Western

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One of the more peculiarly popular setting aesthetics: Something resembling the American West from the years 1865 (the end of the Civil War) to 1914 (the beginning of World War 1), but generally limited to before 1894 (when the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the frontier was closed). The genre was actually established as early as 1903, with The Great Train Robbery, if not earlier.

The thing is, for most of the 20th century, the historic "Wild West" was the logical place to set what we now call an "Action" movie, for several reasons, even if the historical west wasn't actually all that violent or crime ridden. The genre was very influential, and riffs on the Western in a different setting followed in the 1950s onwards.

Notable Variants

Just about every genre you can imagine has had either a Western version or equivalent, including, but not limited to: Romance, Murder Mystery (Hec Ramsey), Horror (Curse of the Undead), Science Fiction (Cowboys and Aliens), Spy Thriller (The Wild Wild West), Musical (Oklahoma), Superheros (Lone Ranger), Kung Fu (Kung Fu), Crime, Modern Fantasy (aka "Weird West"), and War (usually set during the Civil War or against Indians, which, well, see below under trappings).

The first were probably either the Space Western, or the Samurai Western, depending on how you count. The (1950s made) Samurai films of Akira Kurosawa were very western inflected, and several wound up being remade as traditional Westerns ("A Fistful of Dollars" and "The Magnificent Seven", among many others), which means the Samurai Western has claim of priority in film. On the other hand, the sci-fi magazines and comics of the pulp era loved raygun westerns because they were easy to write and advertise, but since Science Fiction is expensive to film, the first cited example is either the initial pitch for Star Trek (which Gene Roddenberry described as "Wagon Train to the stars"), or 1977's Star Wars. That being said, Horror-themed works set in the "old West" period have a long history as well, with some "Horror Western" films dating back to the 1930s.

Cattlepunk is what you get when you cross steampunk with a Western.

Notable Trappings

There are plenty of trappings that will get a work not set in North America west of the Mississippi River between the years 1865 and 1914 called "Western"-adjacent. The more of the following you have, and the more direct the equivalents of thereof, the more likely you are to be called a "Space Western", "Fantasy Western", "Weird Western", or what have you.

• Very low population density. The most distinguishing feature of the historic West, there were vast ranges of territory where the nearest person could be miles away, which had several implications:
  • The Law was mainly limited to towns, which were frequently quite far from one another if they weren't on a train-line. Thus, a Sheriff or Rancher, if he couldn't find local support, was more or less on his own.
  • As an indirect consequence of the above, Bandits.
  • Another indirect consequence; because news traveled slowly between towns, it was easier to get away with crimes if you didn't stay in one place too long, especially if you assumed a fake identity and authorities didn't have a good photograph of you.
    • If the work doesn't center around a larger conflict, expect either bandits or "evil banker" types employing them as the main bad-guys.
  • Drifters; that is, men who wander from town to town; they may be traveling somewhere in particular, but for now, as far as this town (and story) is concerned, they're just passing through.
    • In particular, men looking for work and/or opportunities, cowboys who were driving their herd to market, bounty hunters poaching the wanted posters of the local Sheriff's Office, or gamblers looking for new clientelle would historically not have raised the slightest eyebrow.
    • Snake-oil salesmen (traveling hucksters selling the latest fad invention or medicine) would raise a few eyebrows, but those raised eyebrows would be intentional and entirely expected (that latter by even the townsfolk). This was the time period where unrestricted use of cocaine, opiates, and amphetamines were endorsed by mainstream doctors and quacks alike, with said salesmen claiming that they've found a cure-all for whatever ails you.
• Almost three million men fought in the Civil War, leaving a LARGE number of men with fighting experience and a chip on their shoulder for those who were on the other side. Any frontier bar brawl is liable to descend into a North-vs-South rematch.
• Handguns (particularly Revolvers, derringers and other concealed weapons) and Long guns (shotguns, lever action rifles, and the occasional big bore Buffalo Rifle) in places where openly wielding a weapon is allowed (notably, stagecoaches frequently had a guy holding a shotgun in case bandits showed up). In film, a lot of the earlier films use Colt Single Action Army 90% of the time because its still being manufactured in large quantities today, but ideally you'd see some variety, and you'd definitely not see cartridge-firing revolvers during the Civil War.
• Quickdraw shooting.
• Saloons.
  • If the rating allows, prostitutes as the only female company available.
• Bounty Hunters.
• Pinkertons, private law enforcement of morally dubious character. They may be hired by local government or business magnates to deal with outlaw gangs, running protection on high-value shipments, or to "curtail" union strikes, or to recover some children's card games from a neckbeard's house.
• Sand and dirt. (While the actual American West can be fairly green, particularly in the mountains, most people picture a lot of sand when they picture a Western.) Also, in a similar vein, Cacti, Mesas, and canyons.
• Cows. Cattle ranching was one of the main businesses of the historical period covered by the Western, and so "Cowboys" (as the men responsible for herding cows were called) were frequently cast as either protagonists or supporting characters in Westerns.
• Horses, with a side option for donkeys and mules. Historically, the only way of getting around besides the railroad or stagecoach was a horse.
• The main form of farming being animal related is also a frequent feature.
• Towns will typically spring up wherever a particular industry can be cultivated; mining towns are commonplace, as they can attract a lot of people looking to make their wealth and many businesses looking to support the miners will set up shop. But if the mine runs dry, the town will usually empty completely. Towns will also pop up around railroad stops, as the railroad is a vital resource for bringing in supplies, shipping off livestock, and ensuring further infrastructure upgrades like telegraph offices and postal services.
• Stagecoaches.
• Railroads. In particular, somebody arriving at a station meeting a "welcoming" committee (who may try to kill him or run him out of town) is a common scene in both direct Westerns and Western-inflected works. Trains of the time rely on coal or wood, and large amounts of water. Locomotives went through some evolution during the era, as fireboxes and boilers got progressively bigger.
  • Early Western (Civil War to 1880) - The ubiquitous locomotives west of the Mississippi were the 4-4-0 "American" with its pair of very large driving wheels, and the 2-6-0 "Mogul" with its better traction. Top speeds were in the 50 mph range.
  • Late Western (1880 to 1900) - Locomotives increasingly specialize for freight or passenger service. The 2-8-0 "Consolidation" begins appearing in the heavy freight role, with the 4-6-0 "Ten-Wheeler" being a bit faster (but with less traction). The 4-4-2 "Atlantic" with its high (80+ mph) top speed becomes dominant for passenger and mail service, and an express ticket from New York to San Francisco would arrive in approximately 80 hours.
• Telegraphs. Truly important information can move pretty fast in the West thanks to telegraphy, using morse code over wires. Breaking headline news (elections, wars, market crashes, large disasters, etc) will be known nationwide in a day or so. Overnight delivery of small text messages across the country is physically possible, but the price is exorbitant.
• Boot Hill. The image of a graveyard situated on and around a hill, usually with an important deceased figure buried at the hilltop.
• More rare in post-1960 Westerns: Native Americans.
  • Historically-set Westerns have had plenty of American Indians. It's just that, by the 1960s, most writers decided it was a better idea to center around subjects that weren't so likely to be read as making their protagonists "the real bad guys". Thus, most post-1970 westerns center purely on White vs. White conflict, or have protagonists who are sympathetic with the Indians, with a smattering of works centered on Black characters (most notably Blazing Saddles). (Historically speaking, there were plenty of black cowboys (as well as Latin American Vaqueros), but this was ignored by most movie writers and producers historically, and frequently still is in the present day.)
  • Bonus points if the setting has both "friendly trader" and "hostile barbarian" tribes of Native American equivalents (see: Jawas and Tuskan Raiders in Star Wars).
• There are a lot of Mexico-set Western media, particularly among those Westerns made since the mid 1960s. Mexico's very colorful history with civil wars, bandit-revolutionaries and general political strife mean that if an author is going political or post-1894, Mexico is a good place to set a large chunk of your story.
  • For "Western-inflected" works, if you have a place that's somewhat nearby, and going through violent revolution (or on the verge of one), you may be in pseudo-Mexico.

/tg/ Relevence

Oh, you're wondering what /tg/ relevance this has? Well, just to start with, with RPGs we have:

• Boot Hill
• Deadlands
• Spellslinger
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Pathfinder's Gunslinger class.
• Werewolf: The Wild West.
• That RPG based on Firefly/Serenity.
• And plenty of others.

Then there are actual board games set in the period (MANY railroad games, just to start with.)

More general influence

In addition to all the above, we could very well argue that without the Western, we never would have had Dungeons & Dragons, which, despite what Historical Fantasy nuts may say, began its existence as this strange hodge-podge of common Western tropes in a quasi-Medieval Europe backdrop and infused with Sword & Sorcery, Classical Mythology, European Mythology, Tolkien, and whatever elements of pop-culture from the 60s-80s that TSR felt like including. It even got a literal cowboy god, rolled up by one of Gygax's friends and a lifelong Western aficionado in the second-ever session of D&D. Even to this day, the "standard fantasy setting" is more like a Western set in a faux-European countryside than anything else.

Genre variants we have articles on

• Cattlepunk
• Weird West