i've had this idea for a scenario russeling around in my head for a while now and thought i'd share it with you all: for refinement, revision, or the refuse bin.
i am assembling some cardstock Old West building as they are cheap and quick terrain for a Wild West style game a friend and i have planned. at the same time i was "organizing" the heaps of lead (and plastic) i have around and about. while i have loads of sufficiant figures for GW games, i am sadly lacking in a properly represented force in the Wild West, Pulp Era, WW II and some others.
i was moving some cowboys and some neabdethal/cavemen types one day. while shifting the shaman, and placing him between a gunslinger and a movie director and camera man from Pulp Figures, i imagined a movie being "staged" yet going horribly wrong...
the setting: a slapped together western set witha few buidling, think a Republic Pictures Western town.
the cast: the director, camera man, script girl, etc and an assortment of cowboys and western types, read to shoot "Drygulch Dan Rides Again!" yes, it the first picture featuring Drygulch Dan, but the the screenwriters too drunk to notice and too related to the producer to make unauthorized changes.
the first problem: the "town" is on studio land, but unknown to anyone, it was accidentally double-booked and was also supposed to be a war picture for a propoganda... i mean Patriotic film sett in North African desert. this is noted when the two squads: one of DAK and another Brits or Yanks. the the actual squad doesn't matter this a for War Bonds not Reality!
the second problem: actually the set is triple-booked! it is also scheduled for "N'Gana, Desert Princess Part 3: The Caveman's Oasis." featuring the caves in that mesa to the left and some palm trees temporarily buried in the sand. Oh and look!! they brought the dinosaur for the attack scene! Hope the rubber holds out in the heat!
and none of the casts are yielding the time - this is a SAG contract Pal! We get scale for this!!
the REAL problem: the extras for the cavemen include some real cavemen and a real shaman who really live in that mesa. and the shaman is PISSED!! seems he had a vision of something bad about the Moderns folk (foreknowledge of Geico commercials?). and he's cast a spell, a big one, animating the rubber dinosaurs as real saurians, the blanks in the guns are real, the arrows are real as well.
Arrows!! where the hell did the Indians come from?
and somebody informed the Producers finnacial backers that something was going wrong so the Mobs showed - BOTH families as the Producer was too weak to back down from either and too greedy to turn down twice the cash. and their bullets are real without the shaman's mojo.
of course this was just an excuse to tie all the under-represented areas in my heaps of lead (and plastic) and - as per most Hollywood story line - only marginally has a plot.
now, do i use Rugged Adventures, .45 Adventures, Astounding Tales, GASLIGHT, Blood and Swash/Thunder and Plunder or pull something homebrewed out of my as...assorted memories and experience?
or perhaps all the above: each casting uses one set of rules and they all play on the same table, while i run out to get more soda, beer and chips and use the loo for a spell.
i've been mulling this idea for a while, so it may need some pruning, but i think an interesting game could be had. i chose Pulp to place this in since the overlying idea was a 30's-40's pulp-ish movie to begin with. but i could be wrong.