Dungeons & Dragons: A Western
While working on material for my next D&D campaign I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts about adding Weird Science, Horror, Sword & Planet and other “non-traditional” elements to the generic fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve also been watching a lot of Westerns lately and with Deadlands Dice close at hand, I’ve been thinking of taking the “generic fantasy” more in that direction as well.
It wasn’t until I started looking at some pre-written modules and imagining them in a Dark Fantasy Wild West type setting instead of the usual Magical Middle-Ages that’s common for a D&D world that it became clear – D&D only has the veneer of Medieval to it… at heart it’s always been a Western.
Characters in Dungeons & Dragons are usually unconnected to Feudalism or Guilds – which would have been tremendously important to most people in the real-world middle-ages. People did not typically move from place to place in medieval times without having military or political reasons for doing so. D&D characters are more like gun-fighters and cowboys, wandering from place to place in search of adventure.
Towns and Cities in D&D are usually more like a Western Boom Town at the height of the Gold Rush than any European equivalent. There are trading posts to buy supplies, saloons to meet with friends (and foes), plus lots of opportunity to buy horses, and military grade weaponry.
Unlike the often oppressive life of someone living in medieval Europe with people being born into their place within the social hierarchy with no upward mobility, D&D is built on the American Dream of being able to forge your own path and through hard work (and a little luck) make a better future for yourself. There’s also a general level of lawlessness that gives players more freedom of action for their characters than would be typical for a historical european setting.
Which is all to say that when I first starting thinking of adding more “Western” elements to D&D I thought it would be a weird mix… but it’s actually seeming quite natural.
I’m not sure what the final result will look like, but possibly something along the lines of a Savage Swords of Cydonia
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Thanks for turning me on to the group.
–I wish you well in your Western D&D efforts. I’ve had a blast in the bast with that, although it was Celtic Western with Fields of the Nephilim as the background music.
I embraced the Westerness of D&D for a Forgotten Realms campaign I ran a few years ago. I set it in the plains to the east where settlements are spread out. I really played up the fact that some times the players were the closest thing to the law in town. I also had plenty of rival adventuring groups to feud with, there were a few showdowns on dusty streets at high noon.
That was the best video ever! I will now start a campaign modeled after this very video. My life has been deeply enriched. Thank you.
Hey Stuart, do you have a contact email on your site somewhere?
Hmm… I should probably add a contact form.
You can send me email at. Stuart AT RobertsonGames DOT Com.
If you haven’t already, check out Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. He set out to write an American fantasy, drawing on the myths of the US as inspiration, just as Tolkien drew on north/west European myth for his world. And the Western is as potent a mythological source as Des Nibelung. So you have knights recast as gunslingers, but it’s still recognisable as fantasy.
Oh, as a follow-up, I should warn you that the series is not brilliant, but it is a quick read, and the feel is right, so they’re useful as inspiration. I would recommend The Gunslinger, Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla if you’re going to pick and choose.
I’ve been meaning to read The Gunslinger for ages. It’s always mentioned whenever I look up anything about “Weird West” online.
[...] RSS feed for updates.Since the D&D campaign I’ve been working on is partly inspired by Westerns more than the usual Magical Medieval Europe, I wanted to have the environment reflected in the [...]
[...] with my usual conventions for playing D&D and explore some other sources of inspiration, like the Western, and game material I haven’t made much use of before. While looking through my AD&D books [...]
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