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The Joy of Pulp
Posted On: 04/17/2008 01:05:34
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Ah the pulp genre. Let it be said that there are fewer genres that are more freeing and whimsical than that of pulp. While my D&D groups is paused, waiting for schedules for key members to line back up, the remaining available players and I (the GM, always the GM) have ventured into the realm of pulp adventure.
Using an interesting, non-OGL system called "Two-Fisted Tales of Adventure" we have set forth heavy in cliche and schtick to indulge in adventures not of history that was or the future that is but of the world that should have been on its way to a future that never was. Our characters are quite basic staples of the genre - Explorer, Inventor, and Heroic Ace and all of them with their bulging muscles and chizled jaws (the characters, not the players) drip with both adventurous potential and pulpish aplumb.
Why do I like this sort of setting?
YOU CAN'T GO WRONG!!!
Let me summarize the opening adventure.
New York celebrates the arrival of an amazing new airship from 1935 Germany. This is a monster of an airship with two huge rigid gas chambers and a central hull. Thrilling technologies of the future!!!
Anyhow, the heroes, having numerous cnnections through their backgrounds are invited to the big society shindig in honor of the airship's crew. They spend the time schmoozing, carousing and avoiding various society denizens and the mysterious german military officers. Among the officers they spy a navy man - odd among Luftwaffe officers. They talk, getting him drunk enough to spill some before the officers rush out of the party in an obvious rush and with some apprant panic.
Later, as the party winds down, the heroes are departing, several fingers of scotch, a few lipstick-staned napkins bearing numbers and even a job offer or two the richer. Just then (gotta love that lead in) the city is rocked as the mighty airship burst into flames, exploding at its moring point on the Empire State Building and careening to the city below in a ball of flames and wreckage. As the city races toward the inferno, the heroes notice a cab racing with as much urgency away from the tragic disaster with a very familiar naval cap showing in the back seat.
Being the ever vigilant and heroic types that they are (and feeling that the Kriegsmariner officer might have lied to them), our heroes hop a cab, paying a king's ransom in fair to buy instant loyalty fro mthe cabby and speed off (driving casually) after the fleeing cab. They follow it to the warf district and see the naval officer step out, seeming surprisingly sober and stroll into a dark and waiting warehouse. The last thing glimpsed by our heroes is an alpine-hatted, fair-faced, shifty fellow bearing and eagle-crest and jackboots, checking the door. The doors close...
Tune in next week...
This was an incredibly fun session to run. Not once did I really feel any pressure to get things "right". Using general knowledge of history, the genre and mostly an idea of how I wanted things to be, everyone had a great time. Cheesy accents, campy dialog, wacky inventions and slippery plot holes and devices all seemed right at home and they should have.
It was a very freeing game session after months of building plot and keeping with the setting of a fantasy world. In a pulp game there is absolutely no reason and nothing physically keeping the players from easily going from deserts to city streets, then to a lost world and then to a kingdom under the sea. Anything fits.
The current adventure involves mad scientists, a plot to ransom America, a radio-controlled robot army and mysterious figures who are not what they seem to be. Come on the villain in this scenario is named Dr. Drakken!!!
Anyhow, enough said. Pulp rules.
-Eli
Tags: Pulp RPG Commentary
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11/14/08 New feature “The Tavern”
Check out our newest feature “The Tavern” located in your account profile. The tavern is a place to talk to people on your friends list. If someone is not on your list they won’t see your post. If you don’t want to see someone’s posts you can just delete them from your friends list. This feature gives you the ability to say what ever you want when ever you want. So have a blast!
Thank you,
Staff
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