The Strange West

Hey all, I've been wanting to run a game of The Strange and I'm trolling for interest. My inclination is to start the characters in a wild west recursion, and go from there.

If you're not familiar with The Strange, it is the same game as Numenera, and the mechanics are very rules light. Basically you roll a d20, don't add or subtract anything, compare it to a target number that scales with difficulty.

My commitment would extend to two story posts a week, and I would expect the same from players.

If you're interested, post here. I'll develop the story background more if interest emerges.

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Note to Keleth: we can just use Numenera character sheets, as I am unaware of any differences. If you made a specific The Strange char sheet, you probably just would need to change the logo.

I'd join under two conditions...
* I get to be Lee Van Cleef
* Someone explains the rules to me

Lee Van Cleef is perfect. The rules are crazy simple, roll a d20. Ill put up a guide for character creation at some point.

I'm familiar with Numenera, but not The Strange. I understand the mechanics are almost exactly the same, but I know nothing of the characters, setting, etc. I don't suppose there's an SRD I can review?

I'd be interested in joining on!

There isn't an online SRD that I am aware of. The setting will be essentially homebrew, in that you would start in a "recursion", or mini-world, that I've created, based on the Wild West (standard physics). The characters are similar to as in Numenera, but have different names (Vector/Paradox/Spinner instead of Glaive/Nano/Jack). Here is a good base for what character creation in The Strange is like: http://schirduans.com/david/2015/01/welcome-to-the-strange.html.

If you don't have access to a book, then we can work around that, and maybe a pre-gen would work out.

Ok, if you're ok with a pre-gen, I'm totally fine with that. Sometimes I find it easier to play an established character rather than make a new one. Basically, give me the concept (and character sheet) and I'll play it. I'm open to any character type, gender, etc. If I see anything that I want to put a personal spin on it, I'll know.
Thanks a lot for this! :)

Awesome! With at least the three of you, I'm comfortable going ahead. I'll go ahead and hire a six year old to see if there are any obvious holes in my meta-plot. My plan is then to start up the game next week. I'll open the game on Monday with a brief on the setting and a character creation guide, and then we can see about character creation during that week. Hopefully, we can start telling each other stories the following Monday (May 19).

There will be room for a couple more peeps should anyone be interested.

I am interested! Keep me posted!

Ah i got it now... We're not playing Italo western, we're playing Dr. Who, the western episode :-D

But I'll keep my idea... maybe a "Vengeful Paraox who Hunts with great skill" would match Colonel Mortimer fronm the Dollar Trilogy...
Bounty hunter, more Intelligence and technic based.

Uh ... I understood about half of that, but ok. Yeah strange stuff in a western, right? Haha, maybe I don't understand the setting either.

So you don't know The TV series Dr Who... wich is about time and dimensional travel...
Maybe you know the 80s series "Sliders" about dimensional travel?
As I read the introduction Qralloq provided it is a dimension travel game. We are just starting in a wild west dimension and surely will travel to different universes as the story goes on.
The phrase I provided is the heart of the character generation as I understand. It contains the three main traits of the character. :-)
(See Numenara character sheet)
The character I want to play is "Colonel Douglas Mortimer" from the 1965 spaghetti western "For a few dollars more" played by Lee van Cleef alongside Clint Eastwood. If you haven't you really should watch that movie . It is great.

Colonel Douglas Mortimer

Spaghetti western? Is that like a parody? Yeah I've never been able to watch a western. Just didn't click with me. Hmm, this should be an interesting game if I have no idea what goes on ... But I did see Wild Wild West.

Look it up on wikipedia :) It is a subgenre of western.
But Wild Wild West has the right vibe. You can go with that in mind. It will be up to our GM how much steam punk will be in this western world. But the mindset is the right one :-)

Sitch update: Making good progress on the game set up - I've got the character creation and mechanics guide roughed in. Plot and story hooks are up next. First, must find my copy of High Plains Drifter...

This evening I'll post some setting and story hook details. Spoiler: gameplay to start in a recursion that looks a lot like Texas, circa 1850. I've also drafted some mechanics summaries and a character creation guide, but it was detailed enough that I decided I should run it past Monte Cook Games to make sure that I didn't violate their Fan Use policy. I haven't heard back from them yet, but I didn't expect them to right away.

I'm not sure what Keleth's time frame is for setting up The Strange as a separate system from Numenera, but if that doesn't happen this week, then we'll just run it as Numenera - the char sheets have the same details. We'll get that all decided before the weekend.

Sounds good. I'm not familiar with a Fan Use Policy, but I would think giving information to your players would be fine. Can't wait to get things started! :-)

Setting info:

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The Strange West

A play-by-post game for www.gamersplane.com

Texas, circa 1850. The railroad has expanded the reach of civilization, but outside of the frontier towns, pockets of savagery and anarchy abound. Ranchers protect their herds of longhorns with small militias of cowboys from rustlers and competitors, abused natives rally back against the invaders of their shrinking ranges, and the Mexican government seeks to regain lost territory. In this world, simple people attempt to scratch a living out of the earth, establish farms, and raise their families, while independent minded folk find what morally ambiguous work they can. This is a land rife with equal parts opportunity and hardship.

Be you a cowpoke, a hired gun, a soldier, a bandito, a lawman, an entrepreneur, a gold miner, a craftsman, or any of a hundred other types that can be found in The Strange West, you find yourself in Texas, in the employ of an old man named Louis (Lew'-ee) Garderose. Louis sought each of you out individually, having heard stories about you from your neighbors or past acquaintances, although you may or may not understand what it is about yourself that drew him to you. Louis requires a small band of sharp-witted people to escort him to Fort Alamo, the scene of a series of gruesome murders. He asked each of you to meet him in Rio Grande City, on June 4, 1851, where your posse would gather before proceeding to Fort Alamo.

Louis is well past his prime, and has a slight palsy to him, but his suspicious eye gleams sharp. Still, why this old man seeks to investigate murders on the border of Mexico, he has not said.

For character creation, choose a concept that would fit in this setting. I require that your character is motivated to assist Louis, and be more or less inclined to right wrongs, no matter how far buried this may be beneath a gruff exterior. Available foci are listed below. If you have your heart set on something else from the published books of The Strange, pitch it to me in a direct message, and I'll work with you to fit it in.

Schedule
- week of Monday, May 11 - setting details released, character pitches, character creation
- Game will start on Monday, May 18
a. the game will be launched on www.gamersplane.com, including first scene (I'm leaving this to the last moment to give Keleth time to implement The Strange specifically - given my short notice to him, we may start the game using Numenera)
b. characters submitted
c. charge!

Available Foci

From The Strange or the The Strange Player’s Guide by Monte Cook Games:
-Adapts to Any Environment
-Conducts Weird Science
-Entertains
-Is Licensed to Carry
-Leads
-Looks for Trouble
-Operates Undercover
-Solves Mysteries
-Wields Two Weapons at Once

From The Translation Codex, by Ryan Chaddock Games
-Pseudoscientific - Adopts Animal Qualities
-Pseudoscientific - Conducts Dangerous Experiments
-Pseudoscientific - Employs Fantastic Gadgets
-Pseudoscientific - Mixes Unstable Concoctions
-Pseudoscientific - Pursues Physical Perfection
-Wild West - Carries a Badge
-Wild West - Draws Faster
-Wild West - Fights Dirty
-Wild West - Knows These Parts
-Wild West - Rides into the Sunset

How about htis pitch:

"Vengeful Paradox who Hunts with great skill"

I chose this because it is versatile if the campaign later switches universe... And it matches the bounty hunter style I'd like to go for.

Background: Colonel Douglas Mortimer lost his little brother to a mad bandido. El Indio desired the same woman as the brother but she chose the brother. When the couple was in bed one night El Indio broke in, shot the brother and raped the woman who killed herself in the process by biting her tongue off. Indio then stole the special pocket watch. Mortimer and his brother each had one. It is made of etched silver and plays a special eerie melody when opened.
Mortimer hunts Indio down and kills him in a final duel helped by a nameless stranger. Mortimer buried the watch with his brother. Mortimer still uses his watch as a timer for duels and as his personal signature when making dramatic entrances etc..
(Yey, I'm using the movie as my background story.)

After being done with his initial revenge he has no special goal in life any more but still is driven by his desire for justice. He sticks to what he is good at: Bounty hunting.

Colonel Mortimer is a former military man now in his early fifties. He has a very good pedigree there before he resigned for his revenge. He dresses well and cares for his appearance.

He has also got some affinity to technical things. He uses the most modern and efficient weapons and equipment. His revolver is modified to add a rifle butt and a scope and he owns a precision lever action repeating rifle.

Colonel Douglas Mortimer in action... This is exactly how I envision him although the weapons are a bit different (at least 25 years later)

The watch...

Here are the weapons Colonel Mortimer uses. They were brand new in 1851. Only 2000 of the rifles were ever produced.

Volcanic Repeating Arms

My character sheet is already in the library :-)

Looks good, Chocokiko!

Hi, so if this hasn't started yet I would love to play! This would be my first play-by-post game, but I've played a lot of d20 games tabletop. Let me know!

Hi hyconnor. There is still room, welcome aboard!

Awesome thanks for having me

I'm liking the idea of a Bandito of some sort, perhaps one that can perform tricks shots with his Wields Two Weapons at Once focus. Have to give it some more thought and see what I can come up with.

EDIT: A Fast Spinner who Wields Two Weapons at Once

That's great, I was hoping for some mucho bandito action!

So, what about weapons? I'm thinking my bandito, Diego Rey, will be a knife wielder up close (one in each hand) and have himself a couple of classic western six shooters for range.

Sounds good. Just like in Numenera, weapons are either light, medium or heavy and do fixed damage for their category.

I think in this case the knives would be light and the shooters would be medium. Can only dual wield the two knives simultaneously as a first tier character.

There are light handguns, too. Not sure if the Wields Two Weapons at Once precludes ranged, but if it is ambiguous I think it would be okay.

I've written a brief backstory in the notes section of my character sheet. I'll fill in the rest when I get the info. (Thanks again Qralloq)

Ill send you the pregen we discussed by private message.

Ok. No rush. :-)

By the way, how do I fill in the rest of the character sheet? I only have focus and backstory now.

chocokiko, I'll send you the Paradox info by PM.

How many players are you interested in running for? I loved the little bit of Numenera I played, and I like the style of the Western genre! It would also be cool to bring those characters into another recursion, having them freak out over something they don't understand haha.

I'm interested, but if you've got too many people already I understand. :)

I was thinking 5 or 6 players at the most, so there is room for you Morrowlife. Do you have a char concept? If you want, think of a Numenera style char and we'll convert it.

Qralloq: I added in all info as I understood it but had some Questions. I sent them via PM.

I don't have a concept currently, but give me a couple days to get the core book pdf (I was planning on getting it eventually) and I can go for it!

If anyone is interested in one of these 3rd party foci, let me know and I'll PM the details later on. Additionally, as I may or may not have mentioned elsewhere, Numenera types and foci may also work, just let me know and we'll see if we can make it work.

As an aside, when translating to a new recursion, you have the choice to adopt a new focus, so you're not stuck with something inappropriate later on. So choose a focus that makes sense for your character 'while in the Strange West' rather than everywhere. For example, if you chose "Knows These Parts" but ended up in a fantasy world, you could swap it for "Shepherds the Dead" or something else.

Since I don't have a book for The Strange, I'm curious what category a rifle goes in. I'm sure pistols/handguns/revolvers/etc are small, but the only defining characteristic for a medium weapon is that it can be used with one hand even if it's normally used with two hands. Would a rifle then be heavy if it takes two hands?

I think there should be some houseruling going on for the wild west. I gather weapons do fixed damage so I would categorize by real world damage.

* small (knive, derringer)
* medium (revolver, pistol)
* large (rifle, shotgun)

Actually, in the rules, there are handguns that are light, and handguns that are heavy. Similarly, some rifles could even qualify as light. Just choose what you want. Your characters may not be skilled in medium or heavy weapons, that doesn't mean that you can't use, say, a small airgun-like rifle.

The hardworking administration team of Gamersplane.com has worked triple overtime and installed the various libraries and customized artwork necessary for The Strange to operate as its own system.

The game is now open and has its own forum. The Strange West

Please submit your requests and we can get going. The plan is for gameplay to start Monday, and this weekend we can get characters built, at least in concept if not completely.

Whew, a time crunch! I will try, friend, but honestly I don't know if I can make it by then.

Awesome!

I'm not seeing the game listed anywhere but this thread. That link just takes me to the forums page. Am I missing something?

It's set as private. If you go to Games, then choose Join a Game, it should appear. Once you've been accepted, you will be able to see the forum.

I'm actually working on an invite system as we speak!

I made it public.

So I'm working on a character now. I'm assuming character options book for The Strange is okay? If not I'll just forgo it, no issues.

That its fine with me, except the foci. I listed the available foci in this thread.

Got it, foci are off limits. Just good to know my limits.

There is a spot open in The Strange West. While the game isn't showing up in "Join a Game" but let me know if you're interested - I know a guy and can get you in.

I see it in "Join a Game" maybe Keleth already fixed it?

It won't show up in Join a Game if you're already in the game :D

Huzzah for Keleth the miracle worker!