# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Virtual Tabletop/Battlemap Mapping >  Old West Tavern WIP

## Gamerprinter

Just playing around with Xara Xtreme. I know that RPMiller loves old west anything, so I decided to create a tavern using photo textures and a simple tavern layout. I want to find photos of 19th century playing cards and money to place on one of the round tables (probably the one at the back). Don't worry, I plan to create and place glassware, spilled beer, and perhaps a drunk.

I also plan to place markings on that long table at rear for Kino or some other popular gambling game of the era. Theres a stage at the back of the main room. The backroom is probably the manager/owner's office and residence.

I should probably remove the sign for better use in VTT, but its labeled... I should probably change that to *Saloon* instead of *Tavern*, anyway.

Note the outhouse by the tree...

GP

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## torstan

Saw this over on the rptools site - and yes, I did notice the outhouse...  :Smile: 

The maptool distribution has a load of old style playing cards built in. Go to help->Load Default Tables and you'll find them in the programme. Equally, you should be able to find the card images in the following directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\.maptool\resource\Default\Car  ds

My only crit so far is that the planks on the floor are enormous. Not to say that such a size is not possible, just that they would probably warp if they were that wide, and are likely to not have straight edges as they would be the width of the whole tree. Can't help but compare the width of the planks to the width of the tree outside  :Smile:

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## Gamerprinter

Whoa, they are big, aren't they? No problem, easy fix. It was late, and I whipped this out in 20 minutes or so, without too much thinking. I'll fix it later and repost.

The floorboards were actually the first thing I created - I didn't rescale to everything else as I should have. I guess I wasn't overly thinking of scale as I was creating them.

I didn't think to look in MapTool resources - thanks!

GP

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## RPMiller

> Just playing around with Xara Xtreme. I know that RPMiller loves old west anything, so I decided to create a tavern using photo textures and a simple tavern layout.


I'm seriously feeling the love lately.  :Very Happy: 




> I want to find photos of 19th century playing cards and money to place on one of the round tables (probably the one at the back). Don't worry, I plan to create and place glassware, spilled beer, and perhaps a drunk.


You sir are in luck. It just so happens that I have an entire 19th century  card deck scanned and saved. Unfortunately it is on my other computer. I can post that when I get home tonight if you would like. They are exact replicas of cards printed at this time, and even includes the card box.  :Very Happy: 




> I also plan to place markings on that long table at rear for Kino or some other popular gambling game of the era. Theres a stage at the back of the main room. The backroom is probably the manager/owner's office and residence.


Quick note - Most saloon owners would not live in their saloon. There was rarely enough room for any sort of residence and it was just a bad idea in the event that a patron got angry at the owner for some reason. You can extrapolate what I mean hopefully.




> I should probably remove the sign for better use in VTT, but its labeled... I should probably change that to *Saloon* instead of *Tavern*, anyway.
> 
> Note the outhouse by the tree...
> 
> GP


 :Very Happy:  Yea! Especially important in an Old West setting for a vast number of reasons in game actually.




> My only crit so far is that the planks on the floor are enormous. Not to say that such a size is not possible, just that they would probably warp if they were that wide, and are likely to not have straight edges as they would be the width of the whole tree. Can't help but compare the width of the planks to the width of the tree outside


I'm going to add to this and be extremely critical, I hope that is ok GP, you know I always mean well.  :Smile: 

Not only are the planks enormous, but so are the textures on other things. The cracked earth is an awesome texture, but consider how big those cracks really are. You may want to drop a figure in the map just to compare visually what the scale is like.

Next consider how old this saloon really is in the setting. Chances are that wood really wouldn't be that weathered unless you are thinking this was built a long time before the game setting takes place. This is a typical mistake that I think a lot of people make. They think Old West with the emphasis on 'Old' but they forget that at the time a game would be taking place it was actually the 'Young' West. Of course that depends greatly on when you are playing. If you are at the end of the 19th century then yes, things would be a lot more run down. I suppose the only way to really make it realistic would be to have a couple different versions with the building in various states of age.

Furniture in most establishments were really rough. Rarely did you find good quality made furniture as it was too expense to import and would typically get ruined in a fairly short period of time. However the bar itself was always the very highest quality that the owner could afford. In fact, the bar was sometimes worth more money than the building itself. The quality of the bar was sort of the measure of the quality of the establishment itself.

The most likely game that would be played on the big table would be Faro. Again this would depend somewhat on the actual date, but Faro was considered the game of choice by most gamblers. It started to fall out of favor toward the end of the 19th century, but was still played well into the 20th century in a few places. I've heard that it was actually still played in casinos up though the 1980s, but I can't confirm that. You can get more details on the game here: http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/faro.html

Other than those couple things you did a great job on the layout and design of the saloon. It is a very good representation of saloons at that time. Thank you for sharing it with us! Oh and have some rep well when I can rep you again that is!  :Very Happy:

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## Gamerprinter

> Chances are that wood really wouldn't be that weathered unless you are thinking this was built a long time before the game setting takes place. This is a typical mistake that I think a lot of people make. They think Old West with the emphasis on 'Old' but they forget that at the time a game would be taking place it was actually the 'Young' West.


Although the floorboards might have been removed from the an old general store, mining manager's house for an abandoned mine - it may have been used again from an older existing structure.

And Faro is the game I was thinking, when I mentioned "Kino".

Please do send me pics of that old card deck.

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## RPMiller

> Although the floorboards might have been removed from the an old general store, mining manager's house for an abandoned mine - it may have been used again from an older existing structure.
> 
> And Faro is the game I was thinking, when I mentioned "Kino".
> 
> Please do send me pics of that old card deck.


Excellent point! Again, it would certainly depend on the setting. Obviously if this was going to be used in a new town than your options wouldn't work, and historically speaking someone would not build a saloon in a ghost town which is what it would have to be if they were tearing down the general store or there was an abandoned mine nearby. Plus there is that whole superstition aspect of folks in the Old West...

That said, your point isn't far fetched, but there would have to be some pretty good in game reasons for me to suspend my disbelief.

I'll try to remember to upload those this evening when I get home.

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## NeonKnight

I always love how an "old west" town = Desert  :Wink:

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## RPMiller

Hehe, that's true as well. Perhaps GP could post the building by itself and we can drop it onto whatever terrain we want to use.  :Smile:  He could even keep the outhouse and trees in if he wanted.

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## RPMiller

Sorry GP! I just remembered that I had to upload these. I would have forgotten again except that I was watching a show on Western Movies and suddenly remembered that I owed you the card scans.

I had to convert the scans to jpgs so that I could upload them due to file size. They are not laid out real straight either so you'll need to do some rotating and cleaning up. I had planned to do all this myself but life invaded my plans and I never got around to it. I hope they prove useful for you.

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## RPMiller

And the last one

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## jfrazierjr

Hmmm.. Interesting... no suicide kings...

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## RPMiller

Suicide was still considered a sin at that time.  :Wink:

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## RPMiller

So did the cards work ok for you?

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