Pulp Era Board Games

[GothKidSamurai]

Going back to school it's easier to organize an occassional board game night as opposed to a more full time RPG group. Does anyone know of any Pulp Era style board or card games that are out there?

[Steve Long]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Y'know, now that you mention it -- no, not offhand.

 

Maybe invest in some ROCKET MEN and get a group together to play that?

[susandwyer]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Ifn he dunnt know, aint no one do.

[hancock.tom]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Crimson Skies. Its sort of a pulp-dogfight boardgame. It would go right along with the "airman" professional package in pulp hero (I think its called airman).

 

I'm sure there are more but they just aren't coming to me now. I seem to remember some weird game I played once where you were exploring mayan ruins or somesuch, and it had an indiana jones feel to it, but i can't remember the name. Hopefully I jog someone elses memory.

 

Also, Crimson skies is really good. I recommend it.

[hancock.tom]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Look what I found:

 

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3855

[Steve Long]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Waitaminit -- I did recall one: Wadjet, which is about Egyptian tomb exploration in the Twenties. It's largely a really advanced version of Clue, but the board and all the accompanying props are gorgeous. Not sure if it's still readily available, though.

[BigJackBrass]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Fantasy Flight have a game called Quicksand! which is fairly pulpy, and of course there's Chaosium's old Arkham Horror game. I used to have a family boardgame put out by Palitoy in the 1970's called Treasure of the Pharaohs, which featured a race between archaeologists to acquire a golden deathmask from within a trapped pyramid. A fairly simple roll and move game, the best bits of which were the traps built into the 3-D pyramid, things like pivoting pitfalls and lowering stone blocks, and the amusing playing pieces of fat guys wearing shorts and pith helmets.

 

Other than those, I'm drawing a blank and it's interesting that although there are pulp era games there seem to be almost none with what we'd call a pulp theme.

[Steve Long]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Chaosium's old Arkham Horror game

 

IIRC Fantasy Flight Games now publishes this as well, having recently re-released it.

[GothKidSamurai]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Awesome, thanks guys. I already have some Rocketmen and enjoy it, and was actually thinking about grabbing the Crimson Skies box set off ebay last night.

 

As for the others though, gives me plenty ideas of what I can scrounge around for and try to find on the cheap.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Gumshoe was a fantastic game but more cooperative than competitve - now online apparently.

 

Doc

[Susano]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Waitaminit -- I did recall one: Wadjet' date='[/i'] which is about Egyptian tomb exploration in the Twenties. It's largely a really advanced version of Clue, but the board and all the accompanying props are gorgeous. Not sure if it's still readily available, though.

 

 

Nope.

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000IZH3/002-0991398-7816009?v=glance

[Steve Long]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Anyone out there actually played CRIMSON SKIES? The promo text describes it as "easy" and "fast-paced," but from looking at the materials in the box it doesn't seem to me like it would qualify for those descriptors. Some info from those with hands-on experience might be helpful.

 

Anyone know if they ever produced any more cardboard airplane minis for the game?

[GothKidSamurai]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

I was curious as to how Crimson Skies plays as well.

[AlHazred]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

The game of exploring the ruins sounds like Tikal. It's pretty good - I'd recommend it to board gamers, but newbies and casual boardgamers probably won't like it as much as others. Another lost city exploration game is Lost Cities, which I've also played. It's a card game.

 

Further search on BoardGameGeek indicates they released a number of Indiana Jones games: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Wrath of Hecate. Haven't played any of them - couldn't tell you if they were any good.

[The Monster]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Yep, Tikal is a good game, and in the exploring-ancient-ruins mold.

 

Arkham Horror is pulpy, at least in the original. The re-release is totally redesigned, so I don't know how it plays. Friends who got it say it's more complicated and darker in tone.

 

I don't know if it's still in print, but Mayfair's Family Business is a very quick & easy game of gang war, where each gang is historical, and mostly from the pulp era - and each gang is made up of nine historically-named mobsters from that gang (okay, one "gang" is "Bank Robbers," with folks like Ma Barker and Dillinger, but the others are straight up).

[Curufea]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

There are some pulpy free games over at Warpspawn, of course

http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/

 

For example, Adventurers-

http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/Adv.html

[Prometheus]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Further search on BoardGameGeek indicates they released a number of Indiana Jones games: Raiders of the Lost Ark

 

I actually owned this one. It was standard board game fare, but the gameplay captured the now-you-have-it-now-you-don't search for the ark pretty well, and was very entertaining. At least in my (then) pre-teen opinion.

[hancock.tom]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Anyone out there actually played CRIMSON SKIES? The promo text describes it as "easy" and "fast-paced," but from looking at the materials in the box it doesn't seem to me like it would qualify for those descriptors. Some info from those with hands-on experience might be helpful.

 

Anyone know if they ever produced any more cardboard airplane minis for the game?

 

I played a few games of Crimson Skies way back when, like 5 years ago.

 

IIRC, the gameplay itself was pretty easy, but you had to roll up a pilot character and a wingman character like an RPG. They had attributes like gun skill, dexterity, con, initiative, and more i can't remember. I seem to remember it was also possible to roll up your own plane, but I think they had pregenerated ones that we used.

 

I think the game had a movement system, similar to some rpgs, where everyone writes down how they want their plane to move, and then it all happens simultaneously. Sounds freaky, but really felt like plane combat since you never knew where anyone was going. IIRC, you even got experience points for your pilot if you won. I know there was some form of advancement.

 

Re: Easy and Fast Paced, I recall this game taking like an hour or two to play, which in my opinion is easy and fast paced for a board game. I guess thats all relative compared to what types of board games you typically play.

 

Re: Cardboard airplane minis, I have NO idea. I never actually owned the game, only played a "store copy" at a FLGS I hung out in at college.

 

Hope this Helps,

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

http://abbe.hastur.net/crimsonskies/aircraft/index.html

 

Here are some homebrewed CS counters, as well as some kitbashes of plastic models...

[megaplayboy]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

you can probably find a "classic" or "anniversary" edition of Monopoly which has the look and feel of an early 20th century boardgame.

[kjamma4]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Anyone out there actually played CRIMSON SKIES? The promo text describes it as "easy" and "fast-paced," but from looking at the materials in the box it doesn't seem to me like it would qualify for those descriptors. Some info from those with hands-on experience might be helpful.

 

Anyone know if they ever produced any more cardboard airplane minis for the game?

 

Hancock.tom's reply was pretty much on target. You actually do not roll up a character but are given character points (hmm...) to distribute to the characteristics of your pilot. You can increase your stats due to winning aerial battles but the game is really a boardgame rather than a RPG.

 

You then select a plane, balancing size, speed, acceleration, and maneuverability and then assign weaponry and armor. Do you take a lumbering beast that is slow, cannot turn well, but has loads of armor and guns or take a hummingbird-like plane that is fast and nimble but has little offensive punch and can be dropped with one lucky rocket hit?

 

You do indeed secretly plot your maneuver every turn. You have a hex grid which shows all the maneuvers for a particular speed and the corresponding G forces necessary to make that turn. You can exceed your top speed, acceleration, or G rating but you may do so at your peril.

 

Combat is really simple with the size of the plane the starting point for your to-hit roll (smaller planes being harder to hit of course) modified by distance in hexes to your target and your pilot's skill. The planes had a schematic that had boxes for the armor and internal components. You used a plastic template that had various outlines for the specific weapons/calibers to mark off boxes. Hitting certain vital components affected the performance of your plane and ultimately would lead to your demise if enough was taken. [i believe the same type of play was used in Renegade Legion, an earlier FASA game.]

 

I thought the game was very fun and played very quickly. Your initial assignment of skills and choice of plane would determine your game style and we used to play games with six people running two planes apiece and finish in less than three hours. Smaller battles would take less time.

 

The only cardboard minis you could get were the ones in the main set. FASA came out with more books with plane designs but you could only get some of those in metal (along with ones from the initial boxed set.) They also came out with a clix style game with plastic minis which IMHO was nowhere near as fun as the original. The actual plastic planes do look nice and you can probably pick them up now for pennies on the dollar. However, the bases are a bit too large to use with the original hex maps.

 

The game is well worth the price if you can still find it.

 

P.S. I am currently involved in a Pulp HERO game run by board-poster Barton. He has converted many of the planes from Crimson Skies over to HERO. Great fun was had when we escaped from an enemy's dirigible in a stolen Balmoral Bomber piloted by my daughter's character, a displaced Russian aviatrix. The pilot of one of the pursuing planes was rather rudely introduced to my gadgeteer's experimental engine-stopping ray. By the way, those planes don't glide too well !!!

[AlHazred]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

you can probably find a "classic" or "anniversary" edition of Monopoly which has the look and feel of an early 20th century boardgame.

As a matter of fact, they're selling "vintage-style" board games at Barnes & Noble, and one of them is Monopoly. It comes in a wooden box, with art from one of the classic versions of the game, wooden pieces, old-style Monopoly money, and brass-tone pieces. The cards are from the classic edition as well.

 

I also saw a number of other classic "vintage-style" games there, but most of them were from the 40s and 50s - Stratego, Clue, etc. One that is also from the 30s is Sorry.

[AlHazred]

Re: Pulp Era Board Games

 

Here's a site with some vintage games: http://www.vintagegamestore.com/shop/

 

Some interesting-looking games from the 1930s and 1940s, like the tin-box remake of Gavitt's Stock Exchange Game.