[Fistful of Lead] Fleshing out Westwood (Development Thread)

[grubman]

OK, the core wild west town of Westwood is painted, as are its civilian inhabitants.  Before I start running scenarios, I plan on fleshing out the town a bit more.  This is a development thread, and I’d love to hear opinions and ideas.  While I want it to be “my own”, there is something to be said for pooling the brilliant ideas of others to make it more interesting…so if you’re feeling creative let me hear it! 

I plan on keeping things simple.  Complicated names and backgrounds are only going to clutter things up and cause confusion.  I plan to come up with simple and cheesy names for each civilian so they are easy to remember and lend themselves to comical comments during play.  I only want to write a few lines for each of them.  Something to reflect a bit of personality or to suggest plot hooks for future scenarios.

After I do this, I’ll come up with the actual FoL rules for them.  My plan is to have a “Civilian Round” after all the cards of the players have been played.  I’ll roll a single d10 for each civilian with an 8, 9, or 10 (30% chance) resulting in them taking some action besides standing around gawking.  This will seriously add to the chaos when used, so I’m not sure I’ll use these rules for every scenario.

For Example:

General Store

Owner:  Bobby Olsen

Background:  Bobby is sometimes considered Westwood’s “greenhorn”.  He is a young cultured eastern man who was making a modest living as a newspaper reporter.  His uncle Nels had gone out west and opened the General Store in Westwood some years before.  When Nels was gunned down while haggling over the price of a brick of chewing tobacco his will named Bobby as beneficiary.  Bobby has been running the store in Westwood ever since.  He is a likeable, but naive, young man who is hopelessly in love with Lorie, the prairie nymph from the Salty Sidewinder Saloon.

Game Rules:  Bobby starts the game on the porch of the General Store.  On a roll of 8 he moves out into the middle of the street to see what is going on or moves 1d10 inches back toward the General Store if he is somewhere else.  On a roll of 9 or 10 he moves 1d10 inches toward the Salty Sidewinder Saloon to make sure Lorie is OK.  Once at the saloon, further rolls of 9 or 10 will result in Bobby moving adjacent to Lorie (wherever she may be).  Once next to Lorie he will follow her for the rest of the game (no further rolls for Boby).

Welcome to Westwood Texas!

Set yerself down and I’ll have my say about Westwood, I won’t give you any Taradiddles.  Imagine a classic sleepy wild west town someplace in Texas.  The exact location and time aint ne’er specified, yet somehow all the trappings of every western movie, book, and TV series always seem to be right close at hand. 

There’s white hats, black hat’s and everything in between dusty off the trail.  There’s crooked cattle barons, sodbusters, tangle-footed cowboys airin' the paunch, and the railroad’s a coming through.  There’s gold in them that hills, and there’s free land fer ya if you can protect it and yours against Indians, Mexican banditos, and wily varmints.   

Now, imagine a roundup of stereotypical town folk.  You got a rag proper dishonest banker, an addle-headed stable hand, a snooty school marm, an Irish barkeep, and as trat and twofer a soiled dove as you care to take a poke at.

Now you jest form up a posse, stick yer rib wrenches into that hos, and head on into town cus you don’t want to be sucking hind tit!  Yer gonna need some guns, cus there’ll be bad girls, lawmen, gunmen, banditos, cowboys, and even some right salty heroes ready to wake snakes! 

The Salty Sidewinder Saloon

Owner:  Hans McGrubber
Soiled Dove:  Lorie
Gambler:  ?



Clems Farm

Owner:  Clem
Dog:  Duke
Pigs: Daisy, Bo, Luke
Cow:  Bessie

Background:  Clem’s pappy, Clay, is considered by some to be the founding father of Westwood, as he set up the first shanty in the location that would eventually become Westwood, but Clay disappeared when Clem was just a teen.  It is rumored that Clay left a fortune buried in mason jars somewhere on the farmstead, but this has never been confirmed.  Clem grew up here and has taken the mantle of the Clem Farm. 

Game Rules:  Clem starts the game just off of his own porch with Duke at his side.  The animals are all in their respective pens.  On a roll of 8 Clem moves out into the middle of the street, or back to the porch if he is already in the middle of the street.  On a roll of 9 or 10 one of the animal pens breaks in all the ruckus (9 it’s the pigs, 10 it’s the cow).  From that point on, the animals move 2d10 inches in a random direction, with Clem and Duke following 1d10 inches behind (ignoring terrain and redirecting in the most logical direction if they come in contact with a building), trying to catch them (in a direct line toward the closest loose animal).  If Clem comes into contact with a loose animal, he catches it and they then move back toward the farm at a rate of 6 inches per turn (no more rolls are made for Clem for the rest of the game).  If Duke comes within 3 inches of a player character, he runs over to nip at him (
 1d10, on a roll of 10 the character takes a wound) and then rejoins Clem.  If the pigs come in contact with a character they have to dodge them or be tripped up (roll a d10, on a roll of 8+ the character is pinned).  If the Cow comes in contact with a character, the character is trampled and automatically wounded.   



Livery

Owner: Hoss



Barber

Owner:  ?



Church/School

School Marm:  Nanny Noony
Pastor:  Dead!



Westwood Bank

Banker:  Mr. Potter



Doctor

Doc:  ?



Gunsmith

Owner:  Granny Yokum



Jail

Sheriff:  Dead
Judge:  ?



Land Office

Owner:  ?



Westwood Hotel

Owners:  Mr. and Mrs. ?

[Galland]

Looking nice, and a bit like our gaming groups ideas about a Old West game and campaign. I would love, if you have the time, if you could add the manufacturers of the miniatures, in the text following the pictures.
This is really interesting and I will certainly follow this closely!

[grubman]

Looking nice, and a bit like our gaming groups ideas about a Old West game and campaign. I would love, if you have the time, if you could add the manufacturers of the miniatures, in the text following the pictures.
This is really interesting and I will certainly follow this closely!

They are all from the Blue Moon Tombstone Civilian set ( http://www.bluemoonmanufacturing.com/view_product.php?product=BMM512). The Dog and pigs are Megaminiatures.  The cow and horses are from children's toy sets.

[Malamute]

Excellent stuff.

[Argonor]

Slocum is a good surname for an inhabitant, I guess 

Interesting how you flesh out the characters, like if planning an RPG. Nice concept to have a set of well-defined civilians as part of the game.

[Harry Faversham]

An undertaker has just set up for business in Dead Man's Gulch. His name is Septimus M Barme... hope he's got a good work ethic as he's going to be damned busy!!!

[thebinmann]

Nice stuff and some great figures there! Are they all from the same maker?

[BaronVonJ]

Looking great. Look forward to some AARs.

[Mason]

Brilliant!
 

Interesting how you flesh out the characters, like if planning an RPG. Nice concept to have a set of well-defined civilians as part of the game.

What he said.
 

[Deedles]

I just love the notches on the gallows...

Lovely stuff.

[grubman]

Nice stuff and some great figures there! Are they all from the same maker?

Holy Necro-thread Batman! 

Yes, the buildings are all scratch built and the miniatures in this thread are all blue moon civilians.  This was one of many threads starting with this one ( http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=34974.0 ). When I was fleshing out my wild west town.  It even ended in this video review of FoL ( ) 

I haven't played in a while, but the adventures were very "role playing" feeling.  In fact it inspired me to write my secong wild west RPG (in my sig).  I had already written Wild West Cinema (Spectrum Games), but that one had more nbaration, and I wanted a game a bit more traditional so I wrote S&S.

Still...the majority of a Wild West game involves the action of the shootout, so I love a game of FoL, with the role playing being in the background, instead of the main focus.

[Legionnaire]

Dangnabbit son!!! Wha' you'se had to go an' do that fo'?  I had been quietly playing around in my own private brain with the idea of naming all of my ~20 civilians and do a little background for them. Now I probably HAVE to!!! 

Very creative, like it a lot, jolly good show.

[grubman]

These were the core rules I used, if anyone cares:

The Game Rules

Adventures in the town of Westwood follow all the regular rules outlined in the Fistful of Lead rule book.  The only major change is the addition of an optional “civilian round” detailed below.

The Civilian Round

The civilian round takes place after all the cards used for regular initiative have been played.  If no special rules for specific scenarios are in effect, simply roll one 10 sided die for each civilian.  On a roll of 1-7, nothing happens.  The civilian is staying put, covering, or gawking at the action that is going on around him or her.  On a roll of 8+ the civilian does something, as described in the description under each location.

Greenhorn Rule

All the civilians of Westwood are considered “greenhorns” as described in the optional rules on page 14 of the Fistful of Lead rule book.  In other words, they roll a d8 for any rolls to hit they may have to make.

Wounds

Most scenarios will only feature the civilians of Westwood as flavor and distractions.  To keep things simple, the civilians of Westwood have only 3 conditions:  Healthy, Wounded, or Out.

All civilians start out as Healthy.  Any civilian that is hit with a weapon or in melee is automatically considered Wounded (you don’t need to roll on the wound chart).  Mark the civilian with a wound token.  If a civilian is wounded a second time, he is considered Out.  Out doesn’t necessarily mean dead, it means the civilian has dropped to the ground hurting bad or unconscious and will take no further actions this scenario.