Keepin’ It Real

One of the primary concerns I have for my Deadlands game is keeping the feel of a Western-era ongoing.  I’ve resorted to a few techniques to keep the feel fo the campaign consistent, but I’m still looking at little things to add to it.  Among the things I’ve tried already are:

• Accent – Thank you Call Center experience.  I used to be a call center agent for a US Bank, and our “accent neutralization training” left me with some familiarity with the American Southern accent which helped a lot when I opted to run the entire sessions with as much of the western accent that I can (with occasional subconscious breaks.)
• Word Choice – Contrary to what most people might think, word choice plays a big role in GMing, especially since words are all we’ve got to relay the information, tone and atmosphere of the game.  When running Deadlands, I try to pepper my descriptions using terms from Westerns, keeping an eye out to make sure that I don’t slip in a term or phrase that would appear out of place.
• Situations - I’ve gone through a lot of talk about Noncombat Encounters before, but it’s important to repeat that life isn’t all a series of fights and crises.  A little focus on normalcy, commonplace activity, and some downtime is perfect for rounding out characters, and if I’m particularly sneaky I might even succeed in putting up a plot hook somewhere down the line.

Keeping a campaign closely rooted to the genre its meant to emulate is  a fine way to keep people’s disbelief at bay, and lends that extra “texture” to your campaign that makes it memorable.