Worldbuilding Elements of a Western
Readers of the blog may have noticed that both of my newly published homebrew work is centered very much on the Wild West. This is because my current home game is set in a fantasy version of the American West, so it has been dominating my personal homebrewing for the past few years while we've played that campaign. For today's post, I wanted to zoom out from specific homebrew products and talk more generally about how to develop a "Wild West" atmosphere for a TTRPG campaign.
This is going to focus on key elements for worldbuilding, rather than writing a plot to a Western. There are boatloads of other blogs and resources for writing in the genre of a western which were helpful to me in constructing the broad outlines of the campaign I'm running currently, but I found comparatively little advice on how to adapt the setting of the Wild West into an original world. Let this post serve as your checklist for that element, and if you're trying to come up with a plot, I'll refer you to the great rabbit hole generator of the internet, TV Tropes.
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The Law
One of the most important elements of a "Wild West" world is the role and scope of the forces of the law. Historically, during American expansion into the frontier, the central government was fairly non-existent. Most "western" narratives take place in a U.S. territory – a region that has not yet become a state. Even without the legal distinction of statehood, territorial governments did have their own legal enforcement systems, including courts. These judicial systems often lacked much oversight, according to famed historian Dee Brown. Local judges, including those who "rode circuit" – meaning those who traveled around, hearing cases, rather than being stuck in one place – often had a lot of independent power, allowing them to interpret the law as they saw fit.
As far as actual enforcement of the laws went, that depended on the population of an individual town. While larger towns might hire a sheriff to run their local law enforcement, the U.S. Marshals acted to investigate and arrest suspects out in the lands between towns where many criminals made their hideouts. One of the most famous of these is Wyatt Earp of "O.K. Corral" fame.
Some famous archetypes have emerged out of the real-life conditions of the lackluster law enforcement out in the West: the corrupt judge profiting by the lack of oversight, and the grizzled veteran marshal or sheriff who hunts his opponents across many miles (the role of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, or basically any role played by John Wayne).
The role of the marshal is particularly important in the genre of the Western. Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) takes on the role of Marshal in the space western The Mandalorian as he tracks the protagonist across the galaxy. Rooster Cogburn of True Grit takes on the same role in the more traditional Western genre, as I already noted. In Breaking Bad, a modern adaptation of the genre, Hank Schrader of the DEA plays the role of the doggedly pursuing marshal.
Still, that verges into discussing genre plot structures; the focus of this is on the worldbuilding for a fictional Western atmosphere. The law needs to be both uncomfortably close, something that is in pursuit of criminals, and also far away enough that individuals play more of a role than the organization. An individual marshal following our protagonists is far more 'Western' than facing down a large city watch.
In keeping with an essential piece of RPG advice penned by the AngryGM (one of my favorite DM advice blogs), our factions should have a single NPC face. Expanding then on our examples of marshals from above, we can find exactly how they manage to create this dogged marshal character.
Moff Gideon is a representative of the Imperial Remnant in the Mandalorian. However, the focus – especially in the first season, which was the most genre-fitting season – was not on the Remnant as a whole. The Imperial Remnant was weak and distant, struggling for a grasp on power. Gideon, on the other hand, had one major goal in tracking down the protagonist. The Imperial Remnant felt weak because it was just one faction among many.
True Grit obviously takes place in the 'real world,' but it also distances itself from the power of the U.S. government by having the story take place in Indian Country, where most marshals do not even risk entering. It certainly does not happen back east where the U.S. has real presence. The U.S. government is made to feel weak because of its geographical removal from the events of the plot.
Breaking Bad has one of the closest and strongest government arms of our Western fiction, in large part because it is set in a modern version of the U.S. where the government is powerful. Here, the government is made to feel weak because the DEA is being pulled in so many different directions. Their focus is on the cartel for much of the first several seasons, and so with the exception of Hank and his partner, the agency's attention is not focused on the more important criminals.
The Western genre relies upon a weak government. It does not have to actually be weak overall, though it can be, but it must be weak in the location of our game. A powerful central king with a skilled spy network is a great fantasy trope, but it fundamentally does not work in a Western genre campaign. If the government must be strong elsewhere, it needs to be distant or otherwise distracted. This allows for a marshal figure, someone who is willing to fixate on the heroes, to take a more important role.
A Recent War
Another key element of the West is the social and cultural clash that happened in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Having a major ideological struggle that has just reached a conclusion at the start of the period of frontier expansion is critical in getting the proper vibe for your world.
The Civil War was critical to the actual settlement of the West. Modern scholarship estimates that one in four cowboys was black, with many of them moving west due to the failure of the U.S. government to provide job opportunities in the South following the abolition of slavery. The same westward migration for formerly enslaved people can be seen in the AMC show, Hell on Wheels, where racial dynamics make up a major part of the first season's plot, which begins with the assassination of Lincoln to directly set the era of the show.
A great many classic Western images are also spurred by the Civil War. Many of the marshals and outlaws of the frontier were former soldiers, especially Confederate soldiers. Rooster Cogburn from True Grit? A former confederate. Real-life outlaws like Jesse James? He too fought to continue slavery. In fact, historian T.J. Stiles argues that Jesse James's raids were fundamentally an effort to continue fighting the Civil War even after it was over and that James never 'gave up' his fight.
An element of this in fiction is due to the "lost cause" narrative, the story that the civil war was not fought over slavery, but instead that it was some sort of glorious rebellion, which grew in prominence in the decades immediately following the war. The Lost Cause narrative tries to make ex-confederates supposedly sympathetic heroes. While that narrative is inaccurate, it dominates a lot of western media. However, Jesse James and Wyatt Earp (who repeatedly tried to enlist for the Union but was too young) show us that, with many American men in the era having fought in the war on one side or the other, veterans of the Civil War on both sides did truthfully dominate the ranks of the western-bound settlers of the 1870s.
We can see the importance of a major war in modern fictional adaptations as well. The Mandalorian takes place after the Galactic Civil War of the original Star Wars movies which decimated the power of the central government. Joss Whedon's Firefly is even more explicit in parallels to the Lost Cause style of Western, where the "Independents" who lost a recent civil war make up the protagonists of the show, long for their failed rebellion, continue to try to resist the government (just like Jesse James), and who even name their ship after the site of their side's major defeat.
Having a major ideological war, and having player characters and NPCs be veterans of that conflict to some extent, also provides an important Western characteristic for our game. Warfare also helps weaken the government, our other crucial ingredient.
Indigeneity
The trickiest element to include in a story about the West is how to handle the indigenous population. The real American expansion into the frontier is a story of genocide, displacement, and colonialism. We do not want to replicate that, unthinkingly, into our worldbuilding.
On the other hand, to simply cut the existence of native peoples from the west is a form of cultural erasure in and of itself. The American West was a land dominated by Native Americans, with a wide variety of cultural traditions, mythologies, and political interactions with one another; simply ignoring that to make another fantasy world is to pretend that these people do not still shape the culture of the region we are adapting.
Removing contact with native peoples, or making all relations friendly between indigenous groups and settlers, also eliminates one of the core components of the history of the Wild West: this was a conflict over land. The historical figures like Jesse James that we may see as quintessential in the inspiration of our stories in the genre, were shaped by their interactions with native people whose land they were attempting to take. If we want to create historically inspired roleplaying games and we want to create a western, then we must tackle the conflict between settlers and natives.
I am by no means perfect on this front. I am writing from the experience as a white GM; there are plenty of indigenous authors doing interesting work in this field. For example, for anyone looking for a sci-fi RPG set in a world where colonization never happened, written by indigenous game developers, definitely check out Coyote & Crow. I have not had the chance to play it, but the game looks awesome and I have read some glowing reviews of it. The creators are also super cool and have talked a lot about how to incorporate indigenous characters into RPGs in a respectful way.
That said, if you want to veer into a historian's perspective, the single best piece of advice for tackling this issue is: do not make your indigenous groups a monolith. The tribes of the American West were hugely varied and often at odds with one another. In fact, a 1978 article, "The Winning of the West: The Expansion of the Western Sioux in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" by historian Richard White argues that the Wild West era can be seen as a contest for domination in the region between two actively expanding imperial forces–the Sioux and the United States. Many tribes chose to ally with the U.S. in resistance to the expansionary Sioux, others joined with the Sioux to resist the U.S., and others attempted to stay neutral or fight against both.
Embrace this variety. It involves work and research in your worldbuilding to learn about different modes of resistance, from violence to adaptation. Still, giving your players in your game the opportunity to interact with different tribal groups that are responding in different ways to some sort of colonialist threat to their lands is one major way to engage meaningfully with the topic of indigenous peoples in the western genre without falling into the stereotypes of "savagery" that dominate a lot of the early fiction in the Western genre or the idea of the "noble savage" embraced by many hippies of the 60s that also forced native peoples into a particular role.
Conclusion
These are certainly not a complete list of every element that should be addressed in worldbuilding an environment for a Western; however, I do think that they are the three most relevant and historically-grounded components. Hit the right balance with all three of these, delve into some of the genre stock plots and characters, and your story will feel properly like a western.
And be sure to check out my homebrew pieces related to this article: the Tusall Gang, which is a group of NPCs who fit the mold of the post-war rebels continuing their fight; and Quill Quest: the Outlaw's Tale, which I hope feels properly like the Law is both distant and breathing down your neck.