THE KING OF SANTA FE

A Tales of the Old West Play-by-Post Campaign

Jornada Springs, Socorro County — New Mexico Territory, Spring of 1873

"Life is hard. Life is short. And life don't owe you a goddamn thing."

THE PITCH

Three years ago a man named Garland Raeburn put a town on the eastern lip of the Rio Grande valley because there was silver in the Sierra Oscura. There wasn't much silver. What there was instead was grass — good grass, better than good, the kind of grazing land that men will lie for and kill for and forge documents over.

So Jornada Springs became a cattle town by accident. A few hundred souls, a spring that runs cold and clean out of the mountains, two saloons that hate each other, a church nobody agrees on, and five families who all believe the valley is rightfully theirs.

Nobody's certain who actually owns any of it. Half the valley is still tied up in the Spanish Land Rights — old grants from a government that doesn't exist anymore, honored by a government that isn't in a hurry. Until a surveyor comes down from Santa Fe and rules on those claims, every fence line in the county is an opinion.

And in Santa Fe, men who have never seen this valley are already deciding who gets it.

This is a game about small people in a small town at the moment a large hand closes around it. You will not be saving the West. You will be trying to hold onto a hundred and sixty acres, or a saloon, or a name, or a child, while richer men with better lawyers arrange the world to suit themselves. Sometimes you will lose. The interesting question is what you're willing to do about it.

THE SYSTEM

Tales of the Old West (Effekt Publishing, 2025), running on the Year Zero Engine — the same dice-pool chassis as Alien, Blade Runner, and Forbidden Lands. You roll a fistful of d6s, count sixes, and pray.

You do not need to own the book to apply. Everything you need for character creation will be posted, and I'll walk you through it. You do need to be willing to learn a system rather than reskin one you already know.

A few things about how the game thinks, because they shape what makes a good character here:

Faith. Every character has one — a single sentence they hold to when the world gets heavy. It doesn't have to be religious. "The Lord is my shepherd." "The only one I trust is me." "My friends are everything." "My ancestors walk with me." Faith is what lets you push a failed roll and try again, and you earn experience for acting in accordance with it. It is the mechanical spine of who your character is.

The Big Dream. Survival isn't a motivation. What do you actually want, ten years out? You earn XP specifically for risking or sacrificing something to get closer to it. The system pays you for wanting things badly.

Your Pardner. You will name one other player character as the person you're closest to. They are not obligated to feel the same way. I'd like to draw your attention to that sentence.

Compadres. NPCs bound to your character — kin, partners, hangers-on. You control them, mostly. They have their own wants, and those wants are mine.

The Turn of the Season. Between chapters, time passes in seasons. You pay for your lifestyle, work your business, tend your land, and see whether the town grew or rotted. The group earns Settlement Points for what they do for Jornada Springs, and those points build the town — a real bank, a school, a doctor, a jail. The town is a character in this campaign and you are writing it.

No supernatural elements. There are no monsters but other folk.

THE SETTING

New Mexico became a US territory in 1848, after the war with Mexico. The Nuevo Mexicanos who stayed were promised in treaty that they'd keep their rights and their land. Twenty-five years on, those promises are being tested one survey at a time, and the incoming Anglo settlers deeply resent finding people already here with a two-hundred-year head start.

The Civil War came through and wrecked a good deal before the Confederates were pushed out in '62. Then the Army turned on the Diné and the Indé — Navajo and Apache — and marched thousands to the reservation at Bosque Redondo, which was a horror and a failure and was shut down in '68. The Nermenuh, the Comanche, were never rounded up. They are still out there on the plains, still dangerous, and still losing.

The territory is run out of Santa Fe by a loose confederation of lawyers, merchants, bankers and officials that everyone calls the Santa Fe Ring. They own the courts, the land offices, the surveyors, and a fair number of the sheriffs. They are not a secret. They simply don't need to be.

Jornada Springs

Founded 1870. A few hundred people. The Sierra Oscura at your back, the Rio Grande valley spread out west and south.

North of town the road skirts the Jornada del Muerto — the Journey of the Dead Man — fifteen miles of blasted volcanic basin, crazed with ravines and crevasses, no water, no reason to go there unless you're hiding. Men do hide there. Past that it's Fort Craig, then Albuquerque, then Santa Fe. East over the mountains lies Lincoln. West is Deming and Silver City. South, eventually, El Paso.

You are a long way from anywhere that matters, which is exactly why it's worth taking.

Who's in town:

Garland Raeburn, sixty years old, founded the place. Runs the silver mines with cheap Hispanic and Chinese labor. Acts like he owns the town, looks over every newcomer like a horse he's considering. Lets it be known he has friends in Santa Fe.

The McGinns. Donal and Mary and four grown children, and a big beef outfit, and three farmhands with hard hands. Donal doesn't talk much. Mary talks plenty, always politely. The family has a reputation, and they've done nothing to soften it.

The Quinteros. Augustine Quintero is sixty-eight, widowed, and runs a hacienda and a great many cattle that her family has grazed here for generations. Her land rights have not been ratified. She is perfectly courteous to newcomers who show her the respect she has earned, and has no use whatsoever for men who arrived the day before yesterday.

The Contreras family. Angel and his three grown children, vaqueros of long and honorable line, on a hacienda just north of town. McGinn cattle have started appearing on Contreras grass. Angel wants peace. His children are less interested in peace.

The Siegberts. Anke and Marieke, second-generation German, came west on an inheritance and sank it into silver — in direct competition with Raeburn. They pay their hands better than he does. Everyone has noticed.

And the rest of it: the Blessings Saloon, run by two former slaves who both go by Blessing and call each other brother. The Sundown Saloon, run by Billy "Bruiser" Goodish, a crippled ex-lawman with a temper and a new wife twenty years his junior. The Home Sweet Home Hotel, which is a bordello, run by Chastity Merriel, who is thirty-two and charming. Father Federico Cuarón, newly installed in the church on the ridge — brought up from Las Cruces by Augustine Quintero, which is its own scandal, since Raeburn had a preacher of his own picked out. The Freeman–Harlesden horse ranch, the only one in town. A traveling dentist named Vigle with a mean bedside manner and a very fine rifle. Bo Yin, who works Raeburn's mines and speaks less English than he lets on. And a serious eleven-year-old named Emerson Murray who will tell you anything you want to know for a few cents.

Every one of these people wants something. Most of them are afraid of something. A good number of them are lying to you.

HOW WE'LL PLAY

Platform: Myth-Weavers, using the site dice roller. All rolls in-thread, in the open.

Posting rate: Aim for 3–4 substantial posts per week, weekdays. This is a conversation, not a novel — a good post is usually 2–5 paragraphs. I'd rather have four honest paragraphs on Tuesday than a thousand words that arrive next month.

Absence: Life happens and I don't need a doctor's note. I need a heads-up. Drop a line in the OOC thread and I'll run your character sensibly until you're back. Silent disappearance for two weeks without a word is the one thing that will get you written out.

Party size: 4–5 players.

Character creation: Your choice of the Archetypes (fast) or the "Your Tale Begins" lifepath (slower, and the dice tell you who you are — I recommend it, it produces better people). We'll do a proper Session Zero in-thread: build characters together, define how you know each other, decide whether you want a shared Group Concept, and establish your relationships before scene one.

Structure: Sandbox. There's a campaign spine — Santa Fe reaching into this valley — but the story bends around your Big Dreams and your feuds and what you decide matters. If you'd rather spend a season fighting over water rights with a neighbor than chasing the plot, that is the plot.

CONTENT AND SAFETY

This is a game for adults, and I intend to run it like one.

The American West of 1873 was built on land theft, racial violence, and the aftermath of slavery, and this game does not look away from that. Expect, over the course of the campaign, to encounter:

• Gun violence and its consequences, including the deaths of characters you care about

• Racism against Nuevo Mexicanos, Native peoples, Black Americans, Chinese immigrants, and Irish and German newcomers — voiced by NPCs, in period-appropriate terms

• Sexism and the very real legal and social constraints on women in the territory

• Coarse and vulgar language

• Sex work, addiction, poverty, and violence against the vulnerable

• Genuine moral ambiguity, including situations where every available option is bad

None of this is here for shock. It's here because a Western that pretends these forces weren't operating isn't a Western — it's a costume. Bigotry in this game will be given to people who are wrong, and it will cost them.

The X-Card is in effect and it is absolute.

At any time, in any thread, any player may post X-CARD — with or without explanation, publicly or by private message to me. The content in question stops immediately. We back up, edit it out, and move on. No justification is required, no discussion follows, and no one asks you why. This applies to my content as much as anyone's. If you X-Card something I wrote, I will thank you and rewrite it. I ask that each of you do your best to remain tolerant. We are creating a fiction, and good fiction evokes feeling for good or ill, so I encourage everyone to be willing to step out of their comfort zone once in a while.

I'll also collect lines and veils privately from each player before we start — hard "never in this game" limits and soft "cut away from it" preferences — and I'll respect them without announcing whose they were.

Slurs against real ethnic groups will often be referred to, not typed. "He called Bo Yin something ugly and the room laughed" carries the weight without putting the word on the page. This is a craft constraint, not just a courtesy one; implication lands harder.

Player-versus-player conflict is welcome and expected — this is a town full of feuds. It requires the other player's out-of-character consent before it turns violent. Rivalry, yes. Ambushes without a conversation first, no.

WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR IN PLAYERS

Reliability over brilliance. The single best quality in a play-by-post player is showing up. A steady, plain, dependable poster is worth three gorgeous prose stylists who vanish in week five.

Someone who wants something. Bring me a Big Dream with teeth. Not "I want to be a good person" — I want the Quintero grant broken up and my name on the deed. I want my brother's killer buried. I want to own the finest hotel between here and El Paso. Give me an engine I can build story around.

A character with a stake in this town. Drifters are hard to write for in a game about a settlement. You can arrive as a stranger — that's fine, several of you probably should — but you need a reason to still be here in six months. Land, kin, debt, a grave, a grudge, a business, a hiding place. Something that holds.

Willingness to be wrong. Your character can be prejudiced, foolish, cowardly, or cruel, and it will make for better fiction than a modern conscience in a period hat. What I need is that you know the difference between playing a bigot and being one.

Interest in the quiet parts. There will be gunfights. There will also be seasons spent worrying over a cattle price, a marriage, a mortgage, a sick horse, a rumor. If the between-times bore you, this campaign may bore you.

Engagement with other players. Your Pardner, your relationships, your compadres — these are mechanical and I will lean on them. Write toward other characters. Give them things to react to. The best PbP games are the ones where players are writing for each other.

Enthusiasm over experience. No prior Year Zero Engine required. No prior Western required. No prior play-by-post required, though tell me if this is your first — I'll keep an eye out and help.

What I am not looking for: the lone wolf who won't work with the group; the optimizer who wants to solve the dice rather than the situation; anyone who reads the content warnings above as an invitation.

APPLYING

Post in the Application  thread with:

1. A character concept in a paragraph or two. Who are they, what are they doing in Jornada Springs, and what do they want? No stats yet — we'll build sheets together in Session Zero. Concept first.

2. Your Big Dream and your Faith, each in a sentence, even if provisional.

3. A writing sample — either a short in-character post for this character, or a link to something you've written in another game.

4. Your realistic posting availability, including time zone and anything upcoming that'll eat your schedule.

5. Any play-by-post experience, or a note that this is new to you.

I'm not looking for the flashiest concepts. I'm looking for five characters who will be interesting to each other, and for players who'll still be here when the snow comes.

When Applications open, it will remain open for two weeks. Questions welcome in-thread — ask them, it tells me as much as the application does.

Tales of the Old West is © 2025 Dave Semark, Matthew Tyler-Jones and Effekt Publishing Ltd. This is an unofficial fan-run campaign. Jornada Springs and the King of Santa Fe campaign framework are drawn from the Core Rules.