Star Pulp Hero

[moquif]

I recently heard "Rocket Ride" by Tom Smith at a convention and it got me thinking. As I understand it Pulp hero is the world of pre-Golden age. Good and evil were clear cut. Plots were straightforward and resolved quickly and completely. There was also a space "version" where you had rockets with tail fins, villians with style and knew how to wear a cape, bubble helmets, space pirates, real heroes who are not all muscles and guns. Ignore little details like light speed, gravity, and steam in a vacuum. I mean ignore it, not explain it with technobabble. Will this be in the Pulp Hero book?

And if there is a Star Pulp hero, why not a Fantasy Pulp hero? I guess it raises the question of what is pulp hero and is it restricted to private detectives wearing cool trenchcoats?

[Curufea]

We actually did a game of Baron Munchausen in a Space Opera setting - very pulp, and lots of fun.

I imagine there will be discussions of crossovers as there are in the other genre books. How to do a Star Hero/Pulp Hero game.

[Lord Liaden]

There is in fact an excellent article in Digital Hero #5 on the subject of pulp-era sci-fi: "Rayguns And Rocketships" by Leah Watts. You'll find a sizeable excerpt from that article here.

For an example of adventures in this subgenre, I'll direct you to that classic pulp campaign website, The Empire Club, based on the organisation introduced in Hero Games's legendary Justice, Incorporated game. The large archive of adventure logs on the site includes an extended Flash Gordon-esque story arc which may give you inspiration. You can read the log of that arc here.

[proditor]

Hmmm, now I have to go reread my Lensmen books....

[John Desmarais]

And if there is a Star Pulp hero, why not a Fantasy Pulp hero?

Science Fiction is a pretty well established pulp genre, with lots of well know examples (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, many things by Edgar Rice B., etc, etc). Although I've read a fair amount of fiction from what we call the "pulp era" I don't remember a whole lot of fantasy written then that was set in the era. Most of the fantasy-pulp I've seen has been modern novels set in the 30s/40s (Doc Sidhe anyone?) as opposed to stories written then; or things like Conan, which, while written in that era was very much set outside of it).

Lord Darcy might count? (Although it always felt more Victorian than Pulp-ish to me).

I guess it raises the question of what is pulp hero and is it restricted to private detectives wearing cool trenchcoats?

Is it restricted to private detectives wearing cool trenchcoats? By no means. Pulp is not really a genre, it's more of a meta-genre, lending a mood and feel to whatever genre you want to play in.

Pulp-Mystery - private detectives wearing cool trenchcoats.
Pulp-Sci-Fi - Ray guns and rocketships (with a strong crossover to the Lost World Romance).
Pulp-Aviation - Dashing heroes with goggles and flowing scarves.
and so on and so forth (I'm not sure what the tropes for Pulp-Fantasy would be).

Here's a great article on pulp and pulp gaming (http://www.fantasylibrary.com/lounge/pulpavengers.htm)

[Starwolf]

Many of the early Heinlein novels were very pulpish. Especially Space Cadet, Have Space Suit Will Travel, and some others. These have been called very boy scout meets science fiction type stories....but they are some of my favorites.

[TheImperialKhan]

Don't forget the classic Rocket Ship Galileo which George Pal later made into the movie Destination: Moon.

[Starwolf]

GAHH! I don't believe I forgot that one...it's a classic and one of my favorites.