Tonight is the first session of my new Boot Hill campaign, which I decided to call Spectre of the Gun. The first phase of the campaign involves recreating some historical Old West gunfights, with the PCs standing alongside or in place of the various actual participants. I stumbled across this photograph of George Selvidge while researching one of tonight's scheduled shoot-outs. I wasn't looking for photos and the scenarios for tonight are based upon fairly obscure events, so I wasn't really expecting to find any.
Mr. Selvidge was a member of a posse out of Fort Smith, Arkansas led by a couple of Deputy U.S. Marshals. Depending on who you ask, they were either ensuring a killer was brought to justice or interfering in tribal affairs/violating a treaty. Either way, George was one of the many folks who didn't live to see the end of that day. I figure if I'm going to exploit his death for an evening's entertainment, I owe it to the guy to at least share his picture.
R.I.P. George Selvidge
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US Marshals out of Fort Smith? That's Marshal Rooster Cogburn's territory...
ReplyDeleteThat is why I stick to running fantasy games.
ReplyDeleteI like playing in games based on real events just fine. I guess it is the researching that gets to me? I bump onto the real people who lived and died, and make a game scenario from it all. Then, when I run the game, it feels like I'm playing in a graveyard. Not a cool "zombies and graverobbing" graveyard, but an "Oh, we should be more respectful" type of graveyard.
Oddly, I have no issue with drawing inspiration from the same lives and deaths so long as I port them into a fantasy setting. Then I can have an ogre rip off their arm and club them to death with it without blinking an eye.
... and now that I've just typed that I'm wondering if my moral compass still points to true north. Best to just ignore myself and move along quietly.
*fades into the mist*
Sounds like you may be staying away from the 'weird west' stuff, but "Spectre of the Gun" really evokes some of the imagery from Gilman's excellent "Half-Made World". May be worth a gander if you have time and would consider going that route...
ReplyDeleteTLDR; Demon six-shooters possess gunslingers to battle sentient locomotives.
I'm looking forward to reading about your experiences with Boot Hill. We played it a little bit back-in-the-day, but even 28+ years ago, the "Western" wasn't quite at the level of popularity it was during the 30's, 40's, and 50's.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see another old-school game getting some play other than D&D and Gamma World.