So, Veeky Forums, there's plenty of systems for sci-fi, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk...

So, Veeky Forums, there's plenty of systems for sci-fi, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk, even a fair few for Steampunk, but what about westerns? There's a GURPS book for it (as for everything), and Deadlands is a supernatural Western, but I can't think of any systems made to simulate gunslinging action, let alone do it well.

Let's see, I've heard of: Aces and Eights, Wild Cards, Go Fer Yer Gun, Blood and Bullets, and Owl Hoot Trail. No experience with them.

Boot Hill is an old system that's great for gritty realistic western stuff. Smart players forget the Hollywood stuff and ambush their target from behind, with rifles, from cover.

Dogs in the Vineyard is a fantastic game about not-Mormon paladins cleaning up sin and lawlessness, and it reskins into a great Dark Heresy replacement.

If you like a more war-game take on things, Six Gun Sound is a hybrid wargame/RPG with a pretty cool campaign system. It has the advantage of supporting solo or two player gmless co-op, which can be nice if you can't get your group to go for a western game because Mike demands to be a wizard.

>Dogs in the Vineyard is a fantastic game about not-Mormon paladins cleaning up sin and lawlessness
>not-Mormon

I keep hearing about this. Could someone explain what it means? Because as far as I know moronism is basically "Jesus went to america, said polygamy was okay, and now we gotta go knock doors and tell everyone about it."

It means that you're a group of young men chosen to basically be God's Police out on the frontier, and you go from town to town rooting out wickedness and deviltry. The exact rules of the religion are up to your table, as are things like whether "demons" are real or metaphorical.
You don't need to know squat about Mormonism to play, since it's just thematically similar.

>moronism
lol

Basically DitV refers to "The People", "The Faith", etc. and doesn't use any actual Latter-Day Saints terminology. In the book's setting, "The People", aka "The Faithful" left "Back East" to settle "out West", and there are natives they come into conflict with, but there's nothing you can point at and say "Yes, this is from the Book of Mormon".

Also, you should read the Book of Mormon if you haven't because it's an insane fantasy setting where the lost 13th Tribe of Israel sails to America on a boat and then splits into a good tribe and an evil tribe, the evil tribe wipes out the good tribe, and the evil tribe evolves into Native American Indians.

Boot Hill. Put on some Morricone music, get the serape out of the wardrobe and do the spaghetti western.

There is a swedish rpg called "Western 4e", but I don't know if there's a pdf anywhere around. It's said to be the perfect wild west simulator

Rolemaster Outlaw and/or Western HERO

I tried running a one shot in Aces&Eights once, it's a pretty good system all in all, but it does some things in a somewhat interesting but overly complex manner for the sake of being original really. I mean, it works, even works fairly well, but you just know it could have been done simpler and would be fine too.

Not only does GURPS have a Western book, it also has a Deadland book.

It does? I thought that was Savage Worlds, I don't recall a Deadlands for GURPS

Don't know about Savage Worlds. Have the GURPS cover and first page.
There's also a GURPS: Deadlands: Hexes book.

Ive been working on a western setting but I havent quite nailed it. I'm not actually super familiar with western movies, so I'm wondering, what kinda are there? I know about 3 different kinds (spaghetti, and sort of the gritty kind and the sort of lone ranger type stuff), but Im not exactly sure what the defining lines and tropes and features are for them. I'm also wondering what level of texhnology is expected? I see stuff like Deadlands or Wild Wild West have a steampunk leaning, and I'm wondering how important that is. Is steampunk normally expected in a wild west ish fantasy ish setting?

Yeah deadlands classic had its own d20 system designed to be compatiable with gurps. Savage world is deadlands reloaded.

I'll be damned. Will have to look for that.

According to Wikipedia, it originally had its own system, and then later released a d20 version as well as a GURPS version. (Quite a lot of games did this back then.) A Savage Worlds version was released even later, and is the most recent release.

there's also gunslingers and gamblers played with poker dice.

Most Western actually end up with the mostly the same tropes.Even within more heroic stuff like The Lone Ranger, the prominent thing about The West is that it's lawless and brutal. Criminals and the corrupt generally have free reign until the heroes come in to stop them (of course with darker works there often isnt a hero, only a protagonist). What tends to define them is this how the morality of the groups and characters is potrayed. Such as the noble american Knight analogue Cowboy fighting the savage and violent gang of bandits vs The brutal killer fighting other slightly more organised brutal killers.

On the topic of the heroes, a key element of The 'mythological' West in general is individualism. Even if they come in groups, its up to the heroes and the heroes alone to sort things out. And after all this is done, riding off into the sunset and continuing your own life irrespective of what you've done isn't only viable, but expected. Self reliance is a major virtue, as it was in the real West.

As for technology, introducing stuff like steampunk spins it of into 'Weird West', which is its own thing. Trying to evoke Western films will require you to leave that out, but that isnt exactly a hard and fast rule if you're willing to go Weird West with it.

>generally have free reign

Rein, user. That's when you let go of the reins and let the horse go wherever he likes. A free reign would be like an ad that said "Monarch wanted, no experience necessary, first come first serve"

Aces and Eights does simulate that.
And all other aspects of life in the wild west.
And does it far better than any other rpg.

Believe me, you don't need any other.

If you do want to try others, though, the only acceptable ones are Gurps and Boot hill.

Yeah GURPS somehow got the licenses for a bunch of interesting settings and other games, like Blue Planet, Conspiracy X, Conan, Horseclans, Humanx, etc. Wonder how they managed that.