RPG in New York, 1877

[Petter]

[Petter]

[chronoplasm]

I can't say I'm familiar with Western RPG. All my google searches are only turning up various RPGs in western settings.
If you could describe how Western RPG works, that might help. What are your favorite aspects of this game? What do you want to carry over? Is it just the setting you want to change or is there anything else you want to expand on?

[Petter]

[Teramis]

Hi, Petter,

I have a comment and a question for you. While it is true that New York was the most populous city in America at that time, it was not really a "western" city at all. Rather, it epitomized the "civilized" qualities valued in European culture at that time, although of course it also had a large seedy underside and criminal element.  Relative to other American cities, it looked towards Europe as its cultural role model. People from New York were often considered citified dandies or folks with pretentious sensibilities when they came out west.  Is your objective to capture urban life as typified in New York because it is New York, or urban life as typified in a large and populous *western* city, given that this supplement is for the "West" game?

I don't know if you can change the stated objective of this supplement, but if your goal is the latter, then you might want to consider using the setting of San Francisco instead. All the urban issues you touch upon were in play there as well,  but the city is better suited than New York for a game with Western overtones.   In 1870 it was the 10th most populous city in the country (pop 147,473), during that decade was in a growth boom fed by the silver strikes in the mining town of Virginia City, Nevada, and by 1880 had grown to be 9th largest city (pop 233,959) in the nation.   The top ten cities of the closest census year to your target date (1880) were, in order, New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Baltimore, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and New Orleans.  Of these, only San Fran can really be considered the prototypical booming metropolis in the west.  St. Louis was called 'the gateway to the west', but mainly because it was distinguished as being the jumping-off point for people leaving the east and heading west across country. The other cities are not in the mainstream of western culture per se, except insofar as they existed and flourished at the same time the American West was happening as an iconic era.

Don't know if that's relevant to the strategic decision about your setting, but I thought it worth mentioning.
Census figures come from U.S. government Census Bureau data here: http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027.html.

-Teramis

[Petter]

I have a comment and a question for you. While it is true that New York was the most populous city in America at that time, it was not really a "western" city at all. Rather, it epitomized the "civilized" qualities valued in European culture at that time, although of course it also had a large seedy underside and criminal element.  Relative to other American cities, it looked towards Europe as its cultural role model. People from New York were often considered citified dandies or folks with pretentious sensibilities when they came out west.  Is your objective to capture urban life as typified in New York because it is New York, or urban life as typified in a large and populous *western* city, given that this supplement is for the "West" game?

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey Petter, your proposed setting is near and dear to my heart.  It sounds like you are writing a detailed setting book for Western rather than a new game, is that accurate?  You mentioned new rules, which would obviously be the area where this forum might be useful to you.  What do you think needs to be changed from the core rules in Western, and why? 

[Petter]

Hey Petter, your proposed setting is near and dear to my heart.  It sounds like you are writing a detailed setting book for Western rather than a new game, is that accurate?  You mentioned new rules, which would obviously be the area where this forum might be useful to you.  What do you think needs to be changed from the core rules in Western, and why? 

[Jason Morningstar]

Are you envisioning stand-alone subsystems, then?  Like a pickpocket mini-game?  It sounds like some sort of progressive skill challenge system could be applied to a variety of tasks (assuming this does not exist in Western).  The skill challenge rules in D&D fourth edition are pretty well done and might be worth a look, if this is the direction you are heading.

[Petter]

Are you envisioning stand-alone subsystems, then?  Like a pickpocket mini-game?  It sounds like some sort of progressive skill challenge system could be applied to a variety of tasks (assuming this does not exist in Western).  The skill challenge rules in D&D fourth edition are pretty well done and might be worth a look, if this is the direction you are heading.

[Jason Morningstar]

OK, here's a few questions:

In what ways is a very focused mechanic (pickpocketing) a better choice than a less focused one (manipulating suckers, which could include picking pockets through short cons like rolling johns in brum cribs all the way to the wire and other big cons - all identical in intent but different in procedure and scope)? 

How do you envision corruption working?  Are you interested in other games that elegantly model social interaction as design touch-stones? 

[matthijs]

What's the publishing model like? Is this an indie supplement for an indie game, an indie supplement for someone else's game...?