Pulp!: Skirmish Adventure Wargaming (Osprey Wargames)

[zemjw]

Just noticed this up for pre-order on Amazon - link

Out on December 8

A set of wargames rules covering heroic adventure and dastardly villains during the early 20th Century.

Enter a world of perilous adventure and explore steaming jungles, desert canyons, and arctic wastes! Brave the perils of nature and discover lost ruins, ancient treasures, and the secrets of forgotten civilizations! Race against rival adventurers and face off against diabolical villains! Take to the city streets and fight back against gangsters, spies, and sinister cults!

Pulp! is a scenario-driven skirmish wargame set during the interwar years of the early 20th Century. Players build teams of bold explorers, daring archaeologists, hardboiled detectives, and costumed avengers - or criminal masterminds and evil geniuses - and dive into a world of fortune, glory. and menace. Suitable for both solo and cooperative play as well as the classic head-to-head mode, Pulp! contains all the rules needed to game globetrotting escapades in this rip-roaring era.

[Pattus Magnus]

Thanks for pointing that one, I am looking for a set of rules for that period. If anyone knows details about the game mechanics, it would be great to hear about that.

[aircav]

Thanks for pointing that one, I am looking for a set of rules for that period. If anyone knows details about the game mechanics, it would be great to hear about that.

Have you looked at Pulp Alley?
They even have a free download of the quick start version of their rules

https://store.pulpalley.com/free-downloads-a/257.htm

[Pattus Magnus]

I have the Pulp Alley intro in my computer. I skimmed it but haven’t tried it yet. Lots of folks have posted fun-looking games, so I probably should give it a try.

Can never have too many rule sets for a period, though, can you?

[aircav]

Can never have too many rule sets for a period, though, can you?

True 

[Inkpaduta]

Why does everything have to be built around teams lately.

[zemjw]

There's nothing extra on the Osprey website other than some biographical detail on the author

Marco Arnaudo is a professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he teaches classes about games, comics, and military history. He is the author of the volume Storytelling in the Modern Board Game (McFarland, 2018). He is the designer of the narrative game Four Against the Great Old Ones (Ganesha, 2020).

I have (but have never quite got around to playing) a couple of the Four Against xx books, so that could give some clues as to the direction of the rules.

Why does everything have to be built around teams lately.

True, I just hope it's not the group of 10 that GW seems to feel everyone wanders around in 

Annoyingly, that biography just made me aware of Four Against the Great Old Ones, so that'll probably be bought sooner rather than later. Sometimes I feel my hobby is more buying rules than playing games

[StuRat]

Amazon tells me that, in the US at least, the paperback is out Oct. 18th 2022.

The Kindle release is set for Dec. 8th.

The lack of any "press" for this doesn't fill me with confidence.

I wonder if it is a pulp version of Rogue Stars - the author has done work for/with Ganesha Games.

[FifteensAway]

With all the existing sets of Pulp specific and Pulp useful sets of rules already out there, this very much seems like a set of rules in need of a reason to exist.  Maybe a bit of Osprey overreach? 

And, yes, you can have too many sets of rules for a period - which leads to dilution of knowledge and players and eventually turning players away from the period (is Pulp a period?).

I know I am swimming against the current but the excessive amount of rules in this hobby, in my opinion, has been a negative element putting up a barrier.  More figures?  Of course.  More buildings and terrain?  I certainly hope so.  More rules?  Enough already - unless it is truly ground breaking or an entirely new period with no adaptable rules. 

Think about it, chess = one set of rules (very popular worldwide).  Monopoly = one set of rules and popular.  I could go on.  Wargaming = 10,000 sets of rules.  That is just plain chaos.  If I were considering the hobby today from the outside looking in and saw that, I'd abandon the thought before it even got started and find another hobby.  Yes, yes, I know, variety and spice and all that - we have that in extremis through figure sizes and various periods and non-periods (sci-fi, fantasy, etc.).  Just too damn many rules for common sense.  [You may now reign down the calumny on my head for such blasphemous thoughts - as long as you've given due consideration to my argument!   )

[tin shed gamer]

In all honesty I'd already come across the blurb. It seems worth skimming through ( before buying)  As I've already got Pulp Alley and many of the bits of fluff need to expand it.
It's going to have to be something more special than shiny for me to buy it. As Fifteen's has mentioned There's plenty of established rule systems out there.
I fear it'll be another rule system I thumb through blindly at a show whilst waiting for my friend's to finish waxing lyrical whilst stood around a table. Before it's time for a tea break,or a pint depending on the show.
Much As I enjoy period skirmish games . I'm fatigued by the selection rather than inspired,and I enjoy sculpting pulp miniatures. So it's on my radar just not on my wish list.

[Doug ex-em4]

I pretty much agree with FifteensAway but I ordered a set anyway! Why? Because I’m concentrating my efforts on 1930s skirmish/narrative type games and I’m not really that happy with what I’ve used so far, which is Pulp Alley. That system just keeps on adding too much in the way of Abilities, Perks, Character types etc so that there’s a Modification overload. Abilities that cancel other Abilities which are then modified by other Abilities - an exchange of shots or a brawl can become a tedious Abilities checking bore. There’s lots of good stuff but for me, it’s got too many bolt-on extras. So the possibility of a cleaner system has been enough to persuade me to make the investment in the Osprey book.

It could be that it won’t be the complete answer but maybe it could be something which combined and influenced by elements of PA, could result in a satisfactory hybrid. Who knows?

Nevertheless, there are definitely too many rules sets out there and, unlike some, I don’t enjoy reading rules for the pleasure of reading them. So in a funny way, I’m not particularly looking forward to getting this new set but I’m just hoping there’ll be something there to latch onto.

If not, expect a set to appear at a bargain price on the For Sale board in the near future.

Doug

[NickNascati]

Pulp Alley and Fistful of Lead will both provide great games for the pulp era.

[zemjw]

I've been noticing the proliferation of rules for science fiction skirmish games recently, so I agree to a large extent with FifteensAway.

However, I also struggle to remember traits and abilities during a game (the curse of the solo gamer, having to remember twice as many stats  ), so I also agree with Doug on that one.

I haven't pre-ordered it yet, as I would like to see some reports on how it plays first. There's another six weeks or so before it's out, so hopefully they'll send review copies to YouTube folks and other "influencers" and we'll get some more details.

[pauld]

And, yes, you can have too many sets of rules for a period - which leads to dilution of knowledge and players and eventually turning players away from the period (is Pulp a period?).

[You may now reign down the calumny on my head for such blasphemous thoughts - as long as you've given due consideration to my argument!   )

Not quite calumny but my opinion varies

 - for example how many books do you need to read, songs to play, films to watch?  Should literature have peaked and stopped at Shakespeare, cinema at Citizen Kane and music at Brown Girl in the Ring?

There are only 26 letters (in my alphabet - others may vary), a handful of musical notes and limited narrative genres but nevertheless there are millions of each enjoyed by millions of varied individuals.

I suppose I collect rules and enjoy reading almost all of them.  How many I play is an entirely different matter but it is a very important part of my hobby enjoyment. 

Variety, as you rightly say, is the spice of life.

I shy away from acronyms but YMMV seems apt.

[pauld]

By the way if it's not obvious this is a no brainer purchase for me.