Today’s review is about a Wild Western TTRPG called IN THE LIGHT OF A SETTING SUN. You may want to snag a copy to follow along!
The Man in Black
Who’s that stylish figure riding off into the sunset? Why, that’s Jon Davis.
Jon is well known for being the creator of the HELM and producing a lot of very beautiful dungeons designed for the BASTARDS system, but perhaps my favourite thing he has ever made is the Bonanza edition of IN THE LIGHT OF A SETTING SUN. Why? Because pulp is what he does best and Setting Sun is a glorious, unapologetic pulp-o-rama.
I’m a sucker for a Western and Jon is a master of leaning into tropes. His writing is peppered with cliches and cultural references that invite the reader to engage with the genre and tell distinctly Wild West stories. There’s not a lot of wasted space or fluff on any given page.
Every sentence pushes motif and mayhem while pounding out a system that feels very yippee-ki-yay, but also mechanically familiar to anyone old enough that their knees crack when they stand up. Literal sword-and-sorcery are absent, but the influence of old-school dungeons and ancient dragons seems to be intentional, as I can literally quote Jon as saying:
“… Both Gygax and Arneson are from the generation that cut their teeth on TV westerns, and D&D is rife with similar tropes. Maybe because the pulp fantasy that inspired D&D came from the same tradition as pulp westerns.”
-Jon Davis, in the Monkey’s Paw Discord
There’s also a handy little chart at the back of the book, which cites all sorts of things that impacted the design of Setting Sun. Some notable influences include the likes of Old School Essentials, Dungeon Crawl Classics and The Black Hack.
Big Vibes
The print edition is mostly black and white, with occasional sand-yellow and blood-red backgrounds. In fact, everywhere there is art, it is presented on top of solid colour.
I should mention: I’m obsessed with yellow covers. There is something about the way yellow and black interact and contrast that grabs my attention every time. They also tend to look GREAT on a convention table.
Style Guide
Mr. Davis has an extremely distinctive and effective visual style. Some of his hallmarks include clever repurposing of old pulp novel covers and Public Domain art, and this one body font that feels like it crops up in 90% of his catalogue. (It looks a lot like Vollkorn.)
The art dotting the pages of The Light Of A Setting Sun is taken from multiple sources, but takes advantage of a halftone filter to make everything feel nice and cohesive. It’s a cheap trick but it works absurdly well, because paired with that retro-classy font the whole game smacks of old newsprint and WANTED posters.
The character sheet was designed by Micah Anderson. It graces the back of the book and I firmly believe more games should use the back cover as the character sheet. Anything this gorgeous deserves to be shown off:
Everything about the design of this sheet SCREAMS Micah and utterly abandons the otherwise consistent aesthetic of the rest of the book. I’d like to talk about Anderson’s work in another post, but I really like the use of a revolver’s bullet chambers as a way to display and organize stats. Friggin’ genius stuff, here.
The Tricky Part
This is not a game where the mechanics trip me up, and I’ve already described some of the aesthetic patterns. Today our confusion stems from… managing player expectations in the interest of telling cool stories.
Something I really appreciate about this system is something that makes it sort of difficult to run for some groups: health isn’t really a thing in Setting Sun. Here’s an excerpt from the rules:
Luck… reflects their ability to avoid injury and Death. Luck does not represent the amount of hits a cowpoke can take as any and every attack could be a fatal blow.
If you run out of luck, your character dies. This is a universe that acknowledges that there are really dire consequences for being a person inclined to violent deeds. That mentality is difficult for a lot of new-age players to get behind, which is completely understandable. Knowing that your cowpoke might be horrifically injured or even drop dead during any instance of combat makes it hard for some people to invest in the narrative.
I’m a forever DM. My favourite players love their characters. They thrive in long-form campaigns where their nasty little ruffians and goofy henchmen blossom into fully realized, complex personalities. Until I figured out how to present the theme, this whole luck-as-life shtick scared them into playing cowardly cowpokes who were ill-inclined to pursue fame or fortune.
Westerns are kind of historically problematic for a lot of reasons and glorifying death is certainly among the genre’s sins. The fact that Setting Sun really plays into that is something I had difficulty navigating at first, because I was more accustomed to seeing that kind of mechanic presented in the horror genre and I was framing it wrong. Once I started CELEBRATING character deaths with my players, everything got a lot easier. Here’s how you can do that, if you’re not already:
Start sessions by recapping the lives of a legend. Tell your players about how the infamous Crawdad McCormick went down swinging. It took ten, no, twenty men to hold him down. He was such a force of nature, his enemies scattered his bones to keep him from rising from the grave. A year to the day of his death, his trusty shotgun misfired in the hands of his nemesis, One Hand Joe…
Your goal is to set a standard— challenge the players to make characters who aspire to live life dangerously and have their story sloshed over saloon tables. Start the story with a bit of mythos and encourage characters to top the tale.Make their final moments really, really dramatic. A totally gonzo big finish can be really satisfying to retell when players compare campaigns with strangers.
Do callbacks. Have NPCs retell player character’s final moments with absurdly over-the-top flourishes. Make the names of the fallen sound like movie stars’.
Reward players for celebrating mortality. Give them minor boons, neat loot, or plot-advancing trinkets when they look death in the eye and grin back.
And if all else fails, physical memorabilia is fun and cool. Maybe a PC who dies gets a piece of candy, or maybe you give them a coin they can exchange to re-roll something, later. Bonus points if you somehow tie the coin with something cool and thematic, like making a Deal With The Devil or something.
Of course a narrative beat must be dedicated to grief in the wake of character death. Take a moment to pay respects to how very grim the stakes are. Those who survive should be shaken, but give them a reason to dig deep and keep going. Vengeance? Justice? Take cues.
Physical Copies
I purchased my copy of In The Light Of A Setting Sun from Jon directly, via his Ko-Fi. Unfortunately, as I write this Jon seems to be out of stock. Never fear, I have done my homework and I found where he’s hidden a stash:
Knave of Cups has 5 copies.
That’s all I could find. Jaysus Murphy, Jon. Talk about exclusive! Would you let us know in the comments if you plan on restocking anywhere soon?
Thank-you, Jon, your work really inspires me! Your zines are always at the top of my reference pile. I learn something new every time I turn a page.
That’s all for now. See you in two weeks!
Regards,
Justin Vandermeer
Jaysus Murphy
I stand corrected. The body font is actually Averia Serif Libre, which looks like Vollkorn's softer-bodied cousin.