New pulp alley character class?

[Samulus]

I had an idea rattling around in my brain the other day for a new character archetype.

This came from a very specific requirement - i was trying to build the crew for serenity from Firefly (you may have seen pics elsewhere) but I didn't like that pretty much whatever I did Mal was always better at everything than anyone else... by an order of magnitude. I know the leader archetype is designed to reflect our classic pulp hero -  master of all trades for reasons of plot - but it didn't sit right with me that he was better at engineering than Kaylee or more intelligent than Simon. I realize this is bridging the awkward gap from narrative skirmish game to RPG (where characters are all, level not withstanding, as good as each other, just with different specialisms) but in for a penny, in for a pound. 

I suppose one solution would be to go for the 'companions' style league, but for some reason this didn't seem right - Mal really is 'the leader' and I wanted him to have the juicy combat and health stats to match.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying, how about a 'Specialist' character archetype? My initial thoughts were: 1 dice at D10, 1 dice at D8, 4 dice at D6; 2 stats at 2 dice and 4 stats at 1 dice; 1 or 2 (can't decide) perks. I thought maybe 3 or 4 slots? (while I like the simplicity of the slots, they don't leave much room for nuance in ability pricing...)

What do you reckon? Basically, its the midpoint between a Sidekick and an Ally.

[Wolf Girl]

Dad and I have talked about this a few times and we both kind of like the idea. We even playtested some different character variants, but nothing really stood out so far.

We always encourage folks to try out their ideas and see how they work.

Have fun

[Rhelyk]

I personally really like the rules for the game, but also find the huge gap between leaders and sidekicks and especially allies & followers to kill the fun for me. The hero should be better than the scrubs, but it's always so one-sided unless it's hero on hero, sidekick on sidekick, and follower/ally vs follower/ally.

In the past D Phipps has suggested making everybody level 3 (sidekick) for sci-fi and fantasy games. Rolling forward with that idea, my group has discussed making all leagues a leader (level 4) and 5 sidekicks (level 3), or equivalent amount of league perks. To deal with everyone having more health levels we don't allow recovery checks except for the final out of action roll and the recovery action cards, so wounded characters generally stay wounded. Another necessary result is turning all the "1 success" challenges into "2 success" challenges or they would be trivial.

[Malebolgia]

Disagree with you there Rhelyk. Had lots of games where the hero is wounded multiple times by allies and followers. Mostly a matter of applying lots of pressure, so he loses a lot of combat dice after several fights. Then even a Follower can dish out the pain.
That's one of the reasons I don't like Hardened Veteran with a Leader...they become godly in combat.

[Rhelyk]

Pretty much everybody in my group takes hardened veteran for their leader :/ It's just too good not to take, unfortunately. Same reason we have so many followers and allies with Marksman, or leaders with the skill to shift a die type down for +2 dice. Rolling 5D8 is much better than rolling 3D10. I personally want to ban all those skills, they are very flavorful but so much more powerful than other skills that we just see them used over and over again. If one person takes them, the rest have to as well and the arms race of skills pushes out the "lesser" skills that are much more characterful and fun for the skills that are simply more effective. Holdover from a lot of us being tournament style players, really.

I do see allies/followers hurting the Leaders, but only with kamikaze tactics. The ally/follower shoots at the leader, doesn't cancel any hits even if they can hoping to force a health check or 2 on the other leader. It usually results in a passed health check for the opposing leader and a couple of health checks for the ally. It's often just an unconcious ally and an unfased leader, but sometimes the leader fails a few health checks and drops 2 levels before you go in with a sidekick or a leader and finish their leader off.

I would much prefer the skill that lets you reroll a shoot or finesse die to the straight +1 Shoot die Marksmanship gives you since they are the same "level" skill and take up the same skill slot, but since most characters only get a single skill it becomes a bit of a handicap to take a lesser skill in the place of a "better" skill. It leads to a lot of cookie cutter followers and allies in my group and it's not particularly fun for either side. I realize this is mostly an issue with how my group plays games, which is why we've been coming up with our own house rules to balance it more to our tastes while keeping the game as intact as we can. We just have a lot more fun if all the characters on the board are of similar power level and if we change or ban certain skills and rules, it then frees us up to feel like we can make more characterful choices without hampering ourselves. Oddly enough by forcing use into more stringent rules we actually get a lot more fun characters with much more varied skills. And since everyone is roughly the same power level and can't generally heal the matching and cancelling of hits becomes a much tougher (and much more interesting) choice!

I figured Samulus might benefit from some our house rules, adjust them to his own personal tastes or that of his group.

[theoldschool]

Leaders stay around for a long time, but they are vulnerable. That's the way  it should be. It's how it works in the pulps. IMHO the balance is fine.

As to pouring over the rules looking for killer attribute combinations all I can say is power gamers are the bane of every system. Eventually they find a way to 'break' any game.

Attributes are there to flesh out a character based on their back story. If a player has to win at all costs, then maybe Pulp Alley is not for them.

For me Pulp Alley is very different from other games. It is not about slugging it out last man standing style. It is about recreating the Saturday morning pulp serials or those great Street and Smith stories. Play the game in the spirit in which it was written and have fun - win or lose.

[Wolf Girl]

That's cool, Rhelyk. Dad and I encourage folks to make their own houserules to make it even more fun for your own particular group/style.

You'll really like the Vice Alley ability list. Have you seen it already? 

I do think there are aspects of Pulp Alley that make it appealing to tournament style players. The dice-matching, Initiative system, and stuff like that give players lots more control over their tactics.

My leagues tend to be built for just having a good time. With my current league, I'm on a 6 game losing streak but every game was lots of fun. 

[tin shed gamer]

 Ah Tiger tank Syndrome!
Its why I like WW1 vehicles they can cause utter chaos in your games but can be just about taken out with a fruit knife.
Your right numbers tell in the end.Just build your games so the Rambo's of your club face companies of foe's not just the Milkman and his three legged cat..
Or build a lucky shot into your games shuffle a pack of cards with every shot fired Ace of spades instant damage/wounds no saves.
After all Richard 1st was felled by untrained cook with a crossbow.Richards prefered toy was a battle axe with a 20lb head,and he didn't use that two handed!

[FramFramson]

Sounds like an unfortunate case of power gaming going on in Rhelyk's group.

[Rhelyk]

Well, it's only unfortunate if you stop playing games with friends over it

As long as everyone is on the same page then it's easy enough to have a discussion and work out the differences. We started using PA to play with Halo figures and Star Wars figures and Star Trek figures, and the large differences in power between Captain Kirk and Spock and Sulu didn't make a lot of sense. Now people are making up their own leagues from whatever miniatures they like and with their own stories (all according to my diabolical plan muah ha ha!). It lets us tap into our vast collection of miniatures and make our own Serenity crew, or Halo spartan team, or trek bridge crew or mercenary group or Generic-Futurecorp™ lackeys. We've been having a lot of fun with Pulp Alley as a generic sci-fi system because it has some really interesting mechanics and the league creation and perks and skills are generally GREAT for making up your own crew/team/gang/squad. And just like Samulus we wanted a "crew" where it felt like each character was an important part of the team with a different role and skillset, something easily accomplished with only a few changes. It's just more fun for us that way, feels more like each person has a full RPG party instead of each person having "their" character + a few supporting NPCs.

Us having fun with the game this way should not mean you can't have fun with the original game and the original theme and setting! I think it's awesome that the creator is fully supportive of making the game into something your group enjoys, it's a positive thing when a system supports multiple genres and playstyles. I am by no means advocating these house rules as changes to the base game, just as an option should it suit your fancy. Different strokes for different folks

@ Wolf Girl - yes, I'm pretty excited for it! More skills and scenarios is only ever a good thing!

[FramFramson]

One thing I found that I did to try and "smooth out" a couple leagues, was to combine the Commander leader ability with Company of Heroes perk in several leagues. Done that way, it feels like the Leader loses some power and you lose a point in order to upgrade an Ally, which helps spread some of the power around.

I can't do it for every league though, since there are many times when the theme just wouldn't fit (i.e. there's a clear leader and one clear sidekick) and that would be really boring anyway!

[Samulus]

Some good discussion here -  I might have a think about using them as a crew of sidekicks (if only using 3 or 4 at a time) or as companions (allies with 2 abilities) if used all at once. Will give the specialist thing a go at some point though.

[theoldschool]

Us having fun with the game this way should not mean you can't have fun with the original game and the original theme and setting! I think it's awesome that the creator is fully supportive of making the game into something your group enjoys, it's a positive thing when a system supports multiple genres and playstyles.

Couldn't agree more. Dave and Mila provide great support for the game and actively encourage players to add their own take on the rules.

I quite often play the game as a straight up skirmish - no leagues, no plot points. I use whatever characters fit the scenario and it has worked perfectly well for everything from the Three Musketeers to Napoleonic. A testimony to the flexibility of Pulp Alley.

[Mr. Peabody]

....how about a 'Specialist' character archetype? My initial thoughts were: 1 dice at D10, 1 dice at D8, 4 dice at D6; 2 stats at 2 dice and 4 stats at 1 dice; 1 or 2 (can't decide) perks. I thought maybe 3 or 4 slots?

Health die type d8 or d10?

Samulus, this sounds like fun, especially given the Firefly setting. 

Rhelyk, I like what your group is doing and the sound of the games you are playing.

I agree that Pulp Alley has real potential to fuel some excellent skirmish games. Vice Alley will likely provide an abundance of high quality grist for the inspiration mill where that is concerned...

 

[Malebolgia]

I would really like to have a Perk of some kind to field 4 Sidekicks. No leader, no followers, etc. Just sidekicks. Would be awesome to field the A-team, the Turtles, etc.