Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Pulp => Topic started by: rjandron on 22 November 2009, 07:30:37 PM
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Hi,
I'm designing a Pulp setting, and I wanted to ask just how important is technical accuracy to you as players? If I have a pre-WWII setting, will it turn pulp fans off if there are late-war technological advances in there?
Basically, I want to be able to have units using Panzerfausts and MP-38s in 1933. As a WWII hardware grognard myself, I know that it would definitely make me notice that the setting's a bit anachronistic. What do you think?
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If you're designing a pulp setting, why use panzerfausts and MP38s ?
Why not opt for a pulp weapon - either the sinister experiments of Doktor X or the free world devices of Prof America ?
That wouldn't limit you to technical possibilities either.
How about rocketmen with ray guns ?
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If you're designing a pulp setting, why use panzerfausts and MP38s ?
Why not opt for a pulp weapon - either the sinister experiments of Doktor X or the free world devices of Prof America ?
That wouldn't limit you to technical possibilities either.
How about rocketmen with ray guns ?
'Cause I want to have Nazis as bad guys... :D
Perhaps I should have been a bit clearer in my question. While pulp-sf weapons are planned for the setting, I'd like to know if including Nazis using slightly anachronistic weaponry (e.g. the aforementioned Panzerfausts and MP-38s) would turn off pulp fans or if they would accept it and enjoy the setting regardless.
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Weird, isn't it, to have gamers who are quite enthusiastic about gaming a colonial dino hunt scenario but get really snippy if one of the models carry a Bren gun. We are such complex and interesting people... :)
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Well, wouldn't matter to me, as long as you tell a great story :D
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Thats' very philosophical Hammers. The what if element of any pulp gaming is surely its essence.
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Weird, isn't it, to have gamers who are quite enthusiastic about gaming a colonial dino hunt scenario but get really snippy if one of the models carry a Bren gun. We are such complex and interesting people... :)
It's called the suspension of disbelief. Hollywood and its audience face similar conundrums. Inside everyone of us there's a little bloke in an anorak with a clipboard and adenoids wanting to get out.
Similar parallels in terms of props and costume design. In the 1950s or sixties a movie was like as not, going to feature M48 Pattons as Tiger Tanks or a silver painted plastic frisbee on a string as a spaceship. Today's tastes tend to dicatate that some passing nod to period be accomodated. And in this day and age pretty much any taste in miniatures you care to name is catered for by one manufacturer or another.
To me the thing that would makes something distinctively 'Nazi' would be the coalscuttle helmets and maybe an armband here and there. Bob Murch does some with suitably 1930s submachine guns, why not use them? Why have panzerfausts when you can have massive great anti-tank rifles or ray guns? Gives more of a period flavour and a nod to the original genre.
Bottom line is of course a matter of 'your toys, your taste'. Creativity is the only real limit
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Besides 30's era SMGs, you could use purloined american bazookas, provided you don't call them bazookas. Goddard designed the original rocket launcher at the end of WW1.
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I think you pretty much nailed it there. ;)
For me in the Pulp Genre technical accuracy pretty much goes out the window. Hollow Earths, Antartic Space Nazis, Criminal Masterminds and Extra-Dimensional Horrors. Granted there are grittier and more realistic Pulp settings such as Mysteries and Detective Fiction. I'd go for whatever you'd like to for your game. It can be as simple as Advanced Prototypes, or even an Alternate History. My only rule when it comes to the Pulps is that are Fast and Fun.
If you're designing a pulp setting, why use panzerfausts and MP38s ?
Why not opt for a pulp weapon - either the sinister experiments of Doktor X or the free world devices of Prof America ?
That wouldn't limit you to technical possibilities either.
How about rocketmen with ray guns ?
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I didn't have problems with the Indiana Jones movies and they are anything but historically accurate. So go ahead with MP 38 and the good old Panzerfaeuste.
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If you're designing a pulp setting, why use panzerfausts and MP38s ?
Why not opt for a pulp weapon - either the sinister experiments of Doktor X or the free world devices of Prof America ?
That wouldn't limit you to technical possibilities either.
How about rocketmen with ray guns ?
This whole line of thinking is what totally spoils the VSF, Weird War Two, and all other "fantasy historical" genres for me. An army list mentally seems to have developed where folks want every single unit in every force to consist of "weird" things. If I'm playing a Pulpish weird war game I don't want legions of Walker robots fighting squadrons of zombie rocketmen. For me the weird shit should be exceptional and unusual even within the game world. If not then the whole thing loses the wonder. When the exceptional becomes everyday, then it ceases to be interesting. I want my games to be grounded in something close to the real world, where strange, wonderful and terrifying things exist, but they are very, very far from being commonplace. Put wargamers in charge and Indy would have retrieved the Ark of the Covenant by leading an assault of Scout Walkers and Rocket Rangers against a power-armoured division of SS werewolves on the moon. That might be some people's idea of fun, but it ain't mine.
I want the cool stuff to be rare, in the hands of the baddies, and very experimental (and the good guys overcome it by being brave and resourceful, not because they have laser guns, giant robots and druids on their side). The Nazis shouldn't have legions of magic-users, just maybe one high-priest with a strange artifact it has taken them years to find and figure out how to use. Otherwise to me it would feel like I was playing Warhammer, and once it does that, then I'd rather play actual Warhammer.
That's why I like Bren Guns and Bergmans, and why they should always have a place. You don't have to get every tiny thing right, but it should feel right. But that's just me.
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Like my dear old Grandpa X used to tell me, "historical realities are a puddle of mud the Pulp Genre easily sidesteps".
But then again, he WAS a loon. ;)
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I'd say that, if it's a PULP setting, I wouldn't worry too much. I totally agree with the idea of using just a few weird bits, but keeping the overall "feel" right.
As Doomhippie says, The Indiana Jones movies are a perfect example of "getting the feel right"...
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rjandron, you must ask yourself one and only one question.
1) Will it be fun for you and the players? If so, then use them, that's all that matters. 8)
Personally, I say use whatever makes your heart happy. If we want to get all serious and scientificy (yes, "scientificy" is a real word), there are inifinite parallel worlds. Therefore, anything goes! Throw in your submachine guns and panzerfaust weapons. Throw in ray guns, unspeakable horrors, sinister sorcerey and dancing moon apes from Archipelego VI. Whatever makes your game good and you happy is what matters. ;)
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as long as you tell a great story - That's the crux of pulp. Spin a good yarn! Fast paced nonstop action! Good triumphant over Evil!
Who the h#ll cares about technical accurately?
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Basically, I want to be able to have units using Panzerfausts and MP-38s in 1933. As a WWII hardware grognard myself, I know that it would definitely make me notice that the setting's a bit anachronistic. What do you think?
Question in my mind is not whether or not this would be OK for a one off scenario, because one can always imagine an inventor working on prototype or experimental weapons many years before they go into military production. The question for me is, why not use changes of uniform and weapons over time to help frame a series of encounters over the years? Seems to me that the Pulp genre is partly about serial adventures in which a hero encounters the same villan or villans time and time again over the years. One could imagine the hero at a young age, perhaps as a teenager, dealing with the chaos in Germany at the end of WW1, then dealing with corruption of various kinds in Weimar Germany, then tangling with the early Nazi movement, then later dealing with weird WW2.
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Put wargamers in charge and Indy would have retrieved the Ark of the Covenant by leading an assault of Scout Walkers and Rocket Rangers against a power-armoured division of SS werewolves on the moon.
Will this be your next project? Pleeeaase? :D
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To quote my Club's moto (at least one of them...)
"Not letting History get in the way of a good game!"
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this is really a good motto
Unfortunately, I experienced a lot of useless discussions about historical accuracy, many times.
Usually people do not realise how historicity is perceived - our feel about something being historical is always retrospective and shaped by the portrayal in movies. This is the reason why we think that "Indy" has got it. But the truth is very different from that. So when a movie is created, there is always a creativity connected that tries to balance things that people would accept as realistic and at the same time introducing new elements.
If You stick to this concept there is always room to reinvent the past. What could be more boring than simply photocopy known and accepted aspects?
take "sky captain" as an example: How stupid is the Idea that an army of gigantic robots has to steal generators from cities? Someone who is able to build such an army would hardly need to do that. It is all about the exaggerated show element. That is what makes PULP IMHO. Exaggeration.
So if You want an Army of Nazis toting Panzerfausts and Schmeissers, go ahead.
(here again, a good example for historical perception - Schmeisser was not involved in the design of MP38, yet everyone would know what the name stands for)
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I know little about history but lots about pulp...anything I can't make up I'll check a history book about. I think 'pulp' means whatever you want...or whatever you have figures for...
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take "sky captain" as an example: How stupid is the Idea that an army of gigantic robots has to steal generators from cities? Someone who is able to build such an army would hardly need to do that. It is all about the exaggerated show element. That is what makes PULP IMHO. Exaggeration.
Agreed. When you get right down to it, using that logic, gigantic robots aren't that great an idea, either.
Internal consistency is all you really need. And even that can go by the wayside if you have a good story for it. If you want accuracy, there's plenty of historical games available to use instead.
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I tend to agree a little bit with what Plynkes have said!
for me there is a fine line between Pulp and Sci-Fi, and usually it's a matter of personal taste on where you draw it!
It's a little bit like Tolkien Fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy... it's a matter of what you think, or like, what is common in a particular setting
I must admit that sometimes I like the whole concept of zombie panzer divisions, but sometimes just a little hint of supernatural is enough!
But even is historical games always look at Napoleon as small bloke like an hobbit, prussians always have monocles, the british guys are all red haired and have moustaches and among the celtic host there is always an Asterix and an Obelix! :)
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I wouldn't envisage a game with everyone as a rocketman armed with ray guns - I'd expect most grunts to have nothing more advanced than a bolt action rifle, or maybe a Thompson SMG for US types, and most leading characters to be armed with a simple pistol, probably pearl-handled Colts for US types, Webley on a halyard for Brits, and Lugers for sinister Germans, perhaps even a few broom-handled Mausers, or even a bullwhip.
Villains may well have something more exotic, swords, branding irons, crystal skulls/amulets, pet tigers or sharks, or a combination.
But a lot of pulp objectives/plotlines seem to focus around stealing the plans/blueprints/prototype of the fiendish new vehicle/weapon/genetically modified Llama etc, or testing the new thing, or destroying the new thing now we know it works. After all, the new super unit might be rocket troops with ray guns, but as prototypes (untested and untrained at first) there are certain to be plenty of chances for spectacular fumbles.