Pulp goes Medieval

[Mr_Kapow]

Hey guys!

So I'm going to be running a Pulp Alley campaign with a mix of solo, normal and coop play, set in a conan-ish age of magic etc etc.

But some rules currently doesn't jive with exactly what I wanted for the campaign. The culprit is Shooting and the weapon kits.

The setting is going to be mainly melee with shooting really being a fringe aspect. The current kits also don't represent the differences between primitive shooting weapons as well as I'd hoped. So these are my ideas to make it less powerful over all and more fluffy for the setting in general (thoughts and feedback would be great, coz I'm not a rules designer!):

Thrown weapons: limited to 6'' maximum, anything over 2'' is -1d. Can run and shoot. This would represent throwing weapons (rocks, axes, knives etc.) 6'' seems like a reasonable distance for a thrown weapon I think, but it might be a tad short? All characters not given the Animal trait nor taking an alternative ranged weapon kit would end up using this version of shooting. Crazy?

Bow: Use the primitive weapons kit out of Pulp Leagues?

Crossbows: Use the standard Pulp Alley shooting rules and ranges, but add in the Pulp settings optional rule of Single-Shot AND make it so you can't run and shoot as well. Thoughts?

Magic: Normal pulp ally rules for shooting, but can not move and shoot.

What do you guys think? Would it work or is there something that sticks out as completely bonkers or broken?

Cheers!

[NickNascati]

Well one guy has already posted a Dungeon Crawl game that he did with Pulp Alley, and it seemed to work fine.  I don't see wht a fantasy setting wouldn't work as well.  I think in the Pulp Leagues supplement there are in fact notes for using Pulp Alley in a Fantasy setting.

[shadowking1957]

I did a  Conan Pulp alley, found the rules worked very well one thing was if they had a bow they could shoot if some had stones/dagger/ hand axes they could shoot if not dodge was the only  defense. It worked well. i did not try the extra combat dice in my game but i believe it would work  and make it very brutal, link to my  game
http://shadowking-shadowkings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/conan-and-alter-of-death-pulp-ally-aar.html


and another using none firearms
http://shadowking-shadowkings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/ipy-and-jungle-of-fear-pulp-alley-aar.html

[DavyJones]

I am working on a fantasy campaign for Pulp Alley. So I am very interested in your progress.

[BaronVonJ]

I also used Pulp Alley for Fantasy.:
http://baronvonj.blogspot.com/2013/11/pulp-fantasy.html

[Mr_Kapow]

I did a  Conan Pulp alley, found the rules worked very well one thing was if they had a bow they could shoot if some had stones/dagger/ hand axes they could shoot if not dodge was the only  defense. It worked well. i did not try the extra combat dice in my game but i believe it would work  and make it very brutal, link to my  game
http://shadowking-shadowkings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/conan-and-alter-of-death-pulp-ally-aar.html


and another using none firearms
http://shadowking-shadowkings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/ipy-and-jungle-of-fear-pulp-alley-aar.html

Cool! That looks like a lot of fun!

Still wondering what people think of the changes I'm thinking about... or are all the votes so far "Not needed"?

[WuZhuiQiu]

Those are some interesting ideas, although I haven't yet pondered them very thoroughly. I would like to try similar adaptations, but for pulp ancients gaming ("Papyrus Alley"?).

[Idle Doodler]

Well one guy has already posted a Dungeon Crawl game that he did with Pulp Alley, and it seemed to work fine.

The AAR is here. I didn't make any changes to the rules other than renaming some abilities. I figured that, in the same way that the Shoot statistic in Pulp Alley can represent a pistol, rifle or machine gun, it could also represent arrow, throwing spear or spell. Perhaps it could be worth saying the every league has the animal perk for free, so that nobody is penalised for wanting melee-only characters, but I'd be wary of adding too many different special rules. Pulp Alley works so well because it works so simply. Too many extra weapon-related rules could end up being extra rules forgotten in the heat of a fight!

That said, I have contemplated the Lost World of Lemuria book for a fantasy campaign - it has some special rules gearing it towards a more melee-focused setting, and the scenarios all lend themselves very nicely to fantasy-flavoured renaming.

[Parkaboy]

Well one guy has already posted a Dungeon Crawl game that he did with Pulp Alley, and it seemed to work fine.  I don't see wht a fantasy setting wouldn't work as well.  I think in the Pulp Leagues supplement there are in fact notes for using Pulp Alley in a Fantasy setting.

Do you have a link to that?

[NickNascati]

Parkaboy,
               Here it is, but you may need to join the Pulp Alley forum -

http://pulpalley.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2120&sid=4915769f8db1ac858f9f03c9225f40f9

                                                                                  Nick

[Codsticker]

I played around one day with an idea for Samurai Alley (think Sanjuro or Seven Samurai) . I considered giving everyone the Animal trait as the default and then you could trade that for Kyujutsu (bow) or Hojutsu (teppo or musket). I think bow increased your range and musket gave you an extra die. As my goal was to use Pulp Alley as a skirmish system I could really shorten the Abilities list and limit them to certain types of troops. Even still in the end, the game wasn't entirely satisfactory; it needed more time than I was able to give it that weekend.

[d phipps]

I played around one day with an idea for Samurai Alley (think Sanjuro or Seven Samurai) . I considered giving everyone the Animal trait as the default and then you could trade that for Kyujutsu (bow) or Hojutsu (teppo or musket). I think bow increased your range and musket gave you an extra die. As my goal was to use Pulp Alley as a skirmish system I could really shorten the Abilities list and limit them to certain types of troops. Even still in the end, the game wasn't entirely satisfactory; it needed more time than I was able to give it that weekend.

Oh yes! Samurai Alley has been on our to-do list for years.  I think the Pulp Alley combat mechanics are perfect for that style of fighting.

... What do you guys think? Would it work or is there something that sticks out as completely bonkers or broken?

I think those are all good ideas.

Our Lemuria setting is intended to be somewhat Conan-esque so we added two things --
> Cannot run and shoot.
> Cannot shoot more than once per turn.

But more than that, I think it is about how the characters are designed. Simply by giving a character 1 dice in Shoot may represent someone that isn't very good at whatever they have - javelin, crossbow, sling, and so on. 2d in Shoot can represent someone that is fairly decent with a low-end weapon or someone that simply has a better weapon.

I hope you let us know how your game goes.

HAVE FUN