Guns of the Western Kings - What is it?

A few weeks ago I posted an account of the first play session in my new campaign setting, Guns of the Western Kings, promising that I would explain more about the setting later.  Well, later is now.  Last time, I explained that GotWK (pronounced gotwik) is not Eberron, not steampunk, and not Deadlands.  I want to expand on that a bit, just for clarity's sake:

GotWK is not Eberron.  Eberron is a campaign setting that made its debut during the age of 3rd edition D&D.  It was groundbreaking in tone, inviting players into a high-magic, high-fantasy setting heavily inspired by post-WWI pulp adventure.  Eberron took magic to great extremes, filling the world with magical robots (that you can play as), airships, and trains powered by bound elementals.  GotWK, while similarly bringing a fantasy world into a more modern setting, is not a high-magic world of airships and sentient robots.  Magic, in the world of GotWK, did not advance exponentially as technology did.  It has the same basic presence in and effect on the world as it does in an average game of D&D or Pathfinder - magic items are expensive, wizards are holed up in their towers, and magical beasts are terrifying and dangerous.  The trains in GotWK run on coal.  Speaking of coal...

GotWK is not steampunk.  The level of technology is the same as the real world American West in the 1870s-80s.  Although I wouldn't rule out coal powered automatons and airships, they certainly won't be commonplace.  Steampunk can be pretty cool when it's done right, but it is rarely done right.  Besides, if GotWK were steampunk, it wouldn't be western anymore.  There are no giant mechanical spiders in GotWK, as far as I know.

Warner Bros via Unmuseum

GotWK is not Deadlands.  Deadlands is a Western RPG set in an America where suddenly, after the Battle of Gettysburg, the dead started rising from their graves and magic was unleashed upon the world.  It has its own system of magic, its own classes, and its own rule system (although it was later adapted into d20, GURPS, and Savage Worlds).  Where Deadlands is about the real world suddenly becoming magic, GotWK is about a fantasy world that advances to the point that it has a Wild West.  It is not its own RPG, it is a campaign setting for the Pathfinder roleplaying game.

So now that we are clear on what Guns of the Western Kings is not, let's talk more about what it is.

Guns of the Western Kings - First Play Session in a Brand New Campaign Setting

I've been working on a secret project for a while now: a Wild West campaign setting for the PFRPG.  I'm calling it "Guns of the Western Kings" (formerly: "Gunslinger", but that is a little too close to some other trademarked names.  Plus Pathfinder has since come out with an ill-conceived class of the same name).  Here's a picture I drew when I first came up with the idea about 4-5 years ago, which still gives a pretty good idea of what this whole thing is about:

(No longer called Gunslinger and no longer being developed for D&D 3.5)

I thought maybe the best way to introduce you to the campaign setting was to tell you how my first playtest of it went.  But first, I feel I should clear up a few things.  This is a campaign setting for the PFRPG, not a new roleplaying game system.  It uses the same rules and has many of the same races, classes, and monsters.  It is not steampunk, it is not Eberron, and it is not Deadlands.  It is an original fantasy world, not a magicked-up version of the late 19th century American West.  The world of GotWK is one of kings and presidents, dragons and locomotives, wizards and six-shooters.

But I'll tell you more about it later.  For now, let's hear how the first play session went!

It's My Party: Adventurers Don't Operate in a Vacuum

Bernard grabbed another glass from the bar, dipped his rag into a bucket of beer-colored water, and polished the glass to no obvious effect.  He looked out at his patrons.  It was the usual lot: crusty old farmers, local ruffians, gangly stable boys...  He saw a couple of farmers drain their glasses and push them away.  Bernard was about to draw it to the attention of one of his barmaids when the door burst open.  Sunlight briefly streamed into the bar before being blocked out by the newcomers.  First came an ugly brute of a half-orc with a glowing greatsword strapped to his back, followed shortly by a hooded figure with a black cloak and brandishing a wicked staff topped with a gruesomely realistic human skull.  Next through the door was an anthropomorphic raven in spiked red armour with a mandolin in one hand and a flaming katana in the other.  Last but not least was a black-skinned elf with piercing red eyes, dressed only in woven ivy and riding a monstrous tiger.  

"The conquering heroes return!" Bernard called out from the bar.  "What'll it be, fellas?  The usual?"

~~~~~

Adventuring parties are a strange thing.  Oftentimes, they are actually comprised of many strange things.  It's not much of a problem when you have a group of humans with the occasional elf, dwarf, or halfling.  But there are a huge variety of strange playable races available to your players, some of which are quite literally monsters - in a game where fighting monsters is not an uncommon occurrence.  Some would say it is a defining characteristic.

So if your party includes crow-men, fox people, frog-folk, horned hellspawn, winged monsters, talking monkeys, the bad guys from Lord of the Rings, or magical robots, you should probably give some thought to how they are going to be seen by the people they are trying to save.  This applies equally whether you are GMing a game or writing a fantasy story.

Sandbox Campaign, Week 1: Zombie Bombs and Shadowy Figures

This summer, I've started running a sandbox campaign.  This is my first time doing such, as I tend to have a central plot that drives the story (Choo-chooo! All aboard the Plot Railroad!).  I am excited about the prospect of letting the characters guide the story completely, taking the main plot out of my hands but still  letting me infuse the game with mini-stories and adventure hooks.  I keep telling the players, "You can do anything you want.  Well, you can try to do anything you want."  That is quite freeing for the GM as well, because there is no plot-critical event that must happen, no NPC that must be encountered, no monster that must be slain, no player character that must survive.  Not that I ever really force that stuff in anyways, just that there is a greater air of freedom in this campaign.

I'm running the campaign about twice a week, and I figured I would post short updates here for your reading pleasure.

Fleshing Out The Campaign World

As a GM, you always have to keep in mind that your players won't necessarily do what you plan on them doing - especially in a city, which lacks the GM-friendly constraints of your average dungeon.  In such cases, you will have to improvise.  It can be tricky to come up with something at the spur of the moment, but having a fully-realized and fleshed-out game world really helps out with that sort of thing.  If you have established the history and culture of your city, not only will it feel very real for your players, but it will be so real for you that you will have very little trouble improvising within it.

For example: