safety, then so be it! I’ll save you from an imprisoned future, but I demand a payment.-

The God pulled the hood of his cloak back, revealing His form to you and blinding you with the ethereal beauty of immortality. His dark blue skin gleamed, iridescent like the most precious pearl, and His hair—straight and white—were so long they must have reached His waist. The eyes were red, beautiful and haunting, but the face was a half-blue and half-white mask. He spoke, words came out in His deep voice, but His lips didn’t move, not a muscle did. His expression remained unchanged, stern and serious as it had been ever since the Beginning, just His eyes betrayed His real emotions, and what He was feeling in that moment was amusement.

-You will come with me, human,- he ordered, -You will work as a servant for me and my brother, that is the payment I request in exchange for the safety I will give you.-

Large, beautiful hands covered by silver chains came to grab your chin, tilting your head up and stopping your lips from quivering. His touch was cold, so cold, but at the same time it filled you with joy, elating like a drug.

-Do we have a deal, my pet?- said the Moon God, -What place is more safe than the side of a God?-

The Moon was offering you more than anyone in the world would have asked for, He was giving you on a silver platter things any other humans would have killed to have, and you…

You looked in his eyes, of the same color of blood, and swallowed. You agreed.

-Okay,- you croaked, -Deal.-

-Good,- purred the God, -Very good.-

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