New West OCC's vs movies

[Svartalf]

I've just been watching for a few dollars more, been an eternity that I hadn't seen any of that stuff...

and I'm just wondering... when I see the characters played by Lee van Cleef and Clint Eastwood...

They are portrayed as bounty hunters.

Now, by their combat performance (speed at the draw, rate of fire, accuracy, as well as HtH ability plus Van Cleef's horror factor) I'd say they are much closer the gunslingers (possibly gunfighters) than to the classical "bounty hunter OCC.

What do you think?

[Prince Cherico]

I think your right then again whos to say that
gun slingers dont ocassionally do bounty hunting?

[Svartalf]

Well... at least it shows me that my basic perception of realities is not THAT different from other bipedal, omnivorous primates.

and it rankles to think that the "classic" bounty hunter OCC is less apt at rendering bounty hunting major characters than a supposed duelist killer.

[sHaka]

There's more to bounty hunting than just the speed of one's draw and marksmanship - tracking, information gathering, wilderness skills, prowling etc are also important as well as versatility. The gunslinger's i've encountered have been quite specialised.

[Svartalf]

There's more to bounty hunting than just the speed of one's draw and marksmanship - tracking, information gathering, wilderness skills, prowling etc are also important as well as versatility. The gunslinger's i've encountered have been quite specialised.

But if you try replaying "for a few dollars more" in a Rifts setting, with Monco and the Colonel as bounty hunter OCCs (and that's what they do), they are just going to be killed before the movie gets halfway...

[Dr. Doom III]

But if you try replaying "for a few dollars more" in a Rifts setting, with Monco and the Colonel as bounty hunter OCCs (and that's what they do), they are just going to be killed before the movie gets halfway...

That's why you need to play a Vanguard Brawler Bounty Hunter.
That and they look cool.

[Svartalf]

Ronin with muskets???

Musket troops were ashigaru, not samurai, and pretty low regarded in spite of their specialized skills and combat usefulness ...

Most samurai would never have been seen dead with a firearm in hand, and given the slowness and notorious finicky character of muskets, I doubt a ronin would have touched one either... The thing with ronin is that they went into a life of wandering and banditry rather than accept their fate to fall below samurai status and melt in the general population. So it's unlikely one would have resorted to such a low "undignified", face losing tool.

[Svartalf]

Oh, right... except that of course Ronin in the New or Wild West would have been rarer than pacifistic Splugorth Conservators and vegetarian vampires...

But ones that did get there would indeed learn the local ways of fighting... even though they would never get any too good with that (at least compared with local specialists like gunslingers)

BTW, I never said a thing about Japan not having been the most musket heavy country in the world in the late 1500- early 1600s.
Romanticism aside, I stand by what I said. Arquebus soldiers were not samurai, but ashigaru : low born men, and their using those contraptions rather than the traditional and "honorable" bow and arrow (they still had swords, though I don't think they kept them after Sekigahara and the fall of Ôsaka castle, as those were standard issue "honorable loan" weapons) made them looked down upon by just about everybody. At least that's what I gather from my sources.

[Dr. Doom III]

in japan samurai movies are thier westerns, american westerns are about cowboys and the like, japanese westerns are about the samurai and ronin.

Wouldn't they be Easterns?

[Athos]

Now, by their combat performance (speed at the draw, rate of fire, accuracy, as well as HtH ability plus Van Cleef's horror factor) I'd say they are much closer the gunslingers (possibly gunfighters) than to the classical "bounty hunter OCC.

What do you think?

Eastwood was a demigod gunslinger 15th level with a star-of-the-movie halo of protection around him. This makes a cosmo knight look like a wimp. Impossible to kill for the duration of the movie.

Van Cleef was a human gunslinger, 8th level.

[Svartalf]

only problem is that the future shogun handed the portugese musket (movie shogun basically) to his samurai swordsmiths and they in turn started to produce the muskets, samurai would have went the way of the doodoo if the samurai didnt pick them up, it was only after the ban were the sword samurai allowed to survive. The Shogun outlawed the muskets only after he used them not samurai to gain control of the nation then the romanitic era was born and a bit of Xing out of the samurai useage of muskets or at least thats what i would do if i was to stay in power.

in a life and death struggle you will use the best weapon possible to survive, only after the struggle is over can you "create" the honorable "idealized" samurai that most people know and love. The supuku (spelling), the honorable suicide for running away during battle didnt appear till after the warring states era was well over and ideal warrior minds romanized and proclaimed that one should supuku rather than run to fight another day.

i agree the liklyhood is slim to none but he would be able to use one at least, the movie yojimbo i think has a ronin that uses a pistol. sneaky bugger too!

Sorry to contradict... but if you use Shôgun, especially the series as a historical source, you're going to be so full of bunk people will mistake you for a flophouse.

The Daimyô would certainly have handled the thing, and witnessed it in action ... then he would indeed have handed it to his artisans and ordered men trained in its use.
BTW, Swordsmiths were never involved in arquebus making, if you've noticed, Japanese teppo are made of copper or bronce, not steel, and anyway, Swordsmiths would never have sullied themselves by making lesser weapons. the Sword reamined the Soul of the Samurai till 1945, and traditional Sworsmiths are still considered as closer to priests than to mere artisans.

Nobody ever says the Japanese were too stupid to recognize great new foreign military technology. Actually, there is even proof that they used Chinese made arquebus before the introduction of Portuguese weapons.

But adoption in the military is not the same as adoption by the nobility. They saw the thing was good for war, so they used it, but they kept its use to underlings. Actually, the very ban on arquebus after the establishment of the Tokugawa shôgunate argues with the fact that it was not regarded as a proper samurai weapon, or it would have remained a privilege of the warrior classes rather than being banned outright.

Fact is that, outside the massed action of the battlefield, the arquebus was NOT the best tool at hand, especially for specialists of personal combat like the samurai. As for Seppuku, it may have become ultra ritualised under the Tokugawa, but is attested as early as the mid 1100s (HÔgen era revolt) The first samurai known by name to have so died was Minamoto no Tametomo, in 1170, though matter of fact mention of belly cutting in documents of the era shows the custom was already established.

I'd like to see Yojimbo... with luck I should score the DVD shortly... but a rônin using a pistol strikes me more of a script ploy than a real historical reference. While arquebuses were common, pistols don't seem to ever have been popular among feudal era Japanese warriors. Also, in any case, it would have been a less than honorable weapon.

Also, the fact that Chambara are the Japanese equivalent to our historical period costume movies, it doesn't meant that theirs are more historically
accurate than ours... and even Westerns are chock full of historical bloopers and anchronicisms