I see your point but we wouldn't have played that. I'm not meaning to unload on anyone (pun intended), I have significant Indian heritage and that would have been more of, at least, my game. The person that taught me to play D&D had similar (conquistador) family background. We would have made a game very different from its sources just like we did with D&D.
The old west has everything D&D has if you use everything including Chinese and many other culture's mythologies that flocked to this country during that time period. It would have been bad guy of the week for a little while, but it wouldn't have been long.

Mister Yuk wrote in The Non-TSR Recent Fun Finds thread:Think you can insert that too into why whole industries don't cater to fan interest when fans will surely cough up their money as fast as anyone else.

I think if there was sufficient money in the hands of 'fans' and they would give it up readily for a product, and that product would then return a profit that justified the investment of time and effort and resources, then those products would exist. It is not the case that there is a lack of imagination in the industry, nor that there is a lack of desire by people to make money serving the industry.

What there is is a lack of fans willing to pay for quality writing.

Taking the D&D Movie analogy as an example... The movies that are produced are not produced by people who are invested in portraying any specific 'image' of the D&D genre or fans perceptions of the game (all of which are individual and particular to that individual's own experiences of the game.) They are produced by people who are invested in return on capital and maximising bums on seats in cinemas. Making a niche film to pander to RPG gamers cannot possible succeed over making a generic action movie with a splattering of the fantastical. The new Dune move may well be a great success (I hope it is), but if it is, it is because the money was invested and the decisions were made, not based upon the strength of the fantasy genre, but based upon the strength of a single individual author and his vision and portrayal of a single world. The same goes for JRR Tolkien or George RR Martin. There does not exist a single image of the D&D world created by anyone of talent that can be called upon to epitomise Dungeons & Dragons. We all live in our own fantasy bubbles and then complain because someone we've never met cannot portray that with any accuracy or success, or because we cannot accept that someone else's portrayal of their generic D&D world is so dissimilar and inferior to the ones we have adventured in our heads.

I can guarantee that my perception of what makes for a good expedition, what makes a good plot, and what exploring a dungeon should feel like for the adventurers, is dramatically different to everyone else's. My perception of D&D is no more or less valid than anyone else's. That means I am less likely to agree on what makes a good D&D movie with any random other D&D player, than I am to agree on what makes a good Dune or Middle Earth movie.

Back to the Wild West genre... no one will write for it because no one is willing to buy it. If there were a million copies to be sold of a successful scenario, it would be worked upon and written. When there are likely less than maybe 100 games being played in the US, and probably less than 10% of those are ongoing campaigns, then for a writer who wants to make a living and has the talent to do so, they are wasting their time trying to pander to maybe 10 buyers and possibly 100 over the lifetime of the product. And if fans really cared about the quality of the Wild West genre, let's face it, they would put the time and effort into building it themselves, the same way the OSR was built. The fact that they didn't and won't tells you all you need to know about the genre and the fanbase.

Again, that makes for good collectables. But not for valuable collectables.

ZardokhasSpoken wrote in The Non-TSR Recent Fun Finds thread:I wasn't trying to offend, just pointing out the most common tropes.  Obviously other races and cultures played a role in the Wild West, and they would contribute to such a game, but still the game would boil down to shoot-outs,  middle of the street duels, racial clashes over territory/treasure, good guys with guns vs bad guys with guns.

Yep. Non-US citizens have different views on the wild west from that portrayed in the US. We have fewer references to the cultural tropes portrayed by US society. We have no historical links to that culture, and no reference to it in our education system. Likewise, I find many in the US have a somewhat detached and romantic notion of historic Europe, and I suspect fewer references to it in their education system. Wild West is inevitably a US centric RPG genre, and one in which many would tend towards playing the tropes they had been raised to believe were relevant. The idea of exploring political power, economic struggle, murder mystery, or gothic horror for example is not something the majority are willing to consider Wild West roleplaying. Of course if those are explored they expand the game, but also pull it into the orbit of other games like Cthulhu, and whilst you may be able to sell Wild West Cthulhu to the Cthulhu crowd, they aren't buying it because it is Wild West, but because it is horror, the same way a D&D player will buy an expedition into an Egyptian tomb, not because it is Egyptian, but because it is D&D.

What the Wild West genre needs is fans who care, and are willing to work at improving the game. Without those, they do not deserve, nor will ever get, investment from the talents in the RPG space, and the publishers who influence them.

benjoshua wrote in The Non-TSR Recent Fun Finds thread:
One trope that is often over-looked, and surprised me the first time I heard it, is that about one-fourth of all cowboys were black/African American.   You certainly don't get that impression from most wild west movies.

Yep, and who'd have though so many Caucasians were hanging around the Middle East in biblical times. So many in fact you couldn't see the locals if 2K years of recorded history is to be believed.

Two examples to go the movie route.

Want an action movie? This guy made one for $7K.

El Mariachi (1993) - Rotten Tomatoes

Want a funny, action-y romp. This was made for $40K

Coyote (2007) - Rotten Tomatoes

It's not that hard anymore.

Mister Yuk wrote in The Non-TSR Recent Fun Finds thread: during that game was allowed to do only one action with my PC.

Of all the things that turn people away from D&D, that happens far too often.

Mister Yuk wrote in The Non-TSR Recent Fun Finds thread:Want an action movie? This guy made one for $7K.

El Mariachi (1993) - Rotten Tomatoes

More-or-less true, but after it was picked up by the film industry it was given at least $100K of technical makeovers (sound & editing), plus all the money spent on promotion & distribution.

I received Bloodbath (Troy Christensen) today An huge thanks to smarmy1 who helped me to get it.

** expired/removed eBay auction **

I don't think these are super uncommon but I was shelving them tonight and wanted to share a couple pics for those who might have missed.

Good for the author for producing an rpg for college for credit...

Someone purchased a copy of one of the books on Amazon for 3.99.  He gave it two stars and stated even at that price he overpaid!  Lol.  With a glowing review like that, where can I get a copy?  Currently the three core books are on ebay for $249.  As tempting as that is, I think I gotta let it go...

Cheers!

Zardok