Pulp without the campiness?

[Bravo Six]

Okay, this may be blasphamy here on this board, but I'm wondering if any games pulp style without the Crimson Avenger or Dr Ming type stuff? I know those make the whole pulp experience fun and are true to the "feel" of pulp, but I'm more a fan of the "adventure" style feel that pulps lends itself. More Peter Hopkirk style and less Charlie Chan. But that's just me. We dub our gaming sessions "Serial Adventure" gaming.

How do you guys view your take on your own interpretations of pulp. I'm not trying to stir pot at all, I'm just interested.

-Todd

[Howard Whitehouse]

Bob Murch has pointed out that there is a sliding scale - a pulpometer if you like - which starts at 'almost exactly like real life adventure' and goes through Biggles-ish boy's own adventure, hard boiled detective etc to Doc Savage and the wilder realms of Ming and Captain Future.

You can play anywhere you like along that scale, although people aren't happy if one minute you are chasing Sidney Reilly across the Finnish border and the next you are on Planet Mongo.

Many players have a tendency to pump-up the pulpy quotient as the game goes along, simply because it's so much fun. On the other hand, traditional wargamer types get stuck in their rivetheaded ruts, and treat the wild Back of Beyond arena as a sort of WWI variant; all detail, no feel.

Is that any help? H  :

[Operator5]

I play both styles and freely mix the two (which can be done).

Campiness is not a pre-requisite which is why I wrote the .45 Adventure rules as I did. I didn't go for schtick, but a serious look at how the pulps felt when reading them or how I felt reading a Charlie Chan or Dashiell Hammet novel.

It's easy to add camp into serious rules since that is just a matter of attitude.

As long as you have fun, that's all that matters.

[Hammers]

I am at roughly at the Indiana Jones notch at the pulpometer, a historical contect with a bit of occultism added. I am guessing that is royghly in the middle of the scale.

[Westfalia Chris]

I like my Pulp to come with mad science, evil Nazis and just a hint of oriental mysteries - that is, while I am a staunch fan of Cthulhu, I just don´t want those magicky cultists outside of the Far East.

So I guess I´m somewhere around 6 or 7 on a ten-point scale?!?

[Ray Earle]

As my pulp campaigns have only just started my adventures tend to stick mainly to the 'gangster' period. More Phillip Marlowe in approach, moving towards the Shadow and costumed heroes.  :wink:

Probably nearing the middle of the scale, but only just. Give it a couple of months though....

[TadPortly]

Surely the whole point of Pulp is the "pulpiness".  Without the fictionalised element ranging from Indiana Jones to Ming etc, it just would not be Pulp, but a historical wargame/adventure.

[dominic]

You could do more "realistic" Indiana Jones type scenarios with more believable plots.

[Hammers]

You could do more "realistic" Indiana Jones type scenarios with more believable plots.

Not following you. What's unrealistic about Gestapo performing Hebraeic rituals to conjure kerubim and roller coaster ore carts in seismically instable mine shafts?

[LeadAsbestos]

I just asked the same question, only regarding SF stuff. I wa slooking for something in between Flash Gordon and dull, stuffy Hard SF. Although i must admit, I do like more Pulp than Historical calm... :roll:

[dominic]

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I did say "more" realistic, not totally realistic.

What I meant is not using Indy himself, but a character something like him.

So an archaelogical team in Central Asia doing a dig.
Attacked by brigands. (Scenario 1)
Held hostage in (insert exotic Central Asian town name)
Rescue attempt by British troops. (scenario 2)
Suspected British "invasion" checked by Bolsheviks or Persian forces (scenario 3)
and so on...

So you see there is no need for any movie hocus pocus.  It is up to you how campy you want the game to be.

[Hammers]

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I did say "more" realistic, not totally realistic.

Nono, I was being ironic :-)

[pnweerar]

Pulp (if you go in for it) is like Doctor Who, or Orcs. The less seriously one can take the genre, the more awesome the the mix of wargaming and beer.

[Operator5]

At Cold Wars last year, I ran my Gobi Desert game. Two teams of paleontologists were trying to collect as many "dragon bones" as they could while trying to prevent the other guy from getting away with any.

Nothing at all supernatural (except some of the miraculous escapes). The hazards included soft sand, dust devils, wolves, and bandits.

It was still pulp because all the heroes were heroic, surviving truck wrecks, gun fire, and still managing to snag the runaway camel and make the escape.

No campiness and the players all had a blast.

[tabletop]

The Pulp .45 Adventure rules are excellent imho. You can play them completely straight and your players will still have an great time.

The first campaign I ran was two 'straight' scenarios (Night in the Cairo Museum of Antiquities, and a variation on one of the AWS scenarios) and a final 'supernatural' scenario (rob the tomb, escape from the Mummy) and to be honest I think player enjoyment was fairly constant across the campaign.

In fact from memory my players probably had more fun lobbing grenades at each other's teams than trying to complete the particular scenario objective I'd step them :x