[Pulp Alley] Testing the system

[oldskoolrebel]

Okay first of all, I am sorry for the poor quality pictures- The lighting in the spare room wasn't great plus I hadn't set my camera up correctly. Now that said let the fun continue.

Pulp Alley really seems to have take off. All my pulp experience has been with .45 Adventures, which is a great game but isn't the idea choice for playing at conventions or with people who don't really know the system. Pulp Alley promises to be faster, easier to pick up, and a rip roaring fun!

I threw together a table, and some leagues. Rolling on the random game chart we where landed with the Smash & Grab scenario. Below is a birds eye view of the table.


The scenario calls for a major plot point to be placed in the centre of the table and 4 minor plot points at random intervals. Because we where playing in a 3' by 2' table we decided to keep these fairly central. For those not in the know plot points are effectively the goal of the game. Most of the time your leagues job is to grab as many as you can.

On one corner of the board the nefarious Nazis set up. They featured a leader, a side kick, an ally and two followers. They also had the eagle-eyed perk which extended the range of their shooting attacks. In pulp alley characters don't buy equipment and then use separate stats for them. Instead you may choose to increase their shooting skill as they have a rifle, or buy a rapid fire ability because of their SMG.


The other league where the archaeologists. They featured a leader, side kick, and two allies. They where given the daredevil adventurer's perk- which allowed a bonus to peril rolls. Needless to say this useful bonus was promptly forgotten about.


The start of the game was a mad dash to the plot points. Here you can see Prof Omar and Kentucky Davies moving towards a minor plot point- conveniently hidden behinds the crates. With a game rarely lasting longer than 6 turns, the 12" run and 6" standard move is pretty useful. A bit different from other games but that's not a bad thing.


Fraulein Whiplash and her NCO make a b-line straight for the major plot point.


I'm afraid that I don't have many more pictures.

What I did find was that shooting was largely ineffective; however playing a Peril seemed to be more effective than actually fighting someone. For example in the picture, you can see the Africa Korp on the roof- he passed all the peril checks required to climb up onto the building. However both the fallen archaeologist's models are allies and taking out the due to a peril each. I'm wondering if this is due to bad rolls or a idiosyncrasy of the system. I also wondered what happened when a character only had 2 dice in a certain ability and required 3 successes to pass a challenge? Does this mean that they automatically fail?


Another strange occurrence was effectively a stand off for the final three turns of the system. Three models just stood their shooting each other. Now it was two leaders and a side kick, and despite rolling handfuls of dice each, they where cancelling each others damage out or saved all the damage. Again do leaders and sidekicks just hang around a longer? Or is it just our rolls?


Overall I liked the system, the rules are pretty easy to pick up but I'm still not convinced that I have them down fully. I love the simplicity, and I really like the use of fortune cards, they're such a great mechanic. I'm really looking forward to playing again. I'm wondering if the strange occurrences that I noticed in this game where just produced by random chance, or if they are part and parcel of the system. If they are part of the system, it changes how a game plays quite dramatically- again this isn't a problem and could be very refreshing.

Cheers
Andy

[magokiron]

Don't know if you did it wrong, or had really bad die rolls, but in my experience, Leaders and sidekicks are hard to knock down, while allies and followers die rather quickly (as expected in a Pulp enviroment).

Did you get right the shooting rules?

The attacker matches the dice UNLESS defender is using DODGE (but then, he inflicts no return damage), So the attacker decides if he cancels some of his/her own successes to avoid taking damage, or goes for blood, regardless of self security. That's the reason why shooting lower level enemies ussually is a big advantage.

Besides, after each combat, a Leader or sidekick who received damage is not "knocked down". If he/she failed the health check, only is wounded and need to use the following LOWER dice for their actions. And at each turn end, they may try a RECOVERY CHECK to shake of the "temporary weakness" and be at full strenght again... or not.

Only when they are at d6 and are wounded AGAIN they go down. And even then, they still have a last recory opportunity.

Hope this helps you, and waiting to see more AARs, because your miniatures and scenery looks REALLY good.

Best wishes.

[oldskoolrebel]

Don't know if you did it wrong, or had really bad die rolls, but in my experience, Leaders and sidekicks are hard to knock down, while allies and followers die rather quickly (as expected in a Pulp enviroment).

...

Besides, after each combat, a Leader or sidekick who received damage is not "knocked down". If he/she failed the health check, only is wounded and need to use the following LOWER dice for their actions. And at each turn end, they may try a RECOVERY CHECK to shake of the "temporary weakness" and be at full strenght again... or not.

Good to know, I think what surprised me is how resilient the Leaders and sidekicks are. D10 for health checks, are strangely effective! I also really like the simple way that losing health caps which dice you can use. Pure simple genius. 

Did you get right the shooting rules?

The attacker matches the dice UNLESS defender is using DODGE (but then, he inflicts no return damage), So the attacker decides if he cancels some of his/her own successes to avoid taking damage, or goes for blood, regardless of self security. That's the reason why shooting lower level enemies ussually is a big advantage.

Yeah that's the way we played; however a combination of bad rules and conservative damage choices probably expended the the survival rate.

On reflection it also seems that lower 'grades' are better off reacting to an opponents attack by either shooting or brawling first, and dodging any consecutive attacks within the round. 

Hope this helps you, and waiting to see more AARs, because your miniatures and scenery looks REALLY good.

Thank you  I'm looking forward to playing some more games, I can really see pulp alley being a breath of fresh air.

Cheers
Andy

[d phipps]

 
Yes, indeed! Leaders are tough hombres. You can think of a Leader as being on par with a Doc Savage, Shadow, Indiana Jones, Flash Gordon type of character, so they are not going to get ko'd very often.



I’ll go through an extended fighting example just to cover some of the combat options –
 



Minerva activates, walks about 6”, and shoots at Phantom Ace. Ace chooses to shoot back.

They are in short range. Minerva is in cover, but Ace is not.

Minerva rolls 4d10 to shoot Ace, and gets a 3, 7, 9, and 10. So Minerva rolled 3 successes.

Counter-attacking, Ace rolls 5d10, and gets a 2, 2, 4, 7, and 8. So Ace also rolled 3 successes.

Unlike “dice pool” style games, you actually have a choice of how you use your dice, so Minerva has a few options to consider…

1.   I-Want-Blood option – Minerva could choose to not match/cancel any of the dice and make both characters take 3 hits.

2.   Press-My-Luck option – Minerva could use one of her dice to cancel one of Ace’s dice, so they’d both take 2 hits.

3.   Take-A-Chance option – Minerva could use two of her dice to cancel two of Ace’s dice, so they’d both take 1 hit.

4.   Play-It-Safe option – Minerva could use her three successes to cancel all of Ace’s dice, so neither character is hit.


This decision represents a split-second of time, and normally only take s afew seconds to decide. There is no right/wrong answer. It’s more about knowing what your goal is at the time and how much you are willing to risk!


In this example, let’s say Minerva decides to press her luck – knowing that she may have a slight advantage by being in cover. She uses one of her dice to cancel one of Ace’s, so they both take two hits and must roll an immediate Health check…

Minerva takes 2 hits so she rolls 2d10 for her Health check – and gets a 1and 6. Because she’s in cover, Minerva can re-roll the 1 – and this time she gets a 9. She did not get hurt in the brief exchange of hot lead.

Ace takes 2 hits, rolls a 2d10 Health check – and gets a 3 and 9. Ouch! Ace is injured and his Health drops to d8. As you mentioned in your post, this means Ace’s rolls are all capped at d8’s now!

(BTW – these are the actual dice rolls I am getting as I write this example.)


Let’s go one more activation and see how this plays out. Ace activate next as part of the same turn…

Figuring he has the advantage in a brawl, Ace rushes Minerva. He’ll be rolling his brawl skill.

Minerva could choose to Dodge or Brawl with Ace, or she could even use her Shoot skill since Ace rushed her from about 6” away.
“He’s already hurt, so now’s my chance!” – Minerva chooses to stand her ground and shoot Ace.

Ace would normally roll 4d10 for Brawl, but only gets 4d8 due to his injury. Also note that Ace is a Hardened Veteran, so he does not lose a die for the previous fight. He rolls 1, 3, 4, and 4 – not too good.

Minerva rolls 4d10 to shoot Ace (+1d for short range and uses Nerves of Steel to negate the multiple combats penalty). She gets a 2, 5, 8, and 9.

Although Ace rolled 2 successes, his 4’s are not high enough to cancel any of Minerva’s dice. Also, note that Minerva cannot match/cancel any dice because it is Ace’s activation. This time there's only one option and it could get bloody!

Ace suffers 3 hits, so he rolls a 3d8 Health check – and gets 1, 5, and 7. His Health is now down to d6. And now he cannot roll any dice greater than d6!

Minerva takes 2 hits, so she rolls 2d10 – and gets 3 and 10. Her Health drops to d8!


In the brutal exchange of blows, BOTH characters end up bloodied. And if Ace doesn’t make his Recovery check, I’d say he’s in a lot of trouble…


This whole example may represent 1-2 minutes of actual game time. I almost want to keep going and see if Minerva can take him out, but I think that should cover enough for now.

...On reflection it also seems that lower 'grades' are better off reacting to an opponents attack by either shooting or brawling first, and dodging any consecutive attacks within the round. 

I think you're right. In general, folks normally see Dodge as their last choice -- for when they can't effectively counter-attack.

BTW -- Thanks for sharing pics and your cool terrain and minis, and if you haven't seen it please check out Mila's Phantom Agents promo for 2014. She still has some goodies to give away -- http://pulpalley.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=718&sid=1352c3551d64663d40b3381d518ee61e


I hope this helps a little. Please let us know if you have any questions.



HAVE FUN

[oldskoolrebel]

And again, one of the reasons that I love this forum. It's one of the few places where we can mix with game designers *fanboy squeal*

Thank you very much Mr Phillips, this example really clears things up. Now to be fair there was only one thing that we forgot about, and that was that you can only 'block' an opponents success if you roll higher or equal to their roll! I am pretty sure that if we remembered this then that Mexican stand off wouldn't have happened.

The game took around 2 hours but I'm pretty sure that this was slow- we where constantly looking up rules and stopped at one point for some dinner. How long does it normally take for a 2 person game to play out? I would imagine approximately an hour, once everyone knows the rules.

I'll be certain to send some stuff to Mila once we play our next game.

The other thing that I meant to ask was non combat skills- currently are these only really used in the resolving of perils? If they are, have you given any thought to the way that the fortune deck is structured? Is it largely made up of challenges which require finesse, might and cunning rolls?

Cheers
Andy H

[d phipps]

The game took around 2 hours but I'm pretty sure that this was slow- we where constantly looking up rules and stopped at one point for some dinner. How long does it normally take for a 2 person game to play out? I would imagine approximately an hour, once everyone knows the rules.

The other thing that I meant to ask was non combat skills- currently are these only really used in the resolving of perils? If they are, have you given any thought to the way that the fortune deck is structured? Is it largely made up of challenges which require finesse, might and cunning rolls?

2 hours for your first game is about normal, although a dinner break is optional. 

Oh yes, it won't be long before you can fly through a 2-person game in under an hour.

Personally, I like playing really fast. It just feels more pulpy to me. Mila thinks I play too fast sometimes and she prefers a bit more of a leisurely pace. In either case, the game mechanics give you plenty of time to add in your own flourishes and story.



Yup, the action-skills are mainly used for Perils and Plot Points and the Fortune card challenges are fairly balanced between the various skills. If I remember correctly, the basic deck breaks down to something like this... (spoiler alert  )

Might only = 13%
Finesse only = 13%
Cunning only = 13%
Might or Finesse = 16%
Finesse or Cunning = 16%
Cunning or Might = 16%
Any skill = 13%

Action skills come into play for anything that is important/dangerous, but not specifically combat related.

Action skills are also there to help gamemasters develop their own scenarios/campaigns. So if you want to pre-set a specific challenge, you can decide how many successes and which skills are needed. I think we had a handful of these in the Perilous Island campaign.



HAVE FUN

[oldskoolrebel]

Thanks again matey,

Sorry but another question that came up the other day concerning moving. Does a character need to move before performing an action? For example could a model in contact with a plot point complete/collect it and then move their 6"? OR could a model take a shot and then move 6"? From reading the rules I suspect that you must move and then fight/perform an action.

Cheers
Andy

[BlackSmoke]

Followers and allies can also be used to soften up a tougher character or leave them with fewer options. This especially useful if you have Fortune cards that can negate damage. A couple of rounds fighting might very well mean that tough hombre can't deliver his trademark haymaker this turn, or he may now be prey to one of your deadly assassins. It's definitely about the heroes being larger than life surrounded by mere supporting cast.

On the surface, Pulp Alley seems quite lightweight, but it has a surprising amount of tactical depth.

[d phipps]

Thanks again matey,

Sorry but another question that came up the other day concerning moving. Does a character need to move before performing an action? For example could a model in contact with a plot point complete/collect it and then move their 6"? OR could a model take a shot and then move 6"? From reading the rules I suspect that you must move and then fight/perform an action.

Cheers
Andy

Yup, moving comes first.

Basically, after the results of an action (like plot points) or combat are determined, the character's activation automatically ends.

There are a few exceptions, but this is the general rule.


HAVE FUN

[pistolpete]

dave - is minerva one of the next PA figures?  did you think someone wouldn't notice.

[FramFramson]

dave - is minerva one of the next PA figures?  did you think someone wouldn't notice.

They leaked her a little while ago in the Pulp Figures thread.

She's basically my #1 wanted Pulp figure, but when I annoyed Andrew to try and find out the release date ( ), he said it'll be another 2-3 months before she's released.  

(Actually that's just fine in my case, since I still have so much work to do before I can get games going)

[d phipps]

dave - is minerva one of the next PA figures?  did you think someone wouldn't notice.

SSsshh... I don't think anyone noticed. 

...On the surface, Pulp Alley seems quite lightweight, but it has a surprising amount of tactical depth.

Amen, brother! As a frequent player, this is very important to me. Personally, I really can't get into a game that doesn't have real tactical depth.

In my opinion, Pulp Alley is an easy game to play and very family-friendly. And if you like meaningful tactical play, you'll find that option is there as well -- in Spades. 




HAVE FUN