Are western settings unpopular? why?

>most powerful nation on the planet
yeah he said italy

Spaghetti Westerns != True Westerns.

>I don't think that Westerns have literally ever been held to the same standard of quality that other genres are
That's simply not true, the genre is ideal for visual storytelling and its influence can be felt in any film since the 70s where the characters trying to make a life in a difficult environment. Many western stories are very stripped back because life gets simpler when life gets tougher and hence deal with doing what's right, getting rich or getting revenge.

It's also good to point out that the conditions of a typical western story are very similar to the conditions of a good samurai story and that anyone making a plot in either of these genres can gather a lot of ideas from the other.

But the best westerns are spaghetti, to be quite honest

cuz deserts

>nothing to see
>nothing to do
>just guns pew pew lmao

Only because they appeal to your sense of edge.
Actual westerns were good guys v. bad guys, and the bad guys were gonna lose, and the world was generally a decent place outside a few bad apples.
Spaghetti westerns are replete with low lifes and anti-heroes, which are popular to the Gen-X to Millennial set. Remember that those Italian westerns were NOT popular when they were first released, and comparisons to Kurosawa were not exactly positive ones, given that Kurosawa was well known to be a difficult man to work with, and impossible to rein in.

I get what you're saying, and some very high-profile film critics have agreed with you, in general terms.

BUT then you get things like Firefly or the Tri-gun anime, that obviously managed to find an audience with all the old west tropes, in spite of having no connection to the setting at all.

>they achieved their popularity pretty much automatically by virtue of being the 'local' genre
That's part of it maybe, but there have been some quality entries into the genre. Not to say the average quality is high (it's not), but you've got things like The Searchers or Unforgiven that work completely on their own terms. I'd agree with you 100% of those made in the old John Wayne era days. Today, the genre's evolved into something that's only tenuously linked to its source material.

This. A fifty year period of ineptly conducted genocide isn't really a particularly engaging setting for me.

Want men boldly forging out into the unknown? Various European explorers searching for the heart of Africa in the 19th century, or the Conquistadors in south America both did it better.

Want genocide of the natives? Belgian Congo did it properly.

Hell, Americlaps didn't even have the best guns during this period, whilst their drunks were blatting away with inaccurate revolvers and rarely hitting each other, various explorers in Africa and India were stalking man-eaters through kilometres of primary jungle and ventilating the largest animals on Earth with ridiculously over-calibred 4 bore rifles.

Watch an Ostern then
Or a space western

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You could both save time and simply say "American Westerns is a local setting I'm not knowledgeable nor interested in because it's not mine".
It's the same reason why stories featuring settings in Arabia, China and Africa doesn't appeal to most of you lot: it's not yours, you don't care.

>Spaghetti Westerns != True Westerns.
Seriously? I'm surprised there's still anyone left in 2017 who's still hasn't been won over by The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

>Actual westerns were good guys v. bad guys, and the bad guys were gonna lose
That is such a super narrow definition of the type, I think we have to call it a sub-genre. The "golden age western" or somesuch. You're tossing out more than half of the films that would be considered classic examples of the type, at this point.

The American Wild West only existed for less than half a century. I'd say it lasted from after the civil war till the closing of the frontier in 1890, which is a large part of what makes Western settings "wild."

>Also, fantasy/sci-fi has been expanding in all directions. Broader genres and sub-genres. More appeal and interest with women, young adults, minorities, etc. More international audiences and more imports.
Between the relatively short period of the Wild West, and its impact on a relatively small part of the world it's not surprising there isn't more Cowboy-Fantasy media. Furthermore, I think cowboy settings were popular with older generations, who were exposed to many more wild west stories than today.

It's more that it's an extremely tiny period of history, in a geographically limited setting, which has had an innordinate amount of celuloid wasted on it, essentially retelling the same old stories.

I enjoy watching movies from other cultures, but I don't think, for instance, that the Iranian Revolution requires thousands of movies to be made about it.

Same with World War 2. That's a much broader canvas but it's far more interesting watching a Russian or India movie about it than it is watching Murica/Bongistan Save The Day Part XXXVIII from Hollywood.

Why not an alt history where the Confederacy won?

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One of the foundational themes of Westerns is the taming of a wilderness and creating a permanent society where there was none before.

At it's best, it's mythic in scope. In high noon, the battle for the town is about the forces of law trying to overcome a world of "every man for himself".

In Shane, a mysterious warrior comes down from the mountains and does battle against chaos to make the world safe for a society he ultimately can never be a part of. Rather than being ruled by destiny and fate, the frontier is a moral blank slate that will be shaped by the principles (or lack thereof) of individuals.

It's also the mythologized history of a great civilization at its peak (even if you're not a pessimist about the future of the USA as a nation state, it is certainly totally different from the civilization that invented the Western). It's as valid and "relevant" as Arthurian myth or the Iliad.

Of course, like any genre, there's plenty of crap too. In fact, I'd argue most of the actual good stuff was cinema made between 1940 and 1960, with some noteworthy revisitations (some Cormac McCarthy novels, Unforgiven, etc). The original westerns were dime store adventure novels and laughably crude movie serials.

You've given me an excuse to post this OP. Thank you

Because the big appeal of Westerns is the concept of America rising to new heights, not being hamstrung by it's pre-industrial agricultural demographic dictating and limiting the power of the industrialized states who would actually lead it to super-power status.

>youtube.com/watch?v=exnwTWfFRM8

>Because the big appeal of Westerns is the concept of America rising to new heights
What.

Every western I've ever seen portrays USA as a lawless hellhole run by bandits.

I'm looking to run a savage worlds campaign. They have a setting called Deadlands I really like the lore behind it. Steampunk magical western. Going to play it on Saturday, anybody have any history or advice for running it?

this is such a good pic, thanks, my dude

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Almost every classic western is about bringing law and civilization to a lawless frontier (one town at a time) or battling forces that threaten civilization. More than a few feature a frontiersman who ultimately realizes he has no place in the ordered society he helped make possible.

>Every western I've ever seen portrays USA as a lawless hellhole run by bandits.

Yeah, one being civilised and built upon to create rule of law.

Don't strictly follow American westerns. I'd recommend focusing plenty on the natives, and the wildlife, both of which are really underrepresented in most peoples idea of what a western is. Focus on the natives adapting to the new comers, and do not portray them as a monolithic group. Have some be valley dwelling farmers, others are mountaineer pastorals with herds of cattle, and others live in minor towns that tumble towards the brink of violence. As for the nature aspect, the wilderness of the West was a huge appeal to many people, not just to tame it but to experience the majesty of the wild. That means many more, and much larger forms of wildlife than where any settlers are from. Sending your players out on a campaign arc to extirpate dangerous wildlife for a big government reward should be an option.

Many settlers may not be strictly "American." Lots of German settlers moved into the West/Great Plains, and tons of Hispanics in the southwest. Lots of Asian immigrants, mostly Chinese and Japanese, on the west coast and in railroad towns. All those non-Anglos means lots of people who speak English in a range from okay to pretty bad, with poor literacy. I once met a farmer from small town in Kansas who was 70-ish years old, and grew up speaking German before he learned English, and got into fights as a kid because of it.

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This somewhat disturbing game might give you some ideas for developing your own setting

>deserts
>nothing to see
>nothing to do

As someone who lives in Mormon land but originally came from the east coast I can tell you that there's an awful lot more to see around here. For all that it's hot enough to make you wish for death from just a short walk outside the desert is still really impressive.

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Larger version.

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Scotchmo.

>fantasy
the dark tower series, even if it's just the first book.

I think you feel that way because your perspective on the genre is so narrow. There are plenty of examples of western narratives that don't focus on any brooding characters, you just probably haven't heard of them. Sure, there may be The Searchers, but on the opposite end you have somethings like Maverick, Bat Masterson or Gunsmoke.

Doesnt the lack of quality make it more interesting though? That the gunfighter isn't relient entirely on the technology in his hand, but his understanding of the sweetened steel feels and moves along with him? It provides a level of skill that you could respect in the man, not the machine?

Also, I think open plains, deserts and mountains are just more appealing than African jungles; that's just me.

Where are you planning on running it, are you going to use one of the Plot Point campaigns or make your own?

whelp, this is now my new character

John Marston did nothing wrong

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I feel that either one of these would make a good Deadlands villain

I was going to make my own, probably have the party tracking down a Hangin' Judge. Ghost spirit wandering a trail and terrorizing a small town at night.

Not sure how much you've read through the lore of Deadlands. I fucking love it. I would suggest looking through the plot points books at the very least to get some flavor for the area you are going to be working in. All the books add in new creatures dedicated to that part of the West. If you don't have any of them, you can find them all somewhere in the Archive.

As for overall tips, I've only got 4 sessions under my belt, I've run equal parts home made content, as well as content from The Flood plot point. The plot points are nice because they are pretty open ended. They're kind of like story missions in a sand box game. You can do them at whatever pace you want to, sprinkling in side missions and character backstory missions as you like. However they're not perfect. For example the book assumes the party will be friendly with Dr. Hellstromme when the party first encounters him, but my party was not.

If you don't run a plot point, and just go all on your own, it's important to not just bombard the players with the Horror of the week. Sure there are lots of fun baddies you want to throw at them, but they quickly lose their shock value if you do so. Out of the 8 combats they've had, 1 was against Tunnel Crawlers, which are just large bugs so not to scary, 1 was against Wolflings, werewolves without the turning back to men part, and a ghost. Everything else has been bandits, indians, and the like.

Set the mood. I've got three seperate playlists that I swap through on Spotify, one for casual, when nothing out of the ordinary is happening, one for tense times, namely combat, and another for spooky times, when its obvious that something weird is going on but they don't know what. You can create the pavlov response in your players if you keep consistent tone. You can unnerve your players or get their hearts racing before you've even started to describe what is going on.

Make sure your players know what they should know, and you you know what they know as well as what you should know. This seems confusing. In Deadlands, there are a lot of instances where the players believe one thing to be true, when something else is the case entirely. The best and easiest example is Ghost Rock, the super fuel that powers the West. The Players guide says that it is coal with ribbons of some element, I forget what, which is what gives it its white streaks and improves its efficiency. It also claims that the wailing noise is causes by steam escaping through pores. SPOILER: The Marshal's book says that its exactly what you expected and ghost rock is in fact filled with the souls of the damned, who scream as they are burned.

There are several examples of this, I can't think of them off the top of my head. But make sure to keep track of which is which so that you don't accidentally give your players information they shouldn't have.

Something I did, which I don't know if its feasible for you, was to create a whole mess of NPCs to pull from any time the players seek somebody out. The Savage Worlds guide suggests making NPCs without keeping track of how many points you've spent, just making them however powerful you want them to be. Personally, I found it much better to use the character creation rules. It helped me get a better idea of how character creation is done, what kind of power the average character starts at, as well as the array of different ways a character can be built. Furthermore, forcing myself to give every NPC hindrances and advancements helped me get a better idea of what these people were like in order to make them more life like. All told, I made 54 NPCs, one for every card in the deck. Mostly because I have a lot of free time at work.

Make sure your players know what all they can do in combat. My players absolutely tanked a couple of combats because they were only doing basic attacks, nothing else.

>are western settings unpopular? why?
I don't think they are unpopular just not necessarily all that interesting for people outside Burgerland.

As far as films go The Hateful Eight is a good choice to see how a western mystery film can go and Django Unchained shows what the more "civilized" regions of a western would look like. Sholay is a classic Indian film that manages to present a great example of a western styled setting outside of Burgerland.

>what are some games that have done western well?
Deadlands has done it well to a degree.

Remember a western setting relies heavily on outposts of civilization existing in hostile/unfamiliar environments with little ability to communicate with and travel between one another. Sure you might be in a town with a comfortable inn but there is little stopping some bandit from storming the place with his men and making the town his own and demanding tribute.

Normal movies
Magnificent Seven, both the original and the remake. The original focuses more on the characters and their growth, but the final gunfight leaves a lot to be desired. The new one is very light on characters and motivations, but the gunfights are phenomonal.
Open Range, Just good all around the reason I started taking westerns seriously, the final gunfight is one of my favorites, though it falls prey to some of the tropes of the time, like gunshots sending people flying fifteen feet.
Sweetwater, its kind of all over the place, but the reverend makes for an EXCELLENT villain concept, and watching Ed Harris absolutely devour the scenery is a delight
Django Unchained, it Tarantino, need I say more? Granted its not the traditional Western, but it shows what you can do in that time period without staying out West
Hateful Eight, Another Tarantino, again not traditional, but again it shows you the different things you can accomplish in that setting
Tombstone, if you haven't seen it, you need to fix that ASAP
Deadwood, great at getting an idea of what the goings on in a Western town were like

Non-traditional Western
Trigun, fucking, do I need to explain?
Cowboy Bebop, see above
Bone Tomahawk, hard to sit through, absolutely brutal, but again, great villain concepts
Wild Wild West, yes yes, I know, but if you take away all the terrible jokes, there's a lot of cool concepts going on.
Firefly, I hear people really like this show
Westworld, only caught a couple of epsidoes, but I really enjoyed what I saw. Ed Harris back at it again
Brisco County Jr, a bit campy and cheesy at times, but its got a lot of great moments youtube.com/watch?v=orLUjJP_TcQ

Games:
Wild Arms is an Playstation RPG series with some Western elements
Personally I feel like Final Fantasy VI had some inspiration from Westerns. Like Shadow, for example
Deadlands, of course.

Personally, I think Westerns work strongest when they are treated as a framework, and not the entire structure. The traditional cowboy
movie has been done so many times its hard to do anything new with it. I suggest either using the location to tell a story that usually isn't told there, like a slasher flick, or a One Piece style shounen anime type story, or even a monster movie, a la Tremors. Alternatively, take traditional Western plots, robber barons, bandits, corrupt sherriffs, and add in in unique locations or elements. Put it in space, put it farther in the past, and instead of slinging six shooters, they are slinging wands. Add in Steampunk technology or supernatural creatures. I don't know that I've ever seen a super hero team set in the Wild West.

Thanks for the info, it's really informative I'm looking forward to it.

How would you suggest doing a sort of monster of the week style of play though? A lot of my players watch supernatural, and they like that kind of thing. I was thinking having the first couple of sessions being one shots, where they head into a new town as paranormal investigators. I think it would be fun for me, make a couple of characters maybe take some main plot points from a few episodes simple stuff that can be improved and expanded upon pretty easily.
Anybody have any tips on how to keep it interesting?

In that case, you might want them to be Agents or Rangers, two organizations dedicated directly to eliminating the supernatural and making sure word of it doesn't spread. I think you have to be Seasoned to tkae the edge for either one, so if you don't want them starting at that level, maybe they are Rookies or In Training, throw in a Supervisor type person who sends them on missions and evaluates them until they're good to go our on their own. The Last Sons Player's Guide, which you should be able to find on the Savage Worlds site for free has some rules for giving characters Agency/Ranger specific gear

Regardless, of whether you do that or not, you need to instill that going at these creatures head on is a bad idea. Make sure they realize the importance of asking around, finding clues, and most importantly, finding out if it has weaknesses. If they watch Supernatural, a lot of creatures need to be killed a certain way. This isn't always the case in Deadlands, but when it is the case, it can be make or break for the fight. If they go against a Bone Fiend, and don't know, or don't figure out that they have to destroy the Black Skull to kill it, they are in for a world of hurt.

But more importantly, doing this allows you to build tension. Ideally they shouldn't see the creature, or even get a reliable description until its time to fight. Give them enough clues to figure out what it is, but the reveal should still be a memorable moment.

Definitely move them around, one town getting bombarded by crazy critters over and over can really ruin the believability. Don't try to always one up the shock value from the week before. Maybe one weeks its Glom, next week, maybe its just a coven of witches causing the problems. Or perhaps a Mad Scientist. Hell, maybe even throw in a Scooby Doo on occasion. A Robber Baron trying to make a town seem haunted so everyone leaves and he can build his railroad through it. You should keep your players on edge.

Aces and Eights is both the best western rpg and my absolute favorite rpg.

Aces and Eights has the most realistic shooting system ever designed, a great sandbox theme to it, and packs it up in a single book (though others has been released).

Aces and Eights needs and deserves more love.

Praise Aces and Eights.

Does anybody has links to download not only the main core books but also the other ones ?
Thx

>why?
Because steampunk for hipsters and numales

>are western settings unpopular? why?
I think this is related to the inherent lack of fantastic elements in westerns. Almost all pen and paper settings incorporate either magic, advanced technology, both, or something similar. Wild West films, books, etc. are usually pretty realistic, which is why they don't come to mind when thinking of settings. The wild west settings that do exist are usually mixed with other stuff, like weird west

>Spaghetti westerns are replete with low lifes and anti-heroes, which are popular to the Gen-X to Millennial set. Remember that those Italian westerns were NOT popular when they were first released
Ahahahha holy shit

t. millennial who likes to think he was born in the wrong generation

Seriously user, the reason there were so many spaghetti westerns being pumped out in the 1960s and 1970s was because people couldn't get enough of them.

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More movies.

Unforgiven. Clint Eastwood is old, things are messed up, he tries to fix it.
3:10 To Yuma, the remake and the original. Poor rancher helps transport dangerous criminal for money.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Dipshit criminals being best buds.
Johnny Guitar. Town of small minded farmers band together against successful business woman, she brings in an old flame. Really good.

The Lonesome Doves tv series is neat too. Also the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. True Grit's probably worth watching also, but I don't remember much about it. The original for that is suppose to be good too.

Is that Lord Buckethead?

You could also repurpose some mechanics and make it fit Western tropes (I think the Ebberon seeing in D&D and Golarion setting in Pathfinder have Western themed areas to use for games)