Had the thought that Pathfinder might be a fun system to run a western themed game in. Like a game built around a cattle drive maybe. There's already some western themes in certain parts of the world and fluff. Anyone know of any adventure paths or modules with a western vibe?
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I want to bring up something- do you feel you need guns to make it western?
I bring this up, because:
A. Heavy gun campaigns are weird in this system. And
B. There are ways to play with the themes while relying on different weapons.
The archetypal image of the American cowboy- a free man, wandering the countryside relying upon his trusty gun and his swift draw, having dramatic duels with villains... it parallels heavily with the archetypes of the errant knight and ronin samurai.
Both of those swordsmen are types of warriors that end up with the 'free' image, since they do not have lords to serve. Samurai in particular have a fairly well developed aesthetic in modern cinema. Akira Kurosawa is a prime example of a director that played with this dynamic, being both influenced by cowboy pulp novels and in turn creating movies that influence American western movies. Several of his movies, such as the Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, have been adapted into classic westerns (respectively The Magnificent Seven and A Fistfull of Dollars [plus the latter has a mobster remake with bruce willis, Last Man Standing]).
So you could totally make a 'sword slinger'. I've played with the idea myself- making a tengu inquisitor of abadar that seeks to travel the land, bring law using the edge of his blade. I also like the idea of a crow man dressed as a cowboy smoking cigars and drinking booze straight from the bottle.
Yeah making characters with a western feel is pretty easy. That's mostly in the role play. I was wondering if there's any adventures that lend themselves to it.
I did a homebrew like this. The region was a giant prairie, with several towns scattered throughout and a couple major rivers.
I had wild druidic orcs as "Indians" with circles of sacred stones surrounded by tepees and such. The towns had saloons. The PCs went on a few bounty hunter adventures. They even captured a rich man's son instead of killing him once. They then insulted the rich man to his face, which ended poorly.
The PCs were a tiefling gunslinger (with a prehensile tail), a dwarf inquisitor with a dorn-dergar, a half-orc monk with a greataxe, and an elf rogue archer (later replaced with a sorcerer because it's almost impossible to sneak attack with arrows). Also, an occasional alchemist with an earthbreaker.
They also ended up in a dinosaur-filled jungle and played a ballcourt game in an Aztec-like city. There are amazingly few PF rules about passing and catching. The opposing team was all monks, which make really great athletes.
I like using elves of the native americans. It moves the players perceptions away from 'the guy that cowboys shoot' and 'people pushed to the brink by human expansion'.
Not that orcs can't have that- paizo tends towards a surprisingly postcolonial view at times (I like to point towards lizard folk description for that), but this is about tropes that get stamped into player's heads by how orcs are treated as fodder enemies in other works.
you can also use the 'variety' of elves to show off tribal displacement- you recognize that something is wrong when you see wood elves 200 miles from the nearest forest, and water elves 500 miles from the nearest ocean.
I think the "Aztecs" were elves.
The PCs did a ceremonial fight with pre-errata'd scarred witchdoctor orcs. I'm actually proud that I was able to fit half-a-dozen witches on 1 character sheet, all with different spells and hexes prepared. :-)
I like the idea of using elves as native Americans analog. There's a lot to work with there.
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Don't know if your familiar with the old series, the original Wild Wild West TV series might help you develop the theme on this idea even further for adventures as most of them while the classic Western was there, there was a Sci-fi feel to the show as well, easy enough to switch it over to a magical theme.
Could have PC's being members of the 'Secret Service' department sent on missions to deal with Dangerous Wizards/monster/etc with there own wits, training and equipment