Strange tidings from Tabako Wrech

[Bloggard]

a thread to illustrate, and hopefully help maintain activity towards, the old west (visual flavour) / gothic horror / Cthulhu / lost world / steampunk ( !!! ) mash-up project that I'd like to make my 'main thang'.

as such, bit difficult to decide on a board for it, but would prefer this one, so hopefully ok.

project pretty much inspired by my becoming enamoured of the Dixon range of old west figures (particularly the mounted ones), so for a start ... :

[Malamute]

Splendid stuff, very happy to host your project on the Gothic Horror board.

Looking forward to updates as they happen...

[Bloggard]

cheers Malamute!

[Bloggard]

bit of a gratuitous 'rules-candy' (yes, there is [now] such a thing) post here ... :









Think I'm going to go with FFoL and supplements.
The tool-box is there I think, although will require a little more brain-work than I'd like to spec.' critters and machines from said resources.

The Great Rail Wars series of books (mostly PDF only) are really interesting - and very close to perfect in some respects, but ultimately the fluff is too hard-coded into the presentation for me to try and see past it.
Rather wish I'd got into it at the time however, when the miniatures were available etc ...

[mweaver]

What?  You missed Legends of the Old West ?

As I am hoping to spring a Gothic Horror/Weird West game on our group at some point, I will be watching your thread with interest, Bloggard.  I will wrap it around a role-playing core - are you intending a RP element (I notice you have Deadlands material)?

-Michael

[Grumpy Gnome]

Very interested to see how this develops. I have been considering something similar but set in the Napoleonic Era.

[Bloggard]

thanks for the interest chaps.

@mweaver:

legends of the old west. Beautifully done book (design/ layout) - I (ahem) 'found' a pdf copy 'out there'.
Actually there was a complete set of all 3 books in that series on ebay uk just a week or so ago. But as the rules don't appear to allow  / cover the more outlandish aspects I'm after, not for me as far as I can see.
Also d/loaded Ansell's 'rules with no name' from the foundry site - but, again, not really in the right area, although very crunchy on their own terms and no doubt great fun to play once fully familiar with ...

The 'old west' is mostly visual flavour as I like the dixon minis so much (bit of a limiting choice in some ways, as they don't really go with any other 'humonoid' race figure ranges ...), and opens the door wide open to Steampunk.

RPG (lite).
Yes, probably. I bought 3 current Cthulhu RPG books ('old west' and 'pulp' series) but they've gone back to Amazon. Superbly done in their own terms, but way too much (and too sort of nihilistic for me, I realise, in undiluted form) for the project at this point.

The Pinnacle deadlands stuff ... yes I've bought a couple of extra 'RPG' books from DTRPG, thinking they might be of use as source-books etc, but I find the array of books and material for the actual RPG sytem, both current, and technically obselete, daunting and confusing. Seems like you have to go way back with it to fully grasp its current presentation ...
Also have played a bit of the Savage Worlds system in terms of pure-high fantasy and didn't like the Bennies thing (am I confusing another system here...  probably!).

I need to get the basic 'skirmish' parameters fixed and working, and then think about RPG / campaign stuff. But a stronger RPG-core would be the ideal for me too.

@Rick W.
that sounds very interesting - hope you can get it off the ground. Any Moorcock 'city in the autumn stars' going into the mix (although I must confess that went too 'bonkers' for me after enjoying the first half or so, as some of his more 'mature' stuff does for me)... ?

[twrchtrwyth]

In Her Majesty's Name, Fear and Faith and Chaos in .... (including the additions on the Blue Moon site) might be worth a look too.

[shadowbeast]

Also have played a bit of the Savage Worlds system in terms of pure-high fantasy and didn't like the Bennies thing (am I confusing another system here...  probably!).

Ditch it? SW is open to GMs inserting their own Setting-Specific Rules, such as the multiple levels of bennies used in Deadlands: Reloaded in place of the standard bennie system, so if you really don't want it, you could just dump it.

[Grumpy Gnome]

I had not considered that but thanks for the suggestion, I will have to refresh my memory to see what I might becalmed to use from that.

[Bloggard]

@twrchtrwyth and shadowbeast.

thanks for the suggestions.
I have some of the Ganesha 'songs' games books, but have never actually played a game with them, must admit.

looking at F&F, seems like you'd need other variants (like 'mutants and ...') as well, and perhaps still not quite have the toolbox that FFoL seems to offer. Not sure, but will hold off that for now.

The 'chaos' books I've been intrigued by but never got hold of - h/ copies seem a bit pricey on OGuk for me atm. Also 'Carpathia' sounds rather focussed on the blue moon miniatures range, which is a feature (i.e. specific miniatures-centric) that I find discouraging in general (although appreciate not insurmountable if you're willing to put the brain-work in).
Again, probably not quite covering enough bases, if you'll excuse the pun, to add into the mix atm.

IHMN and supplement/s. actually have these, but for some reason (partly the fusty old victoriana fluff) can't really focus on them. On the face of it, they do cover a lot of what I'm after, and may yet be looked at again.

SW and bennies. guess so (dumping), but then again, it's a core feature of the rules so ...
anyhow - wont be looking at fully-fledged RP systems for this project any further at this point, I think.

Want to get the small unit skirmish side of things nailed down in an effective way first.

[Mr. White]

Great collection of rulebooks! I'll be building up a little Dracula's America myself next year so following with interest.

[Bloggard]

cheers Jack.

the DAM (!) rulebooks are really nicely done - terrific illustrations. Well worth picking up for sure - good set of rules anyway of course.

I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew (there's a vampire pun in there somewhere, isn't there?); challenging times to be getting anything going at all ... but here's hoping.

[Mr. White]

I'm also interest in this project because in a few months I'm going to be doing something very similar but for Post Apoc in 20mm. I'm in the process of collecting the models and bits, but want my setting to be flexible enough to run Zona Alfa or Gaslands or Last Days or whatever. So it's going to be a setting of my own devices cobbled together from lots of inspiration, and within this homebrew setting I'll be able to play a myriad of rule-sets.

Where'd the name Tabako Wrech come from?

[Bloggard]

that sounds like a great approach (i.e. own imaginary sandbox for using a host of rulesets), must say. Hadn't thought* of approaching it from that angle, but makes a lot of sense.

Tabako Wrech: just a 'coinage' / invention of my own.

*I see now that you perhaps you thought I was taking a similar approach but I intend to concentrate on one set of rules; to begin with anyway.