1. GURPS ® from Steve Jackson Games
2. Boot Hill ® from TSR - 2nd Edition with our added Stats
3. Boot Hill ® 3rd Edition

GURPS

Points to build with:

1. 175 base for our heroic/cinematic types
2. max 150pts of Disadvantages (but remember, "It is Not a disadvantage if it doesn't haunt you horribly at some time in the campaign.") [Sub Note: 90 pts of an enemy is a very bad thing and hanging around with someone who has one is very Un Healthy though it makes for exciting movies.]
3. 5 points of quirks (but why worry with 150 pts of disadvantages?)
4. Whatever bonus points you can weasel out for having props, special background material, cool backgound story Written out etc.

Player Characters can Die! [Those 90 pt enemies are really nasty]
Please make a copy of your character for the ref to chuckle over and have some knowledge of your skills and disadvantages for (evil) plotting.

Stat Limits and Forbidden Skills:

Max 16's (unless something else low - usually self regulating due to cost)
Skills? Talents? Advantages? Odd DisAdvantages? If it is not in of the few books I possess [Psionics/ Fantasy/ Basic/ Old West/ Japan/ China/ Martial Arts/ Rome/ Celtic Myth/ Voodoo/ Compendium I] make a copy of the material for my records. If a Skill/ability is very odd/rare it may cost you more in unusual background costs. If you dream it, Can You RolePlay it?

Available Technology:

Tech Level 5 in most areas, some beginnings of Tech 6 in Medicine, though most is not available off the shelf. This is the Victorian era, an era of Exploration in the arts and the sciences, when mankind seeks to throw off the shackles of the past.

Obscure High Energy Physics:

Only a good level of Esoteric History will say...

• Reality is like an Onion... Once you remove one layer, there is another, and the tears mayhaps will stop all but the wisest or most foolhardy from seeking to pierce all the veils of secrecy to any core of Truth that some believe exists
• Ludwig von Draconis, Moskow 1634
  

The Skill Cost chart has been modified for a more Cinematic Physical Chart; although the Mental Skills chart is Unaltered.

Skill Costs:

When we started playing our western campaign, the game was Boot Hill. For which we used the 2nd edition boxed set rules from TSR (one of our players used to game with Brian Blume, so we had to *g*).

  Boot Hill  2nd ed ® from 1975/1979 by TSR Games. Also known then as Tactical Studies Rules.... Yes, a game from a time Corporate Anagrams meant something! *g* Boot Hill used percentile dice for: Character Generation, ranged combat, tracking, hit location and even brawling (2 die 10 rolled and added together for 2-20 range).

  But of course gamers could never leave anything alone. They found that some aspects of a character were not being covered with just the Boot Hill Stats alone. Characters seemed to appear out of nowhere, with no past or skills. So magazine articles and modules tidbits from "The Dragon" magazine (the Official source!) began to appear and were incorporated into their sessions. When I inherited the Boot Hill box and began to run my campaign, I added a few missing Stats from another Tactical Studies Rules product: AD&D (still in 1st edition then).

From the base book came
• Speed (from Slow to Greased Lightning)
• Gun Accuracy (all firearms)
• Throwing Accuracy (includes Knives, spears and Bows)
• Strength (which is also your "hitpoints"),
• Bravery (from Coward to Foolhardy)
• Experience (your previous number of gunfights) which affected your accuracy.

  But being Player characters came with the benefit of boosting your percentages a tad, if they were a bit low [NPCs got what was rolled]. And experience (surviving Gunfights, even if lost) helped boost   Experience,  Speed and  Bravery   ability scores.

On another page we have a sample character creation in progress using both the standard Boot Hill rules and some of the special tables they found & created and Ability Stats I added using AD&D ® (1st Ed.). The paragraphs following, illustrate the "official" campaign method for characters used

   Boot Hill Character Generation

1. Roll up Boot Hill statistics [using PC modifications if needed for PCs] in order, according to book.
2. for some background: father's occupation - percent roll on Chart; if merchant related roll on business chart.
3. Roll on Birth Order table
4. Roll on skill table for Father's skill. The child [PC being created] may take that one as one of their two 2 skills or may roll randomly for both.
5. Roll for initial Cash purse to outfit characters [if father was Homesteader or Rancher roll for size of spread also] if an orphan, the character starts with $0 in their pocket.
6. Roll 1 d6. 1-4 means a PC gets a roll on the Special Abilities Table. [PCs and a few NPCs have a 2/3 chance of starting with a special beyound that granted by the number of Gunfights experienced.] For every 5 gunfights, up to 55, a character reaches they get one more roll on the Special Abilities Table. After 55, the jumps are on 8's instead of 5.
7. Roll AD&D game statistics using 4d6 [best 3d6] for each statistic: Intelligence. Charisma, Wisdom, Constitution, and Comeliness. Strength and Dexterity are derived from the Boot Hill statistics Strength and Speed at creation.
   • BH STR Point equal Strength score in AD&D
   • BH 19 STR = 18/50
   • BH 20 STR = 18/75
   • Ad&D Dexterity = 6 base + [1 per 10% of BH Speed rating with normal maximum of 16]
   
   Hit dice are calculated as Fighters based on Experience level in Boot Hill
   • Fighter 2 at O Accuracy Modifier
   • Fighter 3 at +2% Acc Mod (gunfights 5 & 6)
   • Fighter 4 at +6% Acc Mod (gunfights 7 & 8)
   • Fighter 5 at +8% ACC Mod (gunfights 9 & 10)
   • Fighter 6 at +10% Acc Mod (11+ Gunfights: 100% on Experience Roll at Creation)
   • +1 level of Fighter for every 10 gunfights past 10.
   
   Some characters might be based on thieves, bandits etc (even Rangers) based on alignment and campaign history.
8. Personal Appearence & more background information including Height, weight, hair & eyes... can be generated randomly using chart "Boot Hill Identity Crisis Chart" from Dragon® or any other suitable human based chart handy.
9. Buy Equipment from the various lists (magazine, 2nd ed BH book, 3rd ed book, Sears Catalog).

   1 Note: the various guns available in the Dragon magazine list are presumed to NOT be the top of the line in condition or quality as compared to the higher priced models (generic in nature) given in the 2nd Ed Boot Hill ® rules (page 6). So there is a higher chance for failure of that equipment under dusty or uncleaned conditions.... including such travails as recent bad rains, swimming rivers and dropping things from horseback.

While the play and the rules are different (I even had to alter the Special Abilities Table for it); the method is similar... create a Boot Hill Character and roll for AD&D stats not covered.  Here the new Boot Hill®stats are:

Strength

CoOrdination [Dexterity]

Observation {Did you see that?!}

Stature ["The stuff of Legends - right Boo?" - Minse]

Luck

Since these are generated on a 2-20 scale, only minor editing is needed for Strength & Dexterity [Coordination]. Depending on your viewpoint - Observation could be used for determining Intelligence. The other AD&D stats are rolled normally.

One thing to note is that with the introduction of Skills (each new character gets 10 choices) the "father's skill & you getting that as one choice of your 2" is now gone. Backgrounds and Homestead sizes are still usable. Currently, for 3rd Ed., your AD&D level is still based on the number of gunfights you have survived, according to the previous version's Experience chart.