Look What Came In the Mail!!!

Well look at that, I got a whole weeks worth of blog posts in. Hot damn!

In even more exciting news (for me at least) yesterday I received my order from Noble Knight Games. I've already started digging into the Player's Guide and trying to get them creative juices flowing so I can get a Deadlands: Reloaded game started ASAP.

I've written about this before but the classic Deadlands was where I got my very first start as a Game Master, and the picture of Roland, the undead gunslinger on the book cover was what inspired the Zombiecowboy moniker I still use today. In some ways this sort of feels like I've come full circle. To quote Darth Vader, "When I left you I was but a learner, now I am the Master".

Ok, that was cheesy. But I feel like a kid in a candy store right now. Anyway, hopefully I can keep the blogging momentum up. I'm sure I'm going to have some thoughts to write about on these recently acquired book. Till then, Zombiecowboy out.

That Is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie...

...And with strange aeons even death may die.

 And thats sorta what this blog has become, not dead but dreaming. Waiting for the stars to align or some such esoteric Lovecraftian babel.

I've been wanting to update the blog for a while now. However with a lack of actual gaming happening, and the priorities of school and family, I've either been too busy, or too tired.

So whats been happening in the past while?

Well I finished David Weber's “Out of the Dark”. Great read except the ending. One of the first times I actually ever wanted to throw a book across the room. I wont spoil it for you, but believe me when I say Weber gets a good square kick in your nuts on this one. However to Weber's credit I finished the first book in the Honor Harrington series “On Basilisk Station” and it was frigging awesome from start to finish. Next on deck is “The Honor of the Queen”. And of course I still have the first book in Weber's “Safehold series sitting on my shelf to get to as well as John Ringo's “A Hymn Before Battle”. Too many books not enough time and all that jazz.

Currently I'm reading the first novel in Clive Cussler/Grant Blackwood's “Fargo” series called “Spartan Gold”. So for the most part it's a fun read though at near the end its starting to drag a little. Hopefully the ending will pick it up. One thing of note is how all of the novels in any of Cussler's series are packed with great ideas for RPG adventures and campaigns. Particularly if you tear the ideas straight from the books for use in a modern action/adventure setting. Characters, exotic places, interesting historical bits, and crazy plots abound.

Lastly on the RPG front. I recently purchased the “Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition”, “Deadlands: Marshal's Handbook”, “Player's Guide”, “1880 Smith & Robards Catalog” (Explorers Edition all), and “The Last Sons” plot points campaign setting books. In addition I picked up a really nice Texas Hold'em poker set from Walmart. The intention is that I' ll finally get to try out running/playing Savage Worlds and get some gaming going on again. I've wanted to get a SW game started for a while but keep getting cold feet on it as well as “Gamer ADD”, unfamiliarity of the system, laziness, time constraints, etc. Hopefully with the substantial amount of money I sunk into these purchases I will have the motivation to make it happen.

So that pretty much sums up shit around here. I have every intention of updating the blog as much as I can realistically can. I have no intention of writing updates for the sake of updating. So if I have something of note to write I will. Till then you are the resistance. Zombiecowboy out.

Do Zombies Dream of Steam-Powered Sheep?

Over the Easter weekend I borrowed my brother-in-laws Deadlands Reloaded books. The first campaign I personally ever ran was, as it’s referred to today, Deadlands Classic. This was back when it was just one hardcover book with everything a Marshall and/or Player needed to play the game.

All this is to say that I’m no stranger to what Deadlands is all about, and that I was just looking for a refresher course on the setting, and the changes using the Savage Worlds rules. This in turn led to Monday night and my dreams being dominated by cowboys and undead. The dreams weren’t anything worth repeating. Just the kind of weird nonsense that reminds you that you’re in a dream, and you might as well just roll with it.

Deadlands.

It feels as if a bullet has impaled my brain with a Deadlands campaign written all over it. The words on that bullet burn in an infernal red glowing script that only the Devil himself has the patience or inclination to inscribe. My mind has been infected with the blue prints for a Savage Worlds Deadlands campaign, and come Hell or high-water I’m going to need to run it if I ever want to get the poison out.

After reading just a little of the Deadlands books I realized just how over whelming the setting is. There’s just so much detail. I almost hesitate to say TOO much detail. It’s that double edge sword of trying to give your reader everything they need to run a campaign rather than not enough. The problem is that it means that MY Deadlands campaign will end up off the reservation. Not a bad thing by any means, but just that it’s going to conflict with what’s considered cannon in the supplements. To which I say fuck cannon and the horse it rode in on. But that’s just me amigo.

I have a few ideas for how I wanted to handle this campaign. Things will start out normal enough. The Posse is gathered for some reason or another. I haven’t figured out this part too much just yet. Perhaps they will work for one of the Rail Barons, a Government agency, or some other seemingly mundane outfit. They start doing normal jobs that involve normal people. The first few forays would be a more or less straight up western adventures, with maybe a little bit of super science thrown into the mix, but otherwise fairly standard stuff.

Then shit starts to get a little weird. Like ogres, onions, or that tranny prostitute you "accidently" picked up, the layers begin to peel away revealing that things aren’t as normal as you first assumed they were. Subtle strangeness begins to crop up again and again and force you to start questioning what in the world is really going on here. At some point, like Neo or Sarah Connor, you cross the inevitable and invisible line. It is the point of no return and once it is crossed you find yourself sucked down the Rabbit Hole. You’ll forever be a changed person and there’s no going back to "normal".

Like I was saying Deadlands has a pretty complex history and story-line. While having all this info is nice I find it a little intimidating and even over whelming at times. I will most likely use portions whole cloth and other stuff I will change to suit my own needs. I’m just hoping Shane Lacy Hensley doesn’t send the RPG Police to my house, beat me up, and take my books away when he finds out.

So here’s some of the things I wanted to do/explore with this campaign:

• Chinese Tong Gangs and an ancient power hungry sorcerer leader ala Big Trouble in Little China
• An Illuminati/Freemason conspiracy
• The Shan, Mi-Go, and some other stuff ripped from Call of Cthulhu
• Undead, lots of undead.
• The PCs begin the campaign seeking a new and better life. They arrive in a newly formed and growing California boomtown. They find themselves embroiled in the affairs and politics of the town. The chance at both fame and fortune become directly linked to the success and preservation of the town, its people, and its interests. Soon the PC's find themselves entangled in a web of horror and conspiracy. It falls to them as pillars of the community to sort through the lies and treachery and fight back the shadows of things "Man was not meant to know".

And that’s what I have so far. But I can feel it all there, lurking heavy in my mind. This could be the mother of all campaigns for me. The Magnum Opus that I have always wanted to run, yet have never been able to succeed at. If I write it, they will play…
　

Big Trouble In Little China-Six Shooters And Sorcery Style



Lo-Pan, loves the green eyed ladies

 I've been strongly considering running a Savage Worlds powered weird western game for the last little while now. In this post I describe some of the points that I would like to see if I ran this. It was mostly me just thinking out loud. What was interesting was that  Jamie over at For A Fistful of Coppers suggested in the comments that it sounded like a western version of the 1986 movie Big Trouble in Little China.

After thinking on it, it totally made sense what he was saying. That movie was and still is a huge favorite of mine. Yes, it's a little cheesy at times, but it's funny as hell, and it kicks all kinds of ass.

So then I start doing some research and I discover that according to it's wikipedia page the original script for Big Trouble in Little China was indeed intended to be a western. That's wicked crazy, but makes sense on so many levels.

So yeah, if I'm going to sum up what this little weird western campaign will be about to my group it would be imagine playing in a campaign in which the movie Big Trouble in Little China and the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns had a love child together. Add in a few pinches of Lovecraftian horror, and a measure of Robert Rodriguez and Antonio Banderas, and you have my new campaign in a nut shell.


Chinese Beholders Priceless