Thread 96339863

So what's the lore and setting other than spooky cowboy shit?

Why don't you read the sourcebook and find out?

>>96339863 (OP)
From civil war onward it depends on the edition.

Up until then, it's fairly consistent.
Essentially the native American tribes were using magic from (debateably) different sources to accomplish all kinds of wonders up until the 1300s or so. Magics and mundane were just freely mixed together in North America, however, most magical related shit sat firmly on the evil, comically evil, side of the fence. Not all, but you are talking around a 90% majority of the magical stuff being baby eating monsters levels of wicked. Some Injun shamans made the call to just seal away the magical side of things because, as handy as magic was, the net outcome was humanity just being collective prey animals to nefarious beings. Magic could still be accessed but it took a fuck ton of work, complex rituals, and had frankly trivial effects.

Then the Europeans rolled up essentially right after the natives blasted themselves back to the stone age and the events played out like real life history for the most part.

Some uber-injun shaman got all butthurt over losing around the civil war and threw open the gates to the magical realm again in California. This action was felt as a fuck huge earthquake. The earthquake unearthed Ghost Rock, a new resource that could be used in place of coal but "burns much hotter and much longer" with the side effect of the GR screaming when burned. The exact power capacity is never written anywhere, but it's used for intellstellar travel and nukes and shit in different editions, so just assume it's a "metric fuckton" of energy potential per rock and it powers all the sci-fi elements.
(Cont)

>>96339974
Spoon-feeding retard.

Are you sure you don't mean to play Casketland?

>>96340002
No, clearly anon meant Haunted West

>>96340010
Weird Frontiers?

>>96340017
just a Fistful of Darkness

>>96340010
>"We have Deadlands at home!"
Sad.

>>96340025
that's nice because We Deal in Lead

>>96339974
(Cont)

Ghost Rock, unbeknownst to 99.999% of the population, is basically concentrated damned souls (hence the screaming when burned) and is also one helluva power source for magic rituals.

It took a bit for the magic side of shit to realize the gate was open, but it did notice and it started coming through. Demons (called Manitou) were the first and started taking over the bodies of people who just died (called Harrowed). Story wise, the further west you go the more batshit things get. The East Coast is fairly "mundane" (you got weird science but outright monster stuff is rare) but going into California you got literal dragons and shit just fucking around willy nilly.

There is literally 30 years of lore, spin-offs, novels, and other stuff. This all results in a setting where a steampunk mech using a giant proton pack to help the Ghost Riders in the Sky round up the devil's herd while Bringham Young uses Mormon magic to reduce nausferatu to ash in the background is all a legit possibility.

>>96339863 (OP)
>So what's the lore and setting other than spooky cowboy shit?
You need anything more than that? What kind of sad little man are you?

>>96340029
just what I'd expect from Frontier Scum

>>96340047
don't be mean, they're just from Death Valley

>>96339974
>>96340031
That sounds very cool. Thanks for the rundown, anon. Which book would be a good start to get into the lore?

>>96340092
Always been more of an Arizona guy.

>>96341018
>>96340092
>>96340047
>>96340029
>>96340025
>>96340010
>>96340002
Lot of Dogs in this Vineyard.

>>96340814
For current lore, the Deadlands setting book and Weird West companion.

Deadlands is an odd duck setting. Hucksters, for example, are magic users that center their magic around a deck of playing cards. The OG Hoyle that wrote the earliest book on playing card games had secret messages for spell casting stuff scattered through the first edition. If a Huckster needs more power? He has to play a game of five card stud against a demon (the GM/Marshal).

>>96341226
I unironically like the original base setting to Dogs and it disappoints me that more gamers aren't willing to enter the mind of a person they don't fundamentally agree with.

Hilariously, even the creator schizoed out over this eventually.

>>96342735
Same, its a great setting but understanding-isn't-agreeing seems hard for people.
There was an entire thing where sort of indi scene kids in the 2000s fetishized various religious groups, read keirkegaard, stuff like that. It got too real for them I think and it fell out of fashion.
Playing this when it came out helped me escape the 3.5dnd hole. There's a lot of junk storygames but this one was quite influential and actually a neat game.

>>96342735
>>96342980
I just read the wiki article and I'm not gettig where that issue comes from. It brings up something about suporting indian genocide but it read super out of left field and doesn't sound like the type of thing designers realized time later that they didn't want

>>96339863 (OP)
>The metaplot NPCs are invincible Gary Stus and basically, you're all worthless shitters that can't accomplish anything!
What did Deadlands mean by this?

>>96343278
1. This hasn't really been a problem since the first/revised edition
2. It was the 90s and everyone else was doing it

>>96342735
It's all fun and games until someone googles Brigham Young.

>>96339863 (OP)
It's a mixture of mad science, wild west deal with the devil snake oil magicians, witches, and native american mysticism.

Any archetypes that fit any of the above fit in the setting.

Also the Confederacy won the civil war by using mad science, then for some insane reason they banned slavery anyway and the authors pretend this makes sense.

I believe the confederacy winning the civil war has since been retconned.

>>96341987
The playing card based rules in the original rulebook were so great honestly.

>>96343278
This actually wasn't that big an issue in first edition, more something they caked into the lore as they kept writing books and wanted people to stop killing mr. superzombie all the time.

If you were a good gm you were never gonna care about their author's intent anyway though. What are they gonna do, come to your house and make you not let the players kill him?

>>96343468
>Playing card rules were great

They were a really neat idea, but it was one cumbersome bitch because of how much stuff was an action considering you had so many on a given turn.
Drawing your gun, aiming your gun, cocking the hammer, and firing the gun were all separate actions.

Still, it was a really neat idea when everyone was doing dice pool or d20 derivative nonsense.

>>96343468
Yeah, the south lost the civil war from Reloaded onward. It was only OG Deadlands were the south won.

It's not shocking that the CSA would have stopped slavery anyway though. It's much more economical to pay someone a shit wage rather than have to tend to a whole family's needs. Capitalism killed that shit off quicker than any war.

>>96343657
>It's not shocking that the CSA would have stopped slavery anyway though.
It wouldn't have been done in the timeframe that Deadlands works with though. They threw on so many legal and constitutional protections to the action you'd think they seceded over it, or something, lol.

>>96343766
Arguably, it would have been ended even faster. Slaves were farming equipment, ghost Rock accelerated industrial revolution so tractors and such would be hitting the scene even earlier making it just outright impractical to own slaves.

>>96343812
Because the South has such a long history of quickly and sensibly adapting to changes in new technology. You'd be hearing a lot of "It Burns Cleaner." type rhetoric.

I want cyber-cowboys and hard-as-nails cowgirls.

>>96340002
Tumblr Art

>>96340010
DEI Art

>>96345431
Coomer Slop

>>96343278

In the 90's playoids were all submissives who enjoyed playing second fiddle to the official characters(see also WoD, L5R, Forgotten Realm, etc).

>>96345855
From what I heard, most non-convention players actively ignored those overpowered NPCs or only incorporated them to try and kill them out of spite. I remember a story of how a Shadowrun player group tricked Harlequin into holding onto a briefcase nuke and blew him up with it. And then when the devs heard about that story, they said "Well that couldn't happen cuz Harlequinn made an anti-nuke protection spell 5 minutes after Trinity lol"

>>96342980
I don't want to sound like a pseud snob, but as I get older, I've begun to believe there are people who genuinely intellectually CANNOT imagine another mind without feeling like they've become 'infected' by it.

>>96345973
This. Players (and GMs) always hated the Mary Sues and self-inserts across the settings and they basically only come up in games excluding their creators to get punked and killed.

>>96339863 (OP)

Anyone else like slightly-weird West?

I mean, I want there to be ghosts, curses, cults, cannibalistic exile Native tribes, and evil spirits but don't want it steampunk or pulp heroes shooting a gatling gun at the wendigo either.

>>96346044
You can run Deadlands as mundane or whacky as you want.
At the end of the day though, you better have something that the PCs can fill full of lead. Even Lovecraft had a lot of his horror stuff getting a face full of Tommy guns or eating dynamite.

>>96347114
>>96347114
Always find it funny that some people freak out when you suggest that investigators can kill mythos monsters. It's like they never actually read Shadow over Innsmouth.

>>96339863 (OP)
Bump for interest.

BUMP

>>96352045

>They can dynamite Devil Reef
>But that'll bring no relief.
>Y'ha N'thlei is deeper than they know.

Also the storyline ended with the protagonist realizing that he was the Deep One in the mirror and switching sides just 'cause. So, maybe not the best example. Ironically, that's Call of Cthulhu, because the stars aren't yet right, so he could be banished with physical force.

>>96343766
The southern states didn't secede over slavery. That didn't even become an issue until after the fighting was under way. The USA government decided to institute tariffs on all good entering the ports of the USA. The southern states said "Nah." and allowed free international trade on their ports while telling the US government "You won't do shit."

That was the crux of the issue and the whole "State's rights" bullshit. Slavery became THE issue when Europe was still doing trade with the southern states for tobacco, cotton, and such during the conflict. Once it became a war over slavery? Europe dipped out as they didn't want to be associated with backing an army fighting over slave ownership. It became about ending slavery to choke out capital and arms being supplied to south. Now, don't get me wrong, the south sure as shit went hard into the "pro-slavery" side of the argument and absolutely deserved to get their shit kicked in for it. 1800s democrats and present day democrats still have the mentality of "without slaves, who will pick the crops" which is hilariously on brand from a fence sitting dip-shit like me.

>>96357804
Wow, a functioning brain on modern /tg/. I am stunned into incredulity.

>>96357804
"A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery."
"The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution"
I guess nobody told South Carolina it was about all about Tariffs.

>>96357838
"If I could end the war without freeing a single slave, I would." - Abraham Lincoln.

It became THE issue but it wasn't the issue that kicked shit off. Why does that confuse you?

>>96358092
What Lincoln said was second to what the hair-trigger Southern aristrocrats thought. And what they thought was far more extreme than what Lincoln initially was going to do, leading to their shitting all over the bed, the floor, and down the stairs.

Have you guys seen the annoucement of Deadlands legends of the weird west?
"Legendary Heroes, Legendary Stories
Deadlands: Legends of the Weird West co-operative card game releasing in celebration with the 30th anniversary of Deadlands"

Looks to be a game based on Arkhan Horror card game.
(pic is from Pinebox e discord)

>>96339974
>>96340031
I like the Deadlands in concept and aesthetic, but it's a little too goofy for my tastes. I prefer a world I can take more seriously. There's too much pulp.

>>96342735
>that more gamers aren't willing to enter the mind of a person they don't fundamentally agree with.
What do you mean?

>>96358092
Because those quote are from the1861 South Carolina Declaration of Secession, which kicked off the war along with attacking Fort Sumter, you know in South Carolina.
It's a hell of a thing to run around saying Slavery Wasn't the Thing Yet when we've got receipts from the very fucking start of the conflict in the state in which the conflict started that this state is leaving over Slavery.

>>96345855
>- t. born in the 00s

>>96358628
Of course it was, ya dingus

The tariff laws were beneficial to the north that had adopted industrialization while the southern states relied on cheap crop sales in bulk and the free trade of those goods to keep their profits high enough to exist. The new tariff laws placed a higher tax burden on the part of the country that dealt with international trade than the part of the country that didn't. The thing that caused secession was the tariff laws.

The war VERY quickly became about slavery, which is blindingly obvious, but mother fuckers who claim it was THE reason for the initial separation are just outright wrong. It wasn't about morality, or decency, or having humans be considered as humans rather than farm equipment, or any other truly deserving cause. It was about cold, hard coin.

This isn't some kind of hidden information or trying to paint slave holders in a positive light or some shit. Fuck those guys. Failure to know THE reason a god damn civil war started is incredibly important. It's like how people think Hitler got into power because of the treaty of Versailles being too hard on the economy and while ignoring the ultra left terrorism shit going on in Germany at the same time being what drove more moderate people to put an extremist into power on a street level.

>>96343468
South didn't win, the dead rose up as zombies at Gettysburg and started killing both sides, so the war turned into a protracted cold war where there were still low intensity battles off and on but nothing serious because every major battle turned into an undead massacre. The main thing is that the game takes place west of the Missisippi and almost all the real fighting is in the east.

>>96358947
>Cold, hard coin

Don't forget the political influence of having a bunch of non-voting portions of the population nonetheless contributing to the number of representatives and electoral votes!

Oh, shit. I guess it was about fucking slavery. The funny thing is, if the "planters" hadn't freaked out, the might have been able to hammer something out. Instead, they got fire. Probably didn't get quite enough fire.

(While we're talking about Nazis as an after thought, recall that not being thorough enough with the slavers gave rise to the laws that the Nazis used to strip rights from citizens and eventually send them to death camps.)

>>96358628
>along with attacking Fort Sumter
Ummm, source? Peer reviewed study? Do you have a source for that?

>>96339863 (OP)
It’s got special rocks too.

>>96359031
You could argue that the south "won" in the sense that they still exist as a state and the war isn't currently hot in the setting.

>>96341226
Dogs in the Vineyard is an interesting one. Speaking as someone whose related to Mormons, I found the different perspective interesting.

>>96341987
Deadlands had this weird postapocalyptic spinoff where the Reckoners came back after a nuclear war blasted humanity back to the stone age. The lore even had spaceships, the colonization of Mars, terminators, and all kinds of crazy crap.

>>96343148
>Indian genocide
What? You're more likely to deal with the Earps detaining some missionaries or Doc Holliday going on a rampage than an Indian raid. This sounds like bored redditors trying to find something to complain about.

>>96359206
The redditization of history has been a disaster for pretty much everyone.

>>96360662
No they retconned that with the Adventures edition.
Same setting time and 90% the same content.

>>96365525
Which it says, in the original post in this reply chain.

>>96365153
>What? You're more likely to deal with the Earps detaining some missionaries or Doc Holliday going on a rampage than an Indian raid. This sounds like bored redditors trying to find something to complain about.
He isn't talking about Deadlands, he's talking about why Vincent Baker stopped selling Dogs in the Vineyard.

And the reason, which >>96343148 is confused about, was because, even though it's fictional it was based on Baker's understanding of history, which was painted by his Mormon upbringing, and it has a really whitewashed idea of the interactions between his fictional Mormons and Fictional Indigenous people. When he got further out of the cult and learned the actual history, he didn't want to keep profiting off of the work.

Are those faggots still arguing the US Civil War?

>>96369425
I think the best way to handle it in Deadlands is to keep it a background thing. If the US wins too early it utterly removes any justification for independent Deseret, California, or Indian nations. Make the CSA the Russians in a cold war game.

>>96367560
>And the reason, which >>96343148 # is confused about, was because, even though it's fictional it was based on Baker's understanding of history, which was painted by his Mormon upbringing, and it has a really whitewashed idea of the interactions between his fictional Mormons and Fictional Indigenous people. When he got further out of the cult and learned the actual history, he didn't want to keep profiting off of the work.
That sounds unbelievably fucking gay and cringe, that faggot needs to get over himself. Holy shit.

>>96370376
Your starting to defend Mormons over culture wars shit.

>>96369784
the civil war lasted an extra five years in deadlands and even with the current US victory drained a huge amount of man power and thats on top of the natives now having access to spirit magic, in other words its not to much of a stress for native nations to be around especially since irl several lasted a few decades after the civil war

>>96370376
You actually sound gay and cringe, and should get over yourself.

>>96340010
>>96345784
There's no black womxn so this sadly only scores 3 out of 5 stars, do better

>>96371946
>the natives
You mean the injuns.