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Has there been any thought to creating any "real" historical gangs from the general time period (e.g. Earps, Clantons / Cowboys, James Gang, Regulators...)?!?

Im sure sooner or later someone will do it.

Back on the old forums, I put together a gang based on some of the characters in Deadwood (who are all based on real people).

I'll try putting it back together using the updated rules and see what I can come up with.

I think the problem with real gangs is, once you get them into game terms...they are pretty plain and boring. They pretty much all used pistols, maybe with a shotgun or rifle here or there. Individual members normally didn't have cool skills or heroic feats, they were just people with guns trying to make a living.

For example what is different between Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp?

 bosky wrote:
For example what is different between Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp?

Every gang needs some Henchmen

Real gangs boring? These are by and large legendary figures.

I would base a "real" gang on the stories and myths associated with the historical personages.

And who is to say they mostly used pistols? That's like saying prohibition-era gangsters are boring because they all used Thompson machine guns.

I guarantee you that a lot of these so-called 19th century American "gangsters" carried and used a wide variety of weapons during their careers. Do you think Jesse James never fired a rifle just because he was known to carry Peacemakers later in life? The gang carried both shotguns and winchester rifles during bank robberies.

And Jesse James is particularly associated with the pistol due to a variety of factors such as his paranoid tendency to never take off his sidearms, his bushwhacking days (in which the weapon of choice for such guerrillas was the .36 caliber 1851 Navy Colt), his propensity to engage in close quarters robberies, and his own self-created legend.

The irony here is that James' association with pistols IS part of his particular legend, which belies the reality of the weaponry carried and employed by him and his gang.

True the gangs do have quite a mythos surrounding them, but in game terms alone I just don't think they'd have the flair of an imaginary group. You wouldn't really get a strongman type who voluntarily carries and uses a hammer in combat. A prospector wouldn't be swinging his pickaxe. It sounds like it's just me, but I still feel that there isn't the same over the top characteristics as someone you make up.

I'm really not sure what the point of this discussion is anyway. If the OP's question is about players making their own gangs based on "real" gangs, what is the point of saying it wouldn't be any fun.

If the question has to do with Gangfight Studios producing miniatures and stats inspired by "real" gangs, then your point may have a little bit of merit, but the game is not about perfectly representing reality.

Why can't Virgil Earp be a Bounty Hunter, or Doc Holiday be a Wrassler?

Well, the point of the discussion, in my opinion, was to talk about thoughts on creating real historical gangs (as per the OP). I was mentioning some of the issues I've run into when trying to achieve that: Real gangs don't have cool mechanics. They are generally dudes with pistols.

Having to make Doc Holliday a Wrassler exemplifies that. It's a cool game mechanic, but not historical, thus why I'm saying imaginary characters can be more over the top and have more flair. :shrug:

 bosky wrote:
Well, the point of the discussion, in my opinion, was to talk about thoughts on creating real historical gangs (as per the OP). I was mentioning some of the issues I've run into when trying to achieve that: Real gangs don't have cool mechanics. They are generally dudes with pistols.

Having to make Doc Holliday a Wrassler exemplifies that. It's a cool game mechanic, but not historical, thus why I'm saying imaginary characters can be more over the top and have more flair. :shrug:

A: why does it have to be slavishly historical?

B: why would Doc Holiday being a wrassler not be historical anyhow? He was well known for murdering with a knife. Hell, the man could be a flipping DOCTOR. Or a Gunslinger just as easily. What about Bounty Hunter? Why not. How is Doc Holiday "just a guy with a pistol?" You do realize that many Doc Holiday sculpts around are based on Val Kilmer's portrayal in Tombstone, and have him carrying a shotgun as per the iconic OK corral scene.

Generally dudes with pistols? First, that isn't even historical. I think you are simply lacking in imagination. Is BWG more like a B Spaghetti Western? Sure, absolutely. Yet how many bad westerns feature characters based on historical personages? And what was ever wrong with being inspired by history, rather than slavishly realistic?

I just don't get where you are coming from. You are involved in a hobby that involves a crazy degree of creativity and imagination and yet you seem to posses none of it.

Haha you are misreading this waaaay too much. Relax.

The topic was historical gangs, I was talking about historical gangs. Historical gangs are generally not as over the top as an imagined gang, which I've been saying this whole time. I'm not incapable of imagining a fun gang or making up zany traits for characters, but that doesn't make it historically accurate, which is what the OP was about.

Honestly it sounds like we agree: plain historical gangs, not those BASED on them, are generally dull and unimaginative. As I said before, HAVING to make Doc Holliday a bounty hunter or wrestler (which he WAS NOT, historically), just proves that going purely by history means you end up with simple gangs.

Anyway I think we've beaten this topic to death, wouldn't you say?

saturnkk wrote:
Has there been any thought to creating any "real" historical gangs from the general time period (e.g. Earps, Clantons / Cowboys, James Gang, Regulators...)?!?

That's the OP. "Real" gangs. And you have still completely missed the point that actual, real, historically accurate gangs would not just be guys with pistols. So even you aren't really talking about historically, accurately boring gangs.

I just find your complete dismissal of the idea to be extremely odd. Why the hell not make "real" historical gangs? Why is it not historically accurate to use a set of rules, ABSENT fluff attachments, to represent something in a friggin' game? The Wrassler ability is only 1 extra attack in hand to hand and +1 MC. That's it. It doesn't say you can't use a gun. It doesn't say your character has to be a wacky miner with a pickaxe hopping around. It is just a rule. It doesn't force you to make Hammer Mc Hammerstein or Ninja Kung Foo Pirate. The BWG rules aren't so oppressively limited as to force every game to be an episode of Brisco County Jr.

And even if, if you felt that a "real" person would never have brought a knife to a gunfight, what in the name of God is wrong with making a "real" gang that is focused on ranged combat? What, My Earp brothers with their pistols, rifles, and shotguns can't play with your Bloodwolf tribe because it wouldn't be fun?

The only reason I see for Gangfight Studios to not produce "historical" miniatures is because the market is chock full of them. But if the market is chock full of them, why not have fun using them as the people they are supposed to represent within the BWG rules?

Hell, BWG is making a line of models inspired by the Firefly crew. How would those miniatures, if given "appropriate" stats as a BWG gang, not also fall within your weirdly unimaginative definition of a "boring" gang. The Serenity crew is exactly as much "just guys with pistols" as these historical personages we are talking about. Yet you might say, "well now, they use rifles and shotguns sometimes, right?" Yea, they do in the show, and so did Jesse James, Wild Bill, Billy the Kid, and Wyatt Earp in real life.

Seriously, how would you stat up a Serenity crew? Either you can't, because you can't imagine it being anything other than boring if done "accurately," or you can by applying the same sense of fun and creativity that you can use to represent historical personages.

You think the issue is talked to death, but I find it pretty annoying for someone to swing by a thread, dismiss an idea out of hand, and pretty much refuse to have a productive discussion about it. What a great way to support the game, Jack. Oh, you have an idea about using this game in a different sort of way. Well I think that's stupid, why don't you go somewhere's else.

As I said, I think you're misreading my posts. I can tell I struck a nerve with you, but I'm not trying to dismiss an idea. I'm just saying my experiences in the past trying to model a gang after historical figures. I guess my bad that my views aren't your views?

Anyway, like I said a post ago, relax. I like Blackwater Gulch and think Necros has done a phenomenal job with his Kickstarter and miniature line.

A real person does not equal an imaginary person, obviously. Similarly, the game is imaginary, as you well point out. The cognitive disconnect between us that that your perspective appears to be that because the game does not match well to reality, putting "real" people in the game does not work terribly well. My perspective, on the other hand, is that you can take liberties with reality to put historically-inspired characters into the game, while still being faithful to not only history, but popular culture.

The game system does not accurately model the mundanity of Wyatt Earp's life. But Wyatt Earp's life, and the American myths and legends that surround it, can be well modeled by the game system.

It is your inflexibility which I find rather odd. So you have found putting real gangs into BWG to be boring? How about discussing different ideas about how to do it; ideas that are different from yours. The nerve you struck is with your apparent unwillingness to contemplate breaking outside of your own box. You have put "real" BWG gangs into a "doesn't work well because it is boring" box. Okay, fine. But this thread can be a way to discuss possibilities, rather than failures.

Your response to the OP's post was basically, "I tried it and found it does not work well." In response I basically said that it can be done with a reorientation of perspective. Which precipitated a back and forth over whether it was even worth trying.

How about this. I'll build a Wyatt Earp gang and we can discuss what you do or do not like about the way I have done it, why you feel that way, and what other ways there may be to go about it.


Total XP (407)

Gang Leader:

Wyatt Earp (Gunslinger)
HP (3), DP (3), XP (111), Str (3), Qui (4), Sta (4), Int (5), RC (6), MC (4)
Skills: Run and Gun, Quick Draw, Deadeye, Bravery, Hearty
Equipment: Peacemaker, Winchester

Professionals:

Doc Holiday (Doctor)
HP (2), DP (2), XP (86), Str (3), Qui (6), Sta (2), Int (4), RC (5), MC (2)
Skills: Quick Draw, Run and Gun, Duck and Cover, Bravery
Equipment: S&M Frontier, S&M Frontier, Small Knife

Bat Masterson (Bounty Hunter)
HP (2), DP (2), XP (89), Str (4), Qui (2), Sta (4), Int (3), RC (5), MC (4)
Skills: Brute Strength, Hearty, Duelist
Equipment: Peacemaker, Sledge Hammer (Cane), Bowie Knife

Henchmen:

Morgan Earp
HP (1), DP (1), XP (60), Str (2), Qui (4), Sta (2), Int (2), RC (5), MC (1)
Skills: Quick Draw, Run and Gun
Equipment: S&M Frontier, S&M Frontier

Ed Masterson
HP (1), DP (1), XP (61), Str (3), Qui (2), Sta (2), Int (2), RC (4), MC (3)
Skills: Run and Gun
Equipment: Bowie Knife, Sharps, Cooper Navy Revolver

So we have Wyatt as the Gang Leader packing a Peacemaker and a Winchester. His steadfast presence and dauntless courage helps keep the gang firing true. Doc Holiday and Bat Masterson are Professionals. Doc is quick, which is important because his Stamina is crap thanks to his troubles with consumption. He's also able to lend his dentistry skills to his fellow gang members in a pinch, being a Doctor. Bat is slow, thanks to his wounded hip (a legend not reflected in reality), and provides some melee support for the gang with his trusty cane (here represented by the Sledgehammer weapon stats). He's also packing a wallop with his Peacemaker. The younger brothers of Wyatt and Bat, Morgan and Ed respectively, round out the gang as Henchmen. Ed works with Wyatt to supply long range firepower, hankering back to the simpler days of buffalo hunting, and Morgan is a little Doc Holiday, brash, quick, and sporting a brace of Frontiers with the skills to bring them to bear.

What I have tried to do here is create a balanced gang that nevertheless reflects the spirit of the historical personages. You've got a mix of long and short range weaponry, plenty of power from the high level pistols, a Doc to keep the gang going if needed, and even some melee backup if things fall to close quarters.