Quote from: Warthur;250142Who needs all that book-learnin' anyway?

I agree, it's bending the genre over backwards. The west is no place for book learning and extensive modern investigative methods, I'd feel ripped off if I was invited to such a game.

I assume the OP has players who agree with him and are happy with this. And that's fine. But given that he's fitting a square peg into a round hole with this, I have no suggestions for hauling hundreds of pounds of books around in the old west while rejecting genre things like private or company owned trains...

Other folks what might be havin' th' right musty ol' books hangin' 'bout:

The lovely school marm: That's right pardner, she's as chaste as th' blessed virgin an' she's got th' devil's own library right out from Salem.  (virgin birth story line optional)

The travelling medicine show: Doc Winter's on th' run pardner.  's why he never hangs 'round one place.  His linament's good as gold an' cheap at a dollar fifty a bottle.  He's got lots o' old books in that painted wagon an' plenty of 'em ain't on doctorin'.

The man of god: th' parson's as cold as th' grave.  Stood down three robbers with nothin' but a book in 'is hand.  Them fellas turned white as ghosts an' lit outta town right fast.  I hear tell they was all dead of th' chills inside three days.  Funny thing is that from what I could see that book was no bible.

Like Koltar suggested the Telegraph, Pony Express, and Carrier Pigeons are great "shticks". Also Like Dave Johansen mentions perhaps strategically placing small but useful occult libraries in places like Salt Lake City, Chicago, and other established cities should be easy. (Use Wiki to see what cities actually had libraries?)

Also what about having access to Pinkerton's passing through? Trains, carriages, etc...Which keeps them from being able to regularly access information.

The bandit: ol' Jack Thompson's none too bright and he means to change that.  Nowadays they'd likely have some high fallutin' name fer what he is like "psychopath" or summat.  But, thing is Jack is a killer.  He's got a wagon and some oxen an' he picks up stakes now and then to sit near another trail an' kill less wary folk.  Thing is, ol' Jack's been told if he got some learnin' he'd be sharper, so he's been keepin' the books what folks have.  His wagon's right full of 'em an' he's got no notion of which side is up.

The town drunk: Bob Hamsford's a funny sort.  Went away to school,  travelled in Europe, fought in some foriegn war, maybe, you can't always believe what a fella says when he's got two quarts of hard liquor in him.  That old shack he bought when he first come to town's got a couple o' trunks full o' books in 'em.  He's still got some of his pa's money I recon.  Enough for the next few bottles of whiskey at any rate.  A few folks have supposedly tried to rob him and never been seen again.  But then I already told you not to believe everything a drunk says.   Heck, nobody even knows why he came out west, or why he drinks, or why he brought all them books when he never reads them.

Of all things take inspiration from the TV series "DEADWOOD' - but not how you might expect.
The first season of 'DEADWOOD' is set 2 years before the year of your campaign. On the show they portrayed all levels of literacy.  Notice that even a town/camp as small as that one had a working newspaper - that later had the telegraph attached to it. (makes sense).

Notice also that the Scoundrel & con-man Swearingen could quote both the Bible and Shakespeare from time to time - not perfectly , but he was familiar enough with both to do so.  If you look at the furnishings of Al's rooms and also the rooms of the Hotel that was featured ...there always seems to be a bookcase with at least 3 or 4 books there, often times more. Also, normally a writing desk of some kind.

 The town's Newspaperman might have an ad-hoc collected encyclopedia of mismatched publishers and copyrights as well as a passable dictionary.  Same might be said if the town has a small school with a schoolmarm or bachelor traveling teacher.


One  possible source of information for your players might be a Preacher that travels a circuit spreading the good word and is in contact with 3 or 4 towns. He might make a good recurring NPC and potential ally. Thats one person that would be in a uniquely perfect position to spot disquieting trends an ominous instances of missing persons.


- Ed C.

Quote from: gleichman;250334I agree, it's bending the genre over backwards. The west is no place for book learning and extensive modern investigative methods, I'd feel ripped off if I was invited to such a game.

I assume the OP has players who agree with him and are happy with this. And that's fine. But given that he's fitting a square peg into a round hole with this, I have no suggestions for hauling hundreds of pounds of books around in the old west while rejecting genre things like private or company owned trains...

Bending the genre? Hardly.

Koltar has touched on it, but education was not uncommon in the West. That was a time when a high school education included Latin. College meant Greek studies.

One of the most successful cattle barons was a Harvard graduate, and numerous other Ivy Leaguers were prominant in the West. The US Army was lead by graduates of one of the best engineering schools of its time. Of famous 'shootists', one was a dentist (Doc Holliday), and several (Masterson, Earp, Thompson) went on to careers as writers. Outlaws such as the James Brothers and Hardin, to name a few, not only were literate, but left behind extensive writings, to include journals, legal briefs, and detailed accounts of events. Newspapers were extremely common, and very influential.

As to lugging around books, sales catalogs of the day have extensive lines of crates, valises, and trunks designed to do just that-transport books. Several companies starting in the 1850s were devoted to the business of selling books to people out West, and did a thriving business, as did companies which sold sheet music and musical instruments. The USPS records indicate that in additional to a heavy volume of personal mail, there was a massive weight of Eastern newspapers and magazines send to subscribers out West. In fact, the Bass, James, and simplar gangs commonly took newspapers from the mail car when they robbed trains.

As to investigation methods, this was an era of development and improvisation; blood splatter studies were conducted in nearly every state and Territory, and were used in criminal cases from the early 1870s on. You can see excellent crime scene sketches from this period and earlier in the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, and despite their claim to be the best at everything, they were hardly unique in this practice. While the forensic asrts were minimal, the study and explotation of visible physical evidence was well-developed. Dodge City's city expense ledgers note regular payments to the owner of a candy store who lent his artistic talents to sketching crime scenes and drawing suspects based on eyewitness tesimony (he got the princely sum of $0.75 an image). Several of his drawings are still preseved in criminal files of the period.

The burg I work in was a wild & wooly place in the 1870s-on the edge of the 'Ranger line', later 'the fort trail'; subjected to Comanche raids, habitual violence (three successive Sherriffs died in office, all of gunfire), and a haunt of such murderous scum as John Wesley Hardin, Sam Bass, and their ilk. It had over a dozen saloons and several brothels.

And a university. A high school. A library. The County and City ledgers of the period are on display, showing meticulous double-entry book keeping. Includeing the costs of burying men killed in gun battles in the town streets.
It also had a soda fountain, two book stores, and a music store. In a town of less than six thousand inhabitants at the time. (of course, they serviced a large rual and small town population).

'Book learning'? Absolutely essential to the genre. Anything else would be terribly inappropriate. The West was built by men of education backed by Eastern money-they surveyed the land, fought legal battles whose precedents form the foundations of modern title law, and built up half the state organizations and penal codes of the USA.

Know the genre is a rule every GM should follow. No place for 'book learnin'? Might as well say there's no place for Indians.

Quote from: OneTinSoldier;250435Bending the genre? Hardly.

As long as your players would buy into this, all is good and it doesn't matter that I think it's a terrible idea.

And genre <> history btw, thus your history 'lesson' was not only known by me- it was wasted air against a point that I never made.

Quote from: gleichman;250437As long as your players would buy into this, all is good and it doesn't matter that I think it's a terrible idea.

And genre <> history btw, thus your history 'lesson' was not only known by me- it was wasted air against a point that I never made.

'Buy'?

History=genre.

Quote from: OneTinSoldier;250438'Buy'?

History=genre.

If you're unaware of what 'Buy-In" is, it's no wonder you don't understand the difference between History and Genre as it would be commonly understood.

If you're interested:

Buy or Buy-In is the acceptance by all concerned of the ground rules and direction of a process, i.e. your campaign.


History = actual history

Genre generally references a fictional construction unless specifically defined otherwise. Thus  a Western setting is not that of history, but that of the movies and novels. Here in the States the Western Genre used to be huge (and still has great influence), and breaking its rules (like turning it into a game of hardcore research) is a serious break with genre expectations. It can be done of course, but in so doing you could have rebellion on your hands if the players are true fans of the genre.

Quote from: gleichman;250442If you're unaware of what 'Buy-In" is, it's no wonder you don't understand the difference between History and Genre as it would be commonly understood.

If you're interested:

Buy or Buy-In is the acceptance by all concerned of the ground rules and direction of a process, i.e. your campaign.


History = actual history

Genre generally references a fictional construction unless specifically defined otherwise. Thus  a Western setting is not that of history, but that of the movies and novels. Here in the States the Western Genre used to be huge (and still has great influence), and breaking its rules (like turning it into a game of hardcore research) is a serious break with genre expectations. It can be done of course, but in so doing you could have rebellion on your hands if the players are true fans of the genre.

Living in the West my entire life, I obviously missed the impact of the 'genre'. The novels I read tended to focus on historical conditions. Even as a kid I knew that the Hollywood westerns were hokey kid stuff. I would no more use it in a RPG than the drek you see in TV cop shows in a modern setting.

And no, I will have no rebellion. My players are adults who likewise have grown up in Western states and are educated. They know a campaign set in the Old West will be based on the Old West, not on Hollywood. When I run a campaign based on a historical period, even one with an altered timeline, it will be grounded on that period.

Which leaves me with the the same issue: a viable method for PCs accessing significant research material. Koltar has helped with the short & mid-term issues, but I am still left with the two or three detailed, in-depth research issues that the campaign will require, figuring at twelve to fifteen session intervals.

The search goes on.

Quote from: OneTinSoldier;250449Even as a kid I knew that the Hollywood westerns were hokey kid stuff.

Ah. Seems they don't have 'Buy In' in the 'real' west.

Not to get in the way of your regional elitism or anything (as if I didn't also grow up in the real West of Dodge City and the Land Rush myself) - but the next time you ask for advice you may wish to make clear up front that you're going for a very realistic and non-genre version of the West. You know, attempt to communicate to people.

Because knowing, accepting and using common language helps in that believe it or not.

Quote from: gleichman;250455Ah. Seems they don't have 'Buy In' in the 'real' west.

Not to get in the way of your regional elitism or anything (as if I didn't also grow up in the real West of Dodge City and the Land Rush myself) - but the next time you ask for advice you may wish to make clear up front that you're going for a very realistic and non-genre version of the West. You know, attempt to communicate to people.

Because knowing, accepting and using common language helps in that believe it or not.

I am running a genre West. History=genre.

And the question wasn't regarding setting, it was regarding how PCs with the proper academic background could gain access to suitable reference libraries in the Old West.

Not whether 'book learning' was or was not historically accurate, or even Hollywood accurate, but rather a non-gimmick-y method of PC access to such a library.

A question still partially unanswered. Any suggestions?

OnrTinSoldier,

 This page might help with some references for the time period:

http://timelines.ws/1877_1878.HTML

Although it sounds like you're pretty well-read on the background(or parts of it) as is.


A few tidbits from that page:

Quote1877 August 29, The second president of the Mormon Church, Brigham Young, died in Salt Lake City, Utah.
    (AP, 8/29/97)

1877 August: In the midst of a recession and the turmoil of anti-Chinese riots, San Franciscans decided to build a public library.
    (SFC, 4/14/96, EM, p.20)

and also:

Quote1878 February 16: The silver dollar became US legal tender.
    (MC, 2/16/02)

1878 February 18: The bitter and bloody Lincoln County War began with the murder of Billy the Kid's mentor, Englishman rancher John Tunstall. Hired killers of James J. Dolan gunned down John Tunstall in Lincoln, N.M. Tunstall's partner Alexander McSween formed a posse known as the Regulators to get even. Billy the Kid was part of the posse.
    (SFEC, 2/23/96, p.T8,9)(HN, 2/18/99)

1878 February 19: Thomas Edison received a U.S. patent for "an improvement in phonograph or speaking machines."
    (AP, 2/19/07)

- Ed C.

That's a very useful link-thanks!

Quote from: gleichman;250455[T]he next time you ask for advice you may wish to make clear up front that you're going for a very realistic and non-genre version of the West. You know, attempt to communicate to people.

Because knowing, accepting and using common language helps in that believe it or not.

I don't know... the OP's first post seems to satisfy what you are looking for in this post.

   Here's the setting:

Old West, 1878, with a moderate deviation from history (does not affect technology or major political developments).