Mainly it's thatmy time for RPGs is extremely limited so the less time I have to spend modifying a game, the better, so my preference is a game we can jump right into as written. Don't want to have to extract a bunch of stuff I know I will never use.

Matt- I hear you on the limited time for gaming.  I have two young kids:)

Definitely take Simlasa's advice with THW and download the free rules first.  Give them a brief read and just play a couple of games.  The rules can seem different at first and do play better than read.

If you decide to get Six Gun Sound: Blaze of Glory I'd recommend getting the pdf and printing it out.  All of the THW books that I've gotten are comb bound affairs- you're losing nothing by going the pdf route and printing it yourself.

If I recall right, the biggest difference between the free rules and the standard books is the campaign specific material and rules changes specific for that setting.  For example, I played All Things Zombie a while back.  Each time you fired a gun, there was a chance zombies that weren't seen on the table would appear out of nowhere.  Pretty neat:)  ATZ also had a very abstracted combat system for fights within a building that you entered.  Also the book had an outline for a campaign you could follow.

Quote from: Matt;805994So I'd like to get my friends to play a Western RPG as a break from our AD&D game as I'm not all that into fantasy anyway. I used to have Aces & Eights but found it was too rules-heavy for me and wasted too many pages on its alternate history setting for me. Traded A&8s away for some Traveller stuff. Loved the shot clock but damned if I couldbe bothered with so many rules and I prefer to set such games in the "real world" Old West (as in no zombies or magic Injuns or "the Confederacy won" and such, more like a good Louis L'Amour tale). The only Western RPG I have now is 3rd Ed Boot Hill. I like it find but was wondering if there are any others I should check out? My main criteria are that the game should be fairly easy for a player to create a character and walk right into the saloon and start adventuring and I don't want to deal with "fantasy Western" or soi-disant "Weird West" stuff that has to be extracted from the game to play in a more real setting. Oh, and please don't suggest any "universal systems" like GURPS, Hero, or Savage Worlds as I personally just want a Western game; I don't want to have to tailor my own game from a toolkit. And very important to me is I want an actual book, not a PDF as my eyes can't take it. Any good ones out there? Is non-fantastic Western a tall order?

Happy trails!

Since you have got Traveller, I would suggest checking this out. Just ignore the xenomorphs part.

Quote from: 3rik;806028Another light western game that I really like is Gunslingers & Gamblers. It's available for two different rules sets. For a print version you'll have to go to Lulu.

This is the one that uses poker dice innit? I should check it out sometime.

I heart my copy of Boot Hill 3.

Quote from: Raven;806053This is the one that uses poker dice innit? I should check it out sometime.

I heart my copy of Boot Hill 3.

Yes, people seem to enjoy that a lot but I personally prefer the Streamline edition, which is an elegant d100-based rules set also used in the same publisher's Privateers & Pirates game.

I really love  me some Coyote Trail! It's a wonderful take on Western gaming.

Agreed, Coyote Trail is a darn good Western RPG that fits all the OP's criteria since you can get a softcover book. Also you have Colonial Record supplement for Last of the Mohicans goodness.  It's my favorite of the Genre Diversion games I think.

D&D 5e + DMG. Remove the magic classes and spells, restrict race & remaining sub-classes, add in DMG gun rules. Think about shifting Short & Long Rest duration and HD healing.

I'm doing something similar setting wise, except 5e RAW. The system is surprisingly robust so far. I already have a feel for how it would be if I shifted the grittiness.

I've played short campaigns of both Coyote Trail and Aces & Eights, I really like both of them, but don't feel that either would work for me as a full-campaign.
Coyote Trail is a bit too rules-light, Aces & Eights a bit too rules-heavy.

Was there an OSR wild-west game? Or did I dream it?
I don't mean Boot Hill, I mean some kind of D&D-clone expressly for wild west play?

Quote from: RPGPundit;806233Was there an OSR wild-west game? Or did I dream it?
I don't mean Boot Hill, I mean some kind of D&D-clone expressly for wild west play?

You might think of Microlite20 Tumbleweed that I have linked above: http://www.retroroleplaying.com/forum/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=108

Microlite20 is not an OSR game per se, although it comes close enough as far as I am concerned. It probably wouldn't be too hard to mesh the Tumbleweed setting rules with an actual OSR Microlite variant like Microlite74 or Microlite81, if the standard M20 is too "new-school" for you.

Forgot all about this one, Shotguns & Saddles.  From what I recall, it was really good.

I'm looking into Coyote Trail. Probably go with that or just use Boot Hill. Trying to find useful reviews of Coyote Trail. Found one that left me with some reservations due to notes about the ease of called head shots resulting in instant death.

As for someone's suggestion of 5th Ed D&D: I don't want to buy a $100 game I'd never use for anything else just so I can do the work of turning it into a game it was not built to be. I'm not a fan of classes and levels anyway. Nor a fan of D&D: I play it only as a way to rope in players and then introduce them to better games that I enjoy much more.

If your not a fan of D&D. classes, dense rules, or levels. Why not run GURPS lite(which is free), along with a PDF of Old West?

Quote from: Ronin;806291If your not a fan of D&D. classes, dense rules, or levels. Why not run GURPS lite(which is free), along with a PDF of Old West?

You know what, I forgot I have GURPS Old West. I'll have to take a look a that. Thanks for the suggestion.

I thought FGU's Wild West was pretty good, but if you dig GURPS then I'd go with that.

I'm not keen on A&8's alt-history, but wouldn't look to a rules set to be a history book. When we played Boot Hill, we used the Time-Life series (which a friend's parents had).