Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Crion]

Just a general thought: how do you balance the Weird of the West with the mundane troubles of the time? Where do you draw the lines, and how frequently do you throw a random beastie into the mix?

I'm more into the Weird side of things, and I tend to have to remind myself to add more of the human element. Anyone else have this problem? How do you work around it?

[ogbendog]

My first game of DL classic, I think I weird to wierd to fast. Next time, I think I'll start with stock western scenarios, a cattle drive, bandits, range war, whatever, and just add a bit of deadlands twist.

[Timmayg]

I'm also running into that same issue where most of my encounters, plot hooks and so forth are quite supernatural. The way I've been kind of forcing myself to balance it is that I'm having my posse only encounter the supernatural stuff at night, so if they decide to go traveling or go out during the day they'll only encounter mundane encounters.

[Kaspar]

The supernatural is present in all scenarios I make - it's not called the weird west for nothing

[SteelDraco]

I tend to treat steampunk tech as fairly normal in my games - mad science is the most common Arcane Background, by a pretty comfortable margin, and most don't react to it like witchcraft or anything. Hucksters are quite a bit rarer, and have to be quite a bit more careful.

Plot-wise, yeah, most games will tend to have supernatural elements. Deadlands isn't the setting I'd choose for a "common people just getting by" game, it's horror with a Western and steampunky flavor to me. Horror games include the supernatural as opponents.

[ogbendog]

when we played DnD, it seemed live every "boss" character was a wizard or a cleric.

I would have weird in most/all plots, but make sure there is "west" in the plot as well.

I mean, make sure the scenario has western elements, don't just take a horror plot and stick it in the old west.

[robert4818]

My own preference is to start mundane, and then go towards the weird.

I.E. You might start on a normal bounty hunt to kill a bad guy. You succeed in doing so, only for him to come back in a later scenario as a Harrowed.

But, that doesn't mean mundane = boring, or that weird doesn't actually factor it. Its just very subtle at the beginning.

[Clash957]

For nearly every campaign I run I start with the Book o' the Dead adventure Dark Canyon. Though Abracadabra and the Arabian Cadaver is my favorite first game (it was the first Deadlands game I played). The reason is that one of my players has heard of the harrowed and is hell bent on playing one. Every game I have Marshaled where only one player is a harrowed, I end up killing one or more of the posse with the Harrowed. I always tell the players if they are fine with a monster on their team who always creeps them out a bit and the demon in him/her can make attempts to kill the other characters if their not careful and show some healthy distrust of the Harrowed. I go as far as allowing the players to vote the idea or not. Not to give anything away but, Dark Canyon has something that keeps a Harrowed in check if you know the adventure.

The reason is I basically had a TPK in the dime novel adventure The Forgotten God when the Harrowed guarded the rope that rest of the posse used to enter the caves carved in the salt flats. The Manitou couldn't resist cutting the rope and closing the hole with dynamite trapping the posse under tons of salty earth with zombies. Maybe a little heavy handed, but if I was the manitou I wouldn't be able to resist doing that to hero types that knew what I was and how dangerous I could be.

My question is how do you start out mundane when you have Arcane Background characters in group. I have never ran a game with less than 2 ABs and often players feel they got to have at least a Blessed, Hucksters, and Mad Scientist to be a successful posse. Many times they just aren't going to be suited for the cowboy lifestyle out on the range for a few gold eagles when they can make ten times that in a city. Well maybe hunting down bounties.
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Playing: Deadlands Noir, Planescape via D&D 4th ed
Running: Nothing at the moment

[relativistic]

I kind of compromise. It varies, but I tend to mostly have human enemies as the main villain, obstacle, or story element, although there is usual a magical or supernatural subtext (black magic, summoned demons, undead). Every so often I'll do an adventure where the main obstacle is purely supernatural, but its not usually the case. I think humans make more interesting obstacles and plot elements, at least for longer stories. They also often allow more of a range of a party's skills to be used.

In my view of Deadlands, the supernatural is what makes the setting especially interesting, and in my group it would be a rare game indeed where there is none of it. If missing supernatural elements, its nice to explore some of the other fantastical elements, like steampunk, in a tale. That said, for the first few games in a campaign, it can be nice to keep the supernatural a bit subtle, to keep things creepy.
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Running Deadlands Reloaded,The Flood:
- Players perspective Log
- My notes as a GM

[robert4818]

[doomblade403x]

When it comes right down to it hucksters, shaman, holy men and the like are a pretty much staples for the times. Our current posse has one part time shaman and that's it. No huckster and no holy man. You simply have to scale for your party per adventure and keep it real from there. Sometimes your huckster is gonna be overkill and sometimes hes gonna be what turns the tide.

Honestly preacher and Saloon gal are the two least played classes in our games.

[Crion]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

When I first played Deadlands, my Marshal saved monsters for the random reminder that the West is Weird and scary, but kept it as mundane as possible (and considering the rest of the party was a mundane preacher, a rich gambling gunslinger, a saloon gal, and my Shootist, it made sense). He believed that Deadlands should have more West than Weird, and it worked.

When I ran my first game of Deadlands, I think it got too Weird too fast, and my players complained about it. Of course, one of them was raised on Eastwood films, which didn't help my case any. . .

I am glad to see that everyone else plays up the Weird a bit more often than not, whether starting with it or moving up to it.


So, along those lines: what games have been the best for you: when you find out that the big nasty villain is a normal human, or something more?

[Savage Oni]

I would just introduce a typical Western adventure and depending on play or your group, ramp up the supernatural, get there steadily, or crawl. As the characters dig deeper into the plot, the will come across the supernatural-small things at first but as they unravel more of the mystery, they will undoubtably encounter more and stronger supernatural stuff.